Fun Fun Fun Fest Interview: Jona Bechtolt of YACHT
Saturday, November 8
Waterloo Park (403 E. 15th)
Stage 4 | 5pm-5:45pm
[info] | [tickets]
What was a typical day like when you were recording in Marfa? Was there a "typical" day?
You know, very mellow stuff... we'd wake up, fuck around with the aliens for a little bit (they love Connect 4), then go into the shed where we had the drums set up, and rip for a couple minutes before getting bored and playing Halo. As soon as it got dark Claire and I would drive her little VW up this rocky path and drink cough syrup until we saw the lights.
This is where most of our lyrics started appearing and where we learned how to play Scrabble for points instead of pleasure. After it got too cold to handle we'd head back to town and buy Soyrizo at the Get Go, an amazing fancy grocery store in Marfa. All of the songs just started coming together on their own, I don't really remember recording them, but here they are on this iMac.
On or off record, did you find yourself performing much with anyone in the Marfa scene?
We went to Marfa for isolation and ended up being more social than we ever had been. I think about Marfa every day, not because it's such a beautiful place, or because I miss the aliens... I miss the humans, the people.
I always felt like I had to fight for the songs with Khaela.
I bet it would sound a lot better if it I recorded it all in a studio in New York or Los Angeles, but fuck it... I don't have enough money to do that and I hope that our mistakes, imperfections, and aesthetic choices come out not only as endearing, but also empowers people to do everything themselves. The playing field is almost totally level now. T-Pain has made hits in Garage Band. It's getting to be less and less about money and more about weirdos and the weirdo stuff they're making all on their own. You can live anywhere you want to live and make anything you want to make for pretty cheap these days.
I read that you were, at one point, writing two separate projects this last go around - is that still the plan?
Oh yeah, that didn't really happen. We made a laptop sleeve business on accident.
How is writing and recording with Claire different from The Blow?
YACHT is still very much my deal. The Blow was Khaela's deal and I took it and made it as much mine as I could, and that's why they sound and feel similar at times. It's still messy and confusing and really hard sometimes, but Claire and I have very similar vibes in what we want to make. I always felt like I had to fight for the songs with Khaela.
