The Obelisk Questionnaire: Sven Shah from Blasting Rod
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
Thank you for reading and thanks to all who participate.
The Obelisk Questionnaire: Sven Shah from Blasting Rod
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
Both myself and probably others would most likely call it, “Messin’ around.”
I like to do something and see what happens. I tend to take the ball and run with it. Depending on who I’m working with, that can be an asset, or a deal breaker. As drummer and executive producer, Chihiro keeps me anchored, or at least within sight of the shoreline. I’m getting better at delegating, but my peers often tell me I’m working too hard and doing too much myself, while also ignoring conventions that remove any need for thinking. They aren’t wrong, but I don’t want to be in a Zappa position where I’m telling everyone what they have to, or not do I want to just accept convention as wrote.
I want my collaborators to have the freedom to make it their thing, too. I like a bit of chaos in the band. That way it can be thrilling for me and hopefully provides a sense of anticipation for those seeing us again. I think it’s important to be light on your feet so you can be open to changing course onto a path that you had not even initially put into the map. If the size of the group swells with people who are working to too tight a brief it becomes more difficult to make those sorts of spontaneous decisions.
On the other hand I do want to do some Blasting Rod Big Band shows with a horn section and additional percussionists on some songs. Having more people contributing sounds means that each person needs to contribute less, which might actually free me up to do some spontaneous conducting, or be more deliberate. A lot of musicians talk about having a sound in their head, but I tend to run with an actual sound. As George Harrison said, to allow it to be what it was always going to become. For me, personally, it’s important that “things” develop organically, but that involves understanding where the sounds are going.
Not sure how I arrived at this approach. It sounds more than a bit cliché to attribute it to the influence of Zen, but I have long been attracted to indeterminism, getting lost and finding my way home, both metaphorically and physically. Japanese animist beliefs tend to favor fate, but that is often counterbalanced by an impulse to micromanage and hint of real nature out of something. In order to maintain spontaneity and allow the hand of fate it’s place at the table we record together without a click and overdub layers by feel. Most, not all, of the guitar solos are improvised at the same time the bass and drums are recorded, and all of the bass improv. Variations in tempo are just as crucial to dynamics as fluctuations in volume.
Describe your first musical memory.
My Dad handing me a harmonica, or maybe it was a kazoo, then dropping the needle on a 45 of Love Me Do by The Beatles, and the two of us improvising on harmonica, or harmonica and kazoo, to that record is the earliest concrete memory of being aware of music. I may have been four?
Describe your best musical memory to date.
This is much more difficult. I’ll go with picking up a miracle ticket outside the box-office of a sold-out John McLaughlin trio concert in Montreal. Just happened to see he was playing, turned up ticketless and was immediately turned away. Some nearby had one extra, sold it at cost, and I got to see the concert, but alone. Having no idea what to expect, only knowing McLaughlin’s name from every single guitarist name-checking him in guitar mag interviews, at some point in the show I was levitating about 10 inches above my seat, and I was stone cold sober.
When was a time when a firmly held belief was tested?
Every time I plug my gear in. I believe it’s gonna work, however some trial inevitably awaits. Great successes are often born from the darkest depths of despair.
This is a result of willingly bucking convention, and occasionally I have to cave in to conventional wisdom. An example of this being my belief that an LP with digital download coupon is superior to a CD. Not in Japan. I finally had to relent to the mounting claims of, “I don’t have space for a turntable and I don’t use my computer to listen to music.” Blasting Rod III and our upcoming solstice album are both being issued as limited edition CDs in Japan.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
I have a pet theory, that I know in my heart is false, that bands start out as garage punk, but eventually become prog if they continue to challenge themselves. Bands that stay punk are admirable in their dedication. That intricacy can also eventually evolve into minimalism as the essence of the work becomes clearer. Although we are constantly challenging ourselves to do something, if even just slightly, different, we also make a conscious effort to keep the presentation casual, and tap into the energy of the moment. In other words, even though we have a progressive stance, perfection is overrated.
How do you define success?
Being able to do whatever want… No. No. I want a 12 cylinder Ferrari… but seriously, freedom is the ultimate success, and even the definition of that freedom is measured on a sliding scale. Having nothing is both freeing and constricting, for example, but which draws one’s focus?
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
Saw a guy fall out of a moving train just after departing Howrah Station in Calcutta. Thankfully for me his landing was obscured by some shrubbery, but certainly it did not end well for him, regardless of my visual comfort. I guess in a way I’m glad I saw it. After that I was a lot more careful near open train doors.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
Ha! It would be quite easy to get snarky about this and say a multi-platinum selling retirement piece, but actually we keep putting off the recording of this long-form song of the mystical Orient that was inspired in nearly equal parts by India, Thailand, and Japan, yet is still unable to escape rock’n’roll. Wow. I’m really propping up expectations with that description. Let’s just call it our “Jazz Odyssey”, a 15 minute raga rock number. We still have some other more concise songs in pocket, but rather than do a side-long Atom Heart Mother with a few other tunes on the opposite side, I’ve hit upon a much more excessive plan, which is to record both acoustic and electric versions with each taking up a full side. Now, if that isn’t decadent enough for you, I already have a six-hour album of solo guitar improv in the key of C# based on insufficiently studied Hindustani ragas each titled by a full 17 syllable haiku. This future Blasting Rod album idea is the height of commercialism by those standards.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
The art that is most appealing to me, at least, is art that provides a transportative experience out of normal expectations and experiences. That can be something fantastic like Dali’s Hallucinogenic Toreador, or just the opposite, something that may be so ordinary that it makes you completely rethink all of your notions of art simply by defying them entirely. At the very least it should move the mind, if not the heart as well.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
I can’t wait to get away to some Pacific islands again, but a weedy gray Central Japanese beach will probably have to do for the foreseeable future. I’ll take it! Everything else on my calendar, that I’m looking forward to at least, is music related. The beach isn’t even on the calendar yet. Scratch that, Chihiro just informed me that we’re booked into a hotel in Okinawa for a late summer holiday…which, presumably, is why she’s been too busy to fill out her questionnaire
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