Musician and Producer Doviak provides perspective on his creative process for making music, from high profile commercials and films to being Johnny Marr's co-producer. Melanie Isaac, Priya Panda, and Benjamin Schoos co-writer and producer. Mixing music for multiple up-and-coming bands to being an acclaimed independent artist.
Creativity Without Frontiers available at all relevant book retailers
Stay in touch with Unknown Origins
Music by Iain Mutch
Musician and Producer Doviak provides perspective on his creative process for making music, from high profile commercials and films to being Johnny Marr's co-producer. Melanie Isaac, Priya Panda, and Benjamin Schoos co-writer and producer. Mixing music for multiple up-and-coming bands to being an acclaimed independent artist.
Creativity Without Frontiers available at all relevant book retailers
Stay in touch with Unknown Origins
Music by Iain Mutch
Hello, I'm Roy Sharples, and welcome to the unknown origins podcast series, the purpose of which is to deliver inspirational conversations with creative industry experts on entrepreneurship, pop culture, art, music, film and fashion. Today's focus is musicianship and production, which I have the pleasure of chatting with Doviak, who is a musician and producer. Doviak made his way by Cambridge to Manchester in the 2000s, involving himself in the vibrant music scene in various capacities, working playing and touring with bands for a number of years, including a brief stint, with Johnny Marr and the healers, after which he branched out working on high profile commercials, as well as film and also turned his ear to production. Around 2011, he co produced the messenger with Johnny Marr, the first of our run of Marr's solo albums, followed by much touring a second guitar and keyboards and producing two more chart topping albums, the latest being called the comet. In his spare time he has produced and co-wrote for number of other artists such as Melanie Isaac, prayer Panda, and Benjamin skuse. In 2019, he began releasing the self produced tracks as Doviak. Without Baroque synthpop solid state machines EP followed by the singles Empire and century, he is currently working on a fourth studio album with Johnny Marr, due for release in 2021. As well as mixing music for a number of up and coming bands, and is about to release his latest single, don't follow on the 25th of September, with further releases to come through the rest of the year and beyond. Hello, and welcome to viac
Doviak:Hi, Roy. So what inspired
Roy Sharples:and attracted you to becoming a musician and producer?
Doviak:Well, I guess it was very, very early on when I was very young, very, very young. I wanted to be a director, a movie director. Yeah. And and even though all through this time I've had I still love film, and watch from very avidly and yeah, I think about film more. But But I guess there was an element of me, which likes the it's gonna say control, but it's not Yeah, specifically that it's it's be able to oversee, into, to some degree oversee a large scope project, I guess. Yeah. And in retrospect, now, what I do when I'm producing or even writing myself, it's a very small version of that. You're overseeing a complete piece of work. Yeah. I'm gonna make you sound grander than it is. But it's, but it's certainly when I write for myself, there's a lot of elements coming together. You know, it's not just acoustic guitar and singing is, you know, so some of this orchestration I'll put in there and a lot of stuff. And so it's a slightly larger architecture, perhaps, and then some things and so I kind of like that, you know, like the grandiosity sometimes Yes, yeah. doing that. And, but so what attracted me to it really is the normal story, I guess I was in bands when I was young. With friends at school, and the the social aspect of it's fun, you'll have a good laugh if people have a very similar background or mentality, something like that. And, and because your dream of being famous, and you think you're great, you're probably not that great. And, and then it's really nice in different bands. And I moved to Manchester and just kind of just bit by bit got more and more involved in the music scene here with different capacities. So like,
Roy Sharples:we're moving to Manchester was that by design in terms of he saw, like a musical community there? That was essentially Yes, yeah.
Doviak:Yes. Because things are really kind of kicking off. They have been for quite a long time. Since I guess, the late 80s. Yeah. What, early early to mid 80s. But, but it was still going pretty strong. You know, in late 90s. And early 2000s. There's a lot of things. I mean, it wasn't particularly the traditional Manchester sound stuff, necessarily. There's a lot of Drum and Bass was big. And there's all kinds of different genres that were pretty big, kind of intelligent costs, and haciendo Yes, or no dance, music, house music and things, but but it was essentially, you know, in the UK, the two biggest places really are Manchester and London. You know, there's outliers, but really, they are the kind of hubs London is much bigger, obviously. But Manchester has, I think, in my mind, the second biggest kind of musical community, but it's much smaller. And the upside of that is it's a small community. And so it's easier to not necessarily navigate but, you know, you know, if you're involved in it, you know, a lot of bands very quickly and a lot of people and
Roy Sharples:that's kind of fun,
Doviak:but to be so you know, just kind of It was actually pretty decent guitar player when I was young. Yeah, maybe not now, but
Roy Sharples:we, we self taught or did you can get lessons?
