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Hi, this is Peter Creighton, host of The Rockology on WXAV 88.3 FM. And welcome to my exclusive interview with Nick Campbell, better known as Luft Vessel. In this interview, Nick discusses how he created a musical instrument using a tree, his interest in sound, and what college radio means to him. Here now, my interview with Nick Campbell.
How did you first get involved with music? Oh, I mean, my dad, the musician, and always was playing music for us as well, a kid. So it's been something that's been a big part of my life since I can remember. And then, you know, sort of normal things started playing in bands and in high school and just like connecting with other musicians.
And then, yeah, just, there's no crazy origin story. There was a big part of my life growing up with my family and I carried it forward. So this has been a natural thing for me. That's awesome.
And those are usually like the best stories to and everything. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
I mean, there's a lot of specific memories and things to go into, I guess, but there was no like single moment where it was like, aha, music. You know, it's always sort of there. Which is, yeah. Cool.
Now, your new album is called One Indrifless. And it's a really interesting album because it's very experimental. And one of the main ways you experiment on this is you kind of created a brand new instrument called the Arbo. What is the Arbo?
And can you kind of discuss a little bit about the philosophy behind it, of how you went about creating it? Because this is just this blows my mind. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Yeah.
It was a fun thing to sort of put together. So yeah, the Arbo is basically taking a living tree and just string it. I usually just use piano wire and waiting up piano wire and then you vote it. So, you know, it's just like a massive, you know, violin without a fretboard.
And then put contact mics on the trees so you pick up the vibrations and you can record it or amplify it. It makes some noise just naturally as well, but not very loud. But, yeah, I just and it's sort of an, I think it doesn't hurt the tree. So, you know, I'll be honest, it might be a brief reason I initially did it, because I was just thinking of interesting ways to make music.
Because I like to do a little sound art project. So I've done gallery, I think in galleries for several years now, finding sort of different wacky ways to create, you know, beautiful, or hopefully beautiful music. And so I was literally just in the round. I was like, well, it would be cool to make music with a living tree.
I wonder how you do that. And so there wasn't necessarily like a deep spot initially. It was more just sort of a fun idea. And so I started experimenting with different ways you could do it.
And some of them were like way too complex and wild, you know, just trying to make these contraptions. Eventually I realized it was actually insanely simple. You could just scrape a wire over a tree. And if you wait that wire down with something, it creates tension.
And you have a wire, you can play as an instrument. And you can put multiple strings on a tree or you know, whatever. And you can mic that up and do anything with the sound you want with it. So initially, yeah, just sort of a basic fun thought.
And then as I started to actually work on it, I ended up spending about 10 days doing artists residency in Minnesota out in the dripless area, sort of out in the woods and just focusing on that 100%. And it started becoming really emotionally impactful, like sitting in the woods recording and working with the tree. And I am someone that cares, you know, greatly concerned about the climate situation and the environment as you know, many, many, even most people at this point are. And it did start to symbolize something as I was there.
So working with this one tree day after day, just in the woods being with nature. I realized I was working on music in a way I never had before that I was literally outside, you know, running a really like tension cable to get my computer out there to record recording with nature and actually using it to create musical sound, not just in like a thing. You know, a lot of people have done, you know, record sounds in nature and build beautiful sound pieces out of it, but actually performing like, you know, written music with the help of a live organism, this live tree. It just started to symbolize to me this idea of like finding ways to work with nature instead of extracting from nature, you know, instead of cutting down a tree and making a guitar or a piano, using that tree, working with it and then leaving it to continue living its life, you know, and of course I was still using it from computer and other extracted materials.
I'm not going to play in that, but you know, it's a perfect thing, but it became symbolic to me and really meaningful. And so it is something that I really want to build upon and find more ways to express that idea because it started to be like something worthwhile at this point in time. That's incredible. That's absolutely incredible how you're trying to find that balance in and leave as little of a footprint as possible.
Now, did you experiment with like trees like, you know, did one tree sound different than the other? Like, how did you determine, okay, this is the one I'm going to use? Yeah, they do. But the tree that I ended up recording with on the album, it sounded good compared to the other piece and I think that it's more about a height and the branches.
So, you know, I literally just walked around the woods where I was saying and found a tree that had branches that could hold the weights. Of course, I didn't want to break any branches off, but also had a branch height that was in the property level so I could easily perform with it and, you know, wouldn't have to be draping piano wire from 20 feet above me. So it was actually more practical than artistic. The reason I picked the tree, but it was a beautiful little tree and had some healthy good branches that made for good work for stringing up the piano wires that worked out well.
But yes, different trees do have like different tonalities. You know, and a lot of that I'm sure is the branch or the kind of bark. That's something I absolutely want to explore more with 100%. I have not taken this concept as far as you can go for sure.
