Welcome to Music Matters Podcast with Darrell Craig Harris, talking about all things music with celebrities, artists, music business insiders, and more. Robert Debo, how are you doing today? Hey, I'm all right. Thank you for having me. So you're joining us up in Seattle, right? Yes. I'm a big fan of Seattle Proper. Awesome. Yeah, we were just talking before we started that you're actually a Southern California guy like myself. Yeah. And I understand you were in Huntington Beach in the 80s. Is that right? Yeah, I still miss it. I live in Las Vegas now and I miss the beach big time. Oh my gosh. I wonder if we ran into each other once or twice. So I grew up in Long Beach, California, and for a while I was really involved in that kind of underground music community there. Yeah, there's definitely a scene and even going back to the punk days, punk rock and the early 80s, we probably, I'm sure we know a lot of the same folks. Probably so. Who were some of the folks you remember? I mean, yeah, well, I was playing actually in bands up in LA doing like the Roxy and the Whiskey and that stuff. And I was in a band that was kind of a Toto, Mr. Mr. kind of thing. And that's the same era like when Guns N' Roses was getting signed, was poison, all those guys, but that never was the Orange County punk scene. And so there's just all that whole, very vibrant. It's changed quite a bit these days of course. Yeah, for sure. This is going back to, yeah, I'm like, I'm 60, so this is going back to like the mid-early 80s. You're just one year ahead of me. Yeah, there you go. I turned 59 in a couple of weeks. Okay. So we're same era, I guess. So we're talking today because you have a new album out, The Space Between Us. It's your seventh album. And it's actually, I was just checking that out. It's really cool. I love what you do on this. It's very story driven. The arrangements are great. So we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about a lot of other things. So how did you develop your style? Who were some of your early influences? Because what I hear is kind of a Tom Waits, Bob Dylan-ish thing in there, but I don't know, you tell me. Awesome. Well, one of my big musical mentors was Stephen Hodges, who was Tom Waits drummer. So you're not far off the map there. And I was always really inspired by Dylan's lyrical writing and have covered him on a couple of occasions, put a couple of singles out of Dylan tunes. But you know, I just have always had, I feel like kind of this intuitive thing that I do and I haven't really had a way of describing it or and I don't really think of it around, comparatively around anybody else. It's sort of been a mystery to me, the stuff that comes out. But what I found kind of really fun was when I first started putting out records, I would get reviewed and the reviewers would say, sounds like. And that would be the first time I'd heard of those artists. So in a way, I was like behind the eight ball of being cool. But you know, people would say, this sounds a little bit like Nick Drake. I'm like, Nick Drake. Was that? And then I would get, I would literally fall in love with Nick Drake. I mean, he became like an anti-depressant for me. It just like totally calmed me down. And another friend turned beyond to Leonard Cohen. Like you remind me a little bit of Leonard Cohen. And then I really dug deep into Leonard, particularly his, his lyrical play, his play around words lyrically. And the way he creates visuals with his words, I just love that. And I've covered one of his tunes as well. So that, then that would influence, I think, my music a little bit going further. But so those are some of the, some of the little guiding lights that kind of happened as I started my music career. I think the Beatles were always a, probably revolver era Beatles were always an influence. And that's probably where you get this wacky desire of mine to always have string sections. I think it's, you know, there's some sort of George Martin spirit that's just floating in my brain. I don't know. Yeah. George is alive and well and well and many artists, which is not a bad thing. And it's actually funny that you mentioned the certain era of the Beatles because of course there are eras of the Beatles. Things definitely change with them. And I think, and yourself too, like it's really interesting to hear some of your earlier stuff. And the labeling thing is interesting too because it's, as humans, we like to do that. We like to think, oh, well, you're like this, you're like that. But I think you've actually found a very unique lane. And especially with the arrangements, but also the story, the story driven lyrics. How important for you are the lyrics? Which comes first for you, the music or the lyrics? Oh, if maybe. Yeah, it depends. I've written songs in both ways. Sometimes a lyrical concept strikes me first and it's usually just a phrase and I want to build something out around that phrase. And then I try to compose around whatever the lyrical concept is inspiring. And that's kind of the Leonard Cohen orientation probably for me. But in other cases, there's a particular feel or chordal thing that's happening. And then that evokes a particular emotion. And then I just give it a lot of space until words finally form. And then maybe there's a concept around those words that I began to follow and write about. You find that, I know you work with some great musicians. I'll name a few, I think better on this album. It's Victor Krauss, which is related to Allison Krauss, of course, which is a great lineage to come from. A drummer Lacey Brown and some other collaborators you have on this album and others. Talk about that collaboration, not only for songwriting, but just putting together