Artist Interview: DM Stith

Interview by Nick Belle.

David Stith is a multi talented artist from Buffalo, New York; he is a gifted painter, designer, writer, and musician. His blog showcases some of his work, both in progress and completed. In late 2005 Stith created artwork for My Brightest Diamond and Asthmatic Kitty Records; through this relationship he was encouraged to submit some of his own music. Last year he signed a deal with the label and released two records: Curtain Speech EP and Heavy Ghost, both of which we highly recommend. Stith is also currently teaching 3D design and working towards an MFA in Graphic Design at the Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Art. Recently Stith took some time to correspond with us about his music and his creative process:

Both Curtain Speech and Heavy Ghost are made up of songs that are incredibly layered, dense, and dynamic in structure; can you explain a bit on your writing and recording process? Do you build these songs layer by layer or do you have a general idea of what a song is going to sound like before you start?

The writing process feels to me a little more like painting than maybe song crafting… I deal with something like shapes — you make a sound, you record it and then you deal with it and with the space around it. Sometimes that initial sound shape is a rhythmic guitar pattern or a chord progression, sometimes it’s a vocal arch, sometimes it’s a lyric. In any case, you take that piece, appreciate it for a while, and then compliment it with another and then another and so on and so on. By about a 3rd of the way through I start to have some concept of where this thing is going and then I can begin making bigger decisions about the piece, what other musicians to incorporate, what kinds of textures… This was the process for the EP and LP — I still work this way somewhat, though I am now beginning to hear songs more fully formed and am able to skip some of the initial searching.

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