Jape - Richie Egan and life as a solo performer.

Is Jape, Richie Egan or is Richie Egan, solo recording and performing artist,  Jape ? 

These and many other questions are answered in this free wheeling interview with the bass player from math rock band 'The Redneck Manifesto' now based in Malmo, Sweden.

If you'd like to buy me a coffee -  Many Thanks ...

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Transcript

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Jape -  I think I mentioned you on the message, but I'm still using the Apogee 800, Rosetta. I still have that on the go. I had some problems with the fire wire on it, where basically obviously firewire  became non-existent, so I had to get another Apogee box and take a, an optical in.
Yeah, and it, it's per, it's brilliant. I couldn't be without, I actually bought a second one which I then found out I can't use it because uh, there's limitations on the ins and outs on the apogee control. But I have a second one in case the other one breaks. Anyway.

Paul -Alright, yeah. It's good to have spares for the   older equipment. 

 Jape - Yeah, I mean it was great 'cause I got the good converters at the start, you know, and it's not exactly, it's not a very exciting purchase converters, 

 Paul -Yeah. 

  Jape - so it's, it's good to have them in  since the beginning, basically.

Paul -   I should mention that I spent a lot of yesterday listening to The Body of Work.  , there's quite a difference between the first ones to the later ones, as you would expect
anyway.  But, how do you see that progress in terms of, , , the kind of   music reflects your development in my mind. 

 Jape -Yeah, I think it, I think it does. 

Yeah. And as an artist as well. I mean, when you're young, maybe you have an energy that's very much you have to get it into the world, but you don't have. The technical know-how, really, but that doesn't necessarily matter, you know, I mean, you just, you get your voice out there by hook or by crook.

And some of the first records I  recorded on like, just really basic equipment, you know, and some,  might argue  they're better than the later ones.  You know, When you have an artist's voice and you're young, You have to be heard, you know? Whereas when you get older, you learn, you're kind of more considered in your actions   and subtlety becomes, it comes into play a bit more I think, when you get older.

And for me, with production choices and stuff like that, I probably did a, I probably got a bit more subtle as I got older, you know?

 Paul - And do you produce your own stuff, is  it? 

Jape - I produce everything as in I record everything myself and produce it myself. I tend to use, like either somebody mix it or somebody master it, because I do think that it's important to get a second set of ears on the, because you can get, you know, if you're in a, if you're in a badly treated room or something, you can get like kind of the audio equivalent, the snow blind, and you don't hear the mistakes and you start, you start not even hearing the stuff after a while.

So I think it's always good to get a second set of ears in that you trust who can just take it up. It's like anything in the audio game, you know, just taking it up that extra five or 10% at the end is kind of, is the goal. And that's, you know,

 Paul- Is JAPE, in terms of performance, a band? 

Jape - For a while, like I sort of took, I, I did it pretty hardcore up till about 2016, I'd say, and then basically fell back away from it. So up to that point there was definitely a band. Element of it. And since then it's been a sort of revolving door of musicians. I can play as like, as small as a two piece or even a solo gig and go up as far as the six piece depending on the gig, really,  Yeah on the gig and depending on how I wanna do it live as well.

It's kind of changes in my head. It has over the years   . So , it's me. I mean, if I do have musicians involved live, I like to treat the songs as completely new entities and build them completely differently and let people, let people bring their own thing to the table because they're, you know, that's the one thing I dislike about being a solo artist, is you're missing other people's viewpoints and musical viewpoints a bit.

So when I play live, it gives me an opportunity. If somebody has a thing they're thinking that sounds cool, might change the song a bit. I love that. You know? That's great. Someone brings that to the table, the vibe.

 Paul - Right. So you're essentially rewriting the songs for the ... 

 Jape - Yeah, and for live as well, because some of the songs maybe would work in a listening environment wouldn't work so well live so dynamically. I try to keep things interesting from a live point of view as well.

  Paul - It seems to me that the earlier stuff had millions and millions of ideas all firing at you all the one time. And then, over time, it developed, it developed, and now it's  essentially, well, not, not, not, not now, but the current work is evolving. You know, acoustic based. 

Jape - Yeah.

Paul - Would that be a fair statement? 

Jape - Funny thing is now I have a new record coming out at the end of um, September and basically it's gone again in a it's sort of gone in a sort of a. Even if it's just me. So the last stuff has been acoustic. Yeah. Like that's probably one reason why I'm not very successful as an artist is that I definitely feel like I don't like to, you know, if I find something that's successful, it can be guaranteed that the next thing I do will be the opposite of that, basically.