Doviak:Yeah, no self taught and you know, I had some piano lessons was very very young but I'm not very good at piano. But the guitar is just fun when it's easy and fun, it looks cool appeal, isn't it? And so so I guess you know, I like being in bands but sometime around moving I got more interested in writing. Yeah. So I started trying to do that not very successfully, you know, very rudimentary equipment, the time and gradually I got a sampler and a few other bits but it but it's writing itself is another discipline to playing it's a different approach and, you know, started off and actually some of the stuff is not too bad to be honest. Yeah, but I have no confidence in it. And so I didn't really kind of pursue that particularly. But I always enjoyed doing it. And you know, it makes me very happy. The most fun thing for me is sitting down and coming up with ideas. Yes. So it's really fun, because you can open the creative side of your brain up and just tinker around until you find things that you like, and maybe you have a direction you're doing it with a with a purpose.
Roy Sharples:How would you typically categorize sorry, not categorize, characterize your creative process for music making and production?
Doviak:Okay, well, for music making, it depends on producing, or if I'm writing for myself, writing for myself, I will very often either tick, or usually I'll have some kind of direction, maybe something's inspired me. Yeah, maybe it's a piece of music, or film or a certain feeling from a film or a picture or something. Yeah. Or just the general direction and, you know, general kind of feeling about something I want to do. Yeah, sometimes it's a piece of music that you think, you know, I kind of like that. And I want to copy that. But you can't really copy it as in not necessarily good enough to copy it. And I don't want to do something that elicits a similar kind of emotional director's apps. But, but so for myself, I'll start off something like that. So I have some kind of basic idea. And sometimes it can take shape very, very quickly. So, you know, occasionally, the entire song might be sketched out within a really very, very quickly few minutes, perhaps. But very often, it's not the case. And it's slow and arduous, you know, have some nugget of something good. And maybe a couple of good nuggets that work together. But there's big gaps in between. and the process of filling those gaps, and then bringing it all to completion can be pretty slow and require a lot of patience, and concentration. But that's myself now than producing somebody else. It depends on what they bring to the table. And the extent you know, the level of what they bring to the table, and it's a slightly different approach, because it's someone else's core musical idea. So I'm looking at it slightly differently. And that's not conscious and deliberate. It's just the way it is, for some reason, no, listen to and see how can I make that better? You know, so I'll be listening to technical issues within it, or just general kind of emotional dynamics? Yes, I think well, how can it be improved here and there? And then and hopefully, try and do that. And that's a whole nother conversation, we can have in a minute, the actual technicalities of trying to Yes, proof things, it's not specific to music, I don't think either, I think many, many of the things we're going to talk about, they're going to be specific ob general to a lot of different types of art,
Roy Sharples:when you've been producing for someone else, and they can bring their idea and concept of the piece on RTA and that you diametrically opposed it, and think, Oh, geez, you know, like, and, and how do you deal with this kind of situation? You
Doviak:know what, honestly, I haven't really because, because part of my personality is, you know, moderately agreeable. Yeah. So I'll be looking for, but it's not No, it's not just that though, is the fact that we kind of all look and see how clay never had something that thought was awful. And I think probably, you know, having worked with that many people compared to a lot of producers. And so I just think it hasn't come up yet. I probably wouldn't do a project like that. If it was that bad, because I don't think I even know how I would deal with that thing. I want to get up in the morning and do that. So you know, you know, I've always been looking for some kind of positive angle to it anyway. Yeah. I've never really heard things i thought was so often there will be on redemption. I didn't do that. Yeah. There's not really any particular genres. I hate that much, you know? Yeah. I have very specific things I really personally love, yet. Ever all of it. It's kind of interesting to me in one way or another. Yeah, well, you know. And so, so yeah, it hasn't really occurred. Yeah,
Roy Sharples:I guess it's what can I listen to you there as well, is probably the cycles that you can gravitate gravitate towards, and the cycles that gravitate towards you. There's a similarity a spirit there, and I'm quite pathetic and identity where, you know, and yeah, so you wouldn't have probably involved yourself with that in the first place, if you weren't intrigued by it to some extent. So
