Coming in the style of Gillian Welch and Milk Carton Kids, the UK’s Copper Viper are beginning to run, with their debut album now out. We chatted about recording the album, classic duos and condenser microphones.
One of the things that struck me when reviewing Copper Viper’s Cut it Down, Count the Rings debut album (review here) was how confident and cohesive the songs sounded; but then, the band’s journey thus far has been fast-paced. “Well, we finished recording almost exactly a year ago,” begins guitarist Robin Joel Sangster. “The band started in November of 2016 and we spent just over a year or so writing the songs and then went and did the recording. We did write quite a lot of songs that didn’t go on the record as well, so it wasn’t the first eleven songs we wrote that we stuck on the album. We spent a bit of time thinking about which songs go together and there are a few songs that were not quite right for this but might end up on the next one.”
The recording itself was sparely built by the band and American producer Ryan Hadlock, with very little else alongside Sangster’s guitar and Duncan Menzies’ mandolin or fiddle. “We were out in a place called Bear Creek Studio in Washington State for just under three weeks,” Duncan tells us. “It was absolutely the intention, especially for the first album [to be minimally arranged]; we wanted it to be largely about the actual sound, because we’re going to be doing a lot of gigs and we are just a duo, so we didn’t want the record to be full of stuff that wouldn’t be at the gigs. But there are a couple of tracks with some double bass on and that’ll be the next thing we would get in the band, when we’re ready for it”.
The record is minimalist indeed, but three weeks is no overnight thrash job, and there is a sense of the meticulous about this duo; they didn’t necessarily have to stand around the microphone and do it live every time if there was sometimes a better way. “It was a bit of both,” says Duncan. “Some of them were recorded more or less completely live, but some of the trickier ones had a few takes and we would do the instruments together and then the vocals together. ‘Howl’ was completely live and so was ‘Shadows’. ‘Amber Light’ is the only one where it isn’t how it would be live, because there is more than one of me on there, with the fiddle overdub coming in while I’m still playing mandolin. We’ll probably try to get someone in [to play the fiddle] at some point. What we’d really like in the future is a slide guitar player, because there are a couple of tracks with slide on there, and then that person would take the fiddle line in ‘Amber Light’ while I play the mandolin, because that part is a bit too involved to play and sing at the same time reliably, so we’ll probably leave the fiddle line to someone else on that one.”
With regard to live shows, the boys are pretty regimented, with the recorded patterns of the songs being well adhered to much of the time. “We don’t go off-piste that much, apart from the fiddle and mandolin solos, some of which are largely improvised,” Duncan tells us. “Actually, all of the solos on the album are improvised, but I’ve listened to it quite a lot of times in the last year, so there are a few of them that have become more like parts. So, some of the solos are improvised, yeah, but the harmonies are all charted out and we know exactly how we sing those to keep them together. Rob’s guitar parts are totally solid foundations that don’t change.” “I did a lot of solo rehearsals before we recorded, just to make sure my guitar parts were on point,” Robin explains. “I wanted it to be one or two takes and then done, and I pretty much managed that, I think everyone in the studio was happy.” “The producer and the engineer called him ‘The Train’ in the studio,” Duncan laughs. “Because it was always there and done solid, just like a train.”
We get onto chatting about classic duo (and trio) albums and influences and the pair react approvingly when I mention Gillian Welch’s classic Time (The Revelator) and how I can hear Welch and Rawlings a lot in their music. “That’s a lovely comparison and we’re big fans,” says Robin. “I think The Revelator is a brilliant album for duos and I can’t really think of a better one, except for maybe a Simon and Garfunkle album…” “I think the one I spend the most time listening to is the Milk Carton Kids’ Prologue,” says Duncan. “That’s the one that really got me into this kind of music; before that, I’d play mostly new trad, Celtic music or gypsy jazz. So I came at this music through that album and it’s the most important to me.” “We also really like the Be Good Tanyas albums,” continues Robin. “All three are brilliant, and I love Frazey Ford’s solo material too.”
This duo go traditional when playing live, much like their influences the Milk Carton Kids and Gillian Welch, with them both stood in front of one microphone to capture voices and instruments. “Occasionally there are gigs where we don’t get a proper soundcheck, so the guitar does have a pickup that we can use in an emergency if it’s not loud enough, but the main setup is one condenser microphone and everything going through that,” Duncan says. “It works really nicely; it can depend on the venue to some extent and the engineer, because there can be more subtleties to it than just plugging in a bunch of DIs and off you go, but by and large it’s been going well. It also depends on us of course, getting used to where to stand and how close the guitar has to be relative to the mandolin. We’re learning the whole time, but it sounds really nice through that mic.” He pauses a moment. “I think the older I get, the more allergic I get to the sound of pickups on instruments.” We feel it’s a healthy allergy to develop, as, like their peers, this duo are already making some lovely old time sounding music with their modest tools. Some things just shouldn’t be fussed with too much.
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All Images by Anna Orhanen