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.

How do these songs translate to a live setting? How are you able to transpose this layering and sound?  Do you have a back up group of musicians?

The live show is different — it’s sort of a full distillation of the initial ideas. All the little details need to be translated into one-stroke, 2 tone, screen-printable gestures. It’s a strange process for me. I’m still trying to figure it out. Right now I’m playing with a drummer who is jazz trained and really interested in very loose rhythms and polyrhythms. I’m playing with a bass player/guitarist who is into anti-pop and the Skingraft [Records] catalog. And then I’m playing with two string players who also do some background singing accessory percussion when necessary. In all, I’m trying to keep the live show dynamic by keeping the elements polarized. So, the layering is there to some degree but my single voice necessarily has taken precedence over some of the choir sounds on the record. I also like to play some of the songs solo on piano or guitar. I guess I’m aiming at intimacy? I don’t know. Maybe I’m just trying stuff…

It sounds like transitioning these songs to a live setting is a continuation of the creative process and the evolution of the songs themselves. Do you have plans to tour and what do you think of touring?

This May I’m touring Europe, which will be my first tour ever. After that I don’t know what we plan to do. We’ve talked about some different options for touring the states, but we may hold off on that for a little bit. It’s really tough trying to do schooling and touring. Along with my schooling I have teaching duties, and I still help out a lot with design stuff on the record label. That’s part of the reason that I’m keeping touring to a minimum. Another reason is that I’ve just never been all that interested in converting what I do to a live performance. The challenge is interesting right now, but it’s not my focus.

I know you are in school and you are a graphic designer as well, so how do you balance all these endeavors?

I’m not sure that I do a very good job. I find myself running into trouble with school work pretty regularly now and I’m starting to heap up exhaustion from touring during my one break this spring. I’m trying to spread myself a little too thin right now. This is something that I’m working through with my advisors at school and with the people that work with me on music stuff.

What made you decide that now was the time to really get serious about putting together an album as opposed to releasing songs via your blog?

I guess the thing that made me want to start making an effort at getting music out to people was living in NYC and spending time with people like Shara from My Brightest Diamond and Sufjan Stevens. I was impressed by the richness of their lives despite what seemed an inhuman demand on one of their creative talents. I’ve always been interested in a lots of different mediums; Seeing that Shara and Suf[jan] are too made it seem like maybe I’m not so different—here are two happily fulfilled people growing extremely fast in their art and doing it without losing their heads. So, it was that, and it was being told by Michael Kaufmann, from Asthmatic Kitty Records, to put an album together that the label can release. He even gave me a deadline. Maybe I just needed a deadline?

What are your plans, musically speaking, for the future?  Do you plan to continue to release records or are you more interested in pursuing other avenues?

My plans… I am working on new songs — they take time in the beginning, so I’m not altogether sure when my next record will be done, but I’m working on a next record. And we’re releasing a series of eps based on Heavy Ghost — collections of extra stuff that I’m shaping into mini albums. I really have been loving this music writing thing. I don’t see ever stopping really. And I get plenty of chances to do other things in between recording and all that.