Because for a joy in being an artist that you, I personally can only find by not repeating what I've done before. So it's like you go down these alleys, try and explore them, see what I can come up with. Then maybe exploit what I come up with, call that a record, then like live a little bit and then come back and see where I am and what's exciting me.

Then, you know   yeah. So it's constantly changing and constantly what I'm interested in 

the time. 

Paul - Right. Now, should we go back to the sort of the beginning? Like, what's your current status? Like, are you a full time 

musician? Is that your job? 

Jape - Yeah, it's been, I've been doing like commercial work and writing for of com. Uh, I've been making music as a living basically, not jape as but I've been able as a musician. Sometimes very close to the, to the wind you might say. But uh, managing to get through.

Just from having many bow in terms of doing like sound well. And uh, and that sort of thing. I, which I think is facing all, all musicians becoming harder and harder to survive as a musician. in fact, I even feel like it's even getting harder.

So I feel in a little bit where it's like the last days of Rome for uh, independent musicians who just wanna make music. Uh, you know, it's a challenge. and so far, I've been able to keep my head above with music. Um, but I have definitely had moments when I've been sort of questioning 

Paul - Fuck this. 

Jape -Yeah. , Big time. 

Paul - Yeah, because I don't know if you're aware of previous podcast but the last one I did was with a guy called RupertCobb  and he was saying that You're a perfect example of it. Somebody who starts off in a band and spreads, you know, selling music, essentially, is what you do now. And it's to all sorts to all sorts of people. 
So where are you based now? 

Jape - I am based in Malmo in Sweden, so that's where I am now. I have a studio, which I'm sitting in, in Malmo in Sweden, south of Sweden.

Paul - And how did you end up in Malmo? 

Jape - Through meeting wife in Dublin, um, and we lived in Dublin for maybe 10 years, and then we decided to move to to try it out basically. 

And then we came here. 

Paul - Is she Irish? 

Jape - Swedish. I. She's Swedish. 

Paul - Ah, right. 

 Jape - ... and then uh, we had kids basically, so we kind of dropped Anchor a bit. And for a while I was missing Dublin and missing Ireland quite a lot because uh, had so many connections there.

I still have a lot of connections there in the music world, time I came to like the solitude and the contemplative nature of living in a kind of a quiet city. Um, so now I, I quite like it here as long as I, I can get back to Ireland a year. See my friends and see my family 
and kind of recharge the batteries in that way.

Paul - And go to Electric Picnic. 

Ha , something like that. Yeah, 

 ha ha. Um, festivals. 

Paul - Yeah, So, do you think that moving from Dublin has, you know, it's obviously taken you out of the Dublin scene, so is that, is your is your music moving in a different direction because of that? 

Jape -You know, it's a weird one, right? So when you're. Going through life, there's gonna be a time when you need to figure things out outside of a scene. You know, things are gonna fall away from you at some point. And you're left with a kind of a lot of questions about why you do what you do and you know how it is to be a human.

And in that sense, maybe I feel like it was a little premature that I left Ireland uh, because I feel like maybe I could have had more time there. also I feel like it's a blessing because it enabled me to kind of focus on . The bigger questions that I would've had to focus on at some point anyway. 

So it's all good, all good. Like, you have to be, you have to end up being happy where you are, wherever that is. 

Paul - Absolutely. 

.Jape -...know, and that, to get to that point, I think is, is, is, the goal, you know?

Paul - Yeah. And do you think that that sort of developmental thought perhaps doesn't quite line up with the music business? The making a record, touring and all that. 

Jape - I think, yeah, like the actual, I think it lines up very well with the creation of songs because songs by themselves are very 

Paul - Right. 

Jape - But yeah, in terms of the actual business of music um, I. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's, it's, it's a, place, you know, you gotta kind of put your, your work first and see what happens after that.

And I think if you can do the first bit, well, the second bit will happen, you know? Whereas if you try and chase the 

Paul - Right, so the first bit is ?

Jape - writing songs, the second bit will happen. But if you chase the second bit, the first bit won't happen. So I think you're better there's a lot outside your control, so you're better off just like having, I have a good like manager Ken, who works for Faction Records and I'm still with faction in independent label in Dublin and I've been with them for a few years. and me have a good relationship, you know, and we've been together for a good few years and he is a little bit like a buffer. Um, I mean, I wouldn't be as successful as some of his other clients, but I don't either. So I think it's a pretty mutually beneficial relationship.

