November 7, 2024 • 46 mins
Renowned sound designer and composer Lance Massey's journey from Manchester, Tennessee, to the vibrant soundscape of New York City is nothing short of extraordinary. This episode of Creativity Jijiji gets into the serendipitous twists that led Lance to become a key figure in the dynamic NYC commercial music scene. From his unexpected acceptance to Oberlin College, where he discovered a passion for electronic music and pioneering computer systems, to his exploration of his Appalachian musical roots, Lance shares personal stories that weave a rich tapestry of tradition and innovation.
Lance and I discuss the delicate balance between technology and emotion in music creation, reflecting on the diverse genres that influence our work, from old-time music to EDM. We highlight a significant project that marked our transition into advanced sonic montage techniques, showcasing the ever-changing landscape of music technology and the importance of early sound integration in the creative process.
Our conversation crescendos with exploring the collaborative spirit that fuels innovation. We share insights from the now-renowned T-Mobile global branding campaign, which was launched in partnership with branding agency Interbrand. This campaign ingeniously combined world vocals, digital pulses, music, sound design, and algorithmic composition to create a unifying global sonic experience.
With contributions from talented artists Tim Leitner and Mike Harvey, we present the T-Mobile musical track that evolved into the world music masterpiece, 'Hello Hola,' underlining the essence of creativity that transcends borders and genres.
Thanks for listening.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris Mchale (00:07):
Welcome to Creativity DigiDigi, where we
dive deep into the heart ofcreative innovation.
My name is Chris McHale andtoday, today, we have a
genuinely compelling guest and agood friend, someone who I've
known for years and I just love,lance Massey.
Lance Massey, lance is going totake us through his journey at
(00:32):
the intersection of music andtechnology, and this dude lives
at the intersection of music andtechnology.
We're going to trace hisAppalachian roots and his family
legacy that go back generations, and when I say generations, I
mean like four or five hundredyears.
We're also going to discuss oneof our proudest collaborations
(00:56):
the creation of the iconicringtone for telecommunications
giant T-Mobile, d-d-d-d-d.
Remember that?
I'm sure you do.
I heard it just the other day.
Join us as we uncover Lance'sunique perspectives on sound and
heritage and the evolvinglandscape of music in a
(01:17):
tech-driven world.
Let's go.
First of all, I want to welcomeLance, lance, welcome to the
show.
C get your Jijiji on, and I'dlike you to take us through if
(01:40):
you would.
I'd like you to take us throughif you would.
I mean, I consider there's noreal defined route to having a
creative career.
I think it's kind of theopposite.
I see it as a labyrinth.
So take us through yourlabyrinth, where you began and
how you ended up in New YorkCity making a living as a sound
(02:01):
designer making a living as asound designer.
Lance Massey (02:09):
reativity have to preface this story with the
history of my life is seeminglya history of dumb luck.
It's because, again, I was thispoor little redneck kid in the
middle of nowhere, tennessee,manchester, tennessee.
I took the ACTs, the collegeentrance exams, aced it.
No idea how I did it, I swearto God, I closed my eyes and
threw a dart and just scoredreally well.
(02:31):
But because of that, oberlin,oberlin College, slash
conservatory reached out to meand said hey, we'd like you to
apply Again.
Dumbass regnant kid, I neverthought that I wouldn't get in.
So it was the only college Iapplied to Somehow got in, so
great.
There I am, little redneck kid,suddenly in the middle of a
(02:52):
cornfield in Ohio, one of thebest schools in the world, and
in the basement of theconservatory they had an
electronic music studio, again,out of the blue it's.
It's like okay, let's see whatthis does.
And I fell in love.
The machines, the music, theart they had, like the early,
(03:14):
early, early computer musicsystems were still going on
there.
So it's like a you know, like,like what I was, like a fish to
baseball, right.
Chris Mchale (03:23):
Yeah, what technology was there?
Lance Massey (03:28):
Okay, have you ever heard of the Bell Labs
Alice machine?
Sure, sure, it was there.
Wow, we had it right All 256oscillators and all 256 bandpass
filters, wow.
And it had no operating system.
So there we go we're writing amusic operating system.
(03:48):
My professor, gary nelson, hadwritten a music programming
language based on apl for thexerox sigma 9, which I I would
probably crash.
It was the school's mainframeand I'd crash it at least once a
month.
So those were the digitalsystems.
Analog systems we had a PutneyVCS-3.
(04:11):
We had a beautiful Buchlasystem.
The big giant Moog that youalways see in those classic
1970s rock and roll shots hadone of those, all of them in the
same room.
We had tape machines with razorblades.
It was a blast and I wassurrounded.
I mean, I was definitely theidiot child in the room.
(04:33):
I was surrounded by suchbrilliant people and had a great
time.
Chris Mchale (04:39):
So just back me up one step though.
I mean, like when you went,just like music itself, like you
say, you applied to overlandand they, uh, they invited you
to apply, and I like the ideathat you applied to one college.
I think people make theirchoices too complicated
sometimes.
But um, how did?
Where did you connect withmusic?
(05:00):
I mean, you grew up, is thatappalachia?
Lance Massey (05:03):
Where are you growing up?
Well, okay, family history.
The Massey family has been inthe Appalachians for about the
past 400 years.
Wow, if actually this isanother 400 years.
That's like Indian territory itwas 1629 when we came over.
Wow, and there is a direct line.
(05:23):
There's been a massy in everywar French and Indian,
revolutionary, civil War, worldWar I, all the way up.
But our history is.
Let me go off on a tangent.
In a bit I took ethnomusicologyat Oberlin right Music of North
(05:44):
America.
I studied the same degree atthe University of West Waterston
.
In a bit, I tookethnomusicology at Oberlin right
Music of North America.
Chris Mchale (05:46):
I studied the same degree at the University of
West Waterston in South.
Lance Massey (05:48):
Africa, cool.
So I was studying music ofNorth America as part of the
ethnomusicology courses and onone of the pages in the book
there's this picture, this oldfiddle player, and I look at it
and I'm like, wait a minute,that's my dad's cousin ted.
Why is he in my textbook?
He's a fucking drunk.
(06:09):
So our family history is like.
I learned songs from my father,he learned them from his mother
, who learned them from heruncle, who learned them from his
grandfather back 400 years.
So we've been up in thosemountains doing those songs for
generations.
Chris Mchale (06:30):
What is one of those traditional songs that's
on your mind?
Lance Massey (06:34):
Well, this is not one of the classics, but the one
that always comes to my mindfirst is the I'll Fly Away One
glad morning when this life isover.
I'll fly away One glad morningwhen this life is over.
Hello Hola Anthem (06:47):
I'll fly away , yeah.
Chris Mchale (06:49):
I mean you're talking there.
When I was a kid, my fathergave me an Alan Lomax collection
10 records of Roots music.
I mean I absorbed that likewater when I was like 12 years
old.
Hello Hola Anthem (07:08):
Yeah, we had the same one.
Chris Mchale (07:10):
Yeah, over my career, I mean, I've always
referenced that.
I mean to me, if the musicisn't rooted there, there's
something wrong.
I don't care if you're writingfor a symphony orchestra or
you're sitting in front of agigantic antediluvian Moog.
Lance Massey (07:29):
There's an image.
Chris Mchale (07:30):
Yeah Well, I went to the Moog Museum in Asheville,
north Carolina, so that waslike a really amazing experience
to see the evolution of thatmachine.
Okay, you're in Oberlin, youend up with a piece of paper in
your hand and you're like, okay,what can I do?
And you went to New York City.
(07:51):
Is that the story?
Lance Massey (07:54):
Almost, almost.
I was going into my junior yearand, of course, oberlin's very
academic right.
So it's all this avant-gardeclassical music and I'm thinking
, two years I'm going to be outon the streets, how am I going
to make a living?
And literally the day that Iasked that question, keyboard
(08:14):
Magazine plopped on my desk andthere was a picture of Suzanne
Chiani on the cover with allthese synthesizers, making a
living with electronic music.
And I'm like, well, that's cool.
So I thought, man, so okay, I'mgoing to find out how she does
this.
And Oberlin had an internshipprogram in New York and they
(08:39):
said you can basically definewhat you want to do for a
semester.
So I said I want to work forher for a semester, went through
the paperwork, contacted herSomehow.
She ended up picking up thephone and actually talking to me
.
She said, okay, we'll send ademo tape and we'll see what we
can do.
That's a whole other story.
So I worked really, really hardon putting together this demo
(08:59):
reel, put it on a cassette, sentit off.
And then, years later, suzanneand I are sitting around over a
glass of wine and she said,lance, I got to ask you, how did
you have the fucking balls tosend me a blank demo tape and I
was like what she said yeah,yeah.
Chris Mchale (09:20):
It's like who's that guy?
John Cage, it's like a JohnCage moment.
Lance Massey (09:25):
And that's what she thought.
She thought this guy, okay,who's that guy?
John Cage, it's like a JohnCage moment.
And that's what she thought.
She thought this guy, okay,he's going to Oberlin and he's
got the nerve to send me a blanktape, got to try him out.
And I said to her no, I workedreally hard on that demo.
And then I said but I didrewind it so that there'd be no
bleed through it, right?
So you did rewind it before youplayed it, right?
