ieuan jones - artio drummer & producer - interview
Ieuan Jones is a Leeds-based producer and drummer for alt rock band Artio. For zine issue 2, we talked about his role in the band, collaborating and his production journey.
Do you prefer doing mixing and recording or the live side of things for Artio?
I think in general probably recording and mixing because I’d say that I’m a producer and a songwriter before a drummer. I get stressed playing live so sometimes I just want to get through the set. Although, if a gig is going really well the adrenalin’s there instead of being sat in a dark, dingy studio for hours and hours so there are different benefits, but in general I get more out of the production process. I started drumming before producing, mainly because I wanted to learn electronic songs and drums were the only thing I could pick out at the time, I was listening to people like Avicii and Skrillex and I had no clue what all the other sounds were, but I could pinpoint the drums.
It was a couple of years after I started learning drums that I downloaded my first DAW and then from there I started to get way more out of sitting behind a laptop than sitting behind a drumkit. When I was still living at home my parents were definitely more thankful that I was staying up until 3am making shitty beats instead of playing drums too! My first DAW was FL Studio since I was into house producers, and I saw this video from 2012 of Avicii making a song flat out in 1h45. I watched the whole way through and thought shit, this is way easier to start than I expected. Someone in the YouTube comments pointed out he was using FL so next thing I downloaded a cracked version onto my family laptop and probably gave them a load of viruses. Later I saw how Skrillex uses Ableton and switched over to that, but I also do a lot of stuff in logic as well- I can’t decide on a single DAW, basically.
What was the most difficult Artio song production-wise?
A lot of our songs will get started really quickly but then it’s a mixed bag of whether they’re almost finished in a day or take months and months to get right. Of all the ones that are out, from a production point of view, I think maybe the ‘big one’ Product of My Own Design, that was a really tricky song to get right because at the time we’d never done anything that heavy. We’d always done more dance stuff.
Rob started the idea and for the longest time it was called Operation: Get This Song Past Rae because we’d never put something to them that was quite as heavy. It was about fleshing it out in a way that was still accessible to our singer and something they could get on board with, so a lot of the time it was ‘how do we make this not like a metal song, but also a metal song at the same time’. I think the challenge in general is mixing the electronic and rock side of things together and finding a way to do that that isn’t really cheesy. With that track it was our first attempt at something heavier, but once we cracked that I feel like everything since has been easier and we got over that barrier of how heavy is too heavy, now we just write whatever.
Production-wise the struggle was layering Rob’s metalcore riff with synth and electronic sounds we’d used before. I used to try and go really in detail with sound design, but I’ve dialled things back more and more since, and now everything is mainly only sine waves and square waves instead of trying too hard. As the songs got heavier and instrumentals got denser, it was almost easier to compliment Rob’s guitar parts with simple sounds. After conquering ‘Product of My Own Design’ we’ve been in the headspace of less is more. We didn’t even want that song to be a single on the EP and it’s our biggest song by a million miles- we don’t know what will or won’t work so from songwriting, to sound design, to production we just thought we’re not going to try to do anything in particular, we’ll just see where things take us.
What’s your most memorable collaboration with another band or artist?
I work with a lot of local bands for singles and EPs, but the first full collection of songs that I ever worked on in an external role is by a band called Beauty School. So that in itself is going to be my most memorable to date. The project changed so much from the beginning, it was so interesting to see, and great to work on something that wasn’t so rigid. Even though they’re such talented musicians and so hardworking, they let my workflow in and were very happy to let me bring my in-the-box style production to it. They’re a pop punk band so not electronic but let me have a voice which was really nice, and they’re just a great group of guys so I was happy that it was with them that I could do my first full album collaboration. That process was just the best thing, sorry to everyone else that I’ve worked with!
What’s your favourite genre to produce?
I kind of feel like I have to say Artio, which sounds like I’m bigging myself up, but I’ve never been able to settle on a genre, like ‘I make this kind of music’. I tried to make music in the styles of my favourite artists but never got good at it, I tried future bass, mid-tempo, trap, hip-hop, everything. I gave it all a go but didn’t get particularly great at any one style of electronic music, and when I got into rock production everything that I’ve done spans from softer indie to really heavy metal, so I’ve never specifically homed in on a genre. I have to go with producing for Artio, because I get to be okay at every genre all at once so I feel like I don’t need to stress at getting perfect at any one of these while making music in my own time, because I can work with no restraints, completely stress free.
What’s different about working in theatre?
The thing that’s most different from working in the music world (at least in my experience) is in the music world it’s very much: if something has gone wrong on stage, get on and fix it NOW, it can be scrappy or someone can run on stage to grab something etc., but in the theatre world there’s a lot more hierarchy and a set way of doing things. It’s great to see that side of it because everyone knows exactly what they’re supposed to be doing during the show, whether they need to be backstage, what they need to look after, but the hardest thing about not deviating from that is if something’s gone wrong on stage I can’t just run on like at a gig. But it’s been great to see people working so efficiently (not saying that people don’t in music!) there’s just this upper echelon in the theatre world that has been really interesting to get an inside angle on. I guess when you’re in a DIY band it can sometimes feel like everything’s resting on you- I’m lucky to be in a band with insanely hardworking people with a team of such hard workers too- but there is still pressure to get things right. It’s nice to be like a cog in a machine that’s doing something incredibly impressive as well, so it’s good to have that balance and see both sides- there are parts from each world that I prefer but it’s good to see it all.
What’s your favourite show that you’ve worked on in theatre?
I started working when Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was on and that was an insane show, it was so wild. Before I started, I didn’t think I’d be swapping mics down the backs of sweating Oompa Loompas. The first show I’ve done from the get-go was The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. It was great to see how it developed from just the rehearsal room to getting to know the team and everyone gelling together a few weeks in.
What are your goals for your future in production?
Every time I get asked this I try and reel off my bucket list, but I always think as long as I can keep the lights on and live somewhat comfortably by doing something to do with sound or music, that’s success for me. Anything else is a great, great bonus. Obviously, there are dream collabs and if I could work with people that have produced some of my favourite records, like Jordan Fish or Dan Lancaster, that would be the dream, but it still just boils down to being involved in music for a living.