Doviak:yeah, that's true. But you know, if it doesn't put in terms of, yeah, I think anyone working at a certain level, what they're producing is going to be interesting in some way or another. Yeah. You know, I mean, even if, in a very, very basic, and maybe they're not good musician, or never, there's as long as Samaritan at somehow. Yeah, then there's something salvageable in it. And it's kind of fun. I guess. It's a bit like sculpting in that respect? Yes. Because you you see some aspect of anything? Well, it's a bit of a challenge. How can I make this something that other people want to listen to? You know? Yeah. So I guess there's a bit of imagination there, as well. But but but you know, depending on the person, most of the stuff I've worked on, stop producing, or co producing has been developed to a stage where when you hear it, it sounds like a kind of the ideas are in there. And it's, I wouldn't say self explanatory, but it's, you've got a good starting point already. And what you end up with may be very different to what you plan to, yes. But it's, it's not really a great challenge, if that makes sense. It's more Yeah. It's kind of a fun, exploratory process, you know.
Roy Sharples:Yeah. And within that exploratory processing, you mentioned one of the key words earlier that are under imagination. So yeah, within within your creative process, but an essence. And I like your point where you have compared it to sculpting and, and also you can go into a processor, where you're making the invisible, visible, and without sounding pretentious, how would you? How do you typically connect with through your process from start to finish recording from the pre production to the recording, the mixing, and the mastering all
Doviak:have some direct, vague kernel of an idea? Yeah. Which, which I want to develop. And this is a bit of a tangent now, but um, as we go into this now, which is, I think when you're quite creative, one of the problems some people have some with creativity is not really knowing where to start. It's like there's an entire world, entire spectrum of millions of directions you could go in, and that was certainly a problem for me, years ago. But once I started to impose frameworks on things, it was much easier, not just things that I did well, in the past, it was always because there was some kind of framework, which is a conduct TV commercial. Yeah, that needed a specific type of music or whatever it was so and so for my own writing the I have the frameworks a lot looser, but but I have a thematic framework for me, which is a kind of direction, it's not particularly genre dependent. It is cross into different genres slightly. But the theme to me as a kind of, is trying to do something which is kind of austere melancholia. Yes, yeah. Because to melodrama, there's some elements of kind of Britishness, which, yes, I like, which is in certain artists like Pink Floyd is not so prevalent nowadays. I don't know. There's probably other people who do it. But I can't really think specifically, yeah, off the top of my head, but is it kind of harkening back to an older England, which doesn't really exist in the same way, Britain didn't necessarily have imagination. But so concurrent with that, there's also the idea of like, like old espionage movies, and spy films, and especially older ones, because there's, it's not just that when people say, Oh, it's the atmosphere or the grain of the film, it's not so great. But it's also the fact that I think, you know, 30 4050 years ago, travel was a bit more exclusive. Yeah, isn't so common. And there was it was a bit more alien, you go somewhere else, and maybe you didn't have internet, on your phones. And so you were really quite far away from other people who you knew. And it's a bit more adventurous in some ways and a lot more novel, you know, you people, you wouldn't have seen a lot of these things necessarily have the TV even, which would cover some of the places you could go. So there's an element of excitement about travel in the olden days to me, which I like and that kind of ties in the kind of spy movies and espionage movies idea. Where, like the sort of romance of some guy in the Eastern Bloc in a hotel, you know, wintery, yes, Sunday, you know, listening to the radio, or whatever it is, this kind of thing. So it's trying to capture an element of that emotion. Sometimes, so So that's the kind of direction roughly of that thing, but it's my, my, the actual genres I do will kind of be kind of like the rock part, which is a bit like the shadow puppets or some drift on to more experimental electronica. And reporters headers are kind of melancholy that I'm not necessarily a big fan of those bands. But there's, I like what they do. And I like the direction. Yeah. And so, so anyway, that's the kind of kernel of stuff. And so from there, once there's a vague idea there, then I guess it's more production. Now, one of the key things to that recently, I've kind of improved a lot on his organization of workflow. And if you're creative tends to be something you don't really want to address as much. Some people probably do, but I think it's part of the creative mindset. Yeah, that, you know, some degree of creativity comes from chaos, you know, yes. And you need to, you need to have some control on that chaos, otherwise, it becomes quite hard to, to manage so. So it's good. To write more quickly, sometimes, it's, it's good to have some kind of organization to your workflow. And that can apply in many different ways. So some, that could be the actual way that you're creating the music, sketching it out. Now, the linear way you're doing it, it could be the software using you to write on you know, so you have it, everything clearly labeled and an organization to the tracks and this sort of thing. And if you don't have that, it slows the process down. Because you're