Interview with Chris Brown, Ghost Circus: Part Two

Click for  Interview with Chris Brown:  Part One here 

By Josh Turner

USAProgMusic: One thing I wanted to ask you about. The cover is an interesting thing as well. Who is that on the cover {he laughs} and what does that represent. What is that?

Chris Brown: John. Actually… I have no idea what it represents. {I laugh, because at first it sounded as if he had a definite answer.}

USAProgMusic:  Just that it looks cool?

Chris Brown: One thing that I’m really bad at, yes, I designed the websites and stuff like that, which I’m redesigning our website right now. It will look much better. I’m good at that sort of stuff. I’m terrible at real conceptual design like that.

USAProgMusic:  So, it’s more of an abstract kind of an artistic kind of a thing.

Chris Brown: What happened is we got signed to Prog Rock Records, and we had to remix the album in order to get it out, and I did that in like three weeks. No big deal. Mastered it myself and sent it back out to Shawn. And so, Shawn puts it out on his label. And in order to do that, we had to actually have cover art. So, the cover art that I was coming up with was sort of lame. And so, he had a guy that has done plenty of work for him named John Grantham who lives over in Germany. So, we’re getting even more intercontinental here. And so, John did a couple and we didn’t like them, and that was really the hardest part, was deciding on the album cover. Making the music and writing it was a breeze compared to deciding on the freaking album cover, and um, we finally came up with that one. We all kind of agreed upon it, and we expanded upon it and did the whole layout. I know that the baby on the cover is his son.

It’s John Grantham’s son and then the guy in the picture, the mean-looking face, that’s from National Archives. So, that’s like a world-free picture, but it fits because it’s, you know, we are talking about different cycles of life, and that does tie into it. So, it works for me and adds sort of a ghosty-kind-of-look to it. We wanted to keep the colors of it bright. We knew that.

Because everybody and his brother is doing these dark Travis Smith-esque album covers. {I have no idea what he is talking about, but later found out it’s the artist behind the Iron Maiden covers.} Even I did it on my freaking-acoustic album, and you know, I had a Russian guy do that one, and it’s just so overplayed. We wanted something that if, you know, whenever Ryko puts it in stores or if you saw it online, it really stood out. So, that’s really where the whole thing with the album cover originated.

USAProgMusic:: I would have to say, the album, the packaging is actually quite intriguing.

Chris Brown: Yes.

USAProgMusic:  You’ve got the name Ghost Circus. The albums called Cycles. You’ve got these images on here. I actually got this with a stack of other music, and I think like you said, there was all these dark-looking albums, these real sterile kinds of names and stuff, and this one popped out on me. And, I don’t think it was even at the top of the stack, but I remember kind of going through what I had. This is the one I pulled out for the very reasons that you’re talking about.

Chris Brown: It’s funny, because I have to breach against commercialism, but I’m so damn good at it.

USAProgMusic: Right, yeah. {We both laugh.}

Chris Brown: That’s kind of the thing. At the end of the day, I sincerely hope “The Trick of the Light” is not a foreshadowing of the future. {He laughs.}

USAProgMusic:  Right.

Chris Brown: Where you become the thing that you despise, you know, sort of thing.

USAProgMusic:  That’s funny, yeah.

Chris Brown: At the same token, we’re just guys trying to make a living. We’re not out there trying to become rockstars. We’re just trying to get ourselves heard, and we worked for two years on this thing. I think there are some things that are worth at least getting out there to the public, and the material getting a fair shot at getting listened to.

So, before I become a complete freaking hypocrite, {I chuckle} I am not on a crusade to become a rockstar. I’m on the same business path I’ve always been, and that’s actually to make a living at what I do. I still work a day job.

USAProgMusic:  Yeah.

Chris Brown: So does Ron.

USAProgMusic: What do you do for the day?

Chris Brown: I work at a print shop.

USAProgMusic:  Oh, okay.

Chris Brown: I’ve worked there forever, and off and on I’ve been lots of stuff. I’ve been a computer technician. I’ve been a stock clerk in a grocery store. I did many, many years ago. I guess more than ten years ago. It was about 12 years ago. I did my little stint in a Pizza Hut {he laughs} as we all do in our early twenties.

USAProgMusic: It’s funny that you say computer technician, because there seems to be a lot of people doing that who are in Progressive Rock.

Chris Brown: Yup.

USAProgMusic: It just turns out that way, but I mean, you even mentioned Lord of the Rings earlier on, and probably there’s a lot of Star Wars fans and whatever among the fanbase.

Chris Brown: You’re talking to one, yeah.

USAProgMusic:  Yeah.

Chris Brown: I mean, my wife and I stay up on Friday nights watching Dr. Who.

USAProgMusic:  Really?

Chris Brown: We’re geeks. I don’t mind saying it. I’m a geek. That’s what I do. Okay, one of my heroes in life is Kevin Smith, alright?

USAProgMusic: Yeah, he’s cool.

Chris Brown: You know, I don’t mind saying it. I’m a big geek. {I can almost hear Triumph the Insult Comic Dog adding his commentary here.} That’s just what I do, but I just happen to play music. You know, I’m a geek who plays music. I’m a musician that happens to be a geek.

USAProgMusic:  A musician that happens to be a geek? That’s funny. That’s probably what separates the artist from the fan actually. It’s probably the other way around for the fans. {I think I confused him. He takes a second to figure out my riddle.}

Chris Brown: Yeah, I guess so. I don’t know. I mean, the Prog world is full of them, and I don’t mean geek in a negative connotation.

USAProgMusic:  Right. {I laugh.}

Chris Brown: I mean that in the best possible way. I’m very, apart from the very fact that I can play all the crazy scales and stuff on the guitars that they listen to; I’m the same, okay. I’m sitting here. I’m looking at my desk. On my desk I’ve got, of course, it’s all computer gear and my monitors and stuff, but I’ve got a Todd Macfarlane Spawn statue, Medieval Spawn. I’ve got a little anime character. I’ve got a Jimi Hendrix action figure and Voltron. Okay?

USAProgMusic:  Oh gawd. That’s funny. That’s pretty funny.

Chris Brown: Alright? {He laughs.} I have Darth Vader sitting over here. {Okay, he’s laughing and now he’s starting to scare me.}

USAProgMusic:  You know what, I was talking to somebody last night and they actually used that geek term, and then just like you said, “But I don’t mean that in a bad way. I mean that in a good way.”

Chris Brown: Yeah, it is a good way.

USAProgMusic:  Like one thing too. When I got the material, and I read the write-up, and I saw the credits and I saw that two guys did this whole thing, it was a little shocking to me. There are people that play multiple-instruments and that kind of stuff, but you’ve got a pretty impressive repertoire here. I’m wondering, how did you learn all these instruments? Can you explain like how you first got into music and how you picked your instruments and that sort of thing? 

Chris Brown: I have been playing since I was 12, and I started off with guitar. The way I got started on guitar was, let’s see, I think there was like a Love and Rockets video that was on, and it was a song called No New Tales to Tell. So, I bought the cassette at the time and the cassette right next to the lyrics had the guitar chords written out. Cause they had put their own actual hand-written lyrics in there. So, I picked up my dad’s guitar and got his chord book, and I learned how to play that. The next thing I started doing, literally within the same week, was just kind of figuring out chords on my own and how to put them together. So, I’ve just always kind of done it and then I saw Joe Satriani on Headbanger’s Ball. He was the guest host one night on Headbanger’s Ball back when it was good. The show literally faded out from commercial, faded into him, just sitting there, just wailing. I mean, just staring straight at the camera. Not looking at the guitar and just tearing it up. I said, “I want to do that.” And so, that’s kind of where I started and it was just the perfect time. It was that time in the eighties when shred ruled the world, you know, when Racer X was first coming out and back when Marty Friedman and Jason Becker were putting out albums. Greg Howe and all that Shrapnel Records stuff and Relativity Records. So, you know, I just got really full-on into that and then got into Metallica and that sort of thing and then finally joined a band. And as fate would have it, I ended joining an Adult Contemporary band because bands were few and far between back where I was from. And so, I learned how to play a lot of crap like Jimmy Buffet, you know, {he laughs} and stuff like that.

 And then our bass player quit, and we had to have a bassist. So, we couldn’t find one. I just said screw it, I’ll move over to bass. And, we got another guitar player, who ended up being my best friend, Pat Cox. We were supposed to have hated each other for many, many years, but we had never actually met. You know the small town crap, because we are both guitar players and we were both supposed to hate each other and all this kind of business. It’s a long story. Anyway, we met and became best friends from the get go. But, I moved over to bass. So, I actually spent like a year and a half playing bass in a band. So, I don’t approach the bass like a guitar player playing bass. I play bass the way it’s supposed to be played. That has a lot to do with it. And, I cut my teeth on bass like whenever I learn something new, I try to go to the best sources to figure it out like the guitar. It ended up being Satriani in five, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and those kinds of people. George Lynch, and then when I got into bass, I started playing along with, I started off with Motown, with that stuff, because that is the absolute bare fundamentals of bass. And, it’s some of the best stuff you’ll ever find for it. And then I got into playing along with Rush albums and, um, Sting. Believe or not, Sting is actually a hell of a bass player.

You listen to his solo stuff; he’s a hell of a bassist. And so, those three influences really with bass, and I never stopped working on it. I did the acoustic thing for years and years and years, and I was kind of a Michael Hedges sort of thing. So, you develop all kinds of great techniques and the cool thing about that music was it gave me an opportunity to, with one instrument, separate out all the different parts and put them into one instrument. If you’ve ever listened to my solo stuff, over at ChrisBrownGuitar.com, you can hear some of it, and it sounds like several instruments going at once, and that’s really what it was designed to do. And, you know, I always kept up practicing and practicing and practicing everything, be it the acoustic, the electric, or the bass, or whatever. So, when I play acoustic, I play from the mindset of like a session player playing acoustic in a studio. When I play electric - session player playing electric in the studio. {He laughs.} Um, bassist - same thing. Cause I’ve been fortunate enough to have actually been around some very, very good players up in Nashville, in studios and that sort of thing. And, you really see the real business side of it from a musician’s standpoint, and I don’t mean money. I just mean where you’re in that position as a session player, you come in and your job is to get it done, get it done right as fast as possible, and so, you really learn that focus and that work ethic. You learn how to really take each individual aspect of the instruments, and the same goes for voice when I do vocals. I really do the best I can. I think maybe I could have pushed it a little more.

I was a little conservative, and I’ll try to better on the next record, but all the backgrounds and stuff, that’s all me. All the different ranges, because that’s the only thing I’m actually trained to do in music is singing. I was in choirs for years.

So, everything else, guitars and basses and things, I’m self-taught. On the vocals, I actually have been trained to do that, and then with keyboards, keyboards are maybe the simplest of all the instruments, because the notes are right there. I mean, everything is right there in front of you, and as long as you understand the basics of music, you can plink something out on a keyboard. I’m no virtuoso by any stretch of the imagination. The only solo I have on the album is the keyboard solo on “Accelerate” and that’s a pretty simple little solo. So, you know, that’s it.

And, I’m trying to play as few keyboards as humanly possible. {I laugh.} As far as Ron, I think it’s the same thing. He started out with drums when he was six or seven years old, and I think he had lessons on drums for awhile and then just kind of took it up on his own. But guitar and keyboards and all that stuff, he learned that on his own completely.

USAProgMusic:  Hmm.

Chris Brown: So, it’s just a matter of having the knack for it, having the talent for it, and be able to approach each instrument separately and being able to fill the role. I think that’s what I learned mostly from studio players was you are there to fill a role, and if you’re there to play the bass, fill that role. If you’re there to be the rhythm guitar player, fill that role. You know what I’m saying? {He asks this as if he’s looking for my acknowledgement that I’m listening.}

USAProgMusic: Definitely.

Chris Brown: So, I take that aspect and then I’ve got the producer side of me. {Oh no, Mr. Bill… a new thread to cover.} And, production is something that I’ve just always liked doing and the one thing about the producer side of me is that it gives me the ability to, even if I’ve been working on this crazy fucking {note: not freaking this time} part for three days. At the end of those three days, if I nail it and I listen to it and it doesn’t actually fit, I will delete it. Okay, I’m that way. I’m very, I don’t know, I can separate the player side of me and the ego side of me from the producer side of me.

And, just do what’s right for the song. That’s what ultimately, that’s what we do, is we do whatever is right for the song, which is why you don’t hear a lot of crazy guitar solos and stuff over it. If it fits a song, great go for it.

If it doesn’t and usually it doesn’t, then keep it simple. Like the guitar solo in “Broken Glass”. It’s a very simple solo, but it fits. So, that’s it in a nutshell. {Something tells me, this doesn’t fit in a nutshell, but it answers my question in a roundabout way I guess.} That’s really the whole Chris and Ron musical experience {we laugh, possibly for different reasons} through the decades sort of deal.

USAProgMusic:  Okay, just to let you know, I’ve got like a half dozen or more random questions and then a small handful of stock questions I’d like to ask you. Is that okay? Can we go a little bit longer? I don’t mean to take up all your time. {Or mine.}

Chris Brown: My wife is waiting for me, so that we can go out, and she wants to do some running around and shopping, but I will do my best not to ramble cause I know it’s my own damn fault.

USAProgMusic: {I jump in.} Yeah, we’re almost getting towards the end. {Fingers crossed, but as you’ll see, there is much, much more left.} I just wanted to kind of give you an idea of where we’re at, but one thing I wanted to ask you about, you know, looking at the liner notes, I see you have in big, bold letters, “See this life before you. What’s wrong little man. All of my life. All of my years.”

Chris Brown: Aha.

USAProgMusic: What’s that about?

Chris Brown: That’s random lines that the artist put together and threw around.

USAProgMusic: Okay.

Chris Brown: I’m serious. You just take some lyrics. They’re all just lyrics from the different songs, and he put them in there just to create an interesting composition. I mean, sorry, some things really are just what they are and that’s it. We’re not really on the high-art trip {he laughs} and we’re not going to bullshit people about it either. We’re straight-up.

USAProgMusic:  That is funny cause with certain albums and stuff, people really over-assess it and it goes around the Internet. This is what the meaning is, and then you finally ask the artist, and they’re like, yeah, this didn’t mean anything. It just looked good at the time.

Chris Brown: Like I said, let people interpret what they want to. That’s what people get out of it. It’s just like your original interpretation of “The Distance”. If that’s what you got out of it, and it meant something to you, I don’t mean to spoil it. {He laughs.}

If that’s what you initially got out of it, that’s a great example of it, see.

It’s all about the interpretation. That’s what endears music to people, and so, I am big on letting people just find their own meaning in it, you know?

USAProgMusic:  Also, in the section where you thank people. You thank Koggie and Papa Jim.

Chris Brown: Aha.

USAProgMusic: Who are these people and what’s your relation to them?

Chris Brown:  Koggie is John Kotzian. He runs ytsejam.com.

USAProgMusic: Oh, okay.

Chris Brown: And, Koggie was the man who started shopping us. He and Ron had been friends for a long time, and he lives up in Michigan, and he’s tied in with a lot of the people in the Prog Industry. So, he started shopping us, and he got us heard by InsideOut and Magna Carta and several other labels. And, everywhere that we went, it was two things: Number one, they weren’t interested in us because we weren’t a live band. Cause they wanted somebody they could just shove out on the road immediately, and number two, they all thought, you know, it’s okay, but we really think that Shawn at Prog Rock Records would like it. And, that’s what we kept hearing over and over and over again. It really sounds like Shawn’s kind of thing.

USAProgMusic:  Yeah, I can hear that too.

Chris Brown: Everybody in the Prog world knows everybody else apparently.

USAProgMusic: Right, yeah.

Chris Brown: And so, except for me cause I live in freaking {back to the softer version of the word} Tennessee. {I laugh.} So anyway, finally we went around and actually sent something to him and immediately it was like, “Yeah, I’m into this.” So, our deal with them was almost instantaneous.

USAProgMusic:  Right.

Chris Brown: And, it’s turned out to be the right move, because right after we signed, he signed the distribution deal with Ryko, and so we’ve got worldwide distribution there. He’s just gotten Erik Norlander and Lana Lane, so there are bigger things. I’m going to pimp my label a little bit here.

USAProgMusic: That’s good, yeah.

Chris Brown: There are bigger things coming, so keep your eye on Prog Rock Records cause I guarantee you, there are some big things coming in the next year that are going to turn some heads.

USAProgMusic: Yeah, that’s amazing.

Chris Brown: But, I do have a little insider info. There are some big things coming, so definitely print this.

USAProgMusic:  Okay. {We laugh.}

Chris Brown: Cause we’re pimping the label dammit cause they’ve offered us an extension, so I’m all for it. You back me; I will back you all the way.

USAProgMusic:  That’s cool.

Chris Brown: That’s the kind of person that I am. So, anyway, and as far as PapaJ, that’s Papa Jim Harrel, and he’s just one of the bigger people in Prog. He’s got the California ProgFest. He puts that on, So-Cal Prog, I think is what it is, and he’s done several radio shows. He’s always been tied in with Kevin Gilbert before he passed away and Spock’s Beard and all that stuff. And, he was very instrumental in getting them up and going. So, just good people to know out of the gates man, you know. Without they’re endorsements, it would have been much harder. But with their endorsements, we finished our album and then coming out of nowhere we got signed to Prog Rock Records in three months of shopping.

USAProgMusic:   Okay.

Chris Brown: So… We had good stuff, but you know, good stuff only goes so far. It helps if you’ve got, you know, the positive endorsements of other people.

USAProgMusic:  You also thank the pancakes and the cows. {He starts laughing.} What’s that about?

Chris Brown: Those are my friends. Those are some Internet people, um, and like cows-on-a-million-man-march and all those people. These are Internet nicknames, and this is how I know these people, but I know them pretty well as far as you can online. And, there are folks that I have known originally from the Ultimate Metal forum at UltimateMetal.com. Anyway, they’ve just always kind of been there, every time I would work on stuff. These are people I could send it to as I’m working on it and say, “How does this sound? What do you think of this? How’s this doing for you?” And, you can write back and say, well, that really sucks. {I laugh.} You know, {he laughs} they’re sounding boards, and they’re friends, and they’re people who when I’m in the studio at three o’ clock in the morning about to go crazy, I can log onto Instant Messenger and they will help me keep my sanity.

USAProgMusic:  Cool.

Chris Brown: So, I don’t get out much. {He laughs and this gets a chuckle out of me.} Because I love working. I love working on my stuff.

USAProgMusic:  That’s cool.

Chris Brown: And, I’m not really a people-person believe it or not as far as getting out and socializing with just every day. 

USAProgMusic:  Yeah.

Chris Brown: And, I don’t like crowded places, so you know, these are the people who I get to communicate with on a regular basis and without them, you lose a certain amount of, uh, well, I’ve got my producer-streak in me. But, I think there are times when outside ears are needed, and they help. They’re very knowledgeable people. Most of them are musicians and they really do help out a great deal as far as the critiquing of the material goes.

USAProgMusic:  Also, what or where is the Stuffy Room Studio?

Chris Brown: The Stuffy Room Studio is where I’m sitting at right now. A room, well, Stuffy Room has always been with me. I came up with the Stuffy Room idea back when I was in Cumberland Gap, and I always thought, you know, cause I always close myself up in my room. I smoke a pipe, {I laugh at this random comment} and I always close myself up in my room. And, I’m always practicing and I always have the door shut cause if I didn’t then my dad always threatened to come by and clip the strings with wire-cutters {I laugh} cause of volume. No, my dad has always been incredibly supportive of my music, but there are times when you’ve been playing for like seven hours in a row and had full volume. It does wear on the parent’s nerves when you’re a teenager, and I pray to god that my kid is not a drummer. {We laugh and I think about the day when my father handed me my brother’s trumpet when I asked for a set of drums.}

USAProgMusic: Yeah.

Chris Brown: You know, but anyway, I just thought back then it’s something fitting if I ever had a studio or something, to call it Stuffy Room. So, everything I’ve always done, it’s always been Stuffy Room. Like when I put out my albums, it was Stuffy Room Records, and so there’s like a whole Stuffy Room Productions thing.

USAProgMusic:  That’s funny.

Chris Brown: And so, every evolution of the studio, I call it Stuffy Room Studios.

USAProgMusic: Okay, I’m assuming Melinda is your wife, right?

Chris Brown: That she is.

USAProgMusic: She’s also in the album notes, you mention her a few times.

Chris Brown: Yes.

USAProgMusic:  What are her contributions? {This could potentially get him into trouble as his wife is waiting and probably nearby. I expected him to tread carefully on this one. I also figured it would give him an opportunity to pad the situation he is in.}

Chris Brown: She has come in a lot to help with the initial vocal production. Cause like I said, I was very reluctant to be the lead singer.

USAProgMusic:  Okay.

Chris Brown: I didn’t want to do it, and so she would come in and help when I would sing something and sing it completely wrong and not know it. She would come in and say, you know that really sucks. She would sit in here and help me out with it. {She helps by criticizing him? Hmm.} So, she would kind of provide the direction from the vocal standpoint, which is where as a producer, I think the two areas that I lack in: I’m not a good drum producer and I’m not a good vocal producer, right now. At least for myself. I think I’d be great for somebody else, but I’m not a good vocal producer for myself. But, like I said, there’s all room for improvement and that’s where I intend to improve on the next album. That and as far as guitar skills go.

USAProgMusic: {I jump in before he gets a chance.} Okay, does she actually sing herself?

Chris Brown: No.

USAProgMusic:  Oh, okay.

Chris Brown: No, but she knows music very well. I’m very lucky. I’m married to a fellow Metal-head.

USAProgMusic: Oh, okay.

Chris Brown: And, she has also gotten into the whole Prog thing. So, she understands it. She’s around it all the time. She knows what works and what doesn’t. She could actually be a producer if she wasn’t in law school.

USAProgMusic: Wow.

Chris Brown: But, you know, she’s wanting hopefully to go into the music industry as far as Music Industry Law.

USAProgMusic:  That’s cool.

Chris Brown: So, you know, whatever. {He laughs.} It all works out in the end. I mean, it’s hard to get around the music world when you’re around me cause I eat, sleep, live and breath it.

USAProgMusic: Yeah.

Chris Brown: I mean, I have my hobbies and that’s why I have such weird hobbies like hockey and Pro-Wrestling. Okay, and apart from that I collect DVD’s, and that’s really about it for me. But, that’s why I have such weird, eccentric hobbies, which are so far removed really on the surface from music. Because, I don’t know, those are two things where I can switch my brain off, you know.

USAProgMusic:  Right.

Chris Brown: And, I have to be creative and not have to worry about any of that shit and just enjoy.

USAProgMusic:  Okay.

Chris Brown: So there you go.

 Ghost Circus website