records. Oh yeah. I never want to be too tightly clenched around what I do. And I think maybe that comes from, I wish I, you know, part of me feels jealous of people that had played in bands all their life because they have that camaraderie and that community around them. And for whatever reason, that never was something that happened for me. I think it might just be part of living on the West Coast as everybody's so strapped financially that you don't have, you know, maybe if I was in the Midwest, then me and my bandmates would just hang out every Saturday in jam. Right. Yeah. It's a different lifestyle. It's a different lifestyle. You know, it's, I think from the very beginning, it was like, we got to get together to put together a set specifically for a gig. And then after that gig is done, we all kind of go our separate ways. And everybody's playing in other bands and all that kind of stuff. Right. So I just really became, I don't know, I'm very appreciative or really tuned in relationally in the moments that I'm working together with someone else because I really love that aspect and wish it was something that was always there. And so I really like to build relationships with people when we make records. And yeah, it really becomes part of the ethos of the record for me. Each record that I think about, I also think about the people that were with me on that record and some people have become very, very close. Yeah. Part of it's, I think with recording too, it's building that trust, right? Where you bring those. Yes. Because you're, I mean, essentially these songs are your babies. They're your children. And you're entrusting that into not only musicians, but also producer, which we're going to talk about your relationship with Rick Hordensky. But that, do you feel like that, is it, are you very open to different ideas or are you how does that work? How does that work for you? Yeah, I was beginning to kind of head down that road and I got sidetracked. But I don't, once a song is formed, which is very much kind of, that process is very kind of individualistic for me. I'm usually like, you know, it's contained in my own head. Once that song is formed, I want to let go, not clench my fists, but let go of where that song goes when other people come in and bring their signature to it and not have an overly defined sort of. I preconceived notion. Yes, right. And that's a real joy for me. I think that's the George Martin thing, right? It's like, you have, you can hear the, you can hear the foundations of the song, but that could go in a hundred different directions depending on how you arrange it. And so it's really exciting for me when people bring their own personality into the song and that will often change the song. And I kind of have a little bit of a producer brain as well. And so I will often take something that somebody does and really run with that. And so there was even some moments in which, you know, on the last song on the record, Rick used a, Rich used an effect on the strings in the very end. It kind of created a little bit of a delay and it just happened once. And I'm like, that, that needs to carry on through the rest of the outro. You know, stuff like that, when we bump into stuff like that as an accident, I love that because that kind of feels, it feels like jazz or something. Yeah. Sometimes the universe is helping you, right? Yeah, right. Yeah. You have to take the gifts when you get them. Talk about your producer because I know you've built a multi-year relationship with him. Is it Rick or Rich? It's Rich. It's spelled Rick, but Germans are rich. Ah, okay. I got it. Yeah, talk about that because I know you've had a great relationship with him and working on this album, in particular this project. Talk a little bit about that process. Yeah. You know, the producer's probably the most important relationship you build on a record and that's where you really have the most trust. It's the most vulnerable place that you are with someone. And so each person I've worked with on all those records, there's been a lot of trust and usually, well, always that has resulted in a really good relationship that stands the test of time. With Rich, that was a relationship that kind of started on the road. He is an absolutely mystical guitar player. And he was in a band called Over the Rhine that just, his work with that band just was unimaginable. You couldn't begin to imagine what he did with that. It was really magical. And that band would often play in similar veins as I was touring in. And I would open, I opened for that band a couple of times in the 90s. So Rich and I knew each other from that, but also I did a lot of touring with another band that was kind of in that vein called the Vigilantes of Love. And so we would cross paths a lot on the road. They play the same venues. Absolutely. So it was probably about, I want to say 10 years ago that I got a call from Rich. We didn't know each other very well, but we just knew of each other. And he reached out to me and said that he would really like to do a record with me. And I was very complimented by that. But I couldn't really make sense of it, to be honest with you. Like we were talking on the phone and he was in Cincinnati. I was in Seattle. And I had my team over here that I was working with. And I just couldn't get it into my head of flying out there all the time. So I really appreciated the call and we kind of agreed to just have this idea and see where it goes at some point. So fast forward, I was recording a Heart Like Feathers in Portland. We had this particular tune that we wanted something really different guitar-wise throughout this song. And I thought of Rich and I'm like, hey, would you contribute a guitar