searching for things. Like, where's this sound coming from? And now I'm not recreated it when I'm working by myself, because bad habits really. But I'm getting better and better, because I'm realize how much time it saves me when I'm good. So imposing organization is very important. And even just in terms of scheduling, you know, having a calendar or doing things to a deadline, you know, anything that those are important things can be easily overlooked. Yes, you know, when you're creative. And so, I guess another kind of segue from that is the idea that when you're writing and coming up with ideas, again, this applies to a lot of our notes for writing probably for you, perhaps for painting, I don't know, but the creativity comes from a certain state of mind. Yeah. So it's a slightly chaotic state of mind, you know, you could call it right brained or whatever. But yeah. The technical aspect of things tend to come from a different state of mind. So if you're, like a lot of musicians, now you tend to write in a laptop or computer. And using you're using software, and the involvement of using that software and thinking about it, even if you're very adept at it is a slightly different mental process. And I think it can your best keeping that side of it away from the creative side when possible, cuz I can impinge slightly, there's not that using the software is not creative. It's just a different Yes. Completely a different thing. Yeah. And, but it's only impingements. Only for me, it can impinge to some degree. And so I think the equivalent of writing would be like, you know, an author writes a book, then you have someone come and edit it, or whether the author writes freehand for, you know, half a day, and then spends the rest of the day editing what they've written, which is 80%. Nonsense, but there's 20% great stuff in there. Yeah. So it's a very similar process to that. And they are kind of different mental processes in terms of, particularly if I do lyrics have to kind of open my brain up in. I'm not as good at doing that as I'd like to be. But I have to kind of relax into it in a certain way, sometimes. Yeah. And then it flows very well. But as soon as I start trying to clamp down and edit things, it sort of plugs that down a little bit and slows it down. So So yeah, I guess you just kind of calling attention to these different processes. And when you're aware of the two sides, I think you can manage them more easily, you know? Yes. Yeah. You're right. I mean, I think that's the ambidextrous. And I think and where you're using the right and left part of the brain is a hidden and part of the Connect creative process that isn't always connected. And it really comes through in terms of when you speak through your process, your technique and your nod toward and towards the use of frames and been able to can move chaos this to some form of structure as well, I think that that can I came across really strong where the right and left part of your brains are can oscillate in and they can drive the outcome. That outputwas another thing actually leading on from what I've just talked about, about the kind of duality of creativity, whatever it is, the I think if you're aware of it, you can also then try and harness it so many, many years ago, I read a book by a guy called Edward divano Yeah, he's, you know that, you know, so he Yeah, he tries to kind of encourage creativity and thinking maybe I think it's more for corporate stuff, you know, so yes, but he has techniques, I don't remember most of it to be honest. But the one thing I was, remember is, one technique he would use for some of the corporate clients was, you know, something like, you go through a dictionary, pick a random word, and then try and relate that random word to what you're doing. So for example, maybe you're trying to sell televisions, your marketing department, you pick around the word elephant. Okay, well, how can we relate that all elephants are big, you know, the TV's not too big, or it's not too big or the gray gray is boring. I don't know, this, what it's doing is shortcutting a sort of the jump, normally, simple process, we go ABCD. Yeah. And people see creativity and genius and creativity, suddenly jumping from A to Z, essentially, or A to D, everyone. So this is an idea to try and shortcut that. You know, so you try and logically almost jump from A to D and then work backwards. Yes. And so I like the idea that in terms of, I think a lot of good creative musicians will, maybe some of them do it unconsciously or consciously, but it, they'll find techniques, perhaps to sometimes get them out of a rut. Yes, writer's block, whatever. So maybe playing a different tuning on the guitar, you know, which makes you come up with weird chords by accident. Yeah. And you just follow the notes that, you know, follow. Yeah. So you, it but it puts you in a state where you're not quite sure what's going on. And you have to then try and rein it in to a framework, you do know what's going on. And so that's very creative, you know. And that's, but I think more overall, overall, what I'm saying is the idea of trying to sometimes think about methods in which you can improve your creativity, you know, and jump jump to from A to Z or a to z, wherever you want to get to Yeah, quickly, rather than just kind of hovering around a and b for a long time. I'm hoping to stumble across
Roy Sharples:What are some of the the imagined technologies, and music making and production techniques that you've applied to improve your creative process.
