Mark Pauley is a local musician with musical ties world-wide. Mark has three albums out including Prodigal Son, Land Between Pure Waters, recorded partly live in Japan, and his band's first studio project Fair Exchange, which was recorded in 1989.
HM: I'd like to thank you for joining us today. I see that you're a Christian musician. Are all of your albums Christian music?
MP: Yes, all the albums are Contemporary Christian music. The first two albums were more of the harder rock style. The latest album has all kinds of stuff on it, all different types of styles.
HM: What's your main instrument excluding your voice?
MP: I'd have to say my main instrument is guitar. However, on this latest project, I became the keyboard player and the sequencing guy.
HM: Was it hard to learn the sequencing part of it?
MP: I think that when you hear a lot of music, you hear parts in your head. With the new machines, it's a lot easier because you can save it to disk. I operate a Roland JW50 which has a disk drive built right into it. If you're not really a good player, it's good for ideas, because you can play it once and cut and paste. Sequencing is a nice thing, but it's always better to have a live player if you can afford one. It's more expensive to have more band members. In the band I'm playing with right now there's only four of us, so I operate the sequencers, play some keyboards, and play acoustic guitar.
HM: Do you play live now?
MP: We have played out 5 or 6 times with this line-up which includes Jim Sletner on guitar, Tom Boruff on bass, and Rob Chapman on Drums.
HM: Where have you played?
MP: Because it is Contemporary Christian, we play through churches and for youth groups. We have something coming up at Valley Christian Fellowship. We play a lot of youth-oriented outreaches, that sort of thing. We also played at Anderson High School recently.
HM: When you're writing and recording your songs, how much do you prepare?
MP: On the Prodigal Son CD, we had all the sequencing done before we walked into the studio because of the cost of studio time. My co-producer, Keith
Burhans, played drums on the CD. Our idea was to leave the sequences long enough to give the players room to breath. We have Jeff Newcomb playing on a lot of this, and he's a tremendous player. He did rehearse some at home, but he walked in and did most of the solos in one take. Jim Sletner played some of the more subtle parts on the CD. I didn't know him then as well as I do now, or I would have had him play a lot more. Jim played things like wah-wah and virtual slide guitar.
HM: How do you play virtual slide guitar?
MP: By using a Digitech whammy pedal. I challenge anyone to really listen to it. It sounds like real slide. He did a real good job on it.
HM: How do you get your ideas for your music?
MP: Well, this project really came out of people I know. Friends, experiences I've had. Some of them are not completely literal. We do change things to protect people. And just out of my own experience and my relationship with God. I think that's where everything really comes out. I usually sit down, without a real pre-conceived idea. I just get in a certain mood and I feel like writing is coming on. Sometimes I'll write down ideas such as song titles and start working up those. One of the songs on Prodigal Son, "Your Always There" is basically piano and voice, and was written by my keyboard player from my old band in LA. By the miracle of Midi, he sent the keyboard parts up on a disk. He wanted the song to be called "Your Always There", so I wrote off of that.
Some songs you spend months and months trying to find a line, and some you find in 5 minutes. That was one of those 5 minute songs that go real fast.
HM: Do you use a certain instrument when you write?
MP: On this project, I wrote on acoustic guitar and on keyboards.
HM: Sometimes when you switch instruments you get different inspirations.
MP: Right. And the sounds on a keyboard can inspire you to go in different directions. And other artists. For instance; I was heavily into "Tears For Fears" for a while and the song "Help Me Find the Answers" kinda came out of that. They use a lot of "Hip-Hop" beats and that's where I got that.
HM: On the song "Your Always There", you mentioned the keyboard player from LA, Mike
Sumption, as a collaborator. Did you do any other collaboration?
MP: On the newer material, we feature three or four new songs in our live set that are not on our CD. I've worked quite a bit with Jim Sletner on those, and Tom
Boruff, and, of course, Rob Chapman. And basically, as it comes to music, I don't try to dictate what they are going to do. I figure that if they're playing at a certain level, that they'll take it in the right direction.
For example, on the CD, Jeff Newcomb did that on a few songs by the way he soloed. We just changed our instrumentation to meet him where he was going. It just took off in a different direction. And Keith Burhans was also instrumental because, number one, he was an engineer and secondly, a drummer. The drumming sounds are the hardest things to capture in a recording and he was able to do that successfully.
HM: What did you record the album on?