Chris Mchale (09:48):
And she said oh no , there's a lesson for you,
young sound designers Send in ablank tape, don't sweat it.
So the thing about this wholesound design world I mean it's
really about the tools you knowand how you get them.
So that must have been a realuphill battle for you, because
(10:10):
right from the beginning youwere challenged to work with the
tools, and that never endsright, it still doesn't, it
still goes.
I want to get into the toolsyou're using now to do this work
.
But before we get there, wheredid you start?
What tools?
I mean, like, I've been toChiani's studio on 23rd, so it
was a great place.
(10:30):
I think Eddie Jouston ended upin that studio actually, but it
was a great place and you knowshe was on, you know, the edge.
You know, like most of thecommercial houses and music
houses in New York, you know itwas all about pushing the
technology.
You know, and you know Suzannecertainly positioned herself in
that marketplace, as you know,like state-of-the-art technology
(10:53):
.
So when you walked in there,what was there?
What was there and how did yougo about getting your hands
around it?
Lance Massey (11:00):
Okay, she was still on Park Avenue when I
started and there was theSinclair.
There was a Buchla in thecorner, a Prophet 5, on one side
, an Atari 24-track tape machineand that was it.
So really just the Sinclair,the Buchla and the Prophet 5
were the main tools, were themain tools.
(11:20):
And then she had, like this boxshe called it the voice box
which was basically an EvoTideharmonizer, a Bode vocoder, a
couple of delay lines.
Chris Mchale (11:30):
Those tools were amazing really.
Oh yeah, it doesn't sound likea lot of tools, but each of
those tools you mentioned werejust amazing and really haven't
been duplicated.
I mean the way it wasn't onlyabout the sounds that they were
creating, but it was the way themusicians interfaced with the
sound.
I mean, you got your hands onit, you could kind of see it
(11:52):
physically.
Lance Massey (11:53):
Oh yeah, you actually had to play the thing.
Chris Mchale (11:56):
You actually had to play the thing.
Yeah, I actually think thatthat's still the case.
To be honest with you, if I wasto give any advice to anybody
starting out in any form of acareer that involves music and
sound, I would say well, firstof all, take 10 years of piano
lessons, you know, or, if youcan't deal with that, 10 years
(12:20):
of guitar lessons.
But even if you take 10 yearsof guitar lessons, you better
take the piano lessons as well,because really that's the
typewriter of music and it'snever really changed.
I mean, you can hear it, thesounds are out there, but when
you hear sounds that are beingplayed by a player, it's very
different than sounds that areprogrammed by a player.
That's the way I see it.
(12:42):
So let's just like, let's gohere for a second, because what
we're talking about is atimeline that's been going on
for you, for you know, maybethree decades, because the
Chiani story is from the 80s.
The pace of development in thismusic and sound design
technology is incredible.
I mean it's incredible.
(13:03):
Yeah is incredible, I mean it'sincredible.
And so how do you keep up withthe latest developments of
what's going on?
What's your approach to thecontinuous learning curve you're
up against?
Lance Massey (13:17):
It's actually a personality quirk, it's just an
insatiable curiosity, right?
Just I.
I can't help myself.
It's like I mean, you can seethis mess behind me and even
though the screens are black, I,at last count, had about 20 000
plugins.
Wow, I usually spend an hour ortwo with each one, at minimum,
(13:42):
you know.
And then I figure out I've gota um, you can't see it here, but
I have a rolly seaboard right.
So, talking about playing, it'slike it's no longer just the key
well, you can see the, theregular keys, but the rolly and
aliveness to it, that's reallyhard to control.
Yeah, so I first I'll get aplug in with it, learn the
(14:03):
basics of it and thenimmediately attach it to the
rolly to see how far I can pushit.
I guess there are categories ofthings.
So in the old days it was allthe analog stuff filters,
oscillators, envelopes, right,that was it, love it.
Then samplers came along, andso now you've got filters,
(14:25):
oscillators, envelopes, but nowyou can go in and stretch the
sound, pitch the sound, reversethe sound, stretch the sound,
mix it with other sounds andthen play that through the other
stuff where it's like okay, nowwe can start running numbers
and generating really bizarrerandom sequences with these
(14:48):
things and use that and recordthat and use that as a sound and
then you get into physicalmodeling, right?
So there are these categories,there's analog and there's the
samplers and there's thephysical modeling.
Chris Mchale (15:04):
So I learn the basics of each one, and then I
read a crap ton of manuals.
Look, you and I havecollaborated on several really
cool projects, but the thingI've always loved about your
work is there's um, there's anelement of humanity to it.
You know, there really is,thank you, you know, which has
inspired me a lot as a writer,but it's, it's like there's.
You seem to have an ability tokind of take this process you're
(15:26):
talking about, but somehow itends up being, I don't know, a
lot of the stuff just brings asmile to my face.
To be honest with you, there'ssort of a bouncy joy to some of
the stuff you do that I reallylove.
I always connect with itcreatively and that tells me a
lot.
So there's got to be a pointwhere you just say I'm going to
play this shit or you'rereferencing it to like I'll fly
(15:47):
away, you kind of connect it all.
Lance Massey (15:50):
Okay, there are two things I reference in my
output.
So what I was just goingthrough was the learning process
, right Of like, how do I ingestall of this stuff?
But the output is alwaysfiltered through the energy of
old time music, right, so, andwhite gospel, specifically, like
(16:11):
old stephen foster, like gentleannie, or hard times come again
no more, or I'll fly away, orall that kind of stuff right,
there's that sort of level ofhistorical emotion, I call it.
It's like that is generationalvibe going on there.
And then the spirit of rock androll.
(16:32):
I mean, I grew up in the 60sand 70s right, and I loved all
the industrial stuff from the90s 2010 era.
Edm right, it's got this energyto it, and so there's always
that and I guess my most recentwould be Kygo of all people in
Tropical House, he's got thissort of intense spiritual energy
(16:58):
to it.
So those are the output filters.
For me, it's like I have thisprobably annoying technical
knowledge, but the output whatdid you say?
This annoying technicalknowledge, annoying.
Chris Mchale (17:16):
Well, you have to.
It's a way of thinking.
It's like what we were talkingabout.
It's really a way of thinking Idon't know how to explain to
people.
I did 11 years hard time in thevideo game industry after you
and I were working together inadvertising and you know I had
to really learn how to think onthe way they thought and it
(17:38):
really helped me.
But you know, it's sort of likeyou come face-to-face with the
technology and you have to kindof think, okay, how is this
working for me?
And somehow you have to put itin the context of yourself.
You know you have to kind ofmake it into your tool.
You know, not be beaten by thetool, but to set back,
(17:58):
understand.
I mean to me in a lot of ways,because I worked at a video game
studio that had, like you know,300 programmers and I hang out
with these guys.
You learn to see how they think, how they put their you met,
their critical thinking processinto their software.
So a lot of times when I'llstep back with a new tool, be
like, okay, what was this guythinking?
Or this, this girl thinking,somebody was somebody, human, is
(18:20):
behind her, is thinking like ahuman being.
You know, and you got to kindof find that humanity there,
which brings me to the nextsubject, which I think is, uh,
the ultimate subject to discussas a sound designer.
Sound designers are usuallyworking as part of a team.
You know, um, you working witha director, or you're working
(18:42):
with other musicians or aproducer, or you're working on a
show, and the process is likewe're working on the show, they
record the voice, you know, andwe're gonna get it all together.
Then we're gonna put in themusic and, um, I don't believe
in this process, but often thesound design comes towards the
end of that process.
Like, as a composer, I muchprefer when the sound design is
actually in place and, um, youknow it's, it's actually
(19:05):
actually.
Personally, it's really hardfor me to separate those two
elements.
You know, actually I wanted totalk about the, the, the uh,
this incredible project weworked on together, which was
birthed out of sound design, forwant of a better description.
You know, you were working withme and I saw you as a sound
designer.
I was making investments, as astudio owner, in your sound
(19:28):
design technology.
I think that, if I'm notmistaken, we purchased something
that grew into logic.
It wasn't called logic at thetime, but I remember.
I remember you coming to myoffice saying like I need this
tool e-magic notator, which thenbecame eMagic Logic, which then
got bought by Apple.
You kind of got in there and youcould wire it differently and
(19:50):
do all sorts of stuff.
Lance Massey (19:51):
You can still do that.
If you're crazy, logic stillhas that environment tucked way
in the back.
Chris Mchale (19:57):
Wow, where is it?
Lance Massey (19:58):
I don't even know where it is.
They call it the environmentand it's in one of the menus.
Chris Mchale (20:09):
And if you open it ?
Lance Massey (20:09):
up, you can scare yourself.
Oh wow, I actually didn'trealize that that was still
there.
It's still there, and what isthis 30 years later?
Chris Mchale (20:14):
you know, you could, you could accidentally
create a lot of glorious stuffthat way, messing around in
there.
That's happened for me becauseI'm not really a technician, so
I would be like, oh, that's notwhat was supposed to happen, but
you know, I kind of like thatyou know that's, that's a big
part of the process is beingbeing aware, right, right, it's
(20:36):
like you've got to be.
Lance Massey (20:37):
You've got to be down in the weeds and sitting at
50,000 feet at the same timewhile you're doing it.