And so the things I'm excited to do with it are like you said, different kind of trees to see how those variances go and then also just doing ensemble pieces with a lot of people playing them is sort of the next vision that I'm working towards. Oh, that's awesome. Stay tuned for the next album from Lef Bessel coming soon. Very good.
Yeah. Yeah. Now you mentioned that this album, which is, it's beautiful, it was recorded in the Driftless region in Minnesota. How did this region kind of influence, you know, your writing for this record?
Yeah. Well, so first of all, I've got to say that records cut into two pieces really. Some of it is in the Driftless region. And then some of it's recorded in studios mostly around Los Angeles, which is where I was living at the time.
And so, you know, it all ended up sort of coming together in a really deep way and speaking to a bigger picture. But the the Driftless, the stuff that was recorded there is 100% inspired by that area. I didn't have any songs written when I got there. I went there in the plan, you know, I knew what I wanted to do, but I wanted to write the music there on the spot.
So that music is any of the songs on the record that are titled Driftless specifically are the ones that were 100% recorded there. And I did some more pieces of music there, but those are the ones I really ended up putting on the record. And you know, those were written there in the woods just, you know, playing along and sort of commenting on what I was experiencing here. So I mean, it couldn't be disconnected from the nature there.
It was definitely, you know, with the music when the mix is without my time spent there. That's awesome. Now my favorite track on the record is This Year Be. It's a beautiful song and it's got an absolutely stunning music video.
Can you kind of talk a little bit about how that music video was created? Yeah, you know, I worked with a videographer who was sort of like, we basically just shot back and forth thoughts on different images that would make sense with the swimming tips and music, but which one's the sort of highlight and how. And you know, how that song came about is an interesting one. My, I have, and Anne too, is a shaman and she's just a really fascinating person.
And for a while we were doing, it actually started with the tree thing. When I was having this tree idea, she was really into trees and was like, well, let's do some shamanic journeying and and like meet some trees and see what they're supposed to sound like and what they want to do. Hey, we ended up not sticking with this long, but I want to go back to that because I think we could end up doing something really fun and cool with that. But in the course of those, she basically just taught me the method that people used to do shamanic journeying.
It's almost like a, like a form of meditation except the opposite of like, you know, meditation, you try to quiet your mind and like, ideally reach like almost like a beautiful nothing is where as much shamanic journeying is almost the opposite. You invite at least in the way that she was teaching it. It's like, you know, you sort of let everything rush at you and like capture those images. And doing that with her was what inspired that song, you know, which reflected what happened historically in the last few years that have been really sort of dark and difficult for all of us.
And so the here, the song was sort of about reflecting on a year looking back and forth, but it came out of the shamanic journeying. I don't know if I'm connected here very well. It was like all these things sort of came together, all these visions I was having from these shamanic journeys mixed with sort of the difficulties of the year and looking ahead and hoping that like, you know, hoping for a better future for everyone, which anyway, that I would sort of what that was about and then try to capture some of that imagery in the video. Yeah, that's beautiful.
Now, I kind of want to shift gears for a moment because on your website, and you mentioned it earlier that, you know, you've done some sound experiments and you're a sound artist. What is it about sound that kind of excites you? Yeah. Well, I think the reason I started focusing on anything in a sound art way, well, a few things.
So first of all, like, years ago at the Art Institute there in Chicago, I grew up in Ohio and, you know, we go to Chicago, it goes big city every now and then. And I was there and saw an art exhibit or an installation by Bill D'Ola, this beautiful video artist. And like, that's just like blew my mind. Like, anyone listening to this or yourself, do you ever have a chance to go see a Bill D'O installation do yourself a favor and go to do it?
It was really impactful. I totally changed my life. And I was sort of always in the back end of my mind. Like, it was just this way of having like interactive art gallery sort of experience.
Not truly interactive, maybe, but just really impactful, impactful moving art gallery experience was sort of out of the norm. So that was always in the back of my mind. Something just I found really beautiful. And that somewhere in my mind, I was like, oh, maybe something I could find a way to do things like that.
And I don't even know what that means. And I still don't necessarily. But, you know, I went on and started doing music and, you know, have my first band out of New York, me toured for years and recorded and did the whole thing. And, you know, that band came to end next band starts to start, you know, like normal music, you know, just like life playing, you know, playing with fans during doing the whole thing.
And somewhere along the line, I did start to think back to that kind of experience and think like, how can I connect the music I love to write with York gallery? And I find a way to really make it uniquely impactful. And I love making records. I love playing with bands or just being like left that's like myself with random musicians here and there.
