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How did you first get into music in general and then a skill or a love of recording?
Elvrum:Well, I grew up in this town called Anacortes - it's a few hours north on this island. In high school I was pretty swept away by the grunge movement and I hold that deep in my heart. I've actually been rediscovering grunge lately, but during high school there were these bands in Anacortes that were not famous, but similar to Nirvana. I got this sense that people in my town could play music in the same arena as MC Hammer. It just made sense that kids my age would play in a band with me after school. We went to Seattle and recorded at Egg Studios for $600. It was an amazing experience, because it was so foreign - what all that equipment was. I was just the drummer, so I didn't say anything. The guy just knew what he was doing. 'Wait - to mix you have to unplug all of those things and then plug them all in to there? What's going on? What's that weird tape? That tape isn't like a normal tape it's all small!' But later in high school I started working at this record store in Anacortes and a friend got a hold of this reel to reel 8-track, some Tascam home recording thing. I setup a makeshift studio in the back of this record store - I guess I played around with some four tracks before then - I just sort of figured it out. Through that figuring out, how to record, layering tracks, I also taught myself how to compose in that way. How to play simple parts on different instruments because I wasn't really skilled at any instruments, but through necessity, making up an accompaniment part to each thing. I developed it I guess.
An acquaintance with a whole bunch of different instruments?
Yeah. I mean the songs back then were so basic and simple. The guitar part might be super simple, because it was probably the only thing I knew how to play on the guitar at the time, but the fact that a song needed those parts made me learn those parts on many different instruments. Like I wanted a flute thing, and I didn't know how to play flute at all, but I knew three notes because they were the guitar line for that song. I really like discovering instruments through necessity. Not really knowing how to play it, but faking your way through it.
So you worked with the 8-track in the record store and you joined D+ and you guys came up here soon after?
Yeah. Pretty much the first time I came to Olympia was with D+ to record. But already in Anacortes, I was doing the Microphones, on that 8-track, doing all the instruments, collaborating with my friends and putting out tapes from a label up there.
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