Dryvetyme Onlyne

After writing my review of 27 Rue De Mi’chelle, I wanted to chat a bit with Joel Piedt in hopes of catching a glimpse of what made the music of Carrousel so magical. Please enjoy this conversation.

APN: First of all, “27 Rue De Mi’chelle” is a truly beautiful record. The sonic atmosphere and production quality were both superb. How did you initially begin making music?

Joel Piedt (PT): Thanks very much for your kind words. I started playing back when I was in Middle School, but I’ve dreamed of making music for as long as I can remember. My older brother is one of the most talented musicians I know—he plays over 100 instruments, has 2 degrees in music—the whole works. I always tell people I got the leftovers. I never wanted to compete with him on a technical level, because I knew I’d never reach that level, either vocally or instrumentally. So I developed a really good ear and feel for music—the emotion of it all, which in turned developed into songwriting. I realized I didn’t have to be the best musician to play or sing the songs I wrote—because I wrote them for my voice, and no one could tell me what it should sound like. I found idea that very freeing, which eventually led to the sound you know as Carrousel—it just took awhile to get there!

APN: Part of your backstory is that you had a great job opportunity upon graduating college,  but you decided to turn it down and instead move to Florida to make music with your friends. I can’t imagine your parents were too happy about that. What motivated that decision? What was the job you turned down anyway?

JP: I was offered by a friend of mine to lead music at a church. I studied theology in college—so it was pretty perfect: I would get to play music, love people, and work with a good friend. But I just knew in my heart that’s not where I was supposed to be. After a lot of prayer and consideration, I decided that this was one of the few moments in life I could really focus on songwriting. My buddy Brad (with whom I had worked on solo records in the past) told me he was transferring to FSU in the Fall of ‘09. It was like a red carpet opened up for me, I just knew I was supposed to move to Tallahassee and give it a shot with him. And I knew I’d regret it the rest of my life if I didn’t. It ended up being one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, and it sure taught me about stepping out in faith. In the end, everything was provided—a job, a place to live, recording gear. It all just happened…

APN: Tell me about the creative process used to make the record? Did you come to your friends with a batch of songs and ask for help hashing them out? Does Carrousel write democratically? Do you lay lots of stuff to tape, and then clean up the tracks later, layering in what you want?

JP: Brad and I were the only 2 official members of the band, so we worked everything out between the 2 of us, then recruited friends to help out as needed (backing vox, horns, strings…). And we were very particular about what we wanted out of them, probably to an annoying degree! But whatever, it was fun.

Between Brad and me, I would generally come to him with a pretty fleshed out version of the song, and he would help me make finishing touches. He added some brilliant parts, most notably, the wonderful Rhodes line in “14,” the haunting piano in “27 rue de mi’chelle,” and most of the string parts throughout the record.

For the most part though, Brad served as the engineer, focusing on the details of sounds and levels. He was fantastic. I mostly served as the producer/visionary. I had very specific ideas about where the songs needed to go, and Brad was the perfect counterpart to help me flesh them out.

As far as layering goes, I made a lot of demos before we started the album proper, where I experimented with different instruments and layers. That’s where the Carrousel sound was formed. In fact, a lot of the material from the demos was used in the final version of the songs—because we fell in love with the way some of the takes sounded. That really added a nice overall effect: some songs have different material that was recorded months before, so there’s this time-warp kind of thing going on.