MP: Most of it was recorded on 24 track Adat. We did a lot of the background vocals at home on a Yamaha 8-track cassette. We sampled those off onto a computer. We brought the computer to the studio and flew those in. In the old days they use to do that with tape but we had the sampling capability in the sequencing program. And now I'm using a Roland VS880. It's a new digital hard disk recorder that's just fantastic from a writing standpoint. You just sing the background vocals one time and then cut and paste, so it saves a lot of time.
HM: Did you do the mix-down at North Point Recording as well as the recording?
PM: Yes. Keith and I mixed. Actually, a strange thing happened. We sent it off to be mastered by a company in Oregon. When it came back, it was too noisy for us. So we actually mastered it ourselves. We made a pass through analog, which warmed it up quite a bit. Mastering is kinda like magic. There are certain things that certain people have the ability to do. We did our best but mastering's a difficult thing.
HM: The mastering and overall quality really came out nice on the album. Did you do the mastering at North Point also?
MP: Yes. Basically we ran it through a little compression and some noise gating, and just used our ears. That's really the big thing. If you're mixing or recording, and you like it, then hopefully someone else will too. And if you don't like it, it's hard to sell. (laughter).
HM: That's true. How do you distribute your CD?
MP: Right now, we're distributing through our live concerts. I have looked into some of the on-line services, but because of the sampling frequencies over the phone line, it's so slow and time consuming. I haven't gone that way yet.
And the other thing we're doing is actually giving them away at our concerts. I've always wanted that ability, but in the past we've always had so much money invested, and so many people involved (5 band members), that we couldn't do that. Our first project cost about $12,000 to do. I have no idea how much the second one cost because my brother-in-law paid for it. We were able to keep the Prodigal Son CD cheap because we'd go (to the studio) in the middle of the night and record. Keith was an engineer at North Point, even prior to coming under Stu Herreid's ownership, and he is a really good friend and would comp things for the time. So we really didn't spend a lot of money on the actual recording.
HM: Looking at your other albums, I see one was recorded in Japan. How did that come to be?
MP: Through my brother-in-law, who was in my band "Fair Exchange" in LA. After we parted ways, I moved up to Redding. When you first move up to a small place like Redding, you think "oh no, is there music up here?". I've come to find out there's a tremendous music community up here. I was contacted early in 1994 by a group of Japanese business' including Teac, TDK and others. They paid our way and flew us to a place called
Hita, Japan. It's a town of about 80,000 built around a river, just like Redding. They have never had an American band play in this particular city. It was tremendous. It was like being the Beatles for a week. Our equipment would show up ahead of us at the gigs. It would move from our rehearsal spots to the concert hall. All we had to do was plug in and go. We had little kids chasing us down the street, and people giving us flowers. It was a very interesting experience. At first, when we played, the Japanese people were very
reserved, with their arms crossed and just kinda watching us. But three or four songs into the set we had people rushing the stage and it became very interesting. It was a tremendous experience.
HM: Do you prefer the studio or live?
MP: They are both so different. With the live aspect, you have so many details. To do an hour and fifteen minute concert, you might have 8 hours involved in it. So that can be very taxing. I have four kids at home and I work full time so you have to keep a balance. Recording and writing are my most favorite things. I really enjoy writing. I'm hoping to move into writing for other artists in the future. I think that would be the ultimate kick. I do enjoy the live aspect, with the audience participation and interaction. That's great.
HM: Going back to your CD Prodigal Son, do you have a favorite song?
MP: I'd probably say the title track. It was really fun to play. And there's a hidden track on the CD, too. It's kinda a thing of the 90's that started with the Beatles. It's after the last track "Missionary Man", which is an instrumental track. There is a minute or two of silence, then the last track. Its just a little number that Keith and I wrote and recorded live in the studio.
HM: Who did the graphic design on the album?
The graphic work on all three albums was done by Gary Zolenek. He did a tremendous job. The other thing is that the next album will be called The Other Side, and I'll put the other side of my face on it! (laughter) Or the back of my head!
HM: What are your plans for the future?
MP: We are currently working on finding business' to sponsor us in order to continue to give CDs away at our cost. We're hoping to get out and play a lot more. Of course, we're writing and I think we have three or four songs finished for the next one. The next one will be a cooperative arrangement with another person who owns a digital hard disk recorder.
HM: I'd like to thank you for letting us have this insight into your projects. It's plain that you get your biggest inspiration from God and the songs reflect that. Any final comments?
MP: My relationship with Christ is the center of my life and everything flows from that, whether it's my family, my friends at work, or my music. If anyone would like to know more about this, they can also contact me. I'm more than willing to share that too.