In a video published on YouTube on December 6, 2012, Michael Travis and Jason Hann explain in depth how they create their unique form of electronic jamrock completely live. This experimental music project began with Michael Travis and Jason Hann’s jam sessions and evolved into, EOTO, the remarkable spectacle seen today. Travis started out using only a mere Korg, but now plays a multitude of instruments, including up to four synthesizers, a reason, a bass, a guitar and a Tom drum. Hann works with a very elaborate and customized drum kit that was created specifically to produce their exceptional live sound without triggers.
This dynamic duo engineers music that many of today’s producers spend hours creating in the basement, but right on the spot in front of live audiences. It cannot be emphasized enough that the music of EOTO is completely improvised, all of the time. No part of their set is pre-recorded; even the vocals are created in the present, with Jason Hann singing into his microphone while simultaneously altering his voice and looping it throughout the song.
The Music Vibes has had the pleasure of chatting with Jason Hann from EOTO about the creation of their music and several of the influences behind it. It is fascinating how global cultures can inspire music internationally. Jason Hann discussed with us in depth about the technical aspects, artistic visions and cultural influences of EOTO’s unique sound. As the public becomes aware of the unusual production techniques used in creating this music: there is hope that listeners will realize that it is all improvised, all of the time!
Rebecca Wolfe: The YouTube video posted on December 6, 2012, “How does EOTO do it?” shows how you create your music. Can you explain the importance of EQing in your music?
Jason Hann: Well, first off, we use really odd size acoustic drums. I have a 20-inch kick, but it’s only 10 inches deep, and I use a piccolo snare as my main snare and then I use a popcorn snare as my secondary snare. On the piccolo snare we have a mic on top and a mic on bottom. We EQ it by using the bottom mic as the main sound and we use the top mic to get more of the fast sounds out of the snare drum. I EQ the kick drum so it’s really little, so it’s almost like pushing air. It sounds pretty horrible if you just hear it by itself, but we use a beta 52 mic on the kick and it picks up all of my little kick drum sounds and makes them sound freakishly big. Also, we don’t use any electronic triggers on that or anything. We feel like it’s a really important part of our sound.
R: That’s awesome, because I was just going to ask you the reasons you chose to set up your drum kit the way you did, but it sounds like that is because it creates the specific sound you are trying to produce.
J: Yeah.
R: Now, what sound are you going for in the set up of your drum kit? Is the specific structure to make it less electronic and more organic sounding?
J: It’s a mix. I think we want it to sound right in between. With the sound that we imitate from the kick drum to get that kick drum sound right in between electronic and acoustic. I get asked all the time if I have triggers on my drums. I think to that degree we really succeeded, because people have no idea how we get that sound out of those acoustic instruments. With the snare drums we have come up with our own production of totally more dubstep type songs. Where you just have that snare sound, that fast kick drum sound and then balance that out between having certain high frequencies that create the tail end of the sound. So it was a lot of tweaking, but we are really happy with where the sounds of our instruments are.
Hann’s drum set is unique, even in the build of it. Although it is a small kit it emits a giant sound through the PA because of the way Travis hooks it up and the tuning of the EQ. Some of the specific drum pieces he uses are a piccolo snare, popcorn snare, stacked splash cymbals, and toms, all of which help create the distinct sound of Hann’s drum kit. The toms and the stacked cymbals help develop layers of texture in their music. All of these small yet different subtleties add to EOTO’s exceptional music craftsmanship and unique sound.
R: Why did you choose the lotus as the design for your stage?
J: Well, part of it was that we wanted to do projection mapping and we wanted to have something on stage that was different from what any other DJ or production was using. Also, just the symbolism of the lotus flower…
Hann and Travis were intrigued by the idea of using projection mapping on the Lotus Stage. They wanted to be able to bring the audience a completely different 3D environment that would appeal to the visual sense along with their music. In producing the projection mapping for the Lotus Stage, they knew they wanted something that would be able shape shift into a vehicle flying through space, an underwater submarine, or even a monster!
R: So, your stage is one of the many things that sets you apart from other artists. How transportable would you say your stage setup is and does it have any affect on the venues you get to play at?
J: Oh yeah. We definitely have limits on the stage, so it has kind of forced us to move into bigger theaters. Sometimes, when we haven’t been able to move into the bigger theaters, we just have to try and vacate it for that production and Travis and I use the house lighting to do a show. That happened at about four or five of our shows last tour, but that doesn’t seem like it is going to happen at all this tour. So, it looks like we’ll have the full production. If anything, we have lasers out with us as well as a laser production.
