Photo by PJ Sykes

For those who did not make it out to Artisphere during the recording process of Beauty Pill‘s Immersive Ideal this summer, the setup was pretty interesting. The band converted the gallery’s Black Box Theatre into maybe the coziest recording studio I’ve ever seen, festooned with oriental rugs and lamps. From a window above, the museum’s visitors could observe the band at work and listen in whether the band was deep in discussion or laying down a track. Then again, Immersive Ideal could just as well be an almost voyeuristic experience of watching a man alone on his computer.

By the time I had arrived at Immersive Ideal in late July, the view was the latter. The days of the full band coming in along with the cadre of photographers who documented their creative process was pretty much over. It was just Beauty Pill’s creative pilot Chad Clark sitting at his computer, tinkering with a melancholy piano melody. Though that wasn’t all he was doing. Clark had been tweeting from the @beautypill account just about every moment he spent at Artisphere. This moment, he was taking a break from extolling his bandmates’ proficiency and describing the changes in sounds to put out a cry for assistance. He needed a power supply for his laptop and asked anyone at the exhibit who might have one to politely ignore Artisphere’s request that patrons refrain from tapping on the window pane. One tweet later and Clark appeared in the flesh, leading me into studio, seeming relieved not only for the use of the power cord but for the company, too.

Based on that encounter, this interview will run in multiple parts over the duration of this exhbit’s run at Artisphere. Our lengthy conversation with Clark includes his attempts to demystify the recording process while explaining the nuts and bolts of his song “Steven and Tiwonge” and reveling in the uniqueness of the Immersive Ideal sessions.

So, have you had other people in the room with you, too?

Yeah. My attitude about it has been that I’m a little bit more reckless than the rest of the band…or at least the rest of the band would like me to be. My attitude has been that sometimes you see people up there but you can’t make out a face. You can say, “Well, that’s definitely people.” And sometimes there’s a crowd that’s there and they’re there for a long time. So, I just started to go, “Well, yeah, come on down.” It almost feels rude if someone’s standing there for a long time and we’re doing something that’s not private. My attitude is, “Are you interested in coming down?” Sometimes people are more comfortable up there because we can’t hear them and…sometimes people are shy. They’d rather be up there. But mostly, people are psyched to come down. They come down and we were working on this song and I could feel like people were wanting it to work and you can feel them in their seats. It’s like playing a show and you’re like, “Oh, this isn’t going over.” And the crowd, you could feel that it was just too slow.

So, not only did we do that, Abram came up with this new counterpoint melody to this song which suggested a different melody. Then we changed the chords. Then we changed the words. Now, it’s barely recognizable from the original thing. Our old demo has some cool things but right now I’m working on this piano part to address the fact that the chords changed. Then, I’m going to put the file back in the computer so we can bring it back. Basically, the ideal is that the merits of the demo and the merits of the live recording are available in the finished mix. It’s been a little bit harder journey than some songs where the demo was closer to the finished thing, so it’s just been a question of figuring that stuff out.

Is this the list of songs?

It’s a list of songs, yes. There are probably 20 of them out of a list of 40 that were good candidates. And those are the songs that we did here. There are some things that will be kind of brought to life from the demo.

Is this at all what your home looks like? I feel like this could potentially be a home studio.

No. Not at all. I mean if you were wealthy! Like that microphone that’s aimed at the drum kit is a $10,000 microphone. That’s theirs.

Holy crap.

My home studio is pretty modest. Some of this stuff is from my home studio. Like this and that and that and that (motions at computers and mixers.) But a lot of this stuff is borrowed and lent. As soon as we announced this project, we got a lot of support from people…mostly going, “You are brave.” All of my friends that are musicians were like, “Whoa…you are brave.” I thought it might be cool to open the curtain and allow people to watch…it didn’t strike me as an act of bravery. I didn’t see it that way.

Have you seen where they’re coming from since then?

Oh yeah. There are serious perils to it. But, it’s been kind of cool, too. Like I said, I could feel that the song wasn’t working because there were people in the room. Nobody said anything, but I could just feel…it was a body language thing…I could feel the song was too slow cause of the people that were behind me. I was actually facing Devin, but there was just a sense of “This isn’t working.” I could feel the people behind me are wanting it to work and kind of on our side, but it’s just not working. That was instructive. Had they not been in the room, I might have been slower to recognize that the thing wasn’t working. Or maybe even stubborn enough to push through anyway.So,here’s the original. This song is called…I don’t know if you know about this story. It’s a relatively obscure story. Do you know who Steven and Tiwonge are?

