Jason Falkner
Learning To Say No
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NATN: So is this a good time to chat?
Jason Falkner: Yeah, I was just in a totally strange zone. I'm going to Norway to produce this guy and I was talking to my producer/manager and talking about Santa Claus. So, this is a good time.
NATN: You're going to record with Santa Claus?
JF: Yeah, I'm going to produce Santa Claus! No, this guy Magnet, have you heard of that?
NATN: No.
JF: I hadn't either. They just found me. They're signed out of Atlantic in the U.K., and I guess he's a big fan and he wants me to come out and start the record with him and then take it back to L.A. to finish and mix it and stuff.
NATN: So when are you going out there?
JF: I'm actually leaving in like a month, and I'll be gone for three weeks.
NATN: Have you ever been?
JF: You know, I'm pretty sure I've been to Oslo to play, but you know you never see anything when you play, so I don't really remember. Especially this time of year, the whole place is just grey. I mean it's green, but you don't really notice any difference in cities really, cuz the weather's so crappy. So, are you in New York?
NATN: Yeah. I'm just curious what you're up to. You seem to take on a lot of projects. What have you been working on mostly lately?
JF: Mostly I've just been trying to finish this solo record. I have kinda been working in clumps, and when I stopped the Air stuff a couple of years ago, after being on the road with them for so long, I was so excited to get back into my studio; I had a bunch of song ideas, but I can't really write anything on the road, cuz I'm just not very inspired on writing lyrics. So when I came back from the road I went straight to work and did a handful of songs, and It's just been these weird little clumps where I do a handful of songs and then I don't write anything for four or five, six months, and start freaking out, and then something comes out. So that's what I'm kinda trying to tidy up and weed out, pick the good songs and finish 'em. It's taken me ages, so I don't even know how to talk about it.
NATN: What's the deal with that EP you put out? I know it was briefly available on the Not Lame Records site.
JF: Yeah, he was just buying boxes off me and selling em there. That thing I made cuz; I'm friends with the guys from Travis and they asked me to open up for them for a couple of weeks on the west coast over here and Texas. And I was like 'yeah, I wanna do it, but I wanna have something I can sell.' I didn't have any t-shirts, and it's been a couple years since my last record, so I figured anybody who was coming to see me already had that. So I just kinda scrambled to put this EP together from some of the batches of songs I had over the past few years. And that's what that is. I just mainly did it for those shows and I printed up like 2,500 copies. I sold most of them on that tour, and then the rest of them, you know the guy from Not Lame will buy a couple hundred of them from me at a time. But maybe one or two of those songs will be on my next record. Have you heard that EP?
NATN: I have not. I got too late to Not Lame and the guy said they were out and they don't know when they'll get more.
JF: Oh really? Well, it's being released on Oct. 19. You know the guys at Red Eye? The distribution company? That should be in shops through those guys. I can send you a copy though (gets address). Is that Broadway, like Soho?
NATN: It's the Village, roughly. We're north of Houston. We're like at Astor Place. In the big building with the K-Mart.
JF: Hah. I don't know that landmark, but I miss New York so much. I never lived there, but I used to go there all the time when I was with Elektra, cuz I was signed out of the New York office. Or I was signed here in L.A., but the week that I started my first record, my A&R guy got fired. And so then I was taken over by like the head of A&R in New York, this woman Nancy. And so I would go to New York for a week or two at a time, maybe five or six times a year. So it was cool. I loved it.
NATN: So what does the new solo album sound like?
JF: Well, what I started trying to do was kinda cut out the...I think some of my stuff in the past has had a little bit of distraction from whatever the emotional point is i'm trying to make? I think I've been guilty of using irony to a pretty severe degree, you know, just ambiguity in the lyrics and all that. I've always liked not just telling a story, but telling a story that can be interpreted many different ways. But what I'm trying to do with this newer stuff is just be more direct, and tell a story without so much abstract imagery. And musically also, I've tried to kinda just weed out a little bit of the 'math rock'. But having said that, I've listened to what I've done and it's kinda a continuation of the complex guitar pop music that I've been doing for a long time. But there are moments that are more direct. Like, I love those shows in the '60s and '70s where there'd be a singer like Glen Campbell or whoever, and it's just really direct. There's no sarcasm, there's no like 'too cool' bullshit. It's like, they're looking into the camera and they're sort of pleading their case. So I totally love that and I've just sort of always wanted to write a song where that would work. So that's what I'm workin' on.
