The Challenge: Beat The Big Budget Players With Grit & Creativity Interview by Dan Vigil of HigherListening.com

HL: About the album in general, I think the last record [Bullets and Rainbows] has been described as Pop/Rock, Alternative Rock, maybe Ambient Pop, a little bit of a world vibe. Where does Polite Conversation fit in that line-up?

Xiren: Good question. We knew with this record that we wanted to clarify the "sound" or vibe of XIREN. We wanted the listener to know in ten seconds that each song was a XIREN song. In order to do that we had to start with what we wanted this record to do for us as artists and what we wanted the experience of the listeners to be.

Ben: We knew for instance that we wanted strong songwriting. Songs that the listener can relate to and get the emotional impact quickly while still retaining the mystery that unfolds with each listening. We intended to create tight, well-crafted tunes that also captured a vibe. I hope it's both accessible and interesting.

Xiren: A huge part of the challenge was also literally the sounds on the record. With Bullets and Rainbows, it was largely digital synthesis utilizing loops, sequences and so on - the reality of our resources at the time. We knew with Polite Conversation that we desired a more organic, more rooted emotional tone and with that wish came two extraordinary musicians, Josh Skelton (guitar) and Brian McCrae (drums). They brought with them the conscience of vintage tone.

Ben: The sound that we arrived at married the grit of analog with the subtlety of digital technology.

HL: Speaking of the songwriting, this is the first time on a XIREN record where the songs are collaborative...

Xiren: Every single track was written in collaboration. Ben and I wrote everything except "Why do I" which was also written by Josh Skelton and Scott Siders.

Ben: Scott Siders, a local poet, had written the lyrics and
Josh Skelton (guitar) wrote the melody and the music. After hearing the song Xiren and I just had to jump into the process - it was great.

HL: This record also marked some collaboration from other local artists, Liza Oxnard for one, formerly of the band Zuba. Can you tell me about working with her on Let the Angels Go?

Xiren: The reason we used a female vocal for that song was because of a suggestion from our ProducerNET™*. ProducerNET™ is a recording structure we invented to "true up" the music. We have 40 volunteer music critics from across the country that participated this year, and they thought the original production with multiple background vocals was too big and impersonal. The drummer on the record, Brian McCrae, recommended Liza and we just trusted him and went for it. Liza put down the tracks at drumoverdubs.com and the result was a really intimate recording.

HL: Talk about Brian McCrae and drumsoverdubs.com for a
minute.

Ben: Brian McCrae created a great, fun way for collaborating with musicians to get high quality drum recordings using internet technology. We were able to send him mp3 concepts and have him rolling on it without leaving our studio. He used his home studio to generate parts and ideas and ultimately final tracks ready to mix-down in Pro-Tools. We could be right in the middle of a session, get new ideas, send our comments back and he'd be creating the finished product while we were recording other material.

Xiren: We were actually his "guinea pig" project to launch this concept of off-site, Internet based drum recording internationally. His site, drumoverdubs.com, allowed us to easily bump up the quality of the production without spending a lot of money on big, pro studios. It worked out perfectly. It was like the heavens aligned and gave us Brian McCrae - he came to us to try this new concept out and we think the result is magical.

HL: The credits include that Polite Conversation was recorded digitally at Power of the People (POP) Studios. What is Power of the People?

Xiren: Power of the People Studios is our home studio.

Ben: And it's the fantasy studio that exists in the power of our minds. While it looks like a basement in Denver, it's actually somewhere on the islands of Hawaii...well, not
yet.

Xiren: We're inspired by Peter Gabriel's "home" studio which has a glass floor built over a stream...POP Studios keeps us working toward the dream, and it's the
commitment to great recordings regardless of, uhmmm, fiscal circumstances.

Ben: Yeah, it's rustic.

Xiren: Two microphones, a PC, and a loud furnace.

HL: Is there anything else you would really like to communicate about this record?

Xiren: Yeah. We're not bashful about what we think of this record. It was hard, hard work and we think we nailed our intentions as artists without exception. In the most sportsmanlike way that I think I can put it, we think Polite Conversation offers a challenge to the music community to produce pop recordings of quality on little or no budget. We recorded this album with minimal equipment, the Beatles did it with a four track, and with all of the technology we have these days any musician should be up to the challenge no matter their resources. We'd like to hear from other artists who can up the ante, do it better, kick our butts, bring it on!

Ben: We don't mean to blow our own horn as much as to stand for the reality that musicians can generate greatness, their own artist development, their own production vision, and ultimately a great product without large amounts of money. I mean, really, "are we here to play, or is this just Polite Conversation"?