And he's a lovely human, so, which is a rare thing in the music industry. So we've been together for. Quite a few years. So he, he, I just kind of take his guidance on that end of things and just sort of stick to my creation over here.

Paul - Now, I'm going to say something slightly controversial, which I might cut out in the edit, but like, I remember back in the day when I was around Dublin uh, there seemed to be musicians who were angry, as in pissed off because they weren't successful. 

Jape - Oh yeah. Yeah. 

Paul -...And that created an energy which wasn't positive to my mind. Can you relate to that? 

Jape - Paul, my motto in life, I've had it since I was a child, is don't get bitter. That's my motto in life. And basically, if I can do that, then everything else is grand. And I've definitely seen firsthand in some cases, who don't get as successful as they think they should be and who become and angry at the world, you know? like, That's just like poisonous for them. And it's, it's the only person that's harming is themselves, you know? So I feel sorry for people who are end up like that. Um, and I definitely think it can happen because the ego can be strong, you know? 

Paul -  Which is necessary to, be an artist as well? 

Jape -There's a balance.You're on a tight rope between delusion and pride. You know, and you're kind of, some people go too far on the delusion end of things, and you see it a lot. And there's times when I question my own self and say, am I just deluded doing this? But I think when I, when I really consider it, I try to just stay pure if I can.

I mean, I know, I know when I've done a pure thing and if it's successful, great. And if it's not the great, what I love is I just move on to the next thing. You know, there's something else to do. It's not like you've done a ..

Paul - Right, so, so, past work isn't dragging you down. 

Jape - It's to be, it's like, it's, it's even, it's, different to that way. it's like it's done, you know, there's no point to go back to it. It's done. Now I get to move on to something else with that experience in the bag see what I can take from it or leave behind and see how I can build something else that it's like, as soon as I finish a record, only thing I'm thinking about is the next one. How can I change, do the next one better? You know? That's all I, I really care about. So, um, Yeah. So I think So far that's worked in terms of not being bitter but I do know what you mean. There, there, there's a, there's a certain type, right? there, right? 

Paul - So it's not just me, is that what you're saying? 

Jape - No, just going to Whelan's on a, on a, on a lock-in, although they're probably too over that now, but you definitely see a few of them in there,

Paul - Yes, indeed. Uh, so, like, again, we're side as opposed to the 

technical side which is sort of the point of this podcast.

But at the same time, 

it's all good. It's all good. Um, so...

How and what do you use and... 


Jape - Oh man. Like, this is, this is why I'm so glad to do your podcast. 'cause I'm just obsessed with you know, and a habit. We were, we were living in an apartment like w when I, when I, when I met you first, we were living in HARs Cross and I had, we were living in a tiny little bungalow and I had a studio set up in the corner and it's just like, like an insect, just like growing legs, just getting bigger and bigger with different things coming in the door.

And then when we moved to Sweden, I got all my gear over here. We were living in an apartment and . It just became like really weird, especially when you've like other children's parents coming over to the house and the whole sitting room is just covered in synthesizers and stuff. And so, but we moved into a new place that has a basement it's like, it's just amazing.

I have a, a room in here. I treated it myself. Where um, Uh, like I've made acoustic. That's the got decent monitors and yeah, it's just like full of gear. 

Paul - What monitors do you have? 

Jape - I have k uh, they're Ns, the KH three tens I think they're called. Maybe that's the 

Paul -Oh, very good, yeah. 

Jape - ....brilliant. I was using Adam's Adam P one one A for the longest time, and, and I had a sub, a sub vest. You know those vests you can wear? They have sub you, you, they kind of vibrate. 

Paul - No? 

Jape - ...they're called sub lab. That's sub sub lab vests. You, you, you wear them and they, they're like, look like a bulletproof vest, basically, but it just does stuff under a hundred hertz or something. You can feel the it negates the need for a sub But then uh, I wanted to right. Yeah, I did a good bit of research and I found these s and they go 30 Hertz, and they're amazing. The sound stage, sound stage on them is incredible. They, they do the whole frequency.

They're just so nice. It's like, it feel, it felt to me at the time, like, you know, when you're a kid you have a crappy acoustic guitar and then you get a good one and it's like, holy shit, this is what a good acoustic, they were like that basically. And I treated the room with the sonar works, you know, the reference four.

Paul - Yes. You have it here as well

Jape - It, uh, I had it on the headphones as well 'cause I used to check my mixes on headphones, uh, which I found absolutely incredible on headphones But then the room stuff, I find I, like it. I think it does something, but it's not as big a change as the headphones maybe. I dunno. Maybe it's just my room.