NATN: Alright. I feel like "Can You Still Feel?" with Nigel Godrich recording it, had a different overall sound than "Author Unknown". Can you say on which side the new stuff falls in terms of production?
JF: Well, it doesn't sound as big as "Can You Still Feel?" -- that was just recorded in world-class studios and Nigel definitely has his mix sound. It's really fat and puffy and generally really pleasing. I think on my record it's a little bit too compressed. But it's kind of a combination of the two records. When Nigel and I started recording, we talked and I sorta laid out what I wanted, and I told him that I wanted it to sound like it was already coming off the radio. And my memory of radio in the '70s and '80s is just this real fat sound; and a lot of that has to do with the compressors that they use at radio stations. And so '70s compressors, they don't use anymore. So radio doesn't really sound the same, even though radio is super-compressed. Cuz, you know, they don't want any of the sounds to pop out and blow your speakers or make you change the station cuz something shocks you. So that was the sound of that record. We were literally trying to make it sound like it was coming off of '70s radio. The stuff I'm doing right now, I'm just doing on a tiny Pro-Tools setup, so it doesn't have that giant-ness. But sonically, I think it's comparable. You know, I like real kinda puffy, crunchy drums, and I like layers of instruments. The problem with "Can You Still Feel?" is that there was so much compression, and what compression can do is it can take away the feeling of space and depth in a record, cuz it kinda pushes everything up to the front. And I know when we recorded that record, there was a lot of nuance in what I was playing, and I think a lot of that nuance just gets kinda lost with that much compression. So I'm trying to avoid that too, just let it have more space.
NATN: Gotcha. Where are you recording?
JF: I have a home studio. I have a bunch of weird, kinda oddball '60s and '70s pieces of gear, and I'm using a computer as well.
NATN: And how do you tend to do it? Are there songs you deem finished and then you go on to working on two more, or do you just keep coming back to these tracks?
JF: I kind of grew up starting and finishing a song before I moved on. Part of that is because I grew up working with tape machines and a mixing console, and cuz I'm so lazy, I didn't want to have to document all my settings. So if I was really close to something, it would prevent me from starting on another song, because I didn't want to have to document all my settings. And now that's one of the beauties...that's actually one of my favorite things about computer recording. You just save it and close it and you open it and it's exactly the same; you don't have to document anything. So that enables me to jump around from song to song. But usually when I'm working on a song I'm kinda obsessed with it, and I'm driving around thinking about how I'm going to finish the song, so I will kinda start and finish songs in sequence. But there's been songs that have been sitting around waiting for me to finish them up to like six months after I started it. You know, I get distracted easily, cuz I do all these different projects. I just played with Paul McCartney and I'm starting to produce this stuff.
NATN: Tell me about recording with Paul. How did that come about?
JF: Well I just played guitar on his record. But the thing is, it's not really a done deal, because he's doing different sessions with different producers. This was stuff with Nigel and Nigel called me in, but nobody knows, including Nigel and probably even Paul at this point, whether those sessions are gonna be his record. So it's not totally newsworthy, you know what I mean?
NATN: Who else was involved with that.
JF: That was the amazing thing about it. It was just me, and Paul, and this drummer James Gadson, who was the original drummer for Bill Withers, so he played on "Ain't No Sunshine" and all that. Phenomenal drummer. And the cool thing about James is he still plays the same way. Cuz alot of these guys, you go back and you're like 'i wanna get this guy, who was in James Brown's band' or whatever, the guy from the Headhunters. And he comes in and he doesn't play that way at all. Like, he can't. cuz a lot of these guys sorta continue what they call their 'growing' musically. But then they stopped, at the worst possible time. You know, like they stopped when Toto was happening. So they get framed where they've got these giant drum sets, and they're really flashy, and it's like 'can you just simplify, like maybe take away 10 of those drums, and just play a groove?' And they just don't play that way anymore. I've actually experienced that with a couple of drummers from that era. So the beauty of James is that he's like just transported from a time machine.