Doviak:Well, so I mean, pretty much anyone writing, you know, nowadays, they tend to use called a door, you know, software run recording studio, essentially a logical Pro Tools. And within those, I mean, it's unbelievable, really what you have now, it's like you have 10 Abbey roads, yeah, free almost inside your computer. Even stuff that comes with the free with the software a lot of the time is very, very good. You know, it's digital, digital quality. I mean, the stuff from 1520 years ago was very, very good. You know, so all of it helps, you know, firstly, on the downside, it can be a hindrance, I think when you when you're a beginner starting off, perhaps because there's so many options now there's so many plugin, so many effects and things you can use the free or whatever. Yeah, and, but I think it's great to, if you're learning them, it's more of experimental process. If you're experimenting, as long as you can get it down as a finished piece of art, then that's okay. But it's very tempting to kind of go around the experiment more. Yes, no, every new thing you put on like, wow, this is a new sound. So. So wait, now, when you come to more kind of technical, something that requires slightly higher technical knowledge to say like mixing, mixing music, which is essentially blending all the sounds together in a way that seems statically pleasing to most people who know. It, to some degree requires a pretty good knowledge of various bits of equipment, to not make things worse, it's very easy to mess around with a lot of effects and stuff and actually make things worse rather than better. Because, yes, chaotic environment. And so a good knowledge of, you know, it's always better to know one thing very well than 10 things not very well. So you can control what's going on with that one thing, obviously, you need to know more than one when you're actually mixing but but the point behind that is, you know, it's good to know your equipment. Well. So it's not a hindrance, you know, so he really kind of, can feel what it's doing and and that's true or anything like you know, I guess even playing an instrument but so all these tools that they they're great, but but ultimately what you need is some kind of idea behind it. Yeah. They're just a way of getting the idea down and maybe sometimes you get some some novel kind of loved the accident out of it by trying some new effect and you sent for something and you get a song out of it because it you know, it's new and it's exciting that gives you an idea but but most people working no work on the computer, which is probably I've no idea not but say 90 something percent of people. Yeah, right music now. Yeah, very, very similar kinds of software and similar types of things. You use
Roy Sharples:your point that I came across really strong as well around look. You can have all that Technology in the world, but at the end of the day, it's the ideas the content that you cannot produce. It is an outcome in the aesthetic and identity around that, you know, in the Yeah. How it connects emotionally? Yeah.