But so I have no way talking down on that. It's a really important experience for artists and people listening to it. But, you know, music has, we've all seen it like first sort of like the nap certification and the spotification. It's like, there's just so much music in the world to be experienced that like there are times when I release a record, I just sort of feel like, you know, like sitting in the ocean or something.
You know, it's like, it's just like, oh my God, like I'm, this music means a lot to me and I'm grateful to put it out and have it shared. But I do sometimes wonder like, I'm just making noise like I can't tell. And so I started to gravitate more towards not more I shouldn't say, but gravitate as well to doing things in the different setting of the art gallery just because it felt like a unique way of approaching it. It did not feel like it was just one of, you know, 10,000 people doing it at any given moment.
And so it was sort of initially just me attempting to find a different way to express my music in a way that maybe felt a little fresher and then connecting that back to the experience that I love in art galleries and just just trying to figure out how to connect those two. So, so, so what the sound has really been for me is a conduit to look at written music in a different way. Like, I do, I love songwriting. I don't think I'll ever be like a purely ambient like artist where it's just like ambient or conceptual installation without like melody or form.
I love melody and form so much. And that's something that I've always been trying to connect. And I've got a lot more work to do, like I want to be bringing figure out how to really do this very well and keep it growing. But bring melody and musical form into an art gallery context where it combines with sort of conceptual sound.
And so that's that's been working on for a long time. I've got ample gallery installations and various events and that led me, of course, what I did in the tripleous region as well. So, I'll sort of connect at this point in my life. That's awesome.
That's really awesome. And I think you bring up a good point because it's almost like we are overwhelmed with everything. We have information overload. Yeah, because we have everything with YouTube spotify.
It's just at the touch of your finger, which leads me into my final question. But before we get to that, Nick, if they want to check you out, how can they go and check you out? What's your website? Yeah, the website is left vessel.com, L-E-F-T-V-E-S-S-D-L.com.
And of course, you can also search it on any of your listening services. I don't discriminate. It's everywhere on the internet. And luckily, I don't think there is a there are no other left vessel out there.
I pick any enough names that you should find. You can search it. Yes, left vessel.com. Be sure to check it out.
But you bring up an interesting point, Nick. And I think it ties back into what WXAV is, which is a college radio station. How do you see college radio? How do you view it as part of that musical journey for musicians?
Yeah. And how has college radio affected you and your career? Oh, that is such a cool question. And no one's ever asked that.
And it's actually been very, very important to my career. I've been playing with Vans since the late 2000s and releasing records, on labels and independently, and the whole mix. And college radio has been crucial in a few different ways. So I'm just going to sort of lift off the top of my head and then this stuff.
Like I said, no, never asked this. I've never thought of it in that context before, but it's such a cool question. On one level, I look at college radio as a network. Just this amazing network of people that are dedicated to great music and a way that you don't find it or else.
So in one level, all the people working at college radio are such passionate music listeners and sharers. And that's such a cool thing to engage with on any level. And so I've always looked at that as a cool thing on its own. But then beyond that college radio, the conduit for artists that just don't really have access, obviously, don't have mainstream radio.
They don't have multi-million dollar budgets. It's a way to be shared with a larger audience that just doesn't really exist otherwise. So I mean, from a functional getting music out there standpoint, super crucial. And then it's been, I haven't gotten to do this yet with Lefeso because of the pandemic, but with previous bands doing radio shows and a while on tour, stopping at the stations, I've been playing the music and meeting the people and doing on-air performances and stuff like that.
It's also been such a cool way in the past of making some relationships and also just engaging with communities that you wouldn't necessarily know otherwise because they're in different parts of the country that you don't engage with usually. And so I mean, more than anything, it's just this supportive network that just, I don't know if there's any other network like it at this point now that so much music is online to have a physical network of passionate music lovers, listeners, sharers. It's just a cool and important thing. That is absolutely incredible.
Probably one of the greatest answers I've ever gotten for the college radio question. So thank you so much, Nick. Again, leftvessel.com. Be sure to check him out.
Actually, just one final question. Any plans on hitting the road anytime soon? Looking at it in spring of next year, I'm discussing with upcoming projects with another artist named Ben Ben. So we've already finished our record together and hopefully by then everything will be normal and light again that it'll make sense to book a tour.
So it would be me and him hitting the road together doing some of our own individual projects and also playing the record that we've finished but not yet released. So yeah, if all goes well next spring, this is early next year, next spring or so finally in the road. And I should be playing some shows around the Pacific Northwest here and there but before then, but yeah, the next Consisti- you know, consolidated group of shows will be then. And be sure to check it out.
leftvessel.com for all the latest news and information. Nick, thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate you taking the time as well. And yeah, thanks again for playing music.
Thank you very much for listening to this WXAV 88.3 FM podcast. Be sure to visit our website, wxav.com for more information on your escape from ordinary radio.