Corridor Interview

CORRIDOR Interview
By Alexander Laurence

About a year ago I was at one of those Manimal Vinyl events at the Echo. I think
Hecuba may have been playing. I met this fellow who called himself Quinn. He was
in a band called Corridor. I went home and listened to some of his music online.
I thought to myself: "Wow, this is intense!" A year later his album is out and this
music excites me. The songs have provocative titles like "Free Icon" and "Books I
Have Never Read." I met Quinn recently in Los Feliz. We tried to take a few photos
but that was delayed by a police search in his neighborhood. They blocked off the
streets. Anyway, we finally met up and everyone was okay. The album is out. He
Quinn: will be on KXLU on July 10th. And will soon be touring with Caroline Weeks and
Lewis and Clark.


AL: What is your music background?

Quinn: The majority of my musical history has been as a drummer. I started
out playing drums in grind-core and thrash bands as a teen-ager later
moving on to drumming for more abstract progressive projects around
Boston, New England and Seattle. Corridor is the first attempt I
have made to come out from behind the kit. All of the instruments
that I have come to use with Corridor were always considered a hobby.

AL: Did you play in other bands before?

Quinn: Yes. More bands than I can possibly care to remember. Most of them
were short lived or failed attempts. A few of the more successful projects
were The Farewell Chapter, B.S.I and Querencia. All were based out or the
Boston, MA area and had moderate attention for the area and time period.

AL: How did you go about choosing songs for this album?

Quinn: I had written about 10 songs for this album. We used 8. All together it would have been 112 minutes of music. I felt that since this was a debut release I needed to focus on the songs that could showcase the direction of my efforts. The integrity of the album was sacrificed a little but in the end it was the right choice.

AL: How has the reaction been to the new songs when played live?

Quinn: Very positive to my surprise. The new material i am working on is a more collected sound. I am focusing more on the song as a whole rather than movements within. The newest song i am playing live is 12 minutes long. Like I said, I am surprised people have the attention span to listen and actually express that they enjoy it.

AL: What bands do you like now?

Quinn: I guess to keep this from going on a never ending playlist I will say that Cloudland Canyon has been my favorite band currently since last Summer.

AL: How does a song get written? Is it music first or lyrics and melody
first?

Quinn: I have no method for the most part. It comes from sitting around with a Guitar in hand until I find a riff that i like to build on and around. But, I also will just sit with nothing and think what i want to hear and just do it. I wrote "free icon" in the shower because it had a warm echo when i was singing.

AL: Do you collaborate with others, or do you play all the instruments
yourself live?

Quinn: I play everything on the album as well as live. Every song I write and record is at its most basic form. I do not record anything that i will not be able to play live except the drums. I sample those on stage but i did play them on a drum set so it is a little more honest than programming beats.

AL: How did you go about recording the new album? Who was involved?

Quinn: The album was recorded at a couple locations by two different people.

I recorded the drum tracks at an anarchist co-op studio in Seattle. The production quality as well as the studio itself was better than i expected. They did not except money for the recording time. Everything is based on trade. So its amazing what a mic stand and a used sm-57 can get you these days. The rest of the music and vocals were recorded at Red Room studios by Chris Common of These Arms Are Snakes in Seattle. A complete 180 from the other studio seeing that bands like Mastadon and Minus the Bear have recorded there. There is a rawness as well as a clean-pro sound to the album which is exactly what I wanted.

AL: What do you think about making videos and youtube?

Quinn: At first i could have cared less, but after i made this first video with Ravi Dhar for Barricks i am a believer in the video aspect of music. It was a great experience and would love to do another.

AL: What other hobbies do you have?

Quinn: Well, I find I have no free time to pick up anything else at the moment. Most of the time I am working. When i am not, sleeping. As awful as this sounds, it is important to me to go out and have drinks and cocktails. It is a priority in my life to live it and pass the time in an alcohol induced haze with my close friends whenever possible.

AL: Can you recommend a book?

Quinn: No. I would be doing the world a disservice by pretending I read often enough to have an opinion about literature. I read Hemmingway's "the old man and the sea" about 2 months ago. I am still on my high school summer reading list from 1999.

AL: What should people expect in the shows in summer and fall 2009?

Quinn: A lot of new music and instrumentation... and if all goes well a live drummer.

AL: Any plans to go to new places this year?

Quinn: Yes. I am heading out on a moderately heavy U.S. tour. So a lot of new cities will be played for the first time. I also am trying very hard to get over to Europe by November or December.



Photos: Angel Ceballos