Out Out

Mark:  Western MA is a fantastic music area. Tons of guitar/indie rock, singer-songwriters, noise bands, some hip hop, soul and funk. Metal and hard rock. Jazz. Afrobeat and reggae. All over the map. There hasn't been much in the way of electronic/goth/industrial, however, in this part of the state. Out in Eastern MA, there is quite a scene, as well as in Providence, Baltimore, Albany...  Strictly locally speaking, the gentleman who is playing synths and bass in the new live incarnation of Out Out, Adam Michael Kozak, has his excellent project Tundra Toddler. (I should also mention that the other players in the live band now are all accomplished musicians from the area - J.J. O'Connell on drums, who has played with countless bands on hundreds of albums, Anand Nayak who is not only a very busy guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, is also an accomplished producer and recording engineer, and Mark Schwaber, also on guitar, has recorded many albums himself and been in many bands including the Lloyd Cole Small Ensemble. All three of these folks also played some stuff on Swan/Dive?.) 

Mark:  Making music has been pretty much the focus of my entire adult life. More hours by far than not, have been as a recording engineer/producer/mastering engineer, in my old studio Slaughterhouse, and in the current studio I run with Justin here in Easthampton called Sonelab. Every artist, pretty much, regardless of style, that I work with is inspiration, as I get to share in their passion for their work. I did take a bit of a break from 1998-2003 from Out Out, but started a lot of work with Collapse Into Reason and Circus of Dead Squirrels at that time, and felt like a 4th/5th/6th/3rd member of those bands in doing so. And I did many remixes for bands over the majority of the 2000s. That satisfied quite a creative niche. After releasing the 2004 compilation Hasten the Burning... I decided perhaps I should finish up and release a couple of experimental records that I had been pecking away at for years (Virtual Sound Images and Assumed Outrivaling.) The Breathing Again EP came out of that period as well.

Mark:  Let's pick a favorite child! Ha-ha. Sure, actually. I remember being really satisfied with the song 'The Attic', as it's one of the few times where all the sounds in my head seemed to make it to tape. I think 'Finched' holds up as a kind-of "concept record". Voiceprint, while probably the most stylistically diverse record, still feels like there's not an ounce of fat on it. Given enough time, I think I'll understand Swan/Dive? better, but I'm possibly too close to comment on it much. I feel 'Like William Tell' is terrifically satisfying, as the seeds of the lyrics were rattling around in my head since around 2001. 'S.Y.O.' for it's dynamics. ...and 'Everyone Wants to Be With You' for the complete left turn in to a melodic and "pretty" song. I'm happy with every track, so that's as far as I'm going to get with that, for now.
Mark:  As I mentioned, there were some life changes during this period. It wasn't complete dormancy, but definitely a time of focus on other things. The desire to create never fully went away, but it had to be tempered for a while.
Mark:  I don't think that's for me to decide. I'm very happy with it, very satisfied to see it out there in the world. I think it does represent some of the best of my ability for the time period in which it was created, but I'm too close to it, or any of my works, really, to truly be the judge of that. I certainly hope people receive it well, and wouldn't feel like my other works were snubbed in any way if they thought it was the best I've done so far. But if they don't, that's OK too.
Mark:  I think it absolutely matured due to everything around me, every step of the way. When I was recording and writing 'Pepperbox Muzzle', I had very little experience working with other bands in the studio as an engineer. By the time I was working on 'Finched', I was working part time or more in a couple of studios in my area. By the time the next two records were done, recording bands full-time was my living. Each step of the way, the artists I was working with, regardless of genre, and the records I was listening to must have been an influence. Some of the 2000s-era records were borne out of feeling like I may have tapped the lyrical well a little dry for the time being, and were likely influenced by working on a video game (sadly, never released) soundtrack and from some of the very interesting electronica that was coming out of the late 90s and early 2000s that weren't in the "industrial" camp at all, but shared some of the harder sounds my ear is often drawn to. Swan/Dive?, a somewhat conscious decision to go back to the more "rock" format of the 90s Out Out styles, is an unabashed personal celebration of the kinds of songs and sounds that got me into doing Out Out in the first place.


Mark:  There is no governing theme to the record. I wrote songs and recorded them until I felt I had a cohesive album in front of me. That means, some tracks didn't make the cut and likely were also never completed. I played around with song order and the number of tracks as well all through the process - driving around with CDs of unfinished songs up against finished ones in various orders and combinations. Eventually, it fell together where I had the "aha!" moment - that it felt not just like a collection of songs, but listened to as an album, had a flow. A start, a middle, and end. More specifically, as I was thinking of the LP format all along, it has a Side I and Side II start, middle and end. Lyrically, each song says what it says. Some are pretty obvious in their intent, others not so much - even to the point where one or two I couldn't actually tell you what they're specifically about. And frankly, I don't think I want to  - I like that things can be open to interpretation. I love that, to this day, I don't know what Admire the Question is actually about, but that so many people have told me what it means to them, and that's a thrill. What it means to them is far more important than anything I could have come up with anyway.
Mark:  Well, there are the three afore-mentioned experimental albums. One is a long-form drone piece in five movements (mixed in stereo and 5.1 surround, if I can find a decent way to issue it in surround) and another is a glitchy kind of thing. The third is actually more-or-less a danceable record - with vocals - that was made out of the glitchy record and stands as a completely separate album. Or maybe they should be a double album. I'm not sure. I've also been toying with recording favorite songs from the 80s - go easy on me here - for a potential covers record. We'll see. No promises. And we hope to do an occasional live show now and then. Probably mostly in the northeast, as travel and lodging and all that goes with "going on the road" is quite costly.