So that's, I mean, I thinkthat's part of why we worked so
well together.
We could do that flip.
Chris Mchale (20:51):
I just was listening to my old college band
which had a synthesizer and weused to just plug it up
differently and go like, hey,that's cool, you know, there was
that kind of random physicalityand the environment had that
same thing.
So we were working together atmikhail barone and we got this
assignment from the uh, a bigbranding company called
(21:12):
interbrand, a global companythat the team we are working
with was based in switzerland, Ibelieve, and the client they
were working with was deutschetelekom, which was based in bonn
.
The assignment was to come upwith a what I call a sound mark
(21:33):
to help the transition ofdeutsche telekom, which was a
government agency basically thepost office, if you kind of want
to understand what it was andturned it into this incredibly
modern telecommunicationscompany that they rebranded as
T-Mobile.
So it was Deutsche Telekombecame Telekom Mobile, became
(21:53):
T-Mobile and Interbron, which isa brilliant brand company, took
this whole thing and created an, created an entire um visual
component and and a concept.
You know, they were veryconceptual thinkers and they
they sort of worked out thiswhole thing and they showed up
at our studio one day and handedus a brief which at the time,
(22:19):
and maybe even today, is stilllike wow, you know?
I mean, mean, I send out briefswhen I'm hiring people to do
work because I learned how to doit from those guys, but I never
get a brief from anybody thathires me to do work.
But it's such a great tool andI had some rules about this kind
of work.
(22:39):
I wanted a precise answer, avery conceptual answer.
We went to work on that, butwhen I handed you this brief,
take us through the process ofhow you got to where you got to
so many moving parts.
Lance Massey (22:53):
So the first thing was you had all these different
concepts right aboutcommunications and about sound
packets and about human voicesand about technology that you,
you brought to the table.
And then I met the guys frominterbrand and they came in with
like this huge, thick booksaying these are our colors,
(23:17):
these are the measurements,these are the ratios, these are.
You know, this is how big thepink tea is going to be in
relation to these gray squares.
We don't really know how manygray squares there's going to be
, but we know that they're grayand we know that they're going
to be interspersed with allthese pink teas and they're just
rattling all this stuff off.
I had my background in justmusic music, but also an
(23:39):
algorithmic composition from mycomputer days at Oberlin, but
also an algorithmic compositionfrom my computer days at Oberlin
.
And I was thinking, and then itwas either you or they who said
you know, we're kind ofimagining it like this 3D thing
with all these gray squaresswirling around with pink T's
interspersed in between them.
And again they said but wedon't know what order, so I put
(24:02):
on my algorithmic hat.
And again they said but wedon't know what order, so I put
on my algorithmic hat and then Iwas working with Seth Horowitz,
who was a PhD in neuroscienceat the time, specifically for
the audio cortex, and then justbasic music theory, and I said,
(24:23):
well, okay, we need to somehowpull all of this together.
We need to somehow pull all ofthis together and I ended up
just saying what if we assignedmiddle C to the gray square and
the E above it to the pink T,and then we can just have
ba-da-da-da-da, or we could haveba-da-da-da-da or
ba-da-da-da-da, you can havethem in any order, it doesn't
matter.
Chris Mchale (24:42):
Right, and I just want to clear this up for people
listening.
We are talking about theT-Mobile ringtone here, which
you hear all the time everywhereIf you're in an airport or
sitting on a subway, or sittingin a library trying to study,
and it annoyingly comes over.
I think we accidentally createdsomething that was very
intrusive and very noisy.
It has now been used.
(25:03):
I mean, I just heard it on at-mobile commercial just a
couple of days ago, so it's wellover 20 years it's.
It's been in circulation, so uhI still have the paperwork I
want to say this lance did thatlogo.
I mean, I walked into his studioat irving Place and I heard it.
(25:24):
I may have been the firstperson to heard it and you know
it came right out of his headinto my ears and I'm like, wow,
that's the thing.
The reason why I say that isbecause over the years, a lot of
people have been out thereclaiming that they made this
logo.
There's been companies thathave been built around.
We did the T-Mobile logo, it's.
You know, people can sayanything, I guess, these days,
but it's bullshit.
(25:45):
It comes out of this man'sbrain and it was an incredibly
successful creative event for usand, like I said, I like to be
hyper-focused and to look forone idea and like, literally, it
took me one second to hear thisthing and go like that's it,
we're done with that portion ofthe broker.
2.74 seconds actually, yeah 2.74seconds and I think you played
(26:11):
it live, I believe, on our sevenand a half foot yamaha piano.
Lance Massey (26:17):
I think that was the.
Yeah, the first time I playedit for anybody else was there.
I actually.
I actually put it together inlogic, right.
I was like, yeah, because I uhI think well, I've told you this
before too it's like underneathit, very, very, very quietly,
there's a pedal g, and that'swhat I worked out in the studio
(26:37):
before I played it for everybody, because I was like the, I said
that was, but it didn't haveany life to it, it was just kind
of flat, and then I put that Gjust ringing underneath it and
it just kind of lifted the wholething.
Chris Mchale (26:57):
You know, I did only hear that recently when you
told me that, obviously, excuseme, I've been working with that
quite a long time, listening tothat music in all its
applications, but I never heardthat before and it just makes
perfect sense.
So really, what it was wasthose notes which are five notes
or as many notes as neededreally, and that pedal G which
(27:22):
was really probably the secretsauce, probably the secret sauce
.
Lance Massey (27:27):
To me?
Yeah, it always has been.
It was the algorithm, well,also the neuroscience part of it
.
I was talking with Seth Wellmay he rest in peace and he
taught me about multimodalassociation and the ability to
associate the pink T with thatthird and those gray squares
(27:50):
with that middle C.
It was built in such a way thatif you see it and hear it just
once, you will never, everforget it.
Chris Mchale (28:00):
He was a brilliant man and dearly missed, very,
ever forget it.
He was a brilliant man anddearly missed.
Um, very.
I'd like to, uh, just quickly.
I'm going to play this piece ofmusic for us to listen to, but
before we get into it I justwant to quickly go over the
disparate parts, because there'sa lot going on in here and I
want people to kind of hear whatwe did.
We created something called awhat I I consider this a montage
technique and lance, and Iactually had been working
(28:22):
together on several projectswhere we were using this
approach of a montage piece,like he would just give me a
piece of music and then I wouldtake it and I would write some
poetry to it, basically or youknow spoken words sometimes and
there was sort of an inspirationgoing on there and then we
(28:43):
would cut that together.
We had a great mixer workingwith us, tim Leitner, who was
just really brilliant.
He worked on the T-Mobile piece, but he had already been
working on a lot of these otherpieces with us, so he kind of
knew our thinking and it was notabout it was compositional, but
it was really a composition wemade in the studio.
We would create despair parks.
(29:05):
So when we got this job fromT-Mobile, we were already sort
of thinking this way and I wasseeing the possibilities of
doing this as a matter of fact.
As a side note, I use a lot ofthose techniques in our radio
commercial advertising too.
I started recording voicesseparately and I didn't care,
(29:27):
just give me the parts and thenleave me in the room for like
three hours, you know, and I'llgive you the commercial back,
and I think a lot of our workwas successful because of that
technique.
But I I think with with thispiece, what concerned me.
I was a business owner, so partof it is a pitch.
So we had this incredible whatI consider an incredible uh logo
, sonic branding, trademark,soundmark, whatever you want to
call it and we built out fromthere.
(29:49):
So the other elements of thiscampaign were that it was
telecommunications, so I wasvery interested in finding a
unifying global word and someresearch in a library with my
daughter turned up the wordhello, which is common to all
languages and used to answer thephone in almost every culture
on earth, and I believe thatthat was because of Hollywood
(30:12):
films.
Actually, because you look atall those 30 Hollywood films,
they're like hello.
So it became a thing hello youknow, hola you know, and there
were Chinese words.
Everything kind of broke downto that basic word, hello, in
different accents and that.
So that was one thing.
Another thing I got in myshorts was, uh, the idea of
(30:32):
vowels, because I thought likethat must be a universal thing,
like I lived all over the world.
So it was like there's allthese different languages and
the length, the differences tendto uh, be around the consonants
.
But the vowels are sort ofuniversal.
They're pronounced more or lessthe same way, produced more or
less the same way with the voice, and some languages have taken
(30:56):
the element of vowels, likeChinese, and elevated it to an R
form, know, so that the a soundcan mean everything from.
Hello Hola Anthem (31:07):
I'm going to kill you to.
I want to love you, you know Imean it's like incredible how
they do that, um.
Chris Mchale (31:13):
So, you know, I got hung up there and then there
was this, uh, this techniquecalled glossophilia, which is a
technique I learned from thecocktooth trends.
She would go into the studioand just basically make up words
and I had been trying to writesome lyrics that would be global
.
I looked at a couple ofdifferent you know, esperanto, a
couple of different languages,but nonetheless I wanted to kind
(31:35):
of go beyond that.
So we made up a made-uplanguage.
Then we had the other elementwhich was important, which you
and I had been exploring already.
I was completely addicted toterry riley's nc and I would
walk around new york city withthis thing on, which is better
than uh, drugs, to be honestwith you and uh, um, so this
(31:55):
idea of pulses, you know,building up a, a thing of pulses
, that's a bunch of elements wehad.