What do you think about it? 

Paul - And  how high is the room? 

Jape - It's quite, it's quite a small enough room, actually. It's probably like about seven Seven and a half, eight feet high, I'd say. enough.

Paul -Right. Yeah. So that's a conversation for another day.

But uh, low ceilings are not great in the 

studio. you know, so, yeah, 

uh, if you want to find out, listen to the other podcast with Chris 

Walls, who is an acoustician. 

Jape -I'm gonna do that. 

Yeah. 

That's  cool. Hang on. 

Paul -Yeah, he's a lovely lad as well and he's, uh, uh, uh, had a a right, we had a right old, uh, rant about and all that.

 So, like, uh, so the early stuff, as I it, it was very much the kitchen sink and all. 
And as, as the work developed, you got simpler in, in the construction, but also the sounds got better. Why do you think that was? '

Like, was that gear or? 

Jape - Well, A gear and how to use the gear, you know, because you can actually, I think if I went ...

Paul - Right. 

Jape - ...went back now with the exact same equipment that I did the first stuff on uh, and I didn't have anything else, I think it would ...

Paul- Which was what? 

Jape ...was a laptop, um, a Focusrite Preamp. Blue. I had you know those blue microphones with the little circle on the top of 'em? 

Paul -Yeah. 

Jape - of them a Focusrite. Like the cheapest Focusrite. The silver. The silver 
preamp. You know that one 

Paul -Oh yes indeed. Yeah. 

 And basically like the, the conversion then was a digi design.

do you know those? The rack mounted Digi oh two, is that what ...

Paul -Oh Digi  02 , Yeah.

Jape ... was the conversion for me at that stage. So that's pretty much it. And then I had a mini keyboard and a couple of since, well, nothing major. Um, so that was the first stuff. Nothing really, you know, Nothing when I eventually got signed, I got a good publishing deal and I got a good record recording deal back in the time when they still did them. I'd seen a lot of my friends spend that all on studio time and drugs or whatever else. I just had this thing in my head ...

Paul - Ha 

Jape - ...just gonna buy gear. I'm just gonna buy gear. So I ended up like basically spending and still do just buy . All sorts of gear with any money I ever make that I don't have to spend on my day to day. I never buy clothes, but I buy gear. You know? 

Paul - ha ha ha 
Yeah. You, you've sort of moved in a different direction than I have. Because I sort of went through the gear thing and feel that I'm out the other side. 

Jape - Yeah. It's, Yeah. It's funny you should say that one. that can be the thing that, 
And a guy had uh, he had an E M T. Proper reverb, right? The EMT reverb is absolutely beautiful reverb, and he had the plugin of the same reverb and that's what he was using rather than using the actual reverb.

And I was laughing with him and he's like, it kind of feels like, because I have the 

actual thing I. I'm allowed to use the plugin, you know, and I was just 

alright, okay. 
Yeah, huge amount of difference. Like I have a Curvebender, their eq, which is probably the most expensive thing in the studio, and I had the plugin as well, I tried to convince myself there's a huge difference. But if I'm really honest, I don't know if it's seven grand's worth of difference, you know? 

Paul - Yeah. Now, one of the future podcasts I've organised is for a lad called Simon Saywood, who builds, who works for a company called, who is the company called Analog Tube,who make Fairchild reproductions, like, you I seem to remember that the figure of 14 grand was mentioned, uh, in a stereo one. So I'm looking forward to having a with him and maybe an argument about the quality of plugins. 

Jape - But I would argue against that in one way is that I would argue that imperfection is the thing they don't get right. And the imperfection is the thing that actually makes the, the gear, like the non lilier distortion, the crazy that doesn't happen twice. you know, that that's stuff that's not modeled, that's on a day-to-day basis.

Look, I have a, I have a Manly vari-mu and the tubes, you know, they heat up, they sound different when they're, not, you can't get the same sound of it all the time, and that to me is why it's like a little bit more interesting than plugins. But in terms of like and butter, it's like painting, I suppose.

You know, like, it's like the type of paint you use. You can, you can argue about how the paint is you a ma, but at the end of the day it's still fucking yellow paint, you know? 

I think maybe when you me and you and you've, you've gone through the gear thing and I'm still kind of, I wouldn't say I'm still in it, but I've definitely got a lot of time for gear.

You sometimes wonder, you know, am I just like literally just arguing over thinking about this stuff on a level that's completely like insane, you know? 

