Crafting Community: Transcripts
Video_1_Hamman_origins (inserted in Part 4) Youtube Version: https://youtu.be/Y0L2S0Fxp1Y
Note: This video is in shot in a living room setting, With Kevin Hamman, Tony (T-Rex) Roth and Chris Schleuder. Ken Campbell is standing outside of the shot, but sometimes also speaks. I’ve eliminated some of the vocalized pauses (ums and ahs) for readability, but otherwise it’s an accurate transcript of the original audio recording.
T-Rex (Tony): So…Kevin!
Kevin: Yes, T-Rex. So, do you want to ask me?
Chris: So, The song “I’ll Know When I get There,” How did you write this song?
Kevin: This song was written down, there was a lake, and, um, there was a bunch of people who were 20-somethings along with me, down at the lake, and they were talking about how life is a dream and we won’t know until we wake up. So, that was what they were talking about, which is in the song…in the lyrics. And so, it says “there are people down by the lake”, and then it says, “there are people their faces pale against the sky”, and that was, people, it was dark, and people were moving back and forth and so their just kind of pale against the sky. And then I guess, the title of the song, “I’ll Know When I Get There,” is kind of like, I don’t quite take the same meaning out of how I’m asleep and I’ll wake up and I’ll know what real life is, so my think was, I’ll know when I get there, I’ll know when I find whatever it is that they were searching for, you know, without any sort of, like, real way to do that. But, just knowing that someday, I guess, that I’ll have some sort of
Ken (off-screen): Clarity.
Kevin: Clarity, or belief system that they had.
Tony: So it’s not about raccoons?
Kevin: It is not about raccoons. Or Canadian raccoons.
Ken: How long ago was it written?
Kevin: Ah, it’s gotta be thirty years. It’s gotta be, I’m fifty and I was twenty, so that’s thirty years.
Tony: Can you tell us how the raccoons figure in?
Kevin: (laughs). They were scary. They come in in packs, man. I’m telling you, they come in packs.
Ken: You were camping.
Kevin: Yeah, well I was working at a YMCA, and um, we were, they were tents. We were outside, so it was tents. Long, big tents. And the kids weren’t supposed to put any candy or anything in their boxes. But they would because they’re kids. So they, that’s (laughs), the raccoons could smell that stuff really well.
Tony: Yes, they can.
Kevin: So they’d come in and raid the place.
Tony: So that really doesn’t have anything to do with the song, it’s just what was happening while you wrote the song.
Kevin: It could have been, I could have talked about the raccoons smelling, in this particular song I did not.
Ken: They were the pale faces in the song.
Kevin: Maybe….although it was dark when they would come in. (whispers) It was scary.
Tony: Don’t be scared.
Kevin: Laughs.
Tony: Well let’s see what our email says, huh?
Kevin: Ok.
(Pause for several seconds, while Tony looks down at the email).
Tony: Chris do you want to talk about the, sort of, uh, evolution of the song. You were talking about that earlier. That this may be the song on the record that changed the most.
Chris: It was certainly one of them. So, so, when we first recorded this, um, it was just Kevin singing and playing guitar and you (gestures to Tony) on bass. And that was the entirety of the song when we started. And they we just added instrument after instrument.
Tony: Did the, were the bass and the acoustic guitar, was that one of the songs that we recorded both of them at the same time, there on the same track?
Chris: It was. They’re not on the same track, but we recorded them at the same time. So, I had one mic on you (gestures to Tony) and another mic on Kevin (gestures to Kevin). And, um…and then we added drums next (gesture to ken off-camera), and uh, (laughs) so then Ken came in and, and on the Cajon did a drum beat, and then added a shaker. And then, it might have been electric guitar next.
Kevin: Yeah…
Chris: So…
Kevin: Actually, the electric guitar came later, because it was after the, um, signing was in there, and I felt the song was too slow. In fact I wanted to do the song over again, because I thought it was too slow.
Chris: Yep.
Kevin: And, um, which really was not a good idea, because we had all these singers and everybody had put down all this, but I was really convinced it was too slow.
Chris: Right.
Kevin: And, uh, really you put in that, um, the guitar solos, and sped up when I sped up the song, and it, um, it really changed the whole, the whole, tempo of the song, somehow.
Chris: Yeah. So, yeah, when you mentioned that the song sounded too slow, what I’m, I have an electric guitar that I’m doing in there, that’s kinda like a “chunk-a, chunk-a, chunk-a,” and I did it so like, it could make it feel like it sped up a little bit. So that’s helping to drive the song a little bit, um, with the guitar solos, so there’s a guitar solo near the end of the song, um, but the song, I felt like it needed an intro of some sort. We just had a pretty simple intro that, that lasted several measures, and just having something to break, break up the, you know, the just chords and, four measure of chords, you know, I thought it would be good. So the idea was to connect that intro to what was gonna come when with the guitar solo.
Kevin: Oh, yeah, right.
Chris: So it’s almost like a, just like a preview of what’s to come, what’s in the beginning. And that was intentional, um, and once we got the voices on there for the chorus, that just really filled it out. And the choices that the singers made on their harmonies were really outstanding choices.
Tony: There are three backing vocals.
Chris: There’s three backing vocals. So, Nathan Moore, Judy Mickley, and Allison Cole all came in and did backing vocals.
Kevin: Yeah, um, Allison is on the verses. She’ll sing, she sings along with the verses. But then all three of them sing on the chorus, right?
Chris: Yep. And one of the cool things, is so many, when people pretty much came up with their own ideas and stuff and, you know, Kevin was gracious enough to give people some freedom just to try stuff out, and that’s, that’s not always common, or is difficult with the, you know, somebody who writes a song and gives people freedom to try, just to try stuff out, so that was really neat, I think, for everybody. Because we all felt like we had our part in this, and were helping to, you know, do our best to make it better by adding to it.
Kevin; Which it did. I mean, everybody was so awesome. I mean, I gave everybody freedom, but everybody was really good at what they were doing, you know. Everybody, whatever it was that they were supposed to do, they were really good at it. So, that was very helpful, you know, that was extremely helpful, in the sense that I didn’t have to go, “ehhhh,” or um, have to go, “Can we take a take over again?”
[Chris and Tony Laugh].
Kevin: “Could we do that over again? Cause I liked it, but, ehh.” No, but I mean we just..
Chris: Just re-do it and play all different notes, that’s the way to do it.
[Kevin laughs].
Tony: The notes are fine, just in different order would be good.
Chris: Different instrumentalist, or…(laughs).
Tony: So maybe we can, maybe now we can do, like individual little bits?
Ken: Yeah, one thing, I’m not even sure how long that was, but…
[Video cuts off].