We had the word, we had theglossophilia, we had the pulses.
I wanted the world music andyou know I want.
I want to talk about that onesecond.
There's one other magicalelement.
But before we get to that, talkto me about the world music,
because we had a.
You know, it was obvious wewere doing a global piece of
(32:18):
marketing, a global piece of topower.
This company and I spent timestudying music in africa, so I
sort of had african roots tolook at.
So how did you approach theworld music?
Part of this because you builta intense, as you'll hear in a
minute, a really beautifulrhythmic track.
How did you go about that?
Lance Massey (32:34):
so I started with the um, the concept of the audio
, the, the, the informationpackets is the way you described
it to me communication packets,so these little packets of
communication running around theworld.
So I actually started with that, just the little boops and bops
going boop-da-koop,boop-da-boop-da, boop-da-boop-da
, boop-da-boop-da, right.
(32:55):
Then on top of that somebodyhad mentioned there was a
bicycle team and I thought, well, that's cool.
So I basically used someshakers and did some sound
design to emulate the sound of abicycle team, right.
So I kept that rhythm going.
(33:16):
So that felt good.
But then I was thinking thething that's going to set it off
for world music to me was goingto be the bass line, and so I
leaned heavily into.
It was sort of a mix betweenreggae and what very little I
knew of Kenyan music at the time, the way the basses and the
(33:38):
guitars kind of roll, yeah.
And then I just sat down andplayed it.
I used a pentatonic scalebecause, again, it's universal.
That's pretty much the story ofthe world music, part of it,
for me well, the missing magicalelement was mike harvey.
Chris Mchale (33:55):
Okay, who?
Lance Massey (33:57):
uh is that's, that's your part, that's your
part of the world music.
You thought of mike and youthought of okay, let's throw
mike into this thing.
Chris Mchale (34:04):
And well, yeah, take it up a notch mike is, mike
is I believe I've said this tohim.
He doesn't ever buy this, but Ibelieve mike is is probably the
best vocal arranger I've everworked with.
I mean, he is extraordinary inthe studio, um, and he is
incredibly conceptual as well.
I mean, basically, he gets it.
(34:25):
I don't know what else to say Aguy like me.
I'm always working from aconceptual perspective and Mike
would just listen to me and golike, oh okay, oh yeah,
glossophilia, I get it.
And we were literally writingwords out on a napkin and he was
going into the vocal booth andsinging.
Lance Massey (34:42):
I remember that session, that was magic.
Chris Mchale (34:47):
And he got the idea of the pulses, what I
wanted to do, and he drove thisentire piece with his music.
He kind of brought it together.
So that really kind of sums up.
I want to play this.
Lance Massey (35:01):
It's really worth listening to.
Wait, wait, wait.
You left out the guitar part.
Again, another one of yourideas.
Chris Mchale (35:05):
Oh, let's talk about the guitar part.
Lance Massey (35:06):
Yeah, I don't know who you hired.
I just know that you said weneed a guitar part and it needs
to be ethnic right, somethingAfrican Well.
Chris Mchale (35:18):
I was more precise than that, because I lived in
Johannesburg and I studiedguitar with Cyril Mbobani, who
was a fantastic, absolutelyiconic African guitar player.
I kind of knew the townshipmusic so I kind of knew what I
wanted.
I'm not sure who he brought ineither, but the player we
(35:38):
brought in got it.
Probably, you know, knowing us,it was probably some authentic
player.
If you're out there, player,please reach out to me because I
would love to give you credit,because the guitar part was like
just that was the final icingon the cake.
Lance Massey (35:54):
It's like I laid the basic foundation, which was
okay, right, it was a nice,solid foundation.
Mike took it to another leveland I remember this you were
sitting there saying it needssomething else and then you
popped up and you said guitar,it needs African guitar, yeah,
(36:16):
and you brought this guy in andit just closed the deal.
It was beautiful.
Chris Mchale (36:21):
Yeah, it was a global piece of music.
Let's take a second to listento this thing.
Hello Hola Anthem (36:43):
Hey, hello, hello, hello.
Hey, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello.
(37:47):
Hey, hello, hello, hello.
Hey, hello, hello, hello.
Hey, hello, hello, hello.
Hey, hello, hello, hello.
Hey, hello, hello, hello, hey,hello, hello, hello.
Thank you.
Hello, hello, hello, hello,hello, hello, hello, hello,
(38:24):
hello, hello, hello, hello,hello, hello, hello, hello,
hello, hello, hello, hello,hello, hello, hello, hello,
hello, hello, hello, hello,hello, hello, hello, hello,
(38:47):
hello, hello, hello, hello,hello, hello, hello, hello.
E-i-o-e-o-n-o-i-e-i-o-n-o-i-n-o.
I'm ready to, I'm ready to, I'mready to, I'm ready to.
Hey, hey, hello, hello, hey,hey, hello, hello, hello.
(39:13):
Hey, hey, hello, hello, hey,hey, hola, hey, hey, hey, hey,
hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,
hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,
hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,
hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,
(39:35):
hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,hey, hey, hey.
One of the keys is presentingyour work.
Chris Mchale (40:00):
I think about that a lot.
Obviously, I'm a marketing guy,so I'm always looking to
present.
What you heard just then waswhat I would, in the crudest
fashion, I would call a sonicPowerPoint.
The entire presentation wasabout presenting that logo, that
little da-da-da-da-da.
That's what it was all about.
And, um, I think the reason whyit was so successful and I
(40:23):
think the reason why um it, itcreated the revenue it created
was because of the presentation,because we didn't just send in
five notes.
What we did, we, we sent thisthing in the middle of a
gorgeous context.
You know, like, this is wherethis is coming from.
We gave it context and it's socritical, um, if you're talking
(40:46):
about making a living in any,any facet of of your, of
creative work, the presentation,don't just like send your shit
in like we used to.
I used to work at anadvertising agency when I would
run these little mnemonic whatthey used to call mnemonics
corporate acoustics, and wewould get like 200.
(41:08):
It was ridiculous.
Every composer I asked to sendme something would send me 30 or
40.
It was just like bullshit.
I mean, it really was bullshit.
We sent in one, we sent in onelogo, that's like me and my
college application.
Yeah, exactly that's why Iresponded to that, or the blank
tape.
(41:28):
It's like you know what.
In a way, it's kind of like letthe angels just take it over
for you.
This is our logo and this ishow we're hearing it Because, as
you said, it was veryconceptual.
I'm a conceptual producer andthey were a conceptual client
and you're a conceptual sounddesigner and composer and it was
(41:50):
important to us to say likethis is our concept.
I mean, it's not just this logo, it's this whole thing.
And that turned into actually arecording contract with BMG and
an entire record, clan Chi andall sorts of stuff.
And, more than anything, it'sstill on the air today and still
as powerful as ever.
And I don't think many peoplehave heard that music, but,
(42:12):
believe me, when they heard thatmusic at Interbron, it sort of
blew them through the back wall.
So, take the time to take yourprecious ideas, you know, think
them through, you know, figureit out.
Don't.
Don't just like start sittingdown in front of a computer and
start composing shit like stepback and and get an idea.
(42:32):
You know, yes, I'm an agencytrained, creative in a lot of
ways, and you know I worked witha guy called keith reinhardt,
who was a marketing genius inhis way, and and it was all
about the big idea.
You know what's the big idea?
You're looking for the big idea.
Well, our big idea were thesefive notes, but we wanted to
show how big of an idea our ideawas.
(42:55):
You know, this was a piece that, uh, you know, and we broke it
down into disparate parts andsaid you can use this piece and
you use that piece, you can doall the different pieces,
because we had worked with amusical montage technique.
What we did, we put all thistogether and then we all left
the studio and we left it in thehands of Tim Leitner, who was a
(43:15):
genius at this stuff, and wecame back into the studio I
don't know how many hours laterAt the speed we were, probably
only a couple hours later but wewalked in and we heard what you
just heard.
I mean, it was like that's it.
It came together.
I don't think we made any morechanges from what you hear right
there.
Lance Massey (43:34):
I don't remember any revisions.
Chris Mchale (43:36):
Yeah, we're done, and we sent it off and two weeks
later I'm on a plane with mypartner, joe Barone, to Germany
to cut a deal.
It's just so important.
Every success I've had as awriter, as a musician, whatever
I get up to, has always beenpresented in a way that just
(43:59):
brings people in.
It's the candy store.
I mean.
We built this incredible pieceof ear candy to get this thing
done, and it's work that we canbe proud of all these years
later.
I've got to get Tim on this showand I've got to get Mike on
this show too, but I think thatthere was sort of a magic that
happened in that studio.
It was a magic studio and thatwas a piece of magic that we got
(44:24):
out of there.
That was really something else.
Yeah, Lance, I want to thankyou for joining us today.
It's my pleasure and that wrapsup this episode of Creativity
Jijiji.
I'm your host, Chris McHale,and I want to give a big thanks
to Lance Massey for joining usand sharing his insights into
(44:46):
the intersection of music andtechnology, and we hope you
enjoyed this journey ofcreativity and innovation.
Behind the scenes of thisincredibly complex world.
Before we go, before we go,check out Clan Chi.
Behind the scenes of thisincredibly complex world.
