Distortion is Truth for Robert Poss
Noise merchant from Band of Susans talks tone
Band of Susans was a noise-rock institution of the New York scene back in the 80s. Spawning five full-length albums, the band was big on guitar buzz and drone, much of which oozed from the amps of Robert Poss. After the band parted ways in 1995, Poss performed with others and eventually released a pair of solo albums in 2002 – Distortion Is Truth and a companion record – Crossing Casco Bay. Rich with experimental sounds and improvisation, both teemed with the left-of-center guitar genius he had nurtured throughout the years. WTDP? recently caught up with Poss, whom producer Steve Albini once called ‘an enormously underrated guitar theorist’, to talk about his music and love for gear.
WTDP?: What have you been up to since the dual album release in 2002?
Robert: Since Distortion Is Truth and its companion CD Crossing Casco Bay, I have composed and performed music for three choreographers – Sally Gross, Alexandra Beller and Gerald Casel. I have worked with ex-Band Of Susan member Susan Stenger on a 96-day musical installation for the Musée d’art Contemporain in Lyon, France. I performed at the premier of composer Phill Niblock’s piece Stosspeng in Krems, Austria. I contributed music to an Albert Maysles/Kristen Nutile documentary, Sally Gross: The Pleasure Of Stillness. I performed with Rhys Chatham at a Metropolitan Museum of Art retrospective and participated in Chatham’s Crimson Grail project for 200 guitars at Lincoln Center. I have played on a few television commercials for composer Ben Neill, and done a few one-off gigs with Knox Chandler and others. I’ve engineered/produced a few CDs for guitarist Seth Josel, among others, performed solo at a tribute to writer Robert Palmer at Le Poisson Rouge, and have done front-of-house sound for my friends Alan and Marty in the band Suicide. I also have collaborated with Austrian visual artist Margret Wibmer and with filmmaker Cat Tyc. I guess I’ve been busy.
WTDP?: Has your approached to writing changed over the years? Apart from the genre shifts that is…
Robert: I still do a lot of mental preparation and ruminating and then compose quickly through a process of structured improvisation and experimentation that is revised into a structured composition. I take advantage of chance occurrences and juxtapositions that I refine and codify.
WTDP?: One thing I love about Band of Susans is the consistent attack of the rhythm guitar across most tracks… this was going on at a time when rhythm playing was kind of a lost art in popular music. Was there much thought given to that at the time, or was it just a function of ‘plug in and go!’?
Robert: Much of the music in the Band Of Susans releases was composed. I often wrote all of the parts, including bass lines and drum parts. The three basic electric guitars parts were structured with a great deal of precision to interlock and create something more than the sum of the parts. Susan Stenger took a similar approach to her compositions in the band. We were never a jam band, and the other guitarists generally learned their parts from recordings and under my tutelage. The parts were generally written in bursts of improvised creativity and then solidified by me, but many songs were simply first take solo demos rearranged for the band.
WTDP?: Was there much guitar layering on Distortion Is Truth? In some instances, like the sustain and modulation on ‘You Were Relentless’ sounds massive, but at the same time it appears to be the wailing of just one guitar.
Robert: There is less layering on Distortion Is Truth, but on ‘You Were Relentless’, there are, I believe, three guitars. I was exploring a more electronic approach to the guitar and did a lot of work on modular synthesizers. I’m also quite good at doubling myself on guitar.
WTDP?: Do you tend to favor sound over song?
Robert: I’m much more fascinated by the architecture of sound than by the craft of the songwriter. I can appreciate a good song, but many of my favorite parts of music cannot be reduced to a person on an acoustic guitar or a piano. Unlike the rest of the world, it seems, for me it’s usually not about ‘the song’. Maybe I have more in common with Asian musical traditions and conventions.
WTDP?: Turning to gear, what does your current set-up look like and does it compare with the Distortion Is Truth-era and Band of Susans-era rigs? Number one guitar now versus then (that G&L perhaps?) Amps now versus then?
Robert: My Band Of Susans sound relied about a massive amount of gain and distortion run into high powered Marshall and Park tube amps that were run very cleanly. I still rely on that approach, but now also have incorporated more electronics… processing by synthesizer modules, for instance… and use a variety of small combo amps by Valvetech, Fender, Frenzel, Decware, ZT Amplifiers, and adjust my processing to the situation, For solo work I often employ a bit of looping using a Boomerang and/or other digital looper and use some oddball devices that hardware hacker guru/composer Nicolas Collins has built for me. In terms of guitars, I still rely on my various G&L SC-1s with various pickup configurations, a few choice hollowbodies including a 1980s Gibson ES-135 and a Yamaha AES1500 that has Filtertrons and a Bigsby added. I have a very nice see-through green G&L ASAT Classic… I always come back to the SC-1 though.
WTDP?: We’re big pedal hounds here… do you have much of an effects pedal stash? Can you let us in on some of your favorites?
Robert: I own far too many pedals, though I’ve sold a bunch of my more collectible stuff off recently to pay some bills. I have a Wyllie Fuzzmite, Collins Fuzzy Dicer, Empress Tremolo, but also rely on conventional things like a ProCo Rat, Tube Screamer, Boss Delays… I like to chain together distortion pedals… I also love the MI Audio Crunchbox. The Subdecay Noise Box is a nice versatile pedal.
WTDP?: Is there a single piece of gear out there – historic or current – that if money was no object, you would jump at the chance to own? What would that be and why?
Robert: I’ve owned almost every bit of guitar gear I’ve ever wanted at one point or another. I’ve bought and sold scores of guitars, basses, amps and pedals over the past several decades, from vintage Non-SG Les Paul Junior Double Cutaways, to a 1960s Gretsch Jet Firebird, to an Ibanez Iceman to a Gibson ES-125. I’ve cured myself of Gear Acquisition Syndrome to a large extent. I don’t covet gear like I once did. I’m most interested in reliability and low-noise/hum now. I still have my 100 watt 2 X 12 Park combo and a 100 watt Park Master Volume head that Andrew Barta (Sansamp) modded to vintage NON-Master Volume specs. There’s a lot more choice in terms of high end, boutique pedals, guitars and amps than there used to be, but I’m in a period of stasis just now. There’s no piece of gear I fantasize about owning these days. Strange, huh?
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