Juve

Aaron Mollet: You can look at it one of two ways: one, for that total element of control, or the final step of a process, like, growing up playing music with friends, not really writing much of my own, and then starting to write a little bit with a group, and playing other people’s music in a group, and then being in a group like with Gavin and having 50/50 input on everything, and then…I guess it’s just that. It feels like this is the final step of artistic progression, you know?
MB: So, is this where you want to be right now?
Aaron: Yeah, for sure, because my job right now is really mobile. That was what, I think, started to scare me towards the end of playing with Florene. It was nothing, never any ill will at all, it was always just like, ‘What if I get a job offer on the East Coast and I have to move?’ and I don’t want to like…in the same way you maybe feel bad about dragging a significant other along, you know what I mean? Like, in your own life, as far as having to drop everything…It was really appealing to me, basically, to have a project that was at my hip, no matter what life presented itself. Like, what we did was very centered here in Denton, and even to move to Dallas, even living in Oak Cliff it would be hard to do that. So, it allows for all that, and I just kind of had to grow up and get real jobs and shit like that. [Laughs] And that’s another thing, honestly, since it’s mainly samples and just stuff that’s right here in front of me, it’s stuff that I can flip and work on for an hour, as opposed to having to have a three or four hour block to set up all of the gear, and get everyone’s schedules put together and everything…so, I work a lot on it, but I’m able to do it— like I said, I probably work every night, an hour. Maybe six nights a week or something. If you start adding that up, it’s like, ‘Wow, this is a lot of work!’ But it fits my schedule.
MB: What is your songwriting process? Where do you source your sounds from?
Aaron: Recently, I think it’s been…because you know I lived with Paul and Joel [of Sleep Whale] for a year. There’s actually— and I’ll make fun of Joel and stuff, because the first time we played, the first sample that you hear on loop, it’s just a cello playing, and that’s all because, while Joel was practicing cello at the house, I set my little portable recorder outside of his door and recorded like 20 minutes of cello from him. It’s really been a lot of that ‘found sound’ stuff, because I have this little portable recorder that I can just take anywhere. There’s like a ‘snare drum’ or a clap in one of the songs, the last one, that is just keys being dropped on the table. Just being able to capture that and manipulate it. Just whatever I can find. I mean, I occassionaly use— I love old synthesizers, and if I can get a really great synth tone out of the computer, I do it. And that’s why I use that, too, to add realness to the tones, so you can have layers of synths, and that’s the real layer of it. Yeah, I guess that’s it.

Aaron: I do. I do in some senses. It’s completely different…musically. Like, my concentration in Dallas is…not playing out. It’s staying home and working. Honestly, from a musician’s standpoint, it seems like it would be negative. ‘Well, you have no venues to play in!’ Well, when I play live, it’s sort of like a special thing for me, so it’s a ‘once every three months’ deal, know what I mean? So, actually, what it does, playing out, even preparing for something like this, takes days, and you could look at it one way, like that’s working on a different part of your craft, or you could look at it as ‘That’s a couple of days where I could have been just writing,’ or doing whatever, you know? So, that’s one thing, since there’s not that much. But another thing is, a lot of people have moved to Dallas recently. I keep running into all of these nice people, and it does kind of feel like there’s a lot of clubs, new clubs, that are good venues and good stages, and a couple of solid groups of people who are doing cool things on their own, to the point where it feels kind of like a blank canvas. It’s this monstrous city, and it’s gorgeous, and in most ways it’s a great place to live, but it doesn’t really have a music scene. But, now at least the infrastructure’s there, maybe. I don’t know, but, at least it’s fun, because…couple of people who play music, but also people from all the kind of artistic genres, like ‘artist artists,’ in the sense of visual or whatever they might be. Video. A lot of video artists in Dallas right now, seems like. A lot of really good DJs, like these kids, Track Meet is their group name, and they’ll throw parties. They take it to the old school, original idea of being DJs, where you not only would play music, but you threw parties, and your whole goal was to get people to get there and have a whole shitload of fun, and they do that, and that’s really cool. But they’re also tuned in to electronic music as a whole. They’re not…they’re aficionados. They know their shit, and so they’ll throw shows, mixed with talented DJs, and so they’re able to bring like…I mean, Jesus, we had like…I went and saw DJ Rashad, and that was a show that they booked, and he is just this legendary Chicago DJ, like basically…specifically juke, but just legendary, and they booked him at some place on Lower Greenville, last minute, and so, because of those dudes, and because people are doing something cool, you got the chance to see that, so…yeah, there are enough people, and they’re doing enough cool things to keep me occupied.

Aaron: Yeah, actually…I think. It’s always hard, because I’m always…I’m never able to compile enough material, but I finally went back and listened to the first set of stuff that I did, and it was this collection of African vocal samples. That’s the first thing that people remember that I did, and so it was really heavily based on these vocal samples, and once I sat down not too long ago and listened to them all, I was like, ‘You know, these actually do sound like something together.’ That’s always been my problem with this project— having a group of four or five pieces that will work together. And I listened to it, and I sent it to Paul North, and Kevin O’Neill of Power Animal, who have that kind of thing, and I haven’t heard for sure, but we might put out that first collection of stuff with them, and that would be fun because, like I said, I lived with Paul for a year, so…there’s that. That’s pretty much it, other than just trying to play out more, and trying to do these like, mixed gigs, because it’s harder too…I don’t feel like I fit with a rock band that much, but I don’t feel like a DJ either, just trying to do that mixture of shows where you can have DJs and you can have live acts that are electronic, and they can kind of blend together. Doing more of that. Playing out more. Doing stuff like this. You know, that kind of stuff.