Before we go, before we go,check out Clan Chi.
(45:07):
We talked about it on the show.
It's the groundbreaking bandthat blended world influences
and electronic soundscapes andthat grew out of the T-Mobile
project.
Their album I See a Great Cityfeatures the anthem that
launched the telecommunicationsgiant, T-Mobile.
It's available on Apple Musicand streaming on Spotify.
It's awesome, it's unique, it'sreally something else, so give
(45:30):
it a listen.
Creativity Dijiji is producedby Studio Dijiji, where we're
passionate about bringing youcontent that celebrates the
creative process and to supportour ongoing projects, subscribe
to our site and our newsletterat studiojijiji.
io.
Thanks for tuning in and we'llsee you next time.
Welcome to Creativity DigiDigi, where we
dive deep into the heart ofcreative innovation.
My name is Chris McHale andtoday, today, we have a
genuinely compelling guest and agood friend, someone who I've
known for years and I just love,lance Massey.
Lance Massey, lance is going totake us through his journey at
(00:32):
the intersection of music andtechnology, and this dude lives
at the intersection of music andtechnology.
We're going to trace hisAppalachian roots and his family
legacy that go back generations, and when I say generations, I
mean like four or five hundredyears.
We're also going to discuss oneof our proudest collaborations
(00:56):
the creation of the iconicringtone for telecommunications
giant T-Mobile, d-d-d-d-d.
Remember that?
I'm sure you do.
I heard it just the other day.
Join us as we uncover Lance'sunique perspectives on sound and
heritage and the evolvinglandscape of music in a
(01:17):
tech-driven world.
Let's go.
First of all, I want to welcomeLance, lance, welcome to the
show.
C get your Jijiji on, and I'dlike you to take us through if
(01:40):
you would.
I'd like you to take us throughif you would.
I mean, I consider there's noreal defined route to having a
creative career.
I think it's kind of theopposite.
I see it as a labyrinth.
So take us through yourlabyrinth, where you began and
how you ended up in New YorkCity making a living as a sound
(02:01):
designer making a living as asound designer.
Lance Massey (02:09):
reativity have to preface this story with the
history of my life is seeminglya history of dumb luck.
It's because, again, I was thispoor little redneck kid in the
middle of nowhere, tennessee,manchester, tennessee.
I took the ACTs, the collegeentrance exams, aced it.
No idea how I did it, I swearto God, I closed my eyes and
threw a dart and just scoredreally well.
(02:31):
But because of that, oberlin,oberlin College, slash
conservatory reached out to meand said hey, we'd like you to
apply Again.
Dumbass regnant kid, I neverthought that I wouldn't get in.
So it was the only college Iapplied to Somehow got in, so
great.
There I am, little redneck kid,suddenly in the middle of a
(02:52):
cornfield in Ohio, one of thebest schools in the world, and
in the basement of theconservatory they had an
electronic music studio, again,out of the blue it's.
It's like okay, let's see whatthis does.
And I fell in love.
The machines, the music, theart they had, like the early,
(03:14):
early, early computer musicsystems were still going on
there.
So it's like a you know, like,like what I was, like a fish to
baseball, right.
Chris Mchale (03:23):
Yeah, what technology was there?
Lance Massey (03:28):
Okay, have you ever heard of the Bell Labs
Alice machine?
Sure, sure, it was there.
Wow, we had it right All 256oscillators and all 256 bandpass
filters, wow.
And it had no operating system.
So there we go we're writing amusic operating system.
(03:48):
My professor, gary nelson, hadwritten a music programming
language based on apl for thexerox sigma 9, which I I would
probably crash.
It was the school's mainframeand I'd crash it at least once a
month.
So those were the digitalsystems.
Analog systems we had a PutneyVCS-3.
(04:11):
We had a beautiful Buchlasystem.
The big giant Moog that youalways see in those classic
1970s rock and roll shots hadone of those, all of them in the
same room.
We had tape machines with razorblades.
It was a blast and I wassurrounded.
I mean, I was definitely theidiot child in the room.
(04:33):
I was surrounded by suchbrilliant people and had a great
time.
Chris Mchale (04:39):
So just back me up one step though.
I mean, like when you went,just like music itself, like you
say, you applied to overlandand they, uh, they invited you
to apply, and I like the ideathat you applied to one college.
I think people make theirchoices too complicated
sometimes.
But um, how did?
Where did you connect withmusic?
(05:00):
I mean, you grew up, is thatappalachia?
Lance Massey (05:03):
Where are you growing up?
Well, okay, family history.
The Massey family has been inthe Appalachians for about the
past 400 years.
Wow, if actually this isanother 400 years.
That's like Indian territory itwas 1629 when we came over.
Wow, and there is a direct line.
(05:23):
There's been a massy in everywar French and Indian,
revolutionary, civil War, worldWar I, all the way up.
But our history is.
Let me go off on a tangent.
In a bit I took ethnomusicologyat Oberlin right Music of North
(05:44):
America.
I studied the same degree atthe University of West Waterston
.
In a bit, I tookethnomusicology at Oberlin right
Music of North America.
Chris Mchale (05:46):
I studied the same degree at the University of
West Waterston in South.
Lance Massey (05:48):
Africa, cool.
So I was studying music ofNorth America as part of the
ethnomusicology courses and onone of the pages in the book
there's this picture, this oldfiddle player, and I look at it
and I'm like, wait a minute,that's my dad's cousin ted.
Why is he in my textbook?
He's a fucking drunk.
(06:09):
So our family history is like.
I learned songs from my father,he learned them from his mother
, who learned them from heruncle, who learned them from his
grandfather back 400 years.
So we've been up in thosemountains doing those songs for
generations.
Chris Mchale (06:30):
What is one of those traditional songs that's
on your mind?
Lance Massey (06:34):
Well, this is not one of the classics, but the one
that always comes to my mindfirst is the I'll Fly Away One
glad morning when this life isover.
I'll fly away One glad morningwhen this life is over.
Hello Hola Anthem (06:47):
I'll fly away , yeah.
Chris Mchale (06:49):
I mean you're talking there.
When I was a kid, my fathergave me an Alan Lomax collection
10 records of Roots music.
I mean I absorbed that likewater when I was like 12 years
old.
Hello Hola Anthem (07:08):
Yeah, we had the same one.
Chris Mchale (07:10):
Yeah, over my career, I mean, I've always
referenced that.
I mean to me, if the musicisn't rooted there, there's
something wrong.
I don't care if you're writingfor a symphony orchestra or
you're sitting in front of agigantic antediluvian Moog.
Lance Massey (07:29):
There's an image.
Chris Mchale (07:30):
Yeah Well, I went to the Moog Museum in Asheville,
north Carolina, so that waslike a really amazing experience
to see the evolution of thatmachine.
Okay, you're in Oberlin, youend up with a piece of paper in
your hand and you're like, okay,what can I do?
And you went to New York City.
(07:51):
Is that the story?
Lance Massey (07:54):
Almost, almost.
I was going into my junior yearand, of course, oberlin's very
academic right.
So it's all this avant-gardeclassical music and I'm thinking
, two years I'm going to be outon the streets, how am I going
to make a living?
And literally the day that Iasked that question, keyboard
(08:14):
Magazine plopped on my desk andthere was a picture of Suzanne
Chiani on the cover with allthese synthesizers, making a
living with electronic music.
And I'm like, well, that's cool.
So I thought, man, so okay, I'mgoing to find out how she does
this.
And Oberlin had an internshipprogram in New York and they
(08:39):
said you can basically definewhat you want to do for a
semester.
So I said I want to work forher for a semester, went through
the paperwork, contacted herSomehow.
She ended up picking up thephone and actually talking to me
.
She said, okay, we'll send ademo tape and we'll see what we
can do.
That's a whole other story.
So I worked really, really hardon putting together this demo
(08:59):
reel, put it on a cassette, sentit off.
And then, years later, suzanneand I are sitting around over a
glass of wine and she said,lance, I got to ask you, how did
you have the fucking balls tosend me a blank demo tape and I
was like what she said yeah,yeah.
Chris Mchale (09:20):
It's like who's that guy?
John Cage, it's like a JohnCage moment.
Lance Massey (09:25):
And that's what she thought.
She thought this guy, okay,who's that guy?
John Cage, it's like a JohnCage moment.
And that's what she thought.
She thought this guy, okay,he's going to Oberlin and he's
got the nerve to send me a blanktape, got to try him out.
And I said to her no, I workedreally hard on that demo.
And then I said but I didrewind it so that there'd be no
bleed through it, right?
So you did rewind it before youplayed it, right?
Chris Mchale (09:48):
And she said oh no , there's a lesson for you,
young sound designers Send in ablank tape, don't sweat it.
So the thing about this wholesound design world I mean it's
really about the tools you knowand how you get them.
So that must have been a realuphill battle for you, because
(10:10):
right from the beginning youwere challenged to work with the
tools, and that never endsright, it still doesn't, it
still goes.
I want to get into the toolsyou're using now to do this work
.
But before we get there, wheredid you start?
What tools?
I mean, like, I've been toChiani's studio on 23rd, so it
was a great place.
(10:30):
I think Eddie Jouston ended upin that studio actually, but it
was a great place and you knowshe was on, you know, the edge.
