Interview with Oliver Ackermann of A Place To Bury Strangers

[photo by Joel Barhamand courtesy of Mute Records]

Ever listen to an album and wonder how the band achieved the tone they delivered? Although it’s something I never really put much effort into exploring, it’s something I’ve been curious about since I was a kid. When I found out that A Place To Bury Strangers’ Oliver Ackermann designed effects pedals, I decided to approach this interview a little differently than the norm. Ackermann was kind enough to answer a few questions for me about how his fascination with tone started, his first recording and modification experiments, the gear he’s using onstage, and the band’s new album Exploding Head.

Kip Gasparick: How old were you when you first picked up a guitar, Oliver? What albums provided the most inspiration to play early on?

Oliver Ackermann: I was 15 when I first started playing the guitar, it was an unnamed acoustic guitar that my dad had. I was really into punk bands like Minor Threat, Seven Seconds, and the Ramones from my brother and was just getting into bands like Slowdive and the Cure and I would try to bridge the gap between those styles of music but of course I didn’t know what I was doing.

KG: When did you first realize your fascination with tone? What was the first guitar/pedal/amp that underwent the modification process?

OA: I think when I first got an amplifier and would try to record songs on a tape deck, I used to bounce the tracks back and forth while dubbing and do multitrack recording then. I realized what different sounds could do when overlapped and fell in love with the process. There were a lot of pedals that I attempted to modify and never worked out but the first pedal I successfully modified was an Electro Harmonix Electric Mistress that my friend John Fedowitz gave me for my birthday. I am actually still using it to this day.

KG: What should our readers know about your new album Exploding Head?

OA: It was almost completely recorded at my studio in Brooklyn and then the vocal tracks were all recorded at Andy Smith’s studio. Most of the recording was done in about three months time over a few breaks we had between tours.

KG: Was this the first time you recorded with Andy? What inspired the decision to work with him initially?

OA: This was the first time working with Andy Smith and it was a real honor to work with him, he is amazing. He had done these remixes for songs from our first record and they were all really unique with a great aesthetic so it just seemed like it would be a really good idea to team up.

KG: What were a few of the impractical recording techniques used in the studio?

OA: There were a lot of tracks recorded off reflections of cymbals, some amps facing the floor with mics under them, headphone feedback, and some hammers on drums but it was really a sort of tame album for experimentation, as I said before we only had about three months and we were trying to capture a pretty live sound so the thing was very minimal.

KG: Tell us a little about Death By Audio… it’s much more than an effects pedal company, is it not?

OA: It is but that is really due to a lot of other people that I live with. People like Matt Conboy, Edan Wilber, George Wilson, Joe Kelly, and David Levin have really transformed the Death By Audio name into a lot more. It is also a record label, a venue, a studio and artist studios.

KG: Are there any forthcoming (DBA) releases or shows you’d like to plug?

OA: The new Grooms record is freaking amazing! I would go out and buy it now.

KG: What is the most popular pedal the company sells and who are a few of the artists using it?

OA: It is hard to name the most popular pedal but maybe the Supersonic Fuzz Gun? and a few of the people using it would be the Edge, Kevin Shields, and Sweet Willy.

KG: What gear (guitars, effects, amps) are you using onstage these days?

OA: I use a custom DBA built reverb, DBA multi wah, DBA delay, the Armageddon, the Control System, a Boss VF-1, Fender Jaguars and Jazzmasters, and Fender Twin Reverb Amps.

[Interview by guest contributor Kip Gasparick.]