story by Michael Todd | photos by Dawn Thorfinnson
Funny how a little light can change everything. Case in point: the upward beams on Domestica's stage that leave campfire-story shadows on the faces of married musicians Heidi Ore and Jon Taylor. It's purposeful design that works.
The trio has clear objective, too, when their song "Shine" is shoved through instrument and mic cables, out booming amplifiers, and kept steady by Todd Johnson's drumming: Domestica means to rock.
The band's newest release, Domestica 2, met the public ear on April 1, but Hear Nebraska premiered "Shine" back in December with our first compilation CD. Because it still makes me all tingly in the last quarter of its two minutes and 40 seconds — every time — I called Taylor at home as Ore listened from across the room to her husband's side.
Hear Nebraska: How long does it take to write a shorter song like “Shine”?
Jon Taylor: Oh, man. A lot of the time, they just come out of you like vomit (laughs). For me, I play guitar all the time. So a part comes out, and I go, "That sounds like a verse or a chorus," and usually the next part happens. I get the skeleton of the song figured out on guitar and typically don’t finish the whole thing.
I think it’s important for me to then bring it to the band and see what happens at that point. All I do is bring just the bones of the song. Heidi will write her basslines and she writes the lyrics, then Todd has to come up with the drum part.
We do it pretty quick. We can finish a song in a practice then nail it down in the next practice. But it does take everybody’s contributions to finish it.
"I know her as my wife and the mother of the children, but once she puts on the bass, she’s like a hurricane. She’s mysterious and unpredictable. You just hope you can survive the destruction." — Jon Taylor on his wife and bandmate Heidi Ore.
HN: Sure. How did the band receive “Shine” when you brought the guitar part to them?
JT: Heidi kind of knew that song. We had played a version of it in an earlier version of Domestica. So she was familiar with it. Then Todd’s real fast. He knows what it takes to get the thing going and doesn’t worry about the details right away.
So heck, you can figure out a song after just four or five times through. We can figure out a song in 20 minutes. We get bored really fast, and we don’t want to work on them very long.
The longer you work on a song, the worse it becomes. I think everybody knows that, it’s a given. The faster you get that thing done, the better off it is.
HN: Definitely. I have some questions about the lyrics. Do you know where Heidi was coming from when she wrote these lyrics in particular?
JT: Nobody knows where Heidi is coming from (brief pause). Heidi has asked me to not lie to you (laughs). I know her as my wife and the mother of the children, but once she puts on the bass, she’s like a hurricane (Heidi laughs in the background), she’s mysterious and unpredictable. You just hope you can survive the destruction.
From what I can gather, as she’s screaming these lyrics out at people, is that life doesn’t get any easier and that seems to piss her off.
HN: Do the lyrics resonate with you then?
We’re all small people on a big planet, and a lot of the times there’s more going against you than for you. And whether you’re in a rock band or just going to work, I think overcoming obstacles is a theme that of course resonates with me, and it resonates with everybody.
HN: OK, tell me about your gear and how recording with Fuse went.
JT: We were kind of using this song to test-drive Fuse Recording here in Lincoln. We had recorded one other song not really in our style of music, a Cars song for a Speed! Nebraska compilation. This one was a song we’d worked on with Todd.
We hadn’t really recorded anything of our own at the studio. And basically, it’s the same stuff we use live. It’s just big amplifiers turned way up, and you see how many tracks you can talk the producer into letting you use up on the computer.
HN: Do you remember how many tracks this song ended up using?
JT: You know, I’m used to doubling everything, and I think part of the experiment was seeing how few guitar tracks I could use. The routine now that sounds great is a guitar in the left channel, a guitar in the right channel and then something I call a stunt guitar right down the middle for feedback and solo-y kind of stuff.
We figured out how to have Heidi’s vocals sound cool without having to double anything. She’ll do harmonies here and there, but not tons of layered vocals. Her vocals are always pretty dry and up front, and it’s my vocals that will get some kind of effect or I’ll double my vocal on a guitar — that’s a good trick to pull and make you sound like you sing better.
And you know, I think it was also Todd getting used to recording with us, too. It all worked out great, you know. In a rock band, you only hear how a song sounds from where you stand on stage. It’s always a surprise to hear the mixed version of your song because I don’t hear all the pieces at the proper volume: I hear me. And it’s just always exciting to hear these mixes.
We take no part in the mixing of the song. We play our parts and then take the pieces, throw them at Charlie Johnson and then run. He hears the songs when we record them then he puts that puzzle together. So we let him have complete creative control of the mix.
You do not want the band to mix the song because they’ll want it to hear like it sounds where they stand. It took me a long time to figure that out.
HN: All right, just out of curiosity, do your children have a favorite song off Domestica 2?
I don’t know. Man, I thought Todd’s boy might have. But no, in the history of the world, no child has thought what their parents did was cool. And that continues with our children.
HN: (laughs) Good to hear. I wanted to tell you, I just remembered about fifteen minutes ago that your show with Cursive back in 2007 was the first concert I saw in Lincoln. How do you think you’ve grown since then?
JT: Oh yeah? We’d only performed as Mercy Rule before that. That would have been a weird time because we were trying to decide if we were going to continue down the same road as Mercy Rule or change somehow. And with Todd Johnson on drums, we’ve turned a corner and I think Domestica has a more sophisticated idea about songwriting compared to maybe the Mercy Rule stuff.
It’s still basically all verses and choruses, but I can hear advancement. I hear a band that just gets to it, no goofing around, gets to the verses and choruses, then moves on to the next song.
HN: All right, that’s all I have for questions. Is there anything else you wanted to add?
JT: I think that’s about it. That song is mostly in the key of B, and B is the chord of giants. That chord demands that you hold that guitar like the sonic club of destruction that it is. I think the B chord demands that the song be hurled at the audience.
CHORDS
Heidi's take on the lyrics
"If a song does not come together quickly at practice (we write songs at full volume in rock band formation — as you see us on stage — Jon and I never work on things outside of that environment), if I don't have a melody or lyric, the whole thing gets laid aside," Ore says.
"Sometimes Jon will bring it back, and my subconscious has had time to think of something. The strong ones come back to me as I am folding laundry or driving to work. Other songs — the weak ones — are offered to the melody god, sacrificed and never visited again."
Michael Todd is Hear Nebraska's managing editor. He was overjoyed to have remembered when his first show in Lincoln was, even spilled his coffee when it happened. What was his first show ever, you ask? Faith Hill in North Platte, Neb. Oh yeah. Reach Michael at michaeltodd@hearnebraska.org.