R: That’s something to look forward to! Parts of EOTO’s sound are influenced by dubstep and EDM. Who are some of your inspirations on the electronic side of the music spectrum?
J: Oh, that’s kind of all over the place. Let’s see, for some glitch-hop, Tipper has always been a really big influence on us. For some of the techno stuff it’s Derrick Carter, but that was really early on. For drum and bass there is DJ Buco, which is kind of like the more, trippy, drum and bass. For dubstep there has been mostly Excision and, oh god, I can go through a whole bunch of them. For other glitch-hop types of sounds there are some groups out of Australia called Blunt Instrument and Pyramyth. I can go through a bunch of stuff, but those are the main producers. We ultimately just do our thing, but at least those are the ones that got our brains turning, saying oh let’s do something like that.
R: What other artists and styles in particular aside from electronic have been a significant influence in creating your music?
J: Other artists that are out there that really influenced the sound? No, I think at some point Travis and I used to listen to a lot of the same music, but for the past year or two we each listened to our own style and then when we get together it’s just kind of whatever comes out. That’s worked out really well because now we both have some different influences.
R: You have been playing professionally since a young age and your father exposed you to rhythms from all over the globe. How much of your musical taste and style do you attribute to the environment that you were raised in?
J: Oh, wow, a ton. Studying music from all over the world, well, it’s rhythm itself. Playing a lot of drum music when I was younger from different parts of the world was good because it relates almost closer to the electronic music than pop music does, even though it seems like they are far away because one is totally organic and one is generally computer programmed. It lets you set up areas of some kind of a trans style where there are these repetitive phrases and then you try and do these things to take it to certain peaks and valleys in changing up the rhythms and dropping parts and coming in and out of parts. So they are actually more similar than you would think. I think about that all of the time. You know, the same way that I used to play for ceremonies. You think about where you are trying to take the people. Are you just playing on stage or are you trying to take them to this different level of consciousness . . .
R: What are some of your favorite international music genres or styles?
J: Well, I like a lot of things particularly from Africa. I love Algerian music. Pop music from around the world. I like to listen to a lot of traditional music.
I like listening to pop music from other parts of the world because they take a lot of their indigenous rhythms and program their computers around their rhythms so it comes out as a totally different thing when other people render their own versions of electronic music. So, music from Algeria, Ethiopia, Senegal, Ghana, New Guinea, and if you go into the Caribbean, Brazil and Haiti. Those are some amazing parts of inspiration.
R: Do you try to incorporate this global music into your compositions? And if so, which ones specifically have influenced your music the most?
J: A little bit. What I am doing vocally is imitating the style of music from Morocco, called Berber music. It just has an amazing chant quality to it and there is also chant music from Brazil or Orisha music from Cuba.
Jason Hann sometimes puts a harmonizer on his voice so he can sound like a chorus answering himself. He doesn’t necessarily use words, but more so syllables and melody because you wouldn’t be able to understand the words he said.
R: On a global level, what artists and musicians outside of the US do you look up to?
J: There is Youssou N’Dour out of Senegal, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan out of Pakistan, reggae music in general, and a man from Spain called Ojos de Brujo. I don’t try to imitate any of it but I like to sing along, so when I do something live in the moment I just will bring some of that into the music.
R: You and Michael Travis seem to feed off of each other’s styles of musical composition in your improvisations to create these exceptional live sets, on the spot. Your combination of melody and rhythm seem to flow so well for a spontaneous creation: this has to be accounted to more than just your skills and talents. In a way, it seems as if you read each other in the process of creation-
Before you chose to take this project on, did you and Michael know you had a certain musical chemistry together that would so significantly influence these improvisational masterpieces you play?
J: I don’t think we knew that enough to the point that we could form a group together, but I know we have really good chemistry musically, just playing music together. When we were first jamming, we didn’t even try to put a group together but it just kind of turned out that way. We were simply making music that we liked and we developed that into it’s own unique creation where two people put that much sound together and embark on a journey while the crowd is dancing . . . There is still probably half the crowd or more that doesn’t know that we are just making it up. We can’t emphasize that enough- we don’t have any songs, we don’t have any set-lists, we’re just going for it!
R: Seeing that you and Travis are both percussionists, how did you choose which roles you were each going to play in EOTO and why did you choose the ones you did?
J: Travis has always played guitar and bass as long as he has been playing drums, but he has never played in front of an audience doing that. So when we get together and hang out, not even trying to put a project together, he would just pick up the guitar and bass and I would just go to the drums. We were just playing around, not really trying to do anything in particular. Those are the roles we just fell into, that we felt comfortable with for playing hours at a time together.
