On Virtual Reality & Music:
“I wasn’t ‘at’ the show Marshmello did in Fortnite,
but I watched clips. Ten million people were
there, logged in, so that’s the biggest concert
in history and he was playing live. I’m getting
emotional talking about it right now because it’s
so exciting. It reminded me of when I first moved
out and started playing Warcraft. I made friends
in the game as my music got out there and had
a virtual reality hang out in the game, so who’s
to say you can’t create a space where people can come to a show from all over the
world. If you want to do a show in the middle of a desert, create a desert environ-
ment and bring everybody in. Even people with anxiety who can’t leave their homes
can come. There’s something really powerful and cool and accessible about that.”
Lights
Hawksley Workman
On His Evolving Relationship with Technology:
“I’m the opposite of a futurist. Growing up playing
music, my sole purpose, my only goal, everything
I put my energy into was about becoming a great
drummer for hire, but I’ve somewhat reluctantly
adopted things. I’m not a purist now. I like the
possibilities the digital recording universe offers.
I use my phone for lyrics. I rely on Logic Audio
in the studio. And I’m doing my own videos now,
and what I can do with a DSLR camera and Final
Cut Pro, you know the major labels spent mountains of money on videos back in the
day. Now I’m making my own, inexpensively, and they’re full of heart and guts.”
mixing equipment and interlock systems
appeared, there were quite a few instances
where I was teaching older engineers how
to operate the console,” he shares.
Since the advent of the digital audio
workstation, no one thing has changed
music as completely, he says, though in-
creasingly affordable digital tools continue
to make an impact. “Now, you give me 10
grand and I could mix a major-league re-
cord buying all of the gear from scratch.”
He has some concerns about platforms
that offer few barriers to creation, but also
says that, undoubtedly, as our understand-
ing of such things deepened, we would
find, and bridle at, their limitations. Initially,
however, they might lack some of the
qualities that inspire us. “I think we need
some inherent restrictions. When you have
a blank canvas where you can do anything,
you sometimes get stuck.”
Conversely, restrictions propel us for-
ward and inspire us to solve problems,
individually and collectively. “The tension
of players working together, battling it out,
and being inspired by each other,” he ex-
plains, often improves the end product. “Es-
tablishing parameters gives you a structure
to work within – one that your creativity has
to work against and I think there’s a certain
tension between limitations and freedom in
creativity that is really an important thing.”
Inevitably, that tension, that struggle
against limitations – our own and those
of the technologies we use – will drive us
forward. In what way exactly, it’s impossible
to predict.
“The only thing that we can say about
technology with any sort of long-term
certainty is that it will always, inevitably, be
used in ways we didn’t initially anticipate
– sometimes positively, sometimes nega-
tively,” Scalzi sums up. “With respect to the
future of music, it can happen the same
way. It comes down to the question: What
do people want to use it for?”
Kevin Young is a Toronto-based musician and
freelance writer and longtime contributor to
Canadian Musician.
Check out more of our insightful
interviews with all of our panelists at:
www.canadianmusician.com/40.
Gus Van Go
On the Evolution of Production &
Consumption:
“We’re more able to emulate the
warmth and characteristics of music
that we loved growing up, on vinyl and
on tape, but that’s a slow progression.
In my mind, the massive tectonic shift
is the way music is distributed. That’s
been a head scratcher for all of us,
trying to figure out where the producer
fits in. We haven’t landed somewhere
comfortable yet. [Services] like Spotify
need to exist, but you have to be fair
to the music makers or the art is going
to suffer. There has to be a balance
between ‘easy, quick, and cheap-to-
make’ music and artists who take six
months to make a record … and the
punk, like, ‘Do a whole album in a day’
music. We need all of that.”
Lights
On Her Sci-Fi Wishlist:
“The dream would be if you could
think of a sound that you wanted and
a device would find it for you. That
would save a lot of work.”
Hawksley Workman
On Imposing Parameters on
Creation:
“That’s something I’ve carried with me
for a long time, believing strongly in
limitations. One of the greatest pieces
of popular art I ever saw for exceeding
limitations was Star Wars. You look at
these nerds blowing up model Death
Stars and X-Wing fighters in mall
parking lots and creating outer space
with absolutely nothing more than
imagination and the willingness to put
the work in. I’ve always seen Star Wars
as kind of my goal as a musician – to
make handmade stuff that looks beau-
tiful when it’s all done.”
CANADIAN MUSICIAN 37