Doviak:Yeah. And obviously, there's another side to that, which is making a living off it. Yes. I mean, the commercialization of it is an entirely different thing. Yes, you can do whatever the hell you want. But doesn't mean anyone else is going to want to listen to it or buy it. Yeah. And, and so, I mean, actually, nowadays, there's such a plethora, you know, the access to things are so easy with Spotify and whatever, that somebody somewhere will probably like, whatever it is, you're doing. Yeah. And, you know, so. And, you know, some to some degree, commercial considerations can be a bit of a pain, you know, you're you're writing a piece of music, and you're, you're thinking about other people's perception of it. Yeah, that can be a hindrance. But at the same time, I'm, it's not necessarily a bad thing to do as well, you know, because if you want to sell it, I mean, yes. For example, jazz music, if you go to some freeform jazz thing. Well, jazz guys just getting off playing whatever they want. Yeah. And it's great. And if you're into that, and listen, it's fantastic, you know, but for a lot of the public, it doesn't really sell particularly Yes, because there's not the kind of music they're like, they're on hooks, and they want short, catchy things that are repetitive and stick in their mind, they can remember easily and they thinking about they want to go back and buy it, you know, so. So it's kind of, it's not trying to write for the people necessarily, it's just being aware of what would make them more commercially viable piece of music, I guess a product. Yeah. And you don't have to do that. But if you do that, maybe you've got more chance of having more people like it, you know, maybe not, but, you know, most people when they write music anyway, I think unconsciously, it's pretty much within the same kind of framework 80% of the time in verse, intro, verse chorus, yeah, you know, bridge or something, verse chorus, yeah, solo or middle eight, whatever it isn't, you know, these disruptors have been going on for a long, long time, and they still do and there's a reason to think because maybe it's something to do with the brain patterning. Now, obviously, the variations on the structures all over the place as well but but the things done in a way that your brain can process more easily, I guess, the public's brain can the general public and they can kind of they know where things are going to some degree because if you go to to experiment when to fight loses people, they don't have any reference. And so it's not very interesting. It's not listening to Balinese gamelan. You know, some people love it. But most people in the West wouldn't be particularly interested in listening to it doesn't didn't have any reference to a reference to it at all. So. So being aware of that is fine. Most musicians, artists, most great degree, I think. But, you know, that's something to think about. The The other thing I should mention, sort of, it's a bit of a tangent now, but it's actually a soft physical aspect of that stuff is like, everyone has a different approach. But the one that I've enjoyed more and more as being trying to be more energetic bring more energy to, yes, you know, so standing up as much as possible, when I'm working. And generally having a positive, energetic kind of Outlook. It's very easy to sit, if you're sitting down in a chair for a long time you get tired, yes, you know, and you're looking at a screen for 10 hours or something, you start to get kind of bored, you know, and so and that, that isn't the best place to be creative from necessarily, I think, when you're positive, you make good decisions more frequently. And it's quicker. That's something you know, I've seen when I've been working with Johnny Marr a lot, you know, he's very, very quick and very positive and highly creative. And so it keeps things flowing very, very well. And so that's something to think about, just literally that stuff, physical stuff, you know, yeah, have a good posture when you're sitting down and, and, and try and maintain a positive frame of mind to some degree, you know, not necessarily having to be super happy or anything like that, but it's a positive kind of energy about completing things moving forward. And everything. Yeah, that's great.
Roy Sharples:So moving on to one of the key skills, and that you believe are needed to be a musician and producer.
Doviak:Yeah, so I think there will be slightly different because as a musician, probably one of the greatest gifts will be you know, have some kind of personality, or, you know, we get playing Yeah, or, or be fairly agreeable, or if it's a live musician in a band, you know, ideally look interesting in some kind of way, you know, either good or interesting, but just the musical point of view, you have to be proficient enough to be able to do what you need to do. I mean, it depends on you know, like, there's plenty of bands where someone in the band isn't very good musician, doesn't really matter, as long as the songs are good. But you know, if you're like, say, you know, a session musician, then you have to be pretty technically decent, or you have to have incredible, very, very pronounced character and you're playing and people want. Yeah. And, you know, so As a musician, and as a producer, it's probably slightly different. I think people will have different styles. So some producers, I haven't worked with that many, but some of them will have maybe a much more less technical style, they may not really be able to use a mixing desk, they've got very good ear and a very good knowledge of pop, musical pop kind of history, you know, you sit there and sit down the back of the room go that high