R: Looking at how proficient you are in many different forms of percussion. What would you say is your favorite drum or percussion instrument to play?
J: Oh, wow. Well, probably my most proficient might be the Djembe from West Africa. One of the ones that I like to play the most is called the Tama from Senegal, also known as the talking drum. It’s a little drum, but when it gets mic’ed up it’s just so powerful and feels like it has its own little voice. I always want to try and get better at it. It’s a little drum, but it’s super expressive. I also play the Tablas from India, which takes a lifetime to master, but I feel totally expressive on it, and it always feels like an amazing journey when I get to set it up and play it.
R: In the beginning of your musical venture as EOTO did you intend for the acronym to stand for anything specific?
J: It stands for End of Time Observatory. So we started calling it EOTO as an acronym and then some people from Japan said that EOTO means good sound and the people from Philippines said EOTO means good love in their language and so it just really came together.
R: So at this point it has changed from just the original acronym to more of an all-encompassing name for those great things.
J: Yeah, how do you get much better than good sound and good love?!
R: As of your next performance on February 6, 2013, do you know what number performance this will be for you?
J: No I don’t. I wish I kept better track. We’re over 800 shows now within the last 6 years.
R: Congratulations! That really is an accomplishment.
J: That’s a lot of friggin’ shows and a lot of time on the road together; but you know we’re there and we’re super proud of how hard we’ve toured over the years.
R: What is your favorite part about this musical project?
J: Well just that it is anything goes and we can really do whatever we want. But you know, it’s really fun and challenging to see that we’re playing in front of a crowd that will constantly say to us that they have danced harder than at any other show they’ve been to. Especially, the people that realize that we are just making this up and we’re playing these shows live.
You’d be surprised — a lot of people don’t know that we’re playing this live or that when I am singing, it’s really me singing, and it’s not like we’re dropping acapellas or any prerecorded track. Then it turns into a whole other perspective of what we are doing. It’s fun to have that realization and to feel like we’re just playing improvised music . . . So we’re really proud that we can do it on such a level and be in front of 20,000 people that are getting down to what we’re doing.
R: I think that when people start realizing that it’s all improvised and how diligent and meticulous you guys are in setting up your instruments to create your unique sound, they are going to realize that you and Michael Travis are, in a way, musical pioneers. You are creating this whole new sound that has not been out there before and it’s really incredible.
R: Coming from an instrumental jam band such as The String Cheese Incident, what specifically inspired you and Michael to start EOTO- a completely different genre of music? You said that you guys would just jam together, is this music that you just ended up falling into?
J: Yeah, it really is. Most of the times we would jam together it was just the two of us and we would try to play some jazz fusion stuff and some funky kind of rock jam or something like that. But, for what we are doing and when we started using loops the thing that would feel the best is when we would do some drum and bass or when we would try to do some of the electronic, big beat style. Those are the ones that got us excited because we can kind of create that loopy feel as opposed to the feeling that bands go through with all the chord changes and tricky arrangements of the songs . . . It’s just sort of what we fell into and it gave us a little bit more of a mission to get good at all of these styles.
R: Was there a particular significant moment leading to the creation of this project?
J: Sonic Bloom, which is a festival in Colorado, was having their first festival in 2006. They knew we were kind of doing this, so they asked “why don’t you do this in front of people?” That very first gig was really good for us . . . at least we knew we had something to feed off of and go for. We knew that we could reach a point where we could get people off.
R: How does performing this type of music feel in comparison to playing in The String Cheese Incident?
J: There are some things that are really different about it and some things that are really the same. One thing is that it is stylistically really different and a lot of the kids that go to the shows are just into having different experiences with it when they show up. There is definitely a little bit more of a sexual sort of thing going on in the crowd. With String Cheese, it’s a little more fun and lighter sets. The thing that I would say about it is just that anybody could go to that show and have a good time. As in EOTO, you don’t have to look a certain way or wear certain clothes, it’s kind of the same with String Cheese. Just bring yourself and all of your personality, individuality and just come express yourself. That’s the same with both bands.
Be sure to check out EOTO on their We All Ascend Tour! Some upcoming performances will take place on February 28th at The Georgia Theatre (Athens, GA), March 1st at NV Nightclub (Knoxville, TN), and March 3rd at Envision Festival in Ciudad Cortes, Costa Rica. EOTO tours as hard as their music! You can also download their live sets at http://livedownloads.com/live-music/3%2C173/EOTO-mp3-flac-downloads.html. They will also be throwing down at several music festivals this summer including Wakarusa, Euphoria, and Electric Forest.
Photography by Rebecca Wolfe
Interview by Rebecca Wolfe
Article by Rebecca Wolfe
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