I’m only familiar with the names because of following your Twitter feed. Not familiar with the story.

Most people aren’t. They were the gay couple…one was 26 and one was 20…in Malawi. They were arrested for being gay. They didn’t do anything. It was not even public. It was not like they got married or there was some sort of lewd public kind of thing. It was just that they were discovered to be a homosexual couple and they were arrested and were sentenced to prison for 25 years, each of them. One’s 20 and one’s 26 and it’s just madness. And there’s a pretty famous photo of them, I’ll show you, I don’t know if you can see, they’re handcuffed together and the crowd is taunting them.

That’s powerful.

People are smiling. I was struck by the photo and I was struck by the weirdness of punishing people who are gay by handcuffing them together. That seems…kind of odd. It doesn’t seem smart. But I said this to someone and they said, “It’s shameful. The government considers it shameful. They’re trying to shame them by handcuffing them together so they can’t pull apart.” That’s how homophobic this society is that it’s really funny. Not funny but…there’s something really tragic about seeing a mob scene where everyone’s being cruel. Everybody’s being nasty and these guys are clearly…they’re scared. I was trying to write about this and I didn’t want it to be corny. It’s not a polemic and it’s not interesting, at least in my opinion to make an overtly political song about it. It’s kind of clearly wrong. And actually what happened is the government was shamed by kind of the world’s response and America’s response. Everyone was like, “You’re going to put these people away for 25 years? That’s kind of backwards.” And the government eventually let them go, pardoned them after about maybe six months of kind of everyone in the world being like, “This is crazy what you’re doing.” It was an interesting moment because that never would have happened maybe ten years ago? Certainly not 20 years ago, certainly not 30 years ago. They would have just gone to jail. We never even would have heard about this story. I think this was an interesting moment for gay people. I’m not gay but this was an interesting moment for gay people where the world’s opinion now is such that. “Can you just chill?” Maybe we’ll see in ten years with marriage that the zeitgeist tips and slowly and through young people coming in, it was an interesting moment.

But it’s not interesting to worry about that shit. I guess that was the aspect of hardcore punk that was always dull to me, to be like, “That’s wrong!” Because who gives a fuck? I mean, obviously I give a fuck. I care about it but it’s not interesting to sort of declare. At least not for me. So, I was trying to figure out a way…I was just struck by the photo…it’s a heartbreaking photo and I started writing about how every couple, at least every couple I know, there’s one member of the couple who’s more impetuous and kind of reckless and passionate, sort of devil-may-care and there’s another member of the couple who’s more cautious and thinks things through and is kind of the voice of reason. In most couples, if it’s not as simple as that, there’s a division. It’s pretty rare that you’re not going to find some differences in that area. So, in my mind, al lot of times I write speculative fiction. I only did so much research on these guys. I don’t know that much about them, but it’s interesting to talk from the scenario, the picture, and the first line I came up with was, “Slide the bureau against the door.”

That was actually the first line of the song before I knew what the song was about. I had this melody and I had the words “Slide the bureau against the door.” I love that image because it tells you the scenario. Everyone knows that in that moment, that’s a very desperate thing. People are trying to get in, push the bureau against the door because we’re trying to block whoever’s coming in. That’s a good opening line that tells you that it’s a desperate situation, that tells you that it’s a defensive move. There’s a lot that’s loaded in that phrase. And then I was like, “Okay,” and I applied it to those guys and was imagining that maybe they’re in a room, maybe a hotel room or someplace where they’re being a couple—having sex or just being romantic with each other or just hangig out—and then (makes knocking sound) somebody comes to the door, raps on the door. The government is coming to get in, they’re going to arrest them and then, in panic, they slide the bureau against the door. This is all fantastical. I didn’t read about their arrest. At that point, it’s not important to me artistically what actually happened. It’s sort of in my imagination. So, I’m imagining when you slide the bureau against the door, it gives you some time, but it doesn’t actually help. If it’s a room with no window, you’re trapped in the room. So, I was imagining, first of all, t’s a poor country, you’re in a room, there’s a window and they can get out the window. So the song…here’s the lyrics to the song. I feel like maybe I should play the song along with it. This is the super slow original version of the song which has a much less interesting chord change than what we’re going with.