house too loud. And what's that noise? there? Take that out as rubbish. Yeah, that'd be really good. Repeat that, you know. So it may just be like that, where some producers and probably more more of them nowadays, particularly a more, the quite technical as well. So you can use the recording software very well. And but they also have the, you know, near for mixing. But I think one one level of it, if you're working with a lot of different people is some degree of agreeableness with people and social skills, you know, because if you're very highly disagreeable, you probably can get less work. Because you know, it's gonna be harder and can be arguing people all the time. But also because in that rawness, there's a slightly, you ideally, you're trying to make, what again, this is an arguable thing, but a lot of producers will say they're trying to make somebody else's vision come to life. Yes, you might have some sort of Phil Spector type people who have their vision, and they want to impose it on the song. There's nothing wrong with that either. There's different approaches, but but I guess you want a lot of work, you're working with bands, for example, or singers. If they're not happy with the outcome, they're probably not gonna want to use you again. And so regardless, I mean, it's, you know, some top number one single, maybe they will, but, yeah, and that creative. There's creative arguments do go on, I guess, and can be problems. But I think, by and large, being able to work with different people and adjust to the personality slightly be putting your ideas across, diplomatically. Yeah. So working diplomatically, just full stop, I guess. You know, but also, if you really think things are wrong, trying to make sure that you can almost demonstrate how they're wrong, perhaps the ability to have attention to detail, yes, but also to have the look at things from the macro level, and keep the big picture in mind. So we have to do have that and then drill down to my new T. Which is, again, probably true for a lot of art and love, a lot of things but but it does require a lot of concentration, sometimes, yes. Especially music, hearing things over and over again, perhaps for sometimes a long time. It's not the most exciting thing you want to move on. But yeah, if things are right, you have to get in there and dig in and make them better so and tolerate stress of doing it very well, you know, can be tiring a long day in studio, because tempers can get frayed or whatever. And so it's be able to do that and try and keep a positive, creative atmosphere,
Roy Sharples:what are the lessons learned in terms of the pitfalls to avoid, and the keys to success that you can share with aspiring musicians and producers? So for example, if you received 18, again, and you know what you do now, what would you do differently, if at all anything?
Doviak:Yeah, well, for me, personally, I would have probably got myself involved in more musical things. When, when I was younger, straightaway, I've just gone out every night, as much as I could, to musical events, you know, sort of things going on in Manchester, a friend of mine used to have a Nikon D percussion where they had live drums and friend playing double bass over it with a DJ. And that DJ was pretty successful here. Manchester had a band called finger thing that came out of that. And the drummer, actually, James 40 went on to produce the Arctic Monkeys. Yes. There's a really, it was a fun night, but it was it was kind of emerging Drum and Bass kind of stuff. And there's always things like this going on. And I didn't really get involved in it as much as I, in retrospect, probably should have done just for the experience. And yeah, and the people you need. So I think going out and enjoying that stuff, and trying to have a wider social, social group. So yeah, that's the word social circle. Yeah, in the musical world, that would have been pretty good. Understanding wasn't particularly insular person, but it's been more than I realized, I think. And so that's one thing. The other thing would be focus, focusing more on writing and finishing and working harder, because it's kind of hard work. Sometimes. You just got to put the hours in, get your head down and work and work and work. And there's a degree of me which I think felt that you know, that maybe that was wrong in some way and you know, was younger, like like, it can't be difficult, you know, should just be able to bang a song out in five minutes. That's it, job done. It sounds like record, but reality is, you know, It can't happen. But a lot of the time, it's hard work, you have to get in and work very, you know, work for hours hours or something incredibly bored by and then keep going on it. You could go in and you're sick of it, you know, but it's, but it's improving it to a level that makes it okay for other people to listen to. Yeah. So you know is that so just focus more probably, I did actually read and I was always active about reading and trying to find out more information. But it wasn't necessarily always in the I didn't really have my direction down at that time. So yeah, I want to be, I wanted to film music for a while when I was younger and want to be in a band, first of all, then film music, which I found very exciting. Then I kind of was playing with Johnny, if I understand that's pretty good, fun. Yeah, actually wants to be in a band again. And so. So it's kind of flip flopping a little bit. But really all in the background. What I really, really love to do is write music. And I love the initial pause of having a new idea.
Roy Sharples:And that's the kind of fun part, you know, what's your vision for the future of music and production?