track to this? And he's like, absolutely. We had it in 24 hours. It was fantastic. And then fast forward again, probably in 2017. I was recording in Seattle, my album Beloved. And I had cobbled together all the string parts with the string players. But the title track was something that I just wanted something really intentional with the string section and not necessarily me like spitballing. And that's one of the things Rich does. So I reached out to Rich and said, would you consider creating a score for this song? He said, absolutely. And he created the score and that was kind of an aha moment. And that's when I saw Rich much more than a guitar player. Right, yeah. And the string arrangements, I should say, are really, well, you mentioned Beatles and it's very reminiscent of Beatles. And it's intimate. It's not like an orchestra. It's sort of. Yeah. So that seems to be very important with you, like with working with him doing the string arrangements and do you have a set of usual players that you use for that or is it different folks? Yeah. So the way that would work is for probably five years. I would come up with something that I wanted strings for and I would demo it in my own studio. And I would send it to Rich and he would create a score. And I would get the score and I would play it with my string section here in Seattle, which goes by the name One Small Orchestra. And we would play to that score and then we would go out and we would do one or two gigs with that song and make a lot of notes. See what works and what doesn't work. And so then I would kind of nuance that a little bit around like sometimes the strings were really awesome, but they got in the way a little bit with what was happening vocally or I wanted more space or something like that. Right. So we would send it back to Rich and he would make edits to the score. And we would eventually settle with something that felt like, you know, solid and that we were all a part of. Yeah. And that's really it's really an art form. People people hear strength. They don't realize what goes into getting that right. Yeah. And that's that was something like you mentioned with George Martin, like he was a really, really great ear for that. It's put that all together. Really good. And it can really bring a song alive in a unique way. I'll go a little bit about the crowdfunding aspect because I know that's something that you used on this record. It's part of your release strategy, which we can get into as well. But talk a little bit about crowdfunding and having support from the community that, you know, loves your music. Yeah. Well, you know, it's I've had a very different release strategy. I'm very pragmatic about it. Making really good quality records requires some sustainability financially. And it's just come some of the pragmatics around it. We could all create something in our, you know, our laptops and throw it out online and and do that all the time. But I really like to, you know, have a full process around it and and really spend a lot of time and that kind of stuff. So it does get expensive. I have a very small fan base of people over those, you know, 20 years, 30 years. And, you know, I just don't want to throw music out to Spotify for free. And everybody's like, Hey, that was great. High five. I ever since the MP3 came out, the sustainability of a smaller artist just vanished. Right. And I don't think a lot of younger people understand that. I don't mean to sound like, you know, back in my day. But. Yeah. But that's a reality that everybody, every artist is dealing with, especially indie artists, right? It's an absolute reality. And what people, a lot of people don't understand is that even when you were signed to labels, you had a, you had a kind of a guaranteed royalty that was protected federally. And that was the mechanical royalty. And no matter how bad your record deal was, you could always count on, you know, point something, something sense per album came out to about point 70 cents, something like that per album sold. And so, you know, we never knew if anybody was doing the books right or not. But on the artist's royalties, but on the mechanical royalties, you could just look that up. Right. Yeah. That was because that was actually tracked. Right. And then you had product and product was the other way that people, artists made a living. And so when I started going out on the road in the 90s, I often would sell a full box of CDs at a show. And that would be $300. Yeah. Support, it supports the gas, the hotel, the, all that, all the basics that we need to survive. Right. And I tried it myself on paying salary to the three or four guys that would go with me or gals. And, and that was kind of my goal, you know, just see if I could be legit or not. Is could I pay people to make this thing happen for me and really rely on them? And so that's kind of how we did that. And I remember I was playing North by Northwest in Portland on a particular year. And the MP3 was now the big thing. And it was supposed to be a life-changing thing and really make everything great for musicians. And they, they interviewed me and I just, I played along. I said, yeah, this could, this could be really great. And the back of my mind, I'm like, this is not going to be well because the Fox was guarding the hen house. Yeah. So the people that had guarded those royalties, the mechanical royalties, they sort of fell asleep at the wheel. It's kind of old money or old music industry folks. And yeah, that's kind of what I've always said too. I said that they technology got away ahead of those that were kind of holding the fairness. So how do we get into that? What was your original question? I was just talking about, about Turing and