The first half of the song is one of them and the second half is the other. They’re almost identical lines and you have to watch very closely how they’re different. One is the more conservative and cautious and the person who’s saying, “We’re fucked. The government is on to us and they’re going to arrest us. They may kill us. We have to stop. We have to break apart. This is over. See you later. I’m sorry. I love you, but it’s over.” The other one is saying, “We have to leave.” Almost every line is identical, but what he’s saying.

I go right and you go right.

Instead of I go left and you go right, it’s I go right and you go right. And then, “We have to let go.” and “We have to. Let’s go.” So, that’s the basic conceit of the song. I was really happy with the simplicity of it. I don’t expect people to…Cynthia Connelly was in here yesterday and she was like, “Whoa, you put a lot into this shit.” I was like, “Yeah. I do.” Now, this is the disco thing but everyone was like, “Okay, this is just too slow.” It has some appeal. It has some sounds that are pretty cool. [Weird electronic windchime sound] That’s pretty cool. But mostly it’s too slow and the chord changes are not that interesting. It has some appeal, as I said. It’s funny, I’ve played people demos, my friends, other people that are musicians sometimes and they’ll say, “I like the demo better than what the band did.” And sometimes that happens. It’s like, “First thought, last thought. Sometimes there is a bit of an appeal to the demo that is never captured by the finished thing and in my mind, some of these things are black and white sketches and we’re turning them into murals here and that’s what we’re during and sometimes the original thing is already the mural. It’s an unusual band in that respect. They have to deal with these rather complete sounding things. This is the new version and you may be able to detect that the chord change is slightly brighter. A little more African. A little bit brighter. A little bit sweeter.

It definitely still sounds melancholy.

Well, [the change] happened because of a counterpoint line that was suggested by Abram. He started picking this almost Fugazi-ish counterpoint line and then I made up a new melody. Then, this new chord change opened up and it almost sounds like the Smiths, it’s got a different kind of feel. It is, in my opinion, much superior to the original demo. I admit that the demo has cool sounds, but the emotional change is like why it’s good to have a band. For real. I have a lot of people ask me, “Why do you have a band when you can do this. You’re self-sufficient artistically.” But, it’s this kind of thing where I trust them and they’re really musical beautiful people and they’re interesting and I want the music to have life and I don’t have an auteur ambition. It’s never been my thing to be like, “I will control everything.” I want to have this inclusive kind of thing.

Well, inclusivity seems to be a big part of Immersive Ideal.

Selfishly, there are worse reputations to have, but selfishly, I’d like for people to notice, the ways that people talk to me are that I’m very reclusive or that I’m a perfectionist…

I’ve heard perfectionist before.

Yeah. And, I feel like that’s not true and I feel like if people are watching the work and I’ve been inviting some of my friends that are musicians and they’ve been seeing the way we work for the first time and they’re expecting me to be controlling everything and I’m not. And shit sounds so bad sometimes. Sometimes there’s a crowd of people watching at a window, like a row of people, twenty-five people and we’re just at the worst moment where we sound so horrible and we’re learning and we’re playing. To me, it’s like, I’m not interested in perfection. Perfection’s not interesting and that reputation is dismaying. Brendan Canty’s always telling me I should not fight it so much. He’s like, “Dude. People hire you… Just chill. Accept it. You basically got invited to do this thing because that’s your reputation. Don’t be so eager to dismantle it.” But it’s tiresome to me and it’s not really me. It’s weird for me when I’m talking to people and I can tell…and it’s my own fault because I haven’t put anything out. I get it. I totally get it. But, life intervenes. I don’t think it’s crazy that people view me that way. It’s not bananas. It makes sense to me why someone would see that and especially when I play the songs for my friends—I’m playing it for musician friends and they’re coming over to my house and they’re like, “This is amazing! Why don’t you put this out?” And I’m like, “Mmmhhmm.” And that’s where…I get it. But it’s not accurate. I’m pretty loose and pretty improvisational. I don’t always have a plan. We didn’t practice at all before we did this.

Really?

Not one bit. We just jumped in the room. Again, my motive selfishly is, “can everybody stop with this perfectionist thing?” This is not accurate. It’s not accurate to the way I am. So, I’m selfishly motivated about that. That’s got nothing to do with the band.

So, they probably had different reasons for gravitating toward the project.

I think they were like, this is cool! It’s a cool room and we had a stretch of days where we were all together and we love each other and it’s really fun and we’re having fun and palling around. We’re enjoying the challenge of trying to learn all this stuff on the fly and it’s kind of fun, kind of roller-coaster-ish musically. So, I think that their motivation was just, “This is cool. This is fun.” I mean, we get to make music. This is a really super privileged situation. This is crazy that we’re sitting in a really huge beautiful room with a $10,000 microphone aimed at the drums and all this stuff. I feel very very grateful. I think that’s the main thing that we’re all feeling.

What was the time frame between idea and getting into this room?

I’m not very good with dates or time. I’d say it was six…nine months ago that the idea started and then it was figuring out budget and figuring how to approach it.

One of the ways that it evolved…I don’t know if it’s because I got sick or because people want us to play live, but I’m getting asked to do a lot of interesting things. I feel very grateful and very humble about it it but I’m getting asked to do many interesting and creative projects. I think it may be Story/Stereo, people are like, “That guy will do anything!” but Cynthia and Ryan both separately asked me to do something at Artisphere. They’re both curators and they didn’t have a specific idea. They’re like, “We want you to do something creative and we don’t know exactly what it should be.” We started with the idea of ambient music and making a piece of music and it plays around Artisphere. I was like, “That’s cool. That’s exciting. But that’s not new. That’s a thirty to forty year old Brian Eno idea.” Totally cool and not a bad thing to do and if that was what it had ended up being…

[Ryan Holladay, Artisphere’s new media curator who facilitated Beauty Pill’s residency, says: “As far as timeline, ya know, Chad was one of the first people I spoke with about any sort of major exhibition after Artisphere began over a year ago. When we opened our doors to the public, my first thought was to get as many creative thinking people to walk around the space as possible and ask what they would do with it if they had their druthers. Of course, Chad was near the top of that list and, not surprisingly, he had a thousand ideas which culminated in last summer’s residency and now this weekend’s exhibition opening. So, in reality, Immersive Ideal was a work in progress from the time we opened in October of 2010.”]

But not what you wanted to do.

It just wasn’t new. It wasn’t one of those things where I thought, “This is a fresh, new, challenging, innovative thing.” It wasn’t that. It would’ve been cool but then I said, “You know what would be cooler than that is songs. What might be cool instead of ambient music—and this is not what we’re doing—is to have songs floating around.” I was just sort of imagining. Then he said, “Well, what would you need to do that?” and I said, “I would want to do it with Beauty Pill and have this record that’s always 80%, 90% finished and never finished.” I never have really been that motivated to finish it, which is the perfectionist reputation. He was like, “What would you need to finish it?” I said, “Two weeks with my band and a studio which is something we really haven’t done.” The way I’ve been working has been inviting Basla over or inviting Jean over or inviting Drew over or inviting Devin over to my house and doing the overdub on this, but never with everyone all together. It would be cool to get the whole band together. He was like, “Could you do it here at Artisphere?” I was like, “That’s interesting. That’s cool.” That window kind of looks like the window at Abbey Road. He’s like, “Would you have the window open?” I was like, “Yeah, that sounds cool.”

I had no idea it would cause this kind of, “Whoa!” I was like sure I’ll leave the window open. I don’t know if anyone would be interested. Making records, as you have seen today has been a dull and sort of forensic process. There are times that are sort of dramatic and full of life and physical exertion but there’s times where it’s a watching paint dry kind of vibe sometimes. Hopefully the process yields dramatic results but there are elements of the process that are not dramatic or don’t seem particularly dramatic. So, I was like, “People will see how exciting or dull or—there’s points where you’re lost. There’s points where you have a vision and you’re pursuing it but you may not achieve it. There’s lots of different struggles in making a piece of art. Some of them are interesting to watch. Some of them are not interesting to watch. I don’t know. We’ll just make it all available. I’m punk rock by enculturation so the idea of the freedom of it and the unpretentiousness of “Whatever. Let people see what I’m doing. I don’t give a shit.” Also, as I said, people will see that I’m just a regular person doing work and that I’m not this tortured genius dude that’s like Brian Wilson-ing in a sandbox.

You’re just surrounded by your computers.

I’m just doing stuff and trying to make a song happen that makes sense and sounds good. It’s not that radical.