The Jill Fraser Interview
What was your childhood like growing up in North Carolina upon moving there from Cincinnati, OH? When did you first begin to fall in love with music and was this something that was relevant around your household growing up? Who were some of your earliest influences? When and where did you see your first concert, and when did it dawn on you that you wanted to be a musician?
My mother was taking piano lessons when I was 4 years old, and I’d sit on the steps and listen to the lessons. The piano teacher gave me coloring books that were colored in music notes - like a giant staff with notes you could color different colors. Apparently, I was such a pest wanting to play the piano during my mother’s lessons that they gave in and gave me lessons. I think I pretty much learned how to read words and music around the same time, so the idea of writing music was just something I did from the very beginning. My mother was Italian and there was always music in the house. My mom and grandparents would listen to the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday afternoons, and they would act out the parts. I don’t remember what my first concert would have been. We always went to hear music.
Something that I find most fascinating about you, aside from your incredible music, is your love and passion for education. A BM from ECU and an M.F.A from CalArts, tell me about your days in school working alongside the great Morton Subotnick and Mel Powell, attending a class taught by John Cage as well as studying with Otto Henry.
As a musician, you pretty much go to school because you already know what you want to do, and they have knowledge that you need or someone specifically you admire and want to study with. Musicians are lucky that way. I was an undergrad at East Carolina University. They had a Moog 3p and that’s why I wanted to go there. I got a work study job as the tech who recorded all the student recitals and I had a little side hustle editing the tapes. I got pretty good at it and did a good enough job cleaning up the performances that even some of the faculty hired me to fix up their audition tapes. Otto Henry introduced me to so much great music - Steve Reich, Legeti, Boulez and, of course, Morton Subotnick. Whenever Mort came to the East Coast, I would find a way to go see him perform and hand him cassettes of my music. Again, I was a real pest. He suggested I come to CalArts and arrange my financial aid. I was his teaching assistant and then worked for him after graduation, making ghost tracks. The best thing about CalArts at that time was that almost all the teachers were working professionals, so I had the opportunity to see more work and help - certainly that is the best way to learn, like an apprentice. Even though Mort’s work is quintessentially electronic, it is completely compositional, each piece takes you on a complete journey, it is transformative. The fact that it is electronic is just a medium. I aspire to that, but Mort is the master. Mel Powell was the nicest man, always so kind and upbeat. I had hoped to learn about arranging from him. After all, he had worked with Benny Goodman and Louis Armstrong, but he just wanted to teach atonality. Still, I adored him and learned so much.
What did the landscape of music look and feel like to you with the rise of punk, which you participated in, and New Wave just around the corner? You took a position at Serge Modular Music Hollywood towards the end of the decade, where you built your very first MSS. Did you get to work on those early Serge systems during that time?
When I first heard bands like the Ramones, the Germs, or the Dead Kennedys, I was transfixed. The energy and the speed, the sense of being almost out of control. It was an exciting time and so many incredible shows. I did shows with the poet Ivan E Roth, and we opened for some amazing people in the most fun clubs around LA. I used my Serge modular, Oberheim OB8, DSX and DMX (sequencer and drum machine) Yamaha DX816 all controlled by a Roland MC-500 micro composer. It was a big very complicated setup. It was not beat driven, it was all electronic, not too dissimilar to what I still do, but the clubs were open to all sorts of music, different styles on the same night. “Took a position at Serge” Haha - Serge very kindly allowed a bunch of us to assemble synths and take money to live on and the rest in modules. I was very lucky to have a job like that. He was patient with taking time off to rehearse or do sessions, and we all listened to music all day. We build systems for all kinds of people. Someone the just recently identified modules I assembled because we initialed the modules we built. Sometimes we slept there. It wasn’t corporate at all, it was, I guess, more Bohemian. Serge’s was an incubator and yes, I was able to build my first modular and it’s still a great machine. I’ve used it all over this album, and it’s still happily making sounds every day. Serge is still a dear friend.
Jumping ahead to when you first began working in various mediums, such as scoring films, commercials, and your solo and collaborative works in music. What was your experience like working on films/commercials in comparison to the process of writing and recording albums?
Writing commercials was great for me. You hone your skills doing an extreme variety of styles, which by course, makes you able to be more creative with your own work. I had commercial budgets big enough to be able to hire some of the best players on the planet. Paul Butterfield played harmonica on some spots, Jim Keltner played drums sometimes, Henry Rollins and Anthony Keidis sang. The budgets were great, I was able to work in the best studios and I knew I would get paid. The deadlines were insane, and it was very great stress because you were always up against an air date. One of the things I find hardest about working on my own music is not having a deadline. Without a deadline, I can drive myself crazy doing things over and obsessing over the smallest minor detail. In some ways, it’s harder to work on your own stuff, no parameters, no deadline, the discipline has to come from within, and it’s not always there.
You just announced your double album debut with the fine folks over at Drag City entitled “Earthly Pleasure”. Tell me about the particular process and approach to bringing this album to life. What was sort of the ultimate vision for this body of work? Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?
I had this idea. What happens to our religious practices long after religion has evolved, or even disappeared, thousands and thousands of years in the future. What would some far, far future beings, computers, or some kind of highly developed AI make of these hymns? Imagine they find a hymnal and are looking at it trying to figure out what these little black dots on 5 “I Would Be Like Jesus” by James Rowe and Bentley DeForest Ackley. Maybe to just remember there’s something to be learned from the best of all musical genres. Keep an open mind and enjoy listening to everything this world of sound has to offer. Don’t be a snob, it’s all fucking amazing.