sustainability and crowdfunding. So crowdfunding, right? Crowdfunding is, you know, it feels emotionally precarious, but it, it really is a wonderful way to engage with the folks that you, that have been following you over the years and want to really be a part of something you're doing other than just streaming you all the time. And, right, exactly. And so I've always tried to have 75% of that record already ready to go before I crowdfund. And that lowers my anxiety. So that, that has been a part of what I do direct compensation with fans and to kind of create something sort of special about that. And then the next thing that we did differently is, you know, there really is one platform out there that is truly our honoring artists still today. And that is span camp. And given the tragic sort of situation and where we have not been honored, you know, streaming and otherwise, I really wanted to kind of highlight them as a way of saying thank you. Because I have, you know, they have been an important part of my sustainability. One of the things that I'm pretty lucky about is that for whatever reason, I own every record that I put out, whether it was with a label or independent, I've been able to get it back. Super important. Yeah. And so over the years, I've created a box set of my full discography and I've sold a ton of those through bandcamp and it really helps, you know, so we wanted to honor them in the release of this, that we actually put the product, the physical product out immediately after the crowdfund. And then we made it available on bandcamp only. And that threw everybody for a loop, including the publicist was like, well, this is different. And I'm like, yeah, we need something different because it's nothing's worth it. Well, yeah, it is. Exactly. You need something innovative because, you know, it's, I mean, I've always said that too. Like I'm a musician as well. And the other stuff that I do, and I'm like, you know, you got to figure out how you're going to promote, you put all this money and all this effort into your product and to put out a great record. But then you really have to also, along with that, you have to have as much, if not more, equal planning on how to promote it and also and recoup some costs so you can have sustainability. You're able to make another record. You're able to go on tour. And talk a little bit about that with artists because I know you've been also touring for years and independent artists these days are really trying to figure out what to do. Like what's some advice that you could give? Well, if you're in a particular time of your life that you can do it, do it and get, you know, harness the patron saint, Henry Rollins and get in the van. And enjoy the process of being so highly focused where nothing else matters but getting to the next gig on time and engaging people that show up and not getting depressed if only 10 show up. I have some wonderful memories. You know, you get too far out of your geographic location and you're like, I'm a fish out of water here. Yeah. I had nobody really know. I remember a label that I was on put me on a tour and I was playing some club in Philly. Actually, it was the fire. I remember it now. And I was supposed to, I was on this bill. It was supposed to really help. But the very last minute that band switched the order and I had to go last and I was traveling solo. And I was so depressed. I had one friend that I knew that was coming that was from Philly. And this was one of these. This is an interesting tour because my friend, Nairi Watts is a photographer and she had created this montage of photography that she shot onto the back of, shot onto me with a back of the screen, kind of a velvet underground sort of thing. And so I had, I could not see the audience and I had to try not to stare at the projector or my eyeballs would burn out. So I feel like I'm just going to lock in and do what I'm saying. So it was one of these very like, you have to just totally be in your head and tune everything else out. So I knew there was one person sitting in the back of the room and I'm like, this sucks. It was very dark club, very small club. And I just played that set and pretty much closed my eyes through the whole thing. And then part of the routine of the set was at the end of a certain song. I said, I would always say that if you have any, if there's anything you want to hear, let me know. And all of a sudden I heard a voice say or two voices say, Rockabye, which is a song off my very first album. And I was shocked. And it opened my eyes and there is like 10 lit ember lights in front of me. And there was like 10 kids smoking cigarettes in the front of this, of the stage. And I'm like, crazy. And I just remember how good that felt. Not the smoking, but just how good that felt that somebody from some other part of the world knew enough about me to come out and see a show. And that's those first experiences when you get out of your hometown that really helped form it you as an artist. So if you can get that experience by getting out of your hometown and play to people that, you know, just work it, social media, whatever, work it. And it really helps define your craft. But now these days, I can't really do that so much anymore with a family and all that kind of stuff. And so I have to be really strategic in a different way. Strategic is a good word because, you know, when you're young, you're just like, let's just help or shove up the van. Let's go do it. And then as you get older and you're, you know, like you mentioned, you're more established, you have a family, then you really have to kind of pick your battles and figure out like, why am I going to get the most traction. And that's another form of