From set design to architecture and a new AAA analog album, dive into Watters' creative world
From set design to architecture and a new music album, dive into his creative world.When we talk about an individual being artistic, usually we’re referring to the visual or graphic arts field, and every so often, music. However, an infusion of art is really necessary in any branch of knowledge: coding, medicine, logistics, education or any other field for that matter really all require a bit of an artistic eye to be elevated to its pinnacle.
Isaac Watters uses his inherent artistry in two fields where he’s been successful: you may have seen some of his work as a set designer and art director, but he’s also an architect. When he’s not immersed in either of those careers, he’s focused on music. Recently, Isaac has released his latest album, New Space and Time and while he’s got a number of concepts that are unique to his music, on this record he further explores concepts relating to the natural world and the way we humans inhabit it.
So, think about your own life. You may not work with a paintbrush in your hand and you may be completely tone deaf. But I’ve got a hunch, that if you look within yourself, there’s a skill that you have that others think is incredibly artistic.
Evan Toth: Great record, man. I really enjoyed this album, and I enjoyed also learning about how it morphed from becoming two EPs and a couple of extra tracks. I didn't know all of that. The way that I first consumed it was listening to it from beginning to end, and I really enjoyed it. Frankly, I wouldn't have known, I don't think, unless I researched it, that it was different parts from different places and times. Maybe you could describe for the audience exactly the record that they're getting that I had to figure out myself.
Isaac Watters: Sure. The record is one record that we made all together. Then the EPs were just a way to try to space out the release to try to get some more people to listen to it.
ezt: Oh, I see.
iw: Now the record is out as its own entity.
ezt: I thought they were maybe from two different places or two different times or something like that.
iw: The songs are from, I don't know, the last, however many, maybe 10 years. When we went into the studio, we did-- although recording took a number of years as well, just because of COVID, we started recording in November of 2019, I think. Then we were doing a couple of sessions here and there during the lockdowns and stuff, but mostly we didn't finish the record until the end of 2021.
ezt: I see.
iw: It was meant to be a record like how you listen to it. That's what I'm giving it to people now. We were just trying to find a way to get people's attention a little bit by spacing some of the songs out.
ezt: Breaking it up. You've said this album feels like the record that you had always been trying to make. What specific elements or experiences finally came together to really create that vision?
iw: I don't know. You feel that way about each record that you make, hopefully. I do feel really good about this one, I think because maybe I feel that it's at this point in my life where it hopefully sounds more like myself. It's not trying to sound like other people that I have looked up to over the years or whatever. I feel like there's something in there that feels like I'm doing my own thing, which feels good. Then I think lyrically, I felt like I was trying to just use less words.
I think there's some strength in the lyrics in this album. Then working with my friend Matt that produced it, and all the musicians that played on it, I felt like we came away with something that was just at a level of quality that I haven't really done before. The studio that we were able to do it in and all that. I think that's why I said that.
ezt: "All I Need" is a Great Song, it's a terrific way to start the album. For me, I really like-- it's funny that you just mentioned lyrics there. I like when songs hit me and I don't know what's going on. That's how I felt about that track in there. I got these snippets of lyrics and I was just really getting into your sound and the way that you approach your recordings. I was catching a little feeling of Roxy Music and Bowie in there. It's a great captivating way to begin the album. Maybe you could just talk a little bit about that song and maybe even the tracklist, how you put the tracklist together because I think it works really well.
iw: Oh, thanks. As far as tracklist, we did it based on the vinyl record. It's side A and side B. The vinyl will be done hopefully in the next few days. I'll have to send you one. You can add it to your shelf.
ezt: I'll put it right back there. I got a place for it right in W.
iw: Part of it was some of the songs are longer than others. We had to space them out on one side or the other. Then trying to think of what song would grab your attention on side A and what song would get your attention on side B and then how to finish the record and all that. With that initial drum fill, it's just a way to be like, "Boom, here's the record. Here you go."
ezt: I'm glad you bring up the drums because I don't know, I think you're in the lead for my favorite drum sound of 2024. Is that possible? That might be. It's a great drum sound you got there.
iw: Cool. It's Josh Adams. He's an amazing drummer and then producer Matt Lenish with the two of them, and then Gabe Nola played bass. If you look up the stuff they played on, it's a lot of good stuff. I'm sure you've heard Josh's drumming on a lot of other records.
ezt: Yes. It's interesting, you're bringing up the vinyl, which will be out soon. Of course, people can listen to this digitally in the meantime. This is on Hi-Res Records. That's the name of the company. They really work on an analog approach to recording. Can you just tell us a little bit about that experience? As you can see, obviously, I'm a vinyl guy. I'm an analog guy. How did you put the record? Was it on tape? What was the deal? What did they do with you?