You know, like most of thecommercial houses and music
houses in New York, you know itwas all about pushing the
technology.
You know, and you know Suzannecertainly positioned herself in
that marketplace, as you know,like state-of-the-art technology
(10:53):
.
So when you walked in there,what was there?
What was there and how did yougo about getting your hands
around it?
Lance Massey (11:00):
Okay, she was still on Park Avenue when I
started and there was theSinclair.
There was a Buchla in thecorner, a Prophet 5, on one side
, an Atari 24-track tape machineand that was it.
So really just the Sinclair,the Buchla and the Prophet 5
were the main tools, were themain tools.
(11:20):
And then she had, like this boxshe called it the voice box
which was basically an EvoTideharmonizer, a Bode vocoder, a
couple of delay lines.
Chris Mchale (11:30):
Those tools were amazing really.
Oh yeah, it doesn't sound likea lot of tools, but each of
those tools you mentioned werejust amazing and really haven't
been duplicated.
I mean the way it wasn't onlyabout the sounds that they were
creating, but it was the way themusicians interfaced with the
sound.
I mean, you got your hands onit, you could kind of see it
(11:52):
physically.
Lance Massey (11:53):
Oh yeah, you actually had to play the thing.
Chris Mchale (11:56):
You actually had to play the thing.
Yeah, I actually think thatthat's still the case.
To be honest with you, if I wasto give any advice to anybody
starting out in any form of acareer that involves music and
sound, I would say well, firstof all, take 10 years of piano
lessons, you know, or, if youcan't deal with that, 10 years
(12:20):
of guitar lessons.
But even if you take 10 yearsof guitar lessons, you better
take the piano lessons as well,because really that's the
typewriter of music and it'snever really changed.
I mean, you can hear it, thesounds are out there, but when
you hear sounds that are beingplayed by a player, it's very
different than sounds that areprogrammed by a player.
That's the way I see it.
(12:42):
So let's just like, let's gohere for a second, because what
we're talking about is atimeline that's been going on
for you, for you know, maybethree decades, because the
Chiani story is from the 80s.
The pace of development in thismusic and sound design
technology is incredible.
I mean it's incredible.
(13:03):
Yeah is incredible, I mean it'sincredible.
And so how do you keep up withthe latest developments of
what's going on?
What's your approach to thecontinuous learning curve you're
up against?
Lance Massey (13:17):
It's actually a personality quirk, it's just an
insatiable curiosity, right?
Just I.
I can't help myself.
It's like I mean, you can seethis mess behind me and even
though the screens are black, I,at last count, had about 20 000
plugins.
Wow, I usually spend an hour ortwo with each one, at minimum,
(13:42):
you know.
And then I figure out I've gota um, you can't see it here, but
I have a rolly seaboard right.
So, talking about playing, it'slike it's no longer just the key
well, you can see the, theregular keys, but the rolly and
aliveness to it, that's reallyhard to control.
Yeah, so I first I'll get aplug in with it, learn the
(14:03):
basics of it and thenimmediately attach it to the
rolly to see how far I can pushit.
I guess there are categories ofthings.
So in the old days it was allthe analog stuff filters,
oscillators, envelopes, right,that was it, love it.
Then samplers came along, andso now you've got filters,
(14:25):
oscillators, envelopes, but nowyou can go in and stretch the
sound, pitch the sound, reversethe sound, stretch the sound,
mix it with other sounds andthen play that through the other
stuff where it's like okay, nowwe can start running numbers
and generating really bizarrerandom sequences with these
(14:48):
things and use that and recordthat and use that as a sound and
then you get into physicalmodeling, right?
So there are these categories,there's analog and there's the
samplers and there's thephysical modeling.
Chris Mchale (15:04):
So I learn the basics of each one, and then I
read a crap ton of manuals.
Look, you and I havecollaborated on several really
cool projects, but the thingI've always loved about your
work is there's um, there's anelement of humanity to it.
You know, there really is,thank you, you know, which has
inspired me a lot as a writer,but it's, it's like there's.
You seem to have an ability tokind of take this process you're
(15:26):
talking about, but somehow itends up being, I don't know, a
lot of the stuff just brings asmile to my face.
To be honest with you, there'ssort of a bouncy joy to some of
the stuff you do that I reallylove.
I always connect with itcreatively and that tells me a
lot.
So there's got to be a pointwhere you just say I'm going to
play this shit or you'rereferencing it to like I'll fly
(15:47):
away, you kind of connect it all.
Lance Massey (15:50):
Okay, there are two things I reference in my
output.
So what I was just goingthrough was the learning process
, right Of like, how do I ingestall of this stuff?
But the output is alwaysfiltered through the energy of
old time music, right, so, andwhite gospel, specifically, like
(16:11):
old stephen foster, like gentleannie, or hard times come again
no more, or I'll fly away, orall that kind of stuff right,
there's that sort of level ofhistorical emotion, I call it.
It's like that is generationalvibe going on there.
And then the spirit of rock androll.
(16:32):
I mean, I grew up in the 60sand 70s right, and I loved all
the industrial stuff from the90s 2010 era.
Edm right, it's got this energyto it, and so there's always
that and I guess my most recentwould be Kygo of all people in
Tropical House, he's got thissort of intense spiritual energy
(16:58):
to it.
So those are the output filters.
For me, it's like I have thisprobably annoying technical
knowledge, but the output whatdid you say?
This annoying technicalknowledge, annoying.
Chris Mchale (17:16):
Well, you have to.
It's a way of thinking.
It's like what we were talkingabout.
It's really a way of thinking Idon't know how to explain to
people.
I did 11 years hard time in thevideo game industry after you
and I were working together inadvertising and you know I had
to really learn how to think onthe way they thought and it
(17:38):
really helped me.
But you know, it's sort of likeyou come face-to-face with the
technology and you have to kindof think, okay, how is this
working for me?
And somehow you have to put itin the context of yourself.
You know you have to kind ofmake it into your tool.
You know, not be beaten by thetool, but to set back,
(17:58):
understand.
I mean to me in a lot of ways,because I worked at a video game
studio that had, like you know,300 programmers and I hang out
with these guys.
You learn to see how they think, how they put their you met,
their critical thinking processinto their software.
So a lot of times when I'llstep back with a new tool, be
like, okay, what was this guythinking?
Or this, this girl thinking,somebody was somebody, human, is
(18:20):
behind her, is thinking like ahuman being.
You know, and you got to kindof find that humanity there,
which brings me to the nextsubject, which I think is, uh,
the ultimate subject to discussas a sound designer.
Sound designers are usuallyworking as part of a team.
You know, um, you working witha director, or you're working
(18:42):
with other musicians or aproducer, or you're working on a
show, and the process is likewe're working on the show, they
record the voice, you know, andwe're gonna get it all together.
Then we're gonna put in themusic and, um, I don't believe
in this process, but often thesound design comes towards the
end of that process.
Like, as a composer, I muchprefer when the sound design is
actually in place and, um, youknow it's, it's actually
(19:05):
actually.
Personally, it's really hardfor me to separate those two
elements.
You know, actually I wanted totalk about the, the, the uh,
this incredible project weworked on together, which was
birthed out of sound design, forwant of a better description.
You know, you were working withme and I saw you as a sound
designer.
I was making investments, as astudio owner, in your sound
(19:28):
design technology.
I think that, if I'm notmistaken, we purchased something
that grew into logic.
It wasn't called logic at thetime, but I remember.
I remember you coming to myoffice saying like I need this
tool e-magic notator, which thenbecame eMagic Logic, which then
got bought by Apple.
You kind of got in there and youcould wire it differently and
(19:50):
do all sorts of stuff.
Lance Massey (19:51):
You can still do that.
If you're crazy, logic stillhas that environment tucked way
in the back.
Chris Mchale (19:57):
Wow, where is it?
Lance Massey (19:58):
I don't even know where it is.
They call it the environmentand it's in one of the menus.
Chris Mchale (20:09):
And if you open it ?
Lance Massey (20:09):
up, you can scare yourself.
Oh wow, I actually didn'trealize that that was still
there.
It's still there, and what isthis 30 years later?
Chris Mchale (20:14):
you know, you could, you could accidentally
create a lot of glorious stuffthat way, messing around in
there.
That's happened for me becauseI'm not really a technician, so
I would be like, oh, that's notwhat was supposed to happen, but
you know, I kind of like thatyou know that's, that's a big
part of the process is beingbeing aware, right, right, it's
(20:36):
like you've got to be.
Lance Massey (20:37):
You've got to be down in the weeds and sitting at
50,000 feet at the same timewhile you're doing it.
So that's, I mean, I thinkthat's part of why we worked so
well together.
We could do that flip.
Chris Mchale (20:51):
I just was listening to my old college band
which had a synthesizer and weused to just plug it up
differently and go like, hey,that's cool, you know, there was
that kind of random physicalityand the environment had that
same thing.
So we were working together atmikhail barone and we got this
assignment from the uh, a bigbranding company called
(21:12):
interbrand, a global companythat the team we are working
with was based in switzerland, Ibelieve, and the client they
were working with was deutschetelekom, which was based in bonn
.
The assignment was to come upwith a what I call a sound mark
(21:33):
to help the transition ofdeutsche telekom, which was a
government agency basically thepost office, if you kind of want
to understand what it was andturned it into this incredibly
modern telecommunicationscompany that they rebranded as
T-Mobile.