stability too is our sustainability is just your relationships and not basically throwing them under the bus all the time because you have a passion. So you have to kind of like, if you're going to be in this a long time, you have to kind of pay attention to that as well, I think, or you're burnout or whatever. But. Yeah, your support, your support system is because, because it's not easy being an artist of any type and having that support, having that support system really becomes crucial. Like you mentioned. It does. And you can, you know, if you get close to artists, sometimes you notice those that they don't have that and how it affects them. But so these days, a lot of times I will, anytime I'm flying out somewhere, I will line up a gig. And if there's not enough time, I'll do a house concert. I absolutely love them. And I have kind of a system. I have a way of flying out some gear to make it really worthwhile. And I generally will have players in that region. And I'll call them up sometimes and say, you want to do this gig here? So sometimes it turns into a kind of a full band type situation. Other times it's just a solo deal. And I love that as well. Here at home, all the shows have been full orchestra. So it's been a really kind of an ex, we've been able to recreate the album exactly how it sounds. Yeah, that's such a blessing, especially for the fans, because they want to, they like to hear the full album with the strings. It's just not always possible. Yeah, and I think it's good for people to realize this isn't just some plug-in that someone slapped on a record. These are, this is real, you know, with all the AI stuff out there, people are tempted to think, oh yeah, well, that's, these are all samples. And you just dropped his voice in and like, no, it's just blood, sweat and tears. Yeah. And you do hear that on the record, like you hear the organic. I just really like the production style as if it feels very organic. It's like somebody sitting in front of you playing acoustic guitar and just really interesting. Tell people how they can find you online and get in contact with you. Yeah, that's the best way of staying in touch. You know, my website is just my name, RobertDebel.com, and it will, it will usher you into band camp immediately. Um, and we use, like I said, we use band camp as kind of our, our main platform. And every, every, uh, streaming entity out there or YouTube or whatever, it all directs back to band camp. Awesome. Yeah, it's great to have that hub. It's super important. So our records are, you'll see them, the merch listed in, you know, whatever streaming platform you're using. And, um, by the time you follow that back, you'll probably have a, some, you'll have the ability to have a personal engagement if you want it, you know, um, where you can't get that necessarily in, in the streaming platforms and that kind of stuff. So, uh, we have a boycotted streaming. Um, I think we're this close from doing that, but we don't see it as music distribution. We see it as marketing. Right. Yeah. And it's, I mean, it's, it's, it's part of, it's part of the puzzle, but it's not the most important part. It's the most important part to see in with this quality music quality production quality songs. Um, and that's going to drive a lot of that. Um, thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk. I know you're, you're a busy guy and I know you're doing a lot of stuff. And actually too, I do have shows coming up. Are you going to be touring at all on this, on this album? Or we don't have anything to announce yet. We're, we're trying to configure a show for Portland. That's the next, uh, thing. And it will probably do another, uh, California, uh, stop. And, uh, there's a couple, we've been talking about doing a Cincinnati show as well. So, um, right now it's a little hard to book with the holidays. Uh, I'm just not getting, not getting the callbacks. You know, like, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just, I'm as quickly as, yeah. Yeah. Every, every, it's a busy time of year. Uh, well, that's awesome. Yeah. I definitely, it definitely, uh, would encourage people to see you live. And hopefully, um, I get out to California quite a bit. Like we mentioned, we're kind of Southern California boys. But yeah, let me, I'll keep an eye out. It'd be fun to come see you live. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Maybe I'll, I'll jam on some bass at some point. That would be fun. Always looking for bass. Yeah. It's fun. I love doing, I, I, we, I do a lot of stuff in Finland and in the stamina area with singer songwriters. And, and I love, yeah. And I love, we have a record thing over there. And, and I love that interplay, like even just the small duo thing is with, with great players, you know, the cover of this album was shot by a wonderful friend in the Netherlands. Mm hmm. Oh, okay. Yeah. You know what, that's the thing is the thing with the internet and social media, things have become very global. And I, I work a lot with people over in Europe and Scandinavia and it's all been because I met them on, you know, Instagram or whatever. So that's, that's a really fun aspect of, of that. Yeah. That part of things, I guess. Well, thank you so much, Robert. I really appreciate it. This, when I, when we release this, we'll have all your information in the podcast episode, including your links. We'll include your bandcamp link and, and so people can support you there as well. But thank you for taking the time. I really appreciate it. You're very welcome. Thank you for having me. Awesome. Have a great day. Thanks for joining us. And please consider subscribing to our podcast and follow us on our social media pages for guest announcements.