NATN: Wow, cool.
JF: So it was just the three of us, and then also Joey Waronker came in for some stuff, which was awesome. And that was a while ago, that was a few months ago we did that. But I'm starting to produce some stuff. I'm going to be working with this band here in L.A. called The Adored? I really like them a lot. They sound kinda like early Generation X and Buzzcocks and all that stuff that a lot of bands sound like, but they do it very convincingly. And somehow they convinced Pete Shelley to sing on their EP.
NATN: What happened to TV Eyes?
JF: Ah, the ill-fated TV Eyes. We did three shows out here; we had every suit and tie you could imagine; they were all there. And everybody freaked out, but nobody took it to that level of signing it or even courting it for that matter. And sorta the sad thing about TV Eyes for me is that we started it so long ago. We recorded that record in 2000. And then Brian and I went off and played with Air for a year and a half, and when we came back from Air, we remixed it...And it was this case of this cool record, that kinda missed its time; missed its window. Because if we could have put that record out in 2000, that would have been kinda considered I think a groundbreaking record in the '80s revival bullshit that has just gone way too far. But the only thing '80s we did about this record was some of the production techniques and styles and sounds. But as far as the songwriting, you can sit there and play it on an acoustic guitar -- some of it -- and it has no bearing on the '80s. It was just some of the production style. And you know, I wasn't trying to sing like them, it wasn't stupid like that. It was just very synthy and some drum machines and some really angular kinda Gang of Four-ish guitar stuff. But it just missed its window; I feel like if we put it out now it would just be kinda like 'whatever,' you know, I'm sick of that. And I never used to believe that things have 'a time.' Because I'm always going back and rediscovering something that's totally applicable and current to me now, even though it was recorded in the '60s or '70s or '80s, whatever. Or '90s. But as far as that trend, there definitely is a time and window for that.
NATN: You open yourself to listeners perceiving it as...
JF: As bandwagoning. Exactly. And I'm ultra-sensitive to that kind of criticism. And I think I've kinda made choices that have allowed me to avoid that kind of criticism. I've always sort of just done my thing. And to be perceived as coming out with this thing that's like fucking trainspotting just wouldn't work for me. But in saying that, I do want it to come out, I just want it to come out kind of quietly.
NATN: Yeah, I downloaded those three tracks from the site a while back, and I love 'em. I was just wondering what happened to it.
JF: Well, it's funny, like I said, the first version of that -- that I mixed -- it kinda makes more sense now than the version that in 2002, we went back and revamped it. The record had two sides. It had this Killing Joke/Gang of Four/Buzzcocks kind of aggro- punk/pop side, and then it had this real art-damaged like dance stuff. And so we kind of, after we went off on tour for a little bit, me and Brian the drummer and Roger was here, and we just decided, 'let's focus on the dance aspect of it' -- a. because it's so foreign for any of us, and it's cool that we did that, just personally as an achievement, we made some kinda cool dance songs I thought. So we sorta focused on that aspect of it, and then basically as soon as we finished that and I sorta took stock of it, it was like 'well this isn't really...I think the other side is cooler.' So I just vacillated between loving my version that I mixed, and then the version that we had worked on. And we worked a lot on the second version. We mixed it for like four months, over at some poor guys house, who probably never wants to hear it again. And so now I think like the first version could come out and it would just be accepted as a side project of all of ours and not like this thing where it looks like we're trying to be something. So I don't know, something will happen with it; maybe just a 7".
NATN: I put that "Love To Need" on a mix for a friend recently and he was diggin' it.
JF: Oh cool. My Jimmy Somerville?
NATN: What's that?
JF: You know who that is? He was the singer from Bronsky Beat? They did that song called "Tell Me Why" -- just a shrieking falsetto.
