 Return to Interview Introduction and DMB Solo A Capella Tutorial
WeeklyDavespeak.com: Can you tell me a little bit about what led you to begin doing solo a capella music?
Ben Pezzner: A lot of smaller circumstances that all led up to the actual product of me doing a capella. I’m not really a singer, I’m mostly a musician, I play keyboard and cello. What led me to singing was my girlfriend at the time—I would be playing her guitar over the phone and she tell me to sing. I would say “I don’t sing.” But I sang anyway, she said I sounded good so I recorded it. I didn’t like how my voice sounded, to this day I don’t like how my voice sounds. What I did was I recorded me singing back up vocals for myself. I liked how that sounded so I recorded another track, backup vocals for my back up vocals.
The more tracks I recorded over myself, the less you could actually hear the voice, the more I was paying attention to the actual music and the cool things I was doing with my backups.
I guess the origin of my a capella is just because I don’t like my voice.
BP: The first purely a capella song I recorded was Typical Situation I didn’t know what to expect, I hadn’t done something like that before. It was mostly positive, a lot of people liked it.
WD: Do you just try to go out and pick your favorite DMB tune or how do you decide what to do next?
BP: I don’t really know what I’m going to do until I sit down to do it. Just two days ago I sat down to work on Two Step. Five minutes later I closed it and then started Crazy Easy. After I did the intro to that, I started Seek Up just because its whatever I feel like doing—I have a capella ADD.
WD: What was the first song that you did where you tried to do the backup vocals?
 BP: It was actually it didn’t even have words. I’m not good at writing lyrics. What I do is play my instruments and record them and do what I do with the acapella but with the instruments. I record full works with different instruments all playing at the same time. My first work I recorded was all of my instruments and then one vocal track. As I kept recording and recording more, the tracks got replaced by vocals until it was pretty much all vocals.
BP: People ask how I know what to sing. I tell them I just sing whatever’s in my head. Its really hard to explain that that’s the case, really. I think its because I’ve been playing the piano since I was five, and taking lessons for twelve years. I’m well versed with theory, and picking things apart which is probably why its so easy for me to lay down a track without having to think about it.
WD: You mention that you’re doing all this on the computer.
BP: Right, I use this loop-based software called Acid Pro. Its really not supposed to be used for this but I use it for it anyway, just because its extremely easy to work with the tracks, and dissect everything—copy and paste stuff like that.
WD: So you sit down and hit record, and one tracks out then you go on to the track?
BP: Yes, pretty much.
WD: Do you listen to the other track with your headphones? How do you keep track of what’s already been recorded?
BP: Well, I don’t have headphones that I use. *** PAUSE I’ll record the first track, and then I’ll play it back. It usually takes two or three times before I get it the way I like it. Then when I record the second track, while I’m recording its playing back the other tracks at the same time. But my microphone is far enough away from the speakers where I can record the new track while the other tracks don’t bleed in from the speakers. So I’m actually listening to all the other tracks while I’m recording—its like I’m singing to myself.
WD: Can you tell me a little bit about the process you use when you’re attacking a new DMB tune.
BP: Ya. The first thing I do is sit down with a song in mind. And I turn on a metronome. **When I start singing, I don’t real** I’ll break down the guitar tracks. Those are the first tracks I’ll do. For example with So Much To Say, that’s an easy one—I can do that for you right now. And then record another one over that.
After the guitar tracks are done, that’s usually three or four tracks, no more than five or six because that’s how many strings there are on a guitar. Dave rarely plays all six of his strings, usually three or tracks of just guitar, then I’ll add in maybe a base track. And then I’ll add one or two percussion tracks. The reason I’ll do more than one percussion track is for stuff like cymbal hits that don’t necessarily stop.
I know in real a capella groups with real people you don’t have the luxury of having two or three people on percussion. I can have as many people as I want. Sometimes I can have three or more percussion tracks taking care of different things.
BP: Once I have the guitar and the bass, and the percussion tracks the rhythm section is done, I’ll turn off the metronome. And then I’ll do the violin and sax stuff, I’ll do those separately. Once the violin and sax stuff are done, I do the singing and the words last. I do all the musical background first, and when that’s all done I’ll go through the whole song and put in a vocal track.
The first thing I do is sit down with a song in mind. And I turn on a metronome. I’ll break down the guitar tracks. Those are the first tracks I’ll do. For example with So Much To Say, that’s an easy one—I can do that for you right now. And then record another one over that.
I’ll record the vocal tracks and then since I don’t like my voice—usually a lot of its back-up vocals. Fifteen, twenty tracks later—I’m done.
WD: Have you ever though about releasing some kind of compilation of these Dave Matthews band acappellas you’ve done or maybe some of your original stuff on there as well.
BP: Basically, its just a hobby that I do. As a byproduct of this hobby people get to listen to the creations that come out of it. If they like it then I’m happy, if they don’t like it—I don’t care.
Cause its still fun for me to do.
A good example of that was when I released the acapella Halloween. That struck a few bad chords with the DMB community, because I wasn’t screaming apparently. The thing that happened with that is people were saying that I don’t scream with the emotion that Dave has.
WD: I think its pretty hard to emulate Dave--
BP: Ya, I know. I’m not trying to mirror his music perfectly. The reason I do this is for the background instrumental tracks, and putting it all together. The lyrics are just in there because its part of the song.
WD: Do you sing along to Dave in the car?
BP: I have a lot of things going on, and I’m really busy so I only have time to listen to music when I’m driving in my car. Coincidentally I only own Dave Matthews cd’s. It works out that I guess I only listen to Dave Matthews. I’ve been ridiculed for that on a number of occasions.
I never had a CD player or tapes or anything growing up just the first CD I bought was crash and I liked it—I went out and bought another one and another one and then I had all of them.
WD: What is your favorite part of the process?
BP: Singing the vocals at the end. Once everything’s done I get to go back and sing the words.
WD: Can you tell me again the address for your website?
BP: Sure, its www.pezshow.com.
WD: I can’t thank you enough for doing this interview
BP: No, thank you.
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