iw: Yes, it's all on tape. It's AAA analog, which is mixed, mastered, recorded, everything analog. We did it on two-inch tape-- Really, Matt would be the one to talk about all the technical stuff, the producer. He knows way more about this than I do. We recorded it on two-inch tape. It was all done on an analog mixer. Then it was mastered down to, I want to say, half-inch tape. I'm not sure. Anyways, the version that's on the vinyl is a version that's never gone into the computer. It's fully from instruments to tape to vinyl.
ezt: So cool. Have you had a chance to compare the two?
iw: Yes, vinyl sounds amazing. I think it's better. Also, the digital version sounds great, too. We recorded everything on tape and then bounced it to a digital version after the final mix was done, obviously, to put out on Spotify and everything. There's something really nice about the vinyl.
ezt: Let me throw this one at you. Do you know what I've been thinking about lately a lot? Church bells. A lot of church bells nowadays are digital. They're digital recordings of church bells that you hear while you walk around on a nice fall day like today. It's different than the church bells that they used to have even probably 40, 50 years ago, where they were actual bells. I think there's a human relationship sometimes with that sound that has an effect.
iw: Yes, that's cool you bring up church bells. I was really into church bells for a while. I actually did a record called Campanas, which means the bells-
ezt: You're kidding.
iw: It's released under John Issac Waters. I released a few albums as my full name a while ago. I remember going on a tour of the cathedral in Mexico City. You can do a tour of the bells. They have this one bell that has a red X painted on it. I think it was the largest bell that was ever made in the Americas or in South America or something. At one point, I was researching all of the largest bells that were made in Russia, I think. They were just incredibly massive.
Anyways, this bell on the cathedral in Mexico City, at one point, a monk rang it and turned around and it swung back and hit him in the head and killed him. They gave the bell a punishment of 100 years of silence.
ezt: Oh, gosh.
iw: Then they didn't ring it for 100 years and then they started ringing it again. Anyways, I love that story. I think as far as on this record, we tried to do everything using instruments. There wasn't any modification or anything in the computer, although of course, we have a lot of technology that's being used as far as all the gear and whatever that Matt has in the
studio.
We did use synthesizers and stuff. It wasn't all acoustic instruments. There's something about doing it this way that is maybe more of a physical product. Something about that feels like it was the right way to do this record, I think.
ezt: "Thirsty" is one of my favorite songs on the record. From what I understand, you drew inspiration from watching the sunset over a freeway. Maybe you could talk about how those everyday observations shape your songwriting process and how that impacts your creativity?
iw: I think a lot of the songs, when I'm writing them, or even after I've written them, I see them as a series of images in my head. When I'm performing them, I'll see those images, just experiences. When I'm playing Thirsty, I think about this overpass. I used to live on the other side of the freeway from Echo Park, and I would walk over the overpass all the time. It's just a pedestrian-- as big as a sidewalk, but it goes over the freeway. People joke that the freeways are like LA's rivers because there's just this constant stream of traffic and lights.
I picture that and maybe that time in my life when I'm performing it.
ezt: You've worked extensively in visual arts and set design for people that I'll probably give a little introduction to your background before they hear this conversation, but maybe you could talk about your day job, so to speak, and how it influences your musical style and your approach to storytelling in songs. Your job, from what I understand, is to help tell a director or a writer's stories by using set design and things like that. What are some of the similarities or fusions there with your songwriting, or how you even approached producing the record?
iw: My background is in architecture, that's what I went to school for. I've worked as an architect for a number of years in different firms and doing my own projects and stuff. Then about eight years ago, I got into doing design for film and TV, and that's been my career, although the last year or so has been slow because of-- I'm sure you've heard all the downturn based on the strikes and stuff, but it seems to be picking back up now.
It's similar in that it is a creative process, but there's something so much easier and more freeing about writing songs and performing, I think, because it's my project, but especially compared to architecture. Film happens really fast, but architecture, you can work on a building for 10 years, depending on the scale of it, and all of the politics involved, whereas a song, it could be 15 minutes and then it lives on a record, or it could be 10 years also, but it's never-- I don't know. Just the amount of work that it takes to do a building or a film is so small compared to music.
That being said-- There are a lot of similarities. I think for me, music has always been-- because I've never made any money from it, it's always been the thing that I do purely the way that I want to do it, and purely just because I love it. Especially when I'm performing, there's something that is so freeing and in the moment that I don't think you can really get-- Maybe if I was an actor, maybe it could feel that way in the film, if you were really in the moment as you were doing your thing, but I don't think you can really get that with architecture. It's just so much more.
ezt: It's a slower process. It's just slower.
iw: Yes.
ezt: Do you do a lot of live performing? I know you like it, but do you get to do that often?
iw: Not as often as I would like. I used to do more but I just had-- Not just, but my daughter is almost two years old.
ezt: Oh, congrats.
iw: My wife is also a musician. We haven't been performing as much recently. I'm going to be doing a show in a few weeks to celebrate the release of the record, and then hopefully be doing some more stuff next year. It's expensive to play shows.
