9 Questions for the KickDrums: BKLYN Producer Duo Releases “Meet Your Ghost”
WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN: This is a tale of two cities, American style. What happens when two Cleveland studio engineers exit the Midwest and jet to Brooklyn? What do you THINK?
"Meet Your Ghost" materializes June 28th.
That’s right. They blew up with hugeness, the KickDrums did. The duo aka producer/singer/songwriter Alex Fitts (he goes by Fitts) and DJ/producer Matt Penttila (call him Tilla) made it out of the Midwest to the Broken Land. There, the pair became a production team for 50 Cent, John Legend, and Kid Cudi, and remixed for Adele, Ben Harper, Peter, Bjorn & John, Richard Ashcroft and Kanye West.
Madd skillz in place, the KickDrums drop their debut full length album Meet Your Ghost today. Just in time for the other pleasures of summer, Ghost is an often addictive distillation of rock and hip hop; the dreamy sounds of nature, punchy dance programming, and songcraft provide both immediate gratification and long-tail satisfaction. Finely crafted, jagged and organic all at once, the 9-song, Alan Wilkis-produced disc fills holes in your ears that you never even knew you had.
The holes, that is. Not the ears. You knew you had those. Now listen up as Fitts fills us in with 9 answers to 9 questions about the KickDrums.
What’s the advantage of a production team over a single producer? And what makes you and Tilla a good production team?
Having two people coming up with track ideas has always worked really well! Even if it’s something small to start a track off or to help finish the last little piece. Two heads are better than one for sure, but any more than that sorta becomes too much I think.
What made you realize you’d be a good band, beyond just being good producers together? What changes about your chemistry when you’re collaborating on your own songs, instead of working on someone else’s?
I don’t think we knew what was gonna happen when we started working on our own stuff. It was all experimentation! We just knew we wanted something we could call our own. The chemistry hasn’t changed too much. It’s still just about finding a cool vibe for a track, only I’ll write to it now instead of someone else.
How did you record Meet Your Ghost?
Meet Your Ghost for the most part was recorded at my place in Brooklyn. We brought on my friend Alan Wilkis to co-produce the album once the songs were about 75% done, so I recorded some stuff over there and he added a lot of sounds as well. I also did some guitars, drums, and bass for a few tracks with Dean Baltulonis at Wild Arctic Studios.
What’s the division of labor between Fitts and Tilla in the studio? How do you guys play off of each other when you’re tracking and mixing?
Well, beat-wise Matt tends to sample a lot and I play a lot of instruments, so he’ll shoot me a flipped sample and I’ll layer in keys, guitars, whatever it needs. Song-wise I’ll handle the bulk of it because I kinda have the vision for the finished song in my head.
Matt will shoot me ideas but keeps them open-ended so I have a lot freedom to play around. He’s always been a great idea factory and I try to execute the final track. He also mixes together all the mixtapes we do. I almost always track everything by myself unless I’m in someone else’s studio. It’s not that I care if other people are around — I just work more efficiently that way I think.
You’ve worked with some great artist like 50 Cent, John Legend and Kid Cudi. What’s a songwriting or production technique you picked up from one of them that wound up on Meet Your Ghost that really worked?
One thing I learned that I use all the time now from making one of the Kid Cudi tracks is simple but effective: What I do is come up with a bassline I like, then layer some kind of top line melody over it (like some keys or plucky guitars).
The Spirit of the Caveliers beats in the KickDrums.
Then the trick is you go back and take the original bass line out and try playing a new one under the guitars messing around with different notes. It almost always leads to something way cooler. It works really well for making melody changes going into a hook or bridge as well.
Nice tip! Now the same thing with remixing – what’s a song where your remixing projects may have changed how you wrote/recorded it?
The “Good Morning” featuring Big Sean remix we did for Kanye definitely had a big impact, because people responded so well to the hiphop/indie rock sound we were messing with. It inspired us to dive in even more!
Tell us some of your secret weapons in the studio: What’s your DAW, mic, plug-in, analog unit, instrument(s) of choice that sets your sound apart?
We’ve always used Pro Tools with Waves and other plugins but recently Matt switched over to Ableton because he uses it for DJing. I’ve used a Shure KSM44 mic for vocals forever! I have a Nord Lead 3 that handles all my synthy sound design needs but then I have a Roland Fantom and Yamaha Motif for everything else.
I’ve always used Fender guitars since I was a kid. My dad bought me my first Strat when I was in the 6th grade: It was a Japanese Strat from a pawn shop but I remember him saying, “Don’t worry. The neck is straight.” LOL. That plays big into the sound because it sounds super rattley and dirty. The grimier the better! It would be nice to have a Gibson laying around every now and again — but I doubt I’d ever actually use it on an entire track.
What part of Brooklyn are you based out of? Is there anything about being based out of NYC that makes it challenging for musicians and producers?
I live in Williamsburg right now. It’s inspiring because so many people who are just KILLING it — in a lot of different fields, not just music – literally live on my street. HA HA.
It’s a really strong community of creativity and talent from all over the country. Everyone came here to be artists and love that lifestyle. I guess the only challenge here is there’s a lot of amazing stuff going on so it can be hard to stand out. Not to mention it’s madddd expensive.
True that. OK, the word “Ghosts” keep showing up in band names, album names, and label names lately. What’s the deal with ghosts all over the place? Why did you invite your listeners to Meet Your Ghost?
It’s just our theme for being reborn as artists instead of just producers. I think people should check us out because I can honestly say you’ve probably never heard anything like us before. We strive to be different and take the road less traveled. A lot of different ideas went into the songs on the album. Not a single song sounds the same as the last.
— David Weiss