So it was Deutsche Telekombecame Telekom Mobile, became
(21:53):
T-Mobile and Interbron, which isa brilliant brand company, took
this whole thing and created an, created an entire um visual
component and and a concept.
You know, they were veryconceptual thinkers and they
they sort of worked out thiswhole thing and they showed up
at our studio one day and handedus a brief which at the time,
(22:19):
and maybe even today, is stilllike wow, you know?
I mean, mean, I send out briefswhen I'm hiring people to do
work because I learned how to doit from those guys, but I never
get a brief from anybody thathires me to do work.
But it's such a great tool andI had some rules about this kind
of work.
(22:39):
I wanted a precise answer, avery conceptual answer.
We went to work on that, butwhen I handed you this brief,
take us through the process ofhow you got to where you got to
so many moving parts.
Lance Massey (22:53):
So the first thing was you had all these different
concepts right aboutcommunications and about sound
packets and about human voicesand about technology that you,
you brought to the table.
And then I met the guys frominterbrand and they came in with
like this huge, thick booksaying these are our colors,
(23:17):
these are the measurements,these are the ratios, these are.
You know, this is how big thepink tea is going to be in
relation to these gray squares.
We don't really know how manygray squares there's going to be
, but we know that they're grayand we know that they're going
to be interspersed with allthese pink teas and they're just
rattling all this stuff off.
I had my background in justmusic music, but also an
(23:39):
algorithmic composition from mycomputer days at Oberlin, but
also an algorithmic compositionfrom my computer days at Oberlin
.
And I was thinking, and then itwas either you or they who said
you know, we're kind ofimagining it like this 3D thing
with all these gray squaresswirling around with pink T's
interspersed in between them.
And again they said but wedon't know what order, so I put
(24:02):
on my algorithmic hat.
And again they said but wedon't know what order, so I put
on my algorithmic hat and then Iwas working with Seth Horowitz,
who was a PhD in neuroscienceat the time, specifically for
the audio cortex, and then justbasic music theory, and I said,
(24:23):
well, okay, we need to somehowpull all of this together.
We need to somehow pull all ofthis together and I ended up
just saying what if we assignedmiddle C to the gray square and
the E above it to the pink T,and then we can just have
ba-da-da-da-da, or we could haveba-da-da-da-da or
ba-da-da-da-da, you can havethem in any order, it doesn't
matter.
Chris Mchale (24:42):
Right, and I just want to clear this up for people
listening.
We are talking about theT-Mobile ringtone here, which
you hear all the time everywhereIf you're in an airport or
sitting on a subway, or sittingin a library trying to study,
and it annoyingly comes over.
I think we accidentally createdsomething that was very
intrusive and very noisy.
It has now been used.
(25:03):
I mean, I just heard it on at-mobile commercial just a
couple of days ago, so it's wellover 20 years it's.
It's been in circulation, so uhI still have the paperwork I
want to say this lance did thatlogo.
I mean, I walked into his studioat irving Place and I heard it.
(25:24):
I may have been the firstperson to heard it and you know
it came right out of his headinto my ears and I'm like, wow,
that's the thing.
The reason why I say that isbecause over the years, a lot of
people have been out thereclaiming that they made this
logo.
There's been companies thathave been built around.
We did the T-Mobile logo, it's.
You know, people can sayanything, I guess, these days,
but it's bullshit.
(25:45):
It comes out of this man'sbrain and it was an incredibly
successful creative event for usand, like I said, I like to be
hyper-focused and to look forone idea and like, literally, it
took me one second to hear thisthing and go like that's it,
we're done with that portion ofthe broker.
2.74 seconds actually, yeah 2.74seconds and I think you played
(26:11):
it live, I believe, on our sevenand a half foot yamaha piano.
Lance Massey (26:17):
I think that was the.
Yeah, the first time I playedit for anybody else was there.
I actually.
I actually put it together inlogic, right.
I was like, yeah, because I uhI think well, I've told you this
before too it's like underneathit, very, very, very quietly,
there's a pedal g, and that'swhat I worked out in the studio
(26:37):
before I played it for everybody, because I was like the, I said
that was, but it didn't haveany life to it, it was just kind
of flat, and then I put that Gjust ringing underneath it and
it just kind of lifted the wholething.
Chris Mchale (26:57):
You know, I did only hear that recently when you
told me that, obviously, excuseme, I've been working with that
quite a long time, listening tothat music in all its
applications, but I never heardthat before and it just makes
perfect sense.
So really, what it was wasthose notes which are five notes
or as many notes as neededreally, and that pedal G which
(27:22):
was really probably the secretsauce, probably the secret sauce
.
Lance Massey (27:27):
To me?
Yeah, it always has been.
It was the algorithm, well,also the neuroscience part of it
.
I was talking with Seth Wellmay he rest in peace and he
taught me about multimodalassociation and the ability to
associate the pink T with thatthird and those gray squares
(27:50):
with that middle C.
It was built in such a way thatif you see it and hear it just
once, you will never, everforget it.
Chris Mchale (28:00):
He was a brilliant man and dearly missed, very,
ever forget it.
He was a brilliant man anddearly missed.
Um, very.
I'd like to, uh, just quickly.
I'm going to play this piece ofmusic for us to listen to, but
before we get into it I justwant to quickly go over the
disparate parts, because there'sa lot going on in here and I
want people to kind of hear whatwe did.
We created something called awhat I I consider this a montage
technique and lance, and Iactually had been working
(28:22):
together on several projectswhere we were using this
approach of a montage piece,like he would just give me a
piece of music and then I wouldtake it and I would write some
poetry to it, basically or youknow spoken words sometimes and
there was sort of an inspirationgoing on there and then we
(28:43):
would cut that together.
We had a great mixer workingwith us, tim Leitner, who was
just really brilliant.
He worked on the T-Mobile piece, but he had already been
working on a lot of these otherpieces with us, so he kind of
knew our thinking and it was notabout it was compositional, but
it was really a composition wemade in the studio.
We would create despair parks.
(29:05):
So when we got this job fromT-Mobile, we were already sort
of thinking this way and I wasseeing the possibilities of
doing this as a matter of fact.
As a side note, I use a lot ofthose techniques in our radio
commercial advertising too.
I started recording voicesseparately and I didn't care,
(29:27):
just give me the parts and thenleave me in the room for like
three hours, you know, and I'llgive you the commercial back,
and I think a lot of our workwas successful because of that
technique.
But I I think with with thispiece, what concerned me.
I was a business owner, so partof it is a pitch.
So we had this incredible whatI consider an incredible uh logo
, sonic branding, trademark,soundmark, whatever you want to
call it and we built out fromthere.
(29:49):
So the other elements of thiscampaign were that it was
telecommunications, so I wasvery interested in finding a
unifying global word and someresearch in a library with my
daughter turned up the wordhello, which is common to all
languages and used to answer thephone in almost every culture
on earth, and I believe thatthat was because of Hollywood
(30:12):
films.
Actually, because you look atall those 30 Hollywood films,
they're like hello.
So it became a thing hello youknow, hola you know, and there
were Chinese words.
Everything kind of broke downto that basic word, hello, in
different accents and that.
So that was one thing.
Another thing I got in myshorts was, uh, the idea of
(30:32):
vowels, because I thought likethat must be a universal thing,
like I lived all over the world.
So it was like there's allthese different languages and
the length, the differences tendto uh, be around the consonants
.
But the vowels are sort ofuniversal.
They're pronounced more or lessthe same way, produced more or
less the same way with the voice, and some languages have taken
(30:56):
the element of vowels, likeChinese, and elevated it to an R
form, know, so that the a soundcan mean everything from.
Hello Hola Anthem (31:07):
I'm going to kill you to.
I want to love you, you know Imean it's like incredible how
they do that, um.
Chris Mchale (31:13):
So, you know, I got hung up there and then there
was this, uh, this techniquecalled glossophilia, which is a
technique I learned from thecocktooth trends.
She would go into the studioand just basically make up words
and I had been trying to writesome lyrics that would be global
.
I looked at a couple ofdifferent you know, esperanto, a
couple of different languages,but nonetheless I wanted to kind
(31:35):
of go beyond that.
So we made up a made-uplanguage.
Then we had the other elementwhich was important, which you
and I had been exploring already.
I was completely addicted toterry riley's nc and I would
walk around new york city withthis thing on, which is better
than uh, drugs, to be honestwith you and uh, um, so this
(31:55):
idea of pulses, you know,building up a, a thing of pulses
, that's a bunch of elements wehad.
We had the word, we had theglossophilia, we had the pulses.
I wanted the world music andyou know I want.
I want to talk about that onesecond.
There's one other magicalelement.
But before we get to that, talkto me about the world music,
because we had a.
You know, it was obvious wewere doing a global piece of
(32:18):
marketing, a global piece of topower.
This company and I spent timestudying music in africa, so I
sort of had african roots tolook at.
So how did you approach theworld music?
Part of this because you builta intense, as you'll hear in a
minute, a really beautifulrhythmic track.
How did you go about that?
Lance Massey (32:34):
so I started with the um, the concept of the audio
, the, the, the informationpackets is the way you described
it to me communication packets,so these little packets of
communication running around theworld.