ezt: Yes, it's a lot of work. It's expensive to get guys together and a group. It's not easy.
iw: Yes, but I do love it. For a number of years, I would play every week at this small venue in LA where I ran the night, and that was really fun. Maybe I'll try to do something like that again in the future.
ezt: "My Heart is an Ocean", as you mentioned, is a song that's been around for a long time. It's about a decade old, something like that. How do you feel revisiting it and recording an older song-- How is it different? It's interesting because you said you have a visual memory of a lot of these songs, but is the song different for you now than it was then, or has it evolved, or does it still bring you back to that place where you were 10 years ago?
iw: I don't remember where I was when I wrote that one. That one just came out, and I always thought of it a simple song where you just take the silly metaphor just all the way through, what it really was. I've tried to record it a couple of times in the past, but I never actually put it on a record because I wasn't really happy with just how it turned out. I really like this version, and I'm glad that it's coming out. It's one of those songs that has just been around for so long that I'm a little tired of it, but people that hear it for the first time seem to really like it, so I'm glad that it's out.
ezt: "Child in the Rain" is another one of my favorites, and it has a real depth of production there that just washes over you and can withstand several listenings, and each time you hear something a little new. Tell me a little bit about that song. Where did that one come from?
iw: There's so many different layers to that. I think the beginning verse, I always picture the border down by San Diego. I was born in Mexico and grew up in Arizona and been in LA now for 20 years, so the border has always been large in my imagination. My thesis project in architecture school was a proposal for a museum of border conflict right there at the park where the fence goes into the ocean between San Diego and Tijuana.
ezt: Oh, right. Yes, I've seen that.
iw: For some reason, I think about that when I'm beginning the song, and then now it's funny a lot of the lyrics in there are about family and getting married, having a kid, all this. Now that that's happened to me-- that's all happened years after I wrote the song, so that also becomes images and stuff that I'm thinking about as I'm singing it. Then the lyric of lying back on a tree across the ravine is just an image that I had in a dream one night. Then the chorus of running around a child in the rain.
Living outside of Tucson, there were these monsoons that would come every year, and all the dry wash beds would fill up with water, and we would just go crazy and go running out there in the water. I picture that too. The one month where the desert is green and full of water, and just the pure joy of being in the fresh nature.
ezt: I'm going to bet you have a photographic memory.
iw: I have a very strong visual memory. I don't want to say it's photographic, though. I can't look at a page of a book and remember the words on there.
ezt: That coupled with the architecture and being able to visualize things, I think that's a really unique-- you seem to be tapped into that really unique power or gift or whatever you want to call it. It's really hard to visualize some of that stuff, and it seems like you do that physically with some architecture and with the set design, and also with music, which is interesting, because music, you can't really see it, or can you?
iw: I think you can. Even if it's instrumental, I feel like I'll see landscapes. I'm not one of those amazing musicians that sees colors.
ezt: Like synesthesia where you're seeing/hearing blue.
iw: Yes, but I do sometimes feel like I'll see a landscape or just the horizon or something, or some space in music.
ezt: New Space and Time. You've got this album together, and you said you're going to be doing a couple of shows in Los Angeles. You've just finished this project, but what other thoughts do you have musically that you think you'll be-- other directions you might be going in in the future?
iw: I don't know. I was thinking about maybe just doing a record. Maybe the next record would just be really simple, bare-bones, just to get some more songs out but I don't really have any plans other than working on trying to put some more shows together. I would love to get some traveling shows, do a little bit of touring if I could, and try to keep pushing this record, try to get more people to hear it.
ezt: What about non-musical stuff? You seem like you've got other things on your mind. There's other things you might be planning as far as whether it be architecture or something else. You seem to have a deep well of interest and thoughts, and I'm curious where else you might be going with them.
iw: I have a really exciting film that I'm going to start working on in a couple of weeks, for a director I'm really excited to work with. I can't talk about it, but I'm really happy about that, and then I have a house project that I'm just finishing up, designed for some really cool clients in Highland Park. That'll be interesting to maybe try to get that published and stuff. Then other various art projects.
I did a design for my friend Anthony Nikolchev, who's an experimental performance movement artist. He's going to be performing in the theater portion of the Venice Biennale next year. I'll be doing some music for that too. We'll see. There's a bunch of different exciting things. I think it's going to be a good year, looking forward to it, next year.
ezt: Cool. I know you can't tell me what film you're working on, so all the movies I watch in the next few years, I'm going to be looking very closely at the credits to see if I see your name there.
iw: I'm not that big of a deal, but it'd just be really fun to draw the sense of that. It'd be a cool project.
ezt: Cool. Iw, I thank you very much for your time. I really enjoyed the album. It's got a great vibe to it for sure. I really look forward to hearing it on vinyl for sure.
iw: Thank you
Comments