Interview with  West Thordson  from  'A Whisper in the Noise'

By : Zinthra   7/12/04

 

Zin : So would you like to tell me little bit about what you do with the band?

 

West : With the band I pretty much operate as the composer and the arranger I guess. So playing piano, vocals any type of syth stuff.

 

Zin : You guys just released “2D” a couple months ago, could you tell me about some of the Original concepts you had behind at the beginning with it?

 

West :  Yeah it was very simple actually, there was 1,000 song’s, I wanted it to be a very unconventional album. You know alot of people say that you shouldn’t change the dynamic of an album to much, or you may loose listeners, and I kind of just wanted to do it anyways because I wanted an interest album. That some one could just kind of sit down to and let it take them for a ride with the up’s and downs. It was done pacifically done for the reason that it seemed like it would be a really fun album to record. And it was.

 

Zin : Did you know “If Thousands” previous to the recording of 2D?

 

West : I did. I met them threw Steve M., I kind of knew Lo a little bit. I didn’t know that band really well, but I ended up talking with Allen S. a little bit but I ended up becoming friends with them by going to a Lo show. And we ended up playing a show together in Duluth at one time. And another time I ended up talking to them about this recording, and they sounded very interested in it.

 

Zin : How long ago did you start recording?

 

West : Last summer, so it was done pretty quickly. All of our recordings have been done really quickly. Like it only takes up a day to record the drum tracking. So there kind or ruff, which I kind like. The next album that we're doing, we're going to do quiet a bit different.

 

Zin : How was your tour in the UK and Iceland?

 

West : It was great, some things got screwed up in the beginning with some of the tour dates, so we ended up having to rebook some of them.  The main thing though was that we did really well at the festival. We sold about two hundred and fifty cd’s. They were like at ten pounds, so that’s about eighteen dollars for a cd. So if it wasn’t for that we would have went in the whole.

 

Zin : How did the audients react to your set out there compared to how they act out here?

 

West : Here it seams like people are to preoccupied with shit to get to involved with art. They're not really allowed to get involved with it. London is a poor example of this though, London is a lot  like the U.S. A lot of parts were very poor. At least that’s what we seen when we were there. It seamed like people didn’t have as much money as they do here, like kids and what not. But they spent a lot more on cd’s and things and that sort. I think there’s a lot of anti- American sentiment in general because our bad foreign polices in the U.S we are executing the whole opinion of the other people. We had a couple of shows where people were like “ ohh you fxxking Americans” and what not. People could be more critical of our music it seemed like. This is a time where Europeans are more distrusting of the American people, and it’s like a mark on you from the start. I have been to Europe before , and its a lot more different now I thought , just because of that.

 

Zin : When were you there before?

 

West : I guess in the latter nineties  I spent quiet a bite of time in Germany. I had a friend out there, so I stayed there for like a month, then we traveled around to Amsterdam. There is also a lot of artist that are on all sides of this political thing too, so there is a lot of artist that are more distrusting of other artist in general. Because it seemed that artist used to be more liberal in general, but now things got all twisted. Now people are going more with the national ideas of this country, and some people are like there’s a much better way we could be doing things.

 

Zin : I have noticed that some of your previous shows that you kind of go in and out in fazes of playing out. Is there a reason for this?

 

West : Mostly, I think the band is still in training mode. And I think we're still coming in to what we're doing. Because we are orchestral as well as a band where people easily get together. Having the orchestral thing going on, it takes longer for us to figure things out. Also I just want to really develop what the band is, I want it to take form…if you print all this, it’s going to sound like a bunch of gibberish.

 

Zin : Oh, no. I’m quoting you word for word. (laugh) So you don’t have any compelling rush to get things out now then?

 

West : ohh, no no, not at all. I think the one luxury that we have with the type of band that we have is that it’s not a seen oriented band, nor is what we are doing trendy. We don’t have to get it in before the window of time collapses. Pulse, I don’t think that we're a youth oriented band either. As far as the members in this band are, I think we could be in are 30’s and still be taken just a seriously where as with certain groups when they hit a certain age people will not take them as seriously anymore and they have to move on to something else almost.

 

Zin : What elements do you feel every one in  involved brings into the recording studio?

 

West : Well I used to actually write every orchestral piece out for every one to play, but now every one is a little more free to contribute. Because they seem a lot more happy with doing that. It’s hard to balance it out because you still need to be focused on the original concept. But like I said before we record the drum tracks first, in witch we can do in a day, then we see how it forms from there on out.

 

Zin : Did you get any musical training before you started this band?

 

West : I had some people show me how do some things, I tried to go to school when I was twenty but it did not work out to well, so I ended up dropping out, but I always knew what I wanted to do with the band itself.

 

Zin : Is there anything else that you would like to add?

 

West : No not overly. Nothing that I can think of now.

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