So I actually started with that, just the little boops and bops
going boop-da-koop,boop-da-boop-da, boop-da-boop-da
, boop-da-boop-da, right.
(32:55):
Then on top of that somebodyhad mentioned there was a
bicycle team and I thought, well, that's cool.
So I basically used someshakers and did some sound
design to emulate the sound of abicycle team, right.
So I kept that rhythm going.
(33:16):
So that felt good.
But then I was thinking thething that's going to set it off
for world music to me was goingto be the bass line, and so I
leaned heavily into.
It was sort of a mix betweenreggae and what very little I
knew of Kenyan music at the time, the way the basses and the
(33:38):
guitars kind of roll, yeah.
And then I just sat down andplayed it.
I used a pentatonic scalebecause, again, it's universal.
That's pretty much the story ofthe world music, part of it,
for me well, the missing magicalelement was mike harvey.
Chris Mchale (33:55):
Okay, who?
Lance Massey (33:57):
uh is that's, that's your part, that's your
part of the world music.
You thought of mike and youthought of okay, let's throw
mike into this thing.
Chris Mchale (34:04):
And well, yeah, take it up a notch mike is, mike
is I believe I've said this tohim.
He doesn't ever buy this, but Ibelieve mike is is probably the
best vocal arranger I've everworked with.
I mean, he is extraordinary inthe studio, um, and he is
incredibly conceptual as well.
I mean, basically, he gets it.
(34:25):
I don't know what else to say Aguy like me.
I'm always working from aconceptual perspective and Mike
would just listen to me and golike, oh okay, oh yeah,
glossophilia, I get it.
And we were literally writingwords out on a napkin and he was
going into the vocal booth andsinging.
Lance Massey (34:42):
I remember that session, that was magic.
Chris Mchale (34:47):
And he got the idea of the pulses, what I
wanted to do, and he drove thisentire piece with his music.
He kind of brought it together.
So that really kind of sums up.
I want to play this.
Lance Massey (35:01):
It's really worth listening to.
Wait, wait, wait.
You left out the guitar part.
Again, another one of yourideas.
Chris Mchale (35:05):
Oh, let's talk about the guitar part.
Lance Massey (35:06):
Yeah, I don't know who you hired.
I just know that you said weneed a guitar part and it needs
to be ethnic right, somethingAfrican Well.
Chris Mchale (35:18):
I was more precise than that, because I lived in
Johannesburg and I studiedguitar with Cyril Mbobani, who
was a fantastic, absolutelyiconic African guitar player.
I kind of knew the townshipmusic so I kind of knew what I
wanted.
I'm not sure who he brought ineither, but the player we
(35:38):
brought in got it.
Probably, you know, knowing us,it was probably some authentic
player.
If you're out there, player,please reach out to me because I
would love to give you credit,because the guitar part was like
just that was the final icingon the cake.
Lance Massey (35:54):
It's like I laid the basic foundation, which was
okay, right, it was a nice,solid foundation.
Mike took it to another leveland I remember this you were
sitting there saying it needssomething else and then you
popped up and you said guitar,it needs African guitar, yeah,
(36:16):
and you brought this guy in andit just closed the deal.
It was beautiful.
Chris Mchale (36:21):
Yeah, it was a global piece of music.
Let's take a second to listento this thing.
Hello Hola Anthem (36:43):
Hey, hello, hello, hello.
Hey, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello.
(37:47):
Hey, hello, hello, hello.
Hey, hello, hello, hello.
Hey, hello, hello, hello.
Hey, hello, hello, hello.
Hey, hello, hello, hello, hey,hello, hello, hello.
Thank you.
Hello, hello, hello, hello,hello, hello, hello, hello,
(38:24):
hello, hello, hello, hello,hello, hello, hello, hello,
hello, hello, hello, hello,hello, hello, hello, hello,
hello, hello, hello, hello,hello, hello, hello, hello,
(38:47):
hello, hello, hello, hello,hello, hello, hello, hello.
E-i-o-e-o-n-o-i-e-i-o-n-o-i-n-o.
I'm ready to, I'm ready to, I'mready to, I'm ready to.
Hey, hey, hello, hello, hey,hey, hello, hello, hello.
(39:13):
Hey, hey, hello, hello, hey,hey, hola, hey, hey, hey, hey,
hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,
hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,
hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,
hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,
(39:35):
hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,hey, hey, hey.
One of the keys is presentingyour work.
Chris Mchale (40:00):
I think about that a lot.
Obviously, I'm a marketing guy,so I'm always looking to
present.
What you heard just then waswhat I would, in the crudest
fashion, I would call a sonicPowerPoint.
The entire presentation wasabout presenting that logo, that
little da-da-da-da-da.
That's what it was all about.
And, um, I think the reason whyit was so successful and I
(40:23):
think the reason why um it, itcreated the revenue it created
was because of the presentation,because we didn't just send in
five notes.
What we did, we, we sent thisthing in the middle of a
gorgeous context.
You know, like, this is wherethis is coming from.
We gave it context and it's socritical, um, if you're talking
(40:46):
about making a living in any,any facet of of your, of
creative work, the presentation,don't just like send your shit
in like we used to.
I used to work at anadvertising agency when I would
run these little mnemonic whatthey used to call mnemonics
corporate acoustics, and wewould get like 200.
(41:08):
It was ridiculous.
Every composer I asked to sendme something would send me 30 or
40.
It was just like bullshit.
I mean, it really was bullshit.
We sent in one, we sent in onelogo, that's like me and my
college application.
Yeah, exactly that's why Iresponded to that, or the blank
tape.
(41:28):
It's like you know what.
In a way, it's kind of like letthe angels just take it over
for you.
This is our logo and this ishow we're hearing it Because, as
you said, it was veryconceptual.
I'm a conceptual producer andthey were a conceptual client
and you're a conceptual sounddesigner and composer and it was
(41:50):
important to us to say likethis is our concept.
I mean, it's not just this logo, it's this whole thing.
And that turned into actually arecording contract with BMG and
an entire record, clan Chi andall sorts of stuff.
And, more than anything, it'sstill on the air today and still
as powerful as ever.
And I don't think many peoplehave heard that music, but,
(42:12):
believe me, when they heard thatmusic at Interbron, it sort of
blew them through the back wall.
So, take the time to take yourprecious ideas, you know, think
them through, you know, figureit out.
Don't.
Don't just like start sittingdown in front of a computer and
start composing shit like stepback and and get an idea.
(42:32):
You know, yes, I'm an agencytrained, creative in a lot of
ways, and you know I worked witha guy called keith reinhardt,
who was a marketing genius inhis way, and and it was all
about the big idea.
You know what's the big idea?
You're looking for the big idea.
Well, our big idea were thesefive notes, but we wanted to
show how big of an idea our ideawas.
(42:55):
You know, this was a piece that, uh, you know, and we broke it
down into disparate parts andsaid you can use this piece and
you use that piece, you can doall the different pieces,
because we had worked with amusical montage technique.
What we did, we put all thistogether and then we all left
the studio and we left it in thehands of Tim Leitner, who was a
(43:15):
genius at this stuff, and wecame back into the studio I
don't know how many hours laterAt the speed we were, probably
only a couple hours later but wewalked in and we heard what you
just heard.
I mean, it was like that's it.
It came together.
I don't think we made any morechanges from what you hear right
there.
Lance Massey (43:34):
I don't remember any revisions.
Chris Mchale (43:36):
Yeah, we're done, and we sent it off and two weeks
later I'm on a plane with mypartner, joe Barone, to Germany
to cut a deal.
It's just so important.
Every success I've had as awriter, as a musician, whatever
I get up to, has always beenpresented in a way that just
(43:59):
brings people in.
It's the candy store.
I mean.
We built this incredible pieceof ear candy to get this thing
done, and it's work that we canbe proud of all these years
later.
I've got to get Tim on this showand I've got to get Mike on
this show too, but I think thatthere was sort of a magic that
happened in that studio.
It was a magic studio and thatwas a piece of magic that we got
(44:24):
out of there.
That was really something else.
Yeah, Lance, I want to thankyou for joining us today.
It's my pleasure and that wrapsup this episode of Creativity
Jijiji.
I'm your host, Chris McHale,and I want to give a big thanks
to Lance Massey for joining usand sharing his insights into
(44:46):
the intersection of music andtechnology, and we hope you
enjoyed this journey ofcreativity and innovation.
Behind the scenes of thisincredibly complex world.
Before we go, before we go,check out Clan Chi.
Behind the scenes of thisincredibly complex world.
Before we go, before we go,check out Clan Chi.
(45:07):
We talked about it on the show.
It's the groundbreaking bandthat blended world influences
and electronic soundscapes andthat grew out of the T-Mobile
project.
Their album I See a Great Cityfeatures the anthem that
launched the telecommunicationsgiant, T-Mobile.
It's available on Apple Musicand streaming on Spotify.
It's awesome, it's unique, it'sreally something else, so give
(45:30):
it a listen.
Creativity Dijiji is producedby Studio Dijiji, where we're
passionate about bringing youcontent that celebrates the
creative process and to supportour ongoing projects, subscribe
to our site and our newsletterat studiojijiji.
io.
Thanks for tuning in and we'llsee you next time.
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