Where does the magic happen, Mr. Brent?

I can’t count the number of times that I haven’t been asked “Just how do you do the thing that you do?” The deafening silence can be broken only by this unwarranted exploration of my demo process.

Now, this is just a delving into the work methods of myself, J. Brent Stewart.  I cannot begin to fathom what arcane rituals Glen is performing at his Germantown camelback, what dark spells he must be weaving in order to conjure up the songs that he writes.  It’s not for me to say. And I have a feeling he’ll not-say it as well.

No, this is just how I, your humble host, work.

Songs come from different places in different ways.  I’ve always held that the absolute best songs are the ones that just explode out of your brain onto the guitar/piano/mic completely formed, as though God beamed the whole damned thing straight into your noggin, and you just can’t rest until you get it the cosmic load shot out of your skull.

Others are assembled slowly over time.  Lines occur to me at the strangest times.  My “In Progress” folder is a strange mishmash of bits of paper; stationary, napkins, receipts, you name it. Anything that had enough space for me to jot a few words down, it’s all in there.

From time to time I’ll return to the pile of scraps, and melodies will begin to suggest themselves.

Usually the least successful songs are the ones where I write the music and then try to shoehorn words into them.  Those almost never work.

So, once the song is “written”, it’s time to demo it.

This is usually done in my living room. Where else?

As you can see, Large Mound Cats, plants, and XBox controllers are very important in the Stewart/Childress household.

For demo’s I use Cubase Essex, because that is what Danny gave me. I know just enough about it to be dangerous, but not enough to do anything really great.

Being a novice, the hardest part, for me at least, is figuring out how to sync up the metronome. Tens of hours can be frittered away on this activity, as countless musical gems are lost to the ether in the interim. Sad, really.

Here you can see a fuzzy example of what a J. Brent Stewart demo may look like. I believe this one is the song known as “Nateloop”, which really needs a new title soon.

Because I am easily distracted, I sometimes need new sounds to keep my attention, hence the usage of my pedal board, which is normally reserved for live performance.  Big Muff Pi, Crybaby Bass Wah, and a Pitch Black tuner.

I also use the pedal board to power this Casio keyboard, which was given to me for Christmas when I was, I dunno, about 10 years old, probably. I’m no Glen “Liberace’s More Flamboyant Descendent” Reid, but it’s handy for filling in ideas for chords and stuff.

And there you have it! The song is demo’d (a single song could take anywhere from about 10 minutes to two hours depending on how many vocal ideas I have) and then the whole kit and Kaboodle (trademark) is takento Su Su Studios, where the demo is wrestled to the ground, eviscerated, and it’s parts sold as trifle.