Paul - Yeah. Now, I do think there is an argument for what I see behind you there uh, a modular synthesis up on the wall sent like, you know, things like that, that is the gear I would be interested in, in terms of uh, you know, but compressors, EQs, who cares, really? I know somebody cares, but can you, can you transmit, can you put on record 
that difference? 

Jape - But you know what you can do, right? There's this, there's this a French term that I heard years ago called Brecolage, right? And I think it was Thomas Bangore from Daft Punk was talking about it. And basically if you are using, like, it depends if you wanna have something like really pristine, Then I think plugins and stuff are away to go.

Right? But if you wanna do something that's really characterful, you should use like really shit stuff and really high end stuff and mix them together and use them for color. You 

Blend them. 

color and you choose the color, you know? And when you get to the point, when you know how to choose the color, it becomes then very, very subtle.

the subtleties then are basically what you only get over. Years of doing it, you can kind of hear the difference between a plugin and non, like there's some plugins where I can't hear the difference, but there's another, do you know Overstayer? You know that that company ...

Paul - Yes. 

Jape - ...have a modular stereo channel that's like a distortion thing.

It's kind of like a culture filter or something. And I have one of them and then I was using the soft tube. M a s the saturation stuff, the saturation doesn't hold a candle to the hardware unit, in my opinion. 

Paul - Right. 

Jape - You know, so there's some stuff they're getting right. And down the, down the road, maybe it'll be, it'll be equal, but the minute there's arguments. 

Paul - Yeah. Yeah. And really, isn't that, I mean, the reason why I call this podcast "One Way to Do It" was because there's a million ways to do it. And everybody's opinion is valid.

 Um, So. what do you use equipment wise compared to the first stuff? 
Like is because like it was so kind of of its time and Maybe the plane wasn't as good. And, you know, maybe all that sort of stuff. So, like, I didn't feel the link. I feel to the current, or the later stuff. Now, is that me? Is it you? Is it the combination?


 Is there a danger, then, with your engineer's head on? You won't be paying as much attention to the music. You know, that sort of balance. Like, I find... Go on.


  Those drum things have, have, have pickled me head there. I've never even heard of those.

So, in terms of the rest of your work, I mean, have you ever actually gone into a big studio and worked?

So, is it classic old France?

how do you go through all the options that a new studio, something like uh, black Box would offer you? Is that the problem with, a studio like that?

  new project or new record?

Are the songs, notes that you've uh, developed saying all is good with the world again, is that sort of, does it represent your development? Are you gone?

  trying. So this, uh, this is the inaugural event, So uh, uh, yeah, yeah, indeed. bad. The, I was gonna ask you about your new record and the, the, you see it, there's nine songs in it. Are they, you know, a development, a, a, a mental development.

I'm not asking this question very good. Uh, Oh no, you're, you're still there. You were just looking quizzical there. Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah. Like, what am I trying to say? These, these nine songs, are they starting from here on out? Do you know what I mean? In terms of uh, you mentioned mental illness the mental instability.

Like that's going to be an increasing event for musicians. Uh, in fact, uh, another,  The, uh, Thomas Mulcahy. He's just posted a thing about musicians. You know, the instability of musicians and the damage that can do to, to them. The other thing I was thinking of was.

Your earlier stuff, as well as direct references to, you know, assorted drug parties, et cetera, et cetera, and your admission of the sauce damage that may have been caused, because that was, that was one of the things I was thinking was, is this a man who has grown out of That early day stuff and it's currently in, you know, what age are you now, if you don't mind me asking you?

Forty six, okay, yeah. You, you, you, you, yeah, well, I'm sixty, so. We'll edit that bit out. Uh, like, expressing what I'm thinking.

  when I, I observe your, you know, public development as it were, and I compare that to my own, which was a case of, you know, I was working with a sort of bands, I didn't like them, so I just said, Oh, fuck it. Do you know what I mean? And, you know, which, perhaps isn't the best decision for bank accounts, but

uh,  Like I was chatting to Damien O'Neill from the Undertones. Who uh, previously was with that Petrel Emotion and don't know if you know, but I was working with that Petrel Emotion back in the day. And, Damien sort of made me think, like he's saying that they're really enjoying their current touring.

But, that at one stage, he was thinking about giving up music because of the financial pressures, blah, blah, blah. So, like. Have you ever been at that point? Do you think? This surprised me as well because, because, you know, they had lots of pop hits, etc, etc. You know, it was, you know, could be considered a big band of the time.

So

um,  Very good. Now let me just...