Doviak:Yeah, well, this is a tricky one, you know, so, now thought about this question. But it's tricky, because we've kind of already jumped the gun, this kind of jump with Spotify streaming? Yes, yes, that's already changed the face of your music and how we consume music and how you sell music massively. But it's. But even without streaming, I think just the Internet has done that, you know, so the fact that you can find any kind of music, you want the touch of a button. And anyone can produce it. Anyone with a laptop can produce some kind of music. And very often it sounds very good. You know, you can throw a bunch of loops together, up all loops together or whatever. And it'll sound okay, you know, and so there's a ton there's an incredible amount of stuff out there. I mean, though, he predicted it. years years back, he said something like, in the future musics going to be just like water dripping everywhere. The downside of that? It seems now is it seems like in some ways is a bit less. Not respect. But like, almost, isn't it to something. Yeah. But it's like they have less. People put less involvement less attention on record. Yeah. So in the old days of vinyl, for example, people save up and buy one record of the band that really, really liked. And then spent ages looking at the vinyl looking every single people Yes, yeah. Writing on their on the pictures. And yeah, so again, very, very invested in that, and that that's the word I'm looking for. There's there's less investment in to some degree, and certainly in the music, pieces of music, I think maybe the artists. Yeah, it's hard to say, but that's how it feels, it feels like, overall, you know, there's less, because it's much more atomized. There's this, you know, yeah, 30 odd years ago, there's only a handful of genres. You know, we're very distinct. And that was kind of it. And now there's probably hundreds of genres, and they are all kind of different in some way. Or, you know, this is why difference. I don't how many differences are 20 differences, but they are quite distinct. And people know, the upside of it as people are quite more willing to cross over than nowadays. Yes. And when I was growing up, if you'd like to type a certain type of music, that was your thing. You didn't like pop music, we didn't like, yep, no, whatever else it was. So your identity was very much tied in with that genre. And maybe a particular band, whereas now it's a lot more fluid, I think. So people will show you like a metal band, but then also like some pop singer like it again track nowhere to be so critical that you know, I'm sure this band still have strong fan bases. And yeah, just love strong fan bases. But it's just some it's just different somehow. Yeah, you're right. But in the futures, it's kind of hard to predict. Because, you know, from my point of view, from a technical point of view, in terms of writing and being creative, more stuff will probably just become more parts of the process will become automated. Yeah. So, you know, in the past, you had to create all your sounds yourself essentially, a long time ago, you have to, you know, get real drummer or something like this. And then samplers came along, and you could sample drum loop and you had kind of a bit of a band in the box. But now it's all in your laptop, you can pull out Apple loops, drums, synths, and whatever you want. And they could piece together a track, we need to be able to, you don't need to know anything about music, we need to have a sense of dynamics to make a good, you know, sense of balance. So there's a lot of really successful DJs and writers who do that they can't necessarily play any notes. But they are very good at creating music, piecing things together and know that some more more and more parts of the process of being, you have the ability to automate like mixing, yes, there's plugins the software you can get, which will kind of mix the stuff for you, you know, and it's it's not bad. I mean, it's it's no patch on a really good professional mixer. But it's maybe it's only a matter of time, you know, another 10 years, maybe it will be. And so, maybe less than that. And so on, it's good or bad, but it's the worries of it makes things too generic, you know, already, to me a lot music sounds quite generic. You know, there's great stuff, there's loads of outlier stuff, but there's a certain generic quality to quite a lot of stuff, just to my ears. And I think it comes from we're always in the same software, and same types of things. And so that that's perhaps a danger. But, you know, I think it's the brains of all people are involved, there's always outliers. And if working in a group is always good, as well, because it speeds things up, you know, people bounce ideas off each other, and it makes things exponentially faster. Yes, and accidents happen. And so, you know, but more more people working by themselves, as well, not as a bad thing. It's just just just, I don't know, different things. But the future is very hard to predict. I mean, one thing is very interesting is blockchain tech. I don't really see yet how it's gonna apply to music, other than maybe having some decentralized streaming, no, maybe the revenue can go straight to artists, right. There's a few kind of startup companies that that are doing that now. But I don't see how that moment I can't really envisage how that's going to change things more than current streaming services to Yeah, apart from maybe the way the payments work, but, but I'm sure something will come along and affect things a certain way that, you know, we didn't predict or I didn't predict anyway.
Roy Sharples:For more inspirational conversations with creative industry experts on entrepreneurship, pop culture, art, music, film and fashion, please go to the unknown origins website at unknownorigins.com