NATN: I do hear these themes that are present in some of your other work. And Roger's. What is he up to anyway?
JF: I haven't talked to Roger in a while, but he does a lot of remixing. He has a cool home studio out here, and he's done a lot of remixing; things like, he did something for Les Rhythmes Digitales, i think. Though i could totally be wrong about that. He did something for Jamiroquai? His remix name is Malibu. He did a lot of stuff for Emperor Norton, that record company. They would just fly him tracks and he would do his insane remix shit to them. He did a remix with Phoenix, do you know Phoenix?
NATN: No.
JF: Aw, man, Phoenix are great. You should check them out. They're from Paris. I know them obviously through the Air people. But...are you a fan of Air?
NATN: Yeah.
JF: You know the Virgin Suicides soundtrack? That one track that has the singing..."high school lover"? That guy is the singer from Phoenix. Their first record's called "United," and it's got some magic on it. It's got some real magic, like really earnest kind of danceable music, it's really cool. Then they tried to rock, and when they try to rock it sounds really stupid cuz they're French. But when they don't try to rock it's great.
NATN: What is Logan's Sanctuary?
JF: Logan's Sanctuary was this soundtrack we did to a non-existent sequel to "Logan's Run."
NATN: Of course.
JF: Yeah, duh. But uh, we did that in 1999, and that's when we all talked about doing this other thing that turned into TV Eyes. The same three people. Yeah, that's something that Emperor Norton put out, and it was just this wacky brainchild of Roger and Brian. They did that on their own and then they had me come in and play a bit of spastic fusion guitar and singing. But uh, that was it. I thought it was a genius idea, like 'we'll pretend like it's this soundtrack that we've unearthed, that nobody paid attention to in the '70s, and we're gonna re-release it and use me as Logan in the artwork. Have you seen the record?
NATN: No.
JF: Yeah, it's me as Logan in the artwork. I've actually got a plastic laser gun that was from Battlestar Galactica. It's one of the actual Battlestar Galactica props. So that's kinda tight. We did the photo shoot down at the water reclamation center, which is the sewer. And uh, there were all these underground pipes and they're all painted blue in a stark white room. It's just totally '70s sci-fi, so that's pretty cool.
NATN: I meant to ask you, when you were recording with Paul McCartney, did he follow your work, and if so, what did he think about the Beatles instrumental album?
JF: Ah, yes, this is my favorite story about what happened. He was unfamiliar with my stuff when we met. The odd thing is, when my Beatle record was still pretty current, a girl that worked at Sony in New York said she was at a party and she was talking about her work at Sony/Wonder, and she said that Stella McCartney like was standing right there and said 'excuse me, did you say you worked at Sony/Wonder? Did you have anything to do with the 'Bedtime with the Beatles' record?' And this girl was like, 'well yeah we put it out but Jason Falkner did it.' And she was like 'oh my god, I love that record, I'm sending it to my dad.' So I heard that story that fucking rocked my world. But then the second day of working with Paul...the way we were set up in the studio, we were the only two people in the main track room, which is this huge tracking room, and poor James had his drum set stuffed in this tiny vocal booth. Cuz Nigel likes the really really dead sound. So he was just in this little room, we couldn't even see him, we could just hear him through the headphones. So Paul and I were like facing each other when we were recording. And I was still kind of wetting myself, you know, looking up and there's Paul McCartney with his Beatle bass, looking at me and sorta pointing his finger and smiling and stuff. So then we put down our instruments to go listen to what we'd just done, and I was like 'hey Paul, did you ever hear this 'Bedtime with the Beatles' record?' And he was like 'no, no. Let's have it.' And he said 'what is it?' And I said, well, I did it in this same room, and I played every instrument on it, and I just kinda took you guys into outer space, and it's to put your kid to sleep. And I know you have a new daughter, so here's the pink one for your daughter, and here's the blue one for you.' And he was like 'ah, no, I've never seen this!' And so there went my Stella McCartney story.
So then, it was incredible, he was sitting down -- we were listening to music -- and he opened it up, and he kinda kept looking up at me and looking back at the thing and looking up at me, and uh, we were listening to music so we couldn't talk, the music was loud. But when it was done he was like, 'oh, mate, you'll have to sign it for me.' So I signed my little Beatle record for Paul McCartney. And then I didn't come back for a couple days. Nigel was just working with Paul on his own. And the next time I came in was maybe three or four days later, and I had to pick up some of my stuff, cuz I had a solo show -- i had to pick up my guitars and stuff. And I walk in, and I see Nigel first and he pushes the button and he's like 'Hey Paul, guess who's here?' And before Paul and I could see each other he goes 'is it Jase?' Cuz he calls me Jase, which is just the most surreal thing, period. He's got a little nickname for me. And I'm like 'Hey Paul, how's it going?' And he says 'ah Jase, 'Bedtime with the Beatles,' man - nice one!' And I'm like 'ahhh, ok. cool, cool.' And he finishes his tambourine or whatever, and he comes out of the room and he's like 'yeah, man, me and my friends listened to it. Me and John' -- uh, his other friend John -- 'and Keith, we listened to it last night. We had a bottle of wine and we listened to it, it's amazing!' And he had all these really specific comments, like he really listened to it. And that just blew my mind. And you know, he met my girlfriend a week later and the first thing he says is 'ah, Bedtime with the Beatles'. You know, he just kept saying that, like I'd be walking down the hall...'ah, nice one!' It was fucking bizarre.
So that's kinda my favorite McCartney story. The stuff that we worked on, it actually turned out really good, but it's kind of a hobby for Paul at this point, you know? He splits really early, he's only there for a few hours, maybe five or six hours, really giving it all of his attention and everything, and then he's got a life. A different life. So, that was mind-boggling. And maybe a month ago, I got a fed-ex thing came and I saw that it was from MPL, which is his company, and I thought that it was maybe some sort of receipt for what they paid me, you know for tax or something, and I opened it up, and it was a letter on stationery, like a real letter, and he said 'Still playing 'Bedtime with the Beatles' in between naps' and you know 'thanks for the amazing stuff you did.' It was just so nice, I got an actual letter and he drew a weird little face on it and whatever. Pretty cool.
NATN: Great. Can you tell me about that covers album that you put out a while back?
JF: The one that came out just in Japan? Yeah, I did that ages ago. I had this band called the Grays, and when we were breaking up, one of the guys left on the road, in Chicago. He was like 'i'm done.' And he was the guy that nobody really got along with cuz he was a pain in the ass. So when he announced he was leaving, we were all like 'oh cool. no worries.' And the guy that signed us to Epic happened to be with us in Chicago when this all went down. So he took me out for coffee and said 'you and the other two guys are gonna carry on, right?' And I said, 'ehh, not really. This is just not happening. For me.' And he said 'well, what can I do to make it happen for you.' So I said 'Hmm, ok. That's kinda giving me some power. So, why don't you let me ... I want to make a covers record right now. I'm gonna play everything on it' -- that was the first time I had played everything on a record in a real studio. And so he agreed to it. And in the interim between him agreeing to it and me starting, all hell was breaking loose at Epic. And we were all getting dropped. Well, the project was getting dropped. Even though we had a three-album deal. And I didn't really know about that, but I also didn't really care, and I wasn't fighting it. But I was doing my budget and planning on making this little covers record. So I just went in and started making it, without my budget ever being approved. This is like my favorite story about my brief history in the music business. I just went in and started working on it, and like I said, didn't have a budget approved -- which is like unheard of. You can't do that, because you're just gonna be told you can't go to the studio the next day. It's over. My guy, that guy, the head of A&R just kept calling me and calling me, and I just was like 'sorry, man. I wasn't answering the phone.' And he finally called me in the studio one day in the middle of the day. And I had already been there a week, and I only had one more week cuz I was doing this thing so fast. And he was like 'what the fuck are you doing?' And I'm like 'what do you mean? I'm doing this record that we talked about. We had a deal.' And he said 'No, dude, we didn't have a deal. The Grays are being dropped.' And I was like, 'oh, we can figure it out.' I was pretty cavalier back then. And I just finished the record and sure enough, the whole thing got dropped. And when I was shopping my next solo thing, which is where I ended up at Elektra, I made them buy that cover record off of Sony, but you know Sony only charged them like half. So the record cost like $20,000 to make. Which is like dirt cheap. Especially for one guy. If you're in a band, you can go out and do all the basics in one day. That's different. But I did that thing so quickly. I recorded it in like nine days and mixed it in like five. So, I was stoked. I was happy that it was gonna come out. But I did that record in like '94, and I thought it was gonna come out then. But it didn't come out til 2001.
NATN: That's good stuff.
JF: That's one of my favorite things I've done. I mean not all of it, but some of those songs were just so much fun. Because it was the first thing I did in the studio where I was by myself. It's one of those things; when you're in a band, and you're not satisfied, and you're just dying to get out and do your own thing. And if you can play all your own instruments, that's like the ultimate reward, cuz you're like 'fuck it, I don't need the drummer. Fuck you, I don't need any of you guys.' And that was the case of that band, the Grays. We were not exactly living in harmony.
NATN: That's cool. I have to say that turned me on to some stuff, those tracks. I had to go out and buy the Tiger Mountain album and also a Left Banke anthology.
JF: Oh yeah. There's Gonna Be A Storm?
NATN: Yeah.
JF: Such good stuff, innit?
NATN: Also, the Grays. I bought that record when it came out, and I guess the "Outdoor Miner" b-side got me into Wire, which I must thank you for.
JF: Ah yeah. Wire, the password band of the generation now.
NATN: Right.
JF: No, that's cool. It's funny cuz when I was doing that cover record, I kinda made an attempt to contact some of the more obscure people, just to let them know somebody loved them and somebody was gonna cover their music? And I couldn't get a hold of anybody. I was trying to get a hold of, primarily the Rough Trade stuff. Like Essential Logic and Swell Maps, and all that stuff that I was way into. And still. I still collect all that stuff on vinyl. But I couldn't get a hold of anybody, I kinda gave up. I actually tried to get a hold of Robyn Hitchcock, cuz he was in town or something, and I left him a message, and of course I never heard back. And subsequently, I met Robyn Hitchcock and he was so mean to me.
NATN: Awww.
JF: I know! It was bizarre. But I think it was because, they had played at this place called Largo out here, and it's like a little dinner place that holds maybe 150 people, and there were 30 people there. To see the Soft Boys reunited. And the Soft Boys are like a seminal band to me, like absolutely important. Adventurous punk, like insane music. And there was just nobody there. And I was like the one guy that braved to go backstage, and I walked up there and they were all speaking in code? Like, I've been in that situation, but I hope to never get to the point of bitterness where you can't recognize a true fan through all of your anger. Cuz I walked up there and the dressing room was the size of a fucking closet, with a couple couches. And they didn't acknowledge that there was another person in the room that wasn't in the band, for about five minutes. Of standing there. And I was trying to get eye contact from one of the guys and go 'hey, how's it going.' And Robyn looked up at me and goes 'So I presume you're a musician.' "uh, okay." It was kinda rough. I ran out of there crying and started selling all my 7-inches the next morning. Just kidding!
NATN: Something like working with Paul McCartney must be a no-brainer, but what in general makes you want to go into the studio to work with some band, or say go to Norway?
JF: So far I've been lucky enough to only have to rely on my taste. I haven't had to do something for any reason other than I really liked it, or I thought it was a situation where I thought the people were open enough to let me put my handprint on it. And then if I thought that putting my handprint on it would make it better. I have not done anything in a long time -- I have done things when I was younger that I was like 'oh God, why did I do that' -- and there's actually a couple of records that have come out that I was involved with that I didn't enjoy, but in the case of this guy from Norway, he plays everything as well, so the two of us are going to be the whole deal. I'm gonna produce it. He's obviously the main writer, but I'm gonna co-write with him. And we're both gonna play everything. So those kