At War With Self is one of those musical endeavors where limits are truly non-existent. Glenn Snelwar hooked up with longtime friend Damon Trotta this time around and the end result is the superb "Acts of god" album. There's a bunch of samples on Glenn's website (http://www.glennsnelwar.com) so check them out and read all about this great initiative and their future plans! 

It is pretty interesting to hear that you broke down At War With Self’s sound and rebuild it entirely on the new album entitled “Acts of God”. Was this something you planned to regardless of Damon’s participation/contribution?
-I think the second disc needed to take an entirely different direction, even if the line-up had remained the same. Damon and I have been talking about doing a disc together for years, so this was the perfect chance. The great thing about collaborating with Damon is that he’s very spontaneous and creative, and is a hell of a bass player with a lot of different influences from mine. So when we got together to write the songs on "Acts of God", the basic song structures were shaped collaboratively in the studio. For the first disc, I had written most of the songs on my own, and some were very carefully and methodically written and re-written. About half of the songs on "Torn..." were versions of songs and parts I had kept for as long as 10 or 15 years. For "Acts of god", all of the songs were new and were all either written together between Damon and myself, or with James VonBuelow, as well as getting every one of the musicians to play an important role creatively, to do what they wanted to do and allow them to fit their styles into the song. So overall, yes, this disc intentionally sounds the way it does because of the collaborative effort that went into the whole process – from coming up with ideas to the final mix.

How important is it to you to keep trying out different styles and instruments to try to make something interesting out of it? Basically, where does being progressive for you end?
-It’s not really a conscious effort that I’m making when deciding on instrumentation or styles to incorporate into a song or between songs. There are very few types of music that I can’t find something to appreciate about, so for example the idea of using mandolin over the top of a heavy guitar part comes from my listening to all kinds of music. I just don’t want to start labeling what I do as a certain type of music. For the next disc, there’s a track that’s heavier than anything on the first two discs, and has traditional Japanese wind instruments over a Slayer-type sounding rhythm track. Combining ideas like those sound really intriguing to me, so I try to trust my ear and instinct about what sounds good to me, and not think about whether ideas should ‘fit’ together or not. Even with chord progressions, I don’t like the idea of formulaic writing for the sake of being harmonically ‘safe’. For me at least, to turn writing music into a paperwork exercise just doesn’t allow the creative process to flow the same way as picking up an instrument and trusting your instincts. I like to keep detailed analysis to my practice sessions and not the creative process.
Right now I’m trying to focus on my guitar playing and keep things ‘progressive’ by getting out of the habit of playing familiar chords, and expanding my technique to include chords, scales or rhythms that I wouldn’t ordinarily think about. Those aspects of practice take years to manifest in your playing. It’s very easy after playing for a long time, to get comfortable with a certain level of technical ability and be resistant to push yourself to continuously expand your knowledge. Having said that, I’d like to be at a different level technically and have a broader range of chord progressions and scales and to get back to the guitar as my primary focus and try new things with it.

Damon Trotta has been a long time friend of yours so I’m wondering how easy it was for you guys to start writing music together again. How much did he contribute? Do you guys jam out together or do you write your own stuff and visit each other being well prepared?
-Damon and I were in bands together a long time ago, playing a sort of progressive metal/punk hybrid when we didn’t know what the hell we were doing at all from an analysis perspective, we were trusting our instincts back then as well. We’ve kept in contact over the years being in different parts of the country, but whenever we’ve been able to get together and write, we’ll pick up where we left off, and most times years will go by in between doing this. For about half the tracks on "Acts of god", we spent a weekend hanging out, and just started writing and recording while we were coming up with ideas to drum beats or other samples. I think if I had come prepared to work on a specific set of ideas I had generated with Damon, he’d give me a shot of Tequila or a few beers and tell me to come up with something new, which is fine by me.
Those ideas formed the foundation of the songs, and then we brought in the other musicians to do the rest of the parts once the basic structure was laid out. I’d send Damon more guitar, mandolin or synth tracks, and he’d incorporate them into the mix. So we each had a lot of creative freedom even after getting the ideas down while sitting in the same room. But even with all the parts added afterwards, a lot of the spontaneity of those recording sessions is still in the final mix. The beginning of "Refugee" is a pretty raw slide guitar, which I had some questions about re-tracking to make it more polished. I’m glad I didn’t, because it has a character that needed to be retained. Damon was able to remind me how important that aspect was, that this whole idea of a lot of progressive rock sounding pristine and unblemished can be turned upside down and still be called progressive.

There’s also a bunch of guest musicians on the album, how do you decide with whom to cooperate or whom to ask to enrich on certain songs? How much value do you put in collaborating with other musicians to keep things fresh and interesting?
-With these tracks, Manfred is a drummer that first and foremost is a great musician, but also a great person to work with. He’s truly a professional but also a really down to earth guy as well, which makes an inherently difficult collaborative effort logistically speaking, very rewarding. He’s doing the drums for the next disc as well. James VonBuelow (guitars), Dave Archer (synths) and Steve Decker (drums) are all friends of Damon’s – James and Dave Archer both have discs out on Damon’s label as well, so getting them to collaborate made sense - they’re all great musicians and their influences and stylistic leanings fit the particular songs they played on very well. Mark Sunshine is a vocalist I’ve been familiar with for quite a while, he and Damon were in a band called System Addict years ago, and I’ve always liked his voice. So getting him to sing on a couple of tracks, and also come up with lyrics for "Refugee" was great to have happen. He’s fronting a band called RiotGod now, be sure to check them out on myspace.

Obviously there is a strong link between the album title, the songs and 9/11, which actually is a song itself on the album. I don’t want to drag you into a political discussion but please do enlighten us with what exactly you’re trying to channel through the music and vocals/lyrics.
-The collection of tracks are just Damon and I holding a mirror up to the environment we’re bombarded with, whether in real life or on television, with the results being the variety of emotions on each of the songs. Some of the titles like "911" and "Martyr" are pretty self-explanatory and try to capture sonically the emotions of events like the Twin Towers falling and the slaughter of thousands of innocent people here in America, or random suicide bombings that affect innocent people all over the world in the name of religion. The ideas for "Refugee" were tracked the same weekend Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. I was making the 12-hour trip to Damon’s in the car and all that was on the radio was the news of Katrina. So the slide guitar part is the first thing that came out when we started collaborating on ideas for that. Damon came up with the ideas for "End in Blue" due to the tsunami in Indonesia. The song-writing was a spontaneous process based on world events in the time frame we were working on them.
Other tracks are more introspective and based on emotions from trying to process and comprehend our fragile existence as part of this complicated human race; how we’re ultimately at the mercy of each other or Acts of God.

Since the age of the Internet is upon is it seems like collaborating with musicians all over the world is easier and cheaper than ever before. The booklet mentions that parts of the album were recorded in different places. Did everyone record their parts in their own studio and sent it to you via e-mail?
-After Damon and I got together to get most of the ideas down, all of the other musicians except for Manfred worked with Damon directly to record their tracks, since they’re all located close by to him. Manfred is in the Netherlands, so all of his tracks and correspondence were done through the internet.

Are you also doing some guest appearances on other artists’ albums? How about major collaborations with others?
-I did some mandolin tracks for the Von Garcia disc, also on Damon’s label. It’s a beautiful disc, and quite a bit more laid back than any other recordings I’ve done before. Aside from that, no major collaborations. There are many people I’d like to work with though, I guess it’s just a matter of asking or being asked, and having more hours in the day.

What exactly is Sluggos Goon Music (www.sluggosgoonmusic.com)? It’s not like a typical label, or indie label it seems. The impression that I get is that it’s more of a collective of musicians who collaborate and release each others’ music. Feel free to enlighten us about this label/initiative!
-Yeah, it is actually what Damon is referring to as a collective of musicians, but Sluggo’s is also the name of the label he’s started up. The label serves to release all different kinds of music – it doesn’t really matter what kind- as long as Damon’s into it – and if there’s an ability to intertwine the musicians from the different projects, that’s the vibe. It’s almost more of a jazz musician’s mentality than anything else, in the sense that it’s all pretty incestuous and we’re all willing to collaborate freely. James and Steve from Von Garcia and Dave from Dave Corp were on the "Acts of God" disc, and I did some parts for the Von Garcia disc. Since a couple of tracks of "Acts of God" were mostly written by James, there’s an alternate version of "Ursa Minor" on the Von Garcia disc, which has a totally different feel but the same overall song structure.
Damon’s label is also untraditional since the musicians are pitching in what they can to defer some of the costs or do some of the artwork or promotion ourselves, so it’s not all Damon’s headache. None of the musicians that guest on any of the discs are paid, either, which is just the reality of the situation. For "Acts of God", I did the artwork and all the promotion work for outside the U.S., in large part so we wouldn’t have to spend as much money to get the disc out. One recent development for the label is that the entire Von Garcia disc is available for free download on the site, to get people to check out the label and understand what it’s about. Damon’s got a lot of info posted on the site, so please check it out!

You took care of the artwork and it turned out really cool. The cover artwork is really powerful. What kind of computer programs did you use to create it? Will you also do artwork for other artists?
-Thanks, that means a lot! I worked very hard on it, and I certainly learned a lot doing it. I’ve been interested in art for a long time, and have taken a bit of coursework in drawing and painting but never with graphic design. My own insistence of doing the artwork was partly as I mentioned, out of necessity to keep the budget for the disc in check, but also to learn how to use programs like Photoshop and Freehand to modify and arrange the pictures used for the artwork. I’ve always wanted to have a nice fold-out booklet with extensive artwork for a CD release, and this was going to be as close as possible to that given the budget limitations of an independent release. The original images were all taken from i-stock, a royalty-free site where various artists sell their work. Once the licenses were purchased for each picture it was a matter of figuring out the layout, the correct combination of images to fit the ideas behind each song and then executing it and applying various effects to the different images to create the final version. I had a great time doing it, and I’m going to do the next At War With Self disc as well.
Artwork for other artists? Not sure – again, it would be a matter of what it was, how patient they would be with me and how to fit it in. It probably took me ten times as long as someone familiar with how to use those programs and get everything ready for the printing press, but now I know so maybe it would only take me five times as long next time around! I would be open to the idea, but I’d have to think carefully about committing to it.

After the next disc, which is also going to be a studio-based recording with similar logistical nightmares incompatible with doing a series of live shows, I’m thinking more and more about forming a band and playing shows in the Midwest, close to my home. It’s nice to have the freedom to work in a studio environment, but I’m missing the aspect of playing out and interacting with other musicians in a live setting the more I do these studio projects. And playing local shows would allow me to keep my day job, which I’m not about to give up anytime soon.

If someone were to offer the ability to schedule a short 2-3 week tour and have expenses paid to coordinate getting everyone together, I’d be excited to do it and be able to bring some of the songs to life on stage. But unfortunately I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

The more digital downloading that occurs (legally and illegally), it’s convincing me that physical CDs are not the way to go if I need to at least break even to continue mass-producing music, whether it’s for Damon’s label or any other collaborative effort. The next disc may wind up being in this category, I’m unsure right now what will happen. I could see giving away half the disc for free through downloads, and charging for the other half of the disc and let people get all the music for $4 or $5 rather than physical copies that more than likely won’t sell enough to justify.

To extend on the previous question, with all the online stores selling mp3s it seems the current generation kids prefer the convenience of having everything digital. Will CDs and DVDs become a rarity for collectors only (like vinyl) in a few years from now? I hope not, and going the all digital route is something I still have a reluctance towards – there’s something different to me about having the artwork and the highest quality audio to appreciate with a disc that you just can’t get from a jpeg of the cover and mp3 downloads. There’s more of a separation between the artist and the listener when there’s nothing tangible to connect to. But then again, the music should speak for itself as well, so there are advantages and disadvantages to the digital downloading.

On the positive side, your music better have some sort of immediate impact on the listener, because there’s plenty of sample clips to listen to out there and it makes your music have to stand out, say something unique and speak for itself. It’s almost a similar concept to how shopping a demo was ten years ago – you had better get your point across quickly because the label has other things to move on to. Now the typical listener downloading clips and samples has taken the place of the label’s role. The artist really does have to rely on the music almost entirely in the digital world, and can’t expect people to blindly purchase a disc just because they had in the past. Those days are definitely over for most people. Having said that, as a listener I’ve done my share of listening to something for 30 seconds and passing over to the next available clip, never to return. But there are bands that I WILL buy everything they put out, even if I like some releases a lot more than others, and I’ll do it on blind faith that there will be something I like about each disc. I have a level of loyalty to a handful of bands, and I buy everything they put out because I think it’s important for them to at least generate sales from CDs or DVDs if nothing else.

What I like about At War With Self so much is that it’s not simply being progressive and technical for its own sake. There are plenty progressive rock/metal bands that in my opinion focus too much on purveying flawless music instead of channeling any emotion. They would probably not understand how amazing a kind of sloppy band can be when this band puts their entire heart and soul in their music.
Can you listen and enjoy to such imperfect music too or does the execution of the music always take precedence?
-For me technique can’t take precedence over emotion – if the music has no soul I can’t listen to it, no matter how technically brilliant it might be. And, a lot of non-technically oriented music to me has no soul, either. So it works (or, doesn’t work) both ways for me. Basically anything intentional and formulaic for the sake of doing what’s familiar and what will sell turns me away. I do love technical music when it has soul – to me Ron Jarzombek and Fredrick Thordendal are examples of great technical players out there right now, AND they have so much emotion in their ideas and with what they do, it’s really an incredible combination to listen to. Earlier Voivod, D.B.C., Rush and King Crimson have that impact on me. And then I can appreciate old punk and hardcore and appreciate that vibe too, like old D.R.I., Bad Brains and Cro-Mags. They were all about emotion, but if you want to hear perfect technique go somewhere else. Some of my favorite bands are Corrosion of Conformity and older Soundgarden, to me a perfect blend of technique and enough raw, sloppiness to keep it from sounding too perfect.

I think you’d agree with my statement that the music genre doesn’t really matter when it comes to being good music. Rather good music is simply good music transcending style or genre.
In that line of reasoning tell us what artists/albums that came out in 2007/2008 really managed to impress you.
-I’ll pick out a few that I’ve bought recently, not all were released last year, but I’ve been listening to a lot: Kevin Gilbert – The Shaming of the True (and everything else he ever released), Meshuggah – ObZen, Blotted Science – Machinations of Dementia,  SleepyTime Gorilla Museum – In Glorious Times, Crowded House – Time on Earth, Alex Machacek – Improvision, Planet X – Quantum,Jonas Hellborg and Shawn Lane– Live in Paris DVD, Porcupine Tree – Arriving Somewhere DVD, the Genesis Super Audio CDs of Wind and Wuthering and A Trick of the Tail, Danny Elfman’s Serenada Schizophrana on SACD, Hiromi’s Time Control SACD, Bela Fleck’s Live at the Quick DVD.

All good things come to an end, even this interview :-)
Thanks for your patience concerning this much belated interview and I’m definitely curious what musical journeys you’ll offer us on future outputs!
-Thanks for the continued support Ron! It really means a lot to be able to communicate every once in a while to everyone who takes the time to read, so thanks out there to all of you as well.

Want more info on At War With Self?
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Other articles for At War With Self:

Album review		Acts of god»	by Ron 23 Aug, 2007
Interview		"For now, At War With Self is purely a studio project."»	by Ron 15 Aug, 2005
Album review		Torn between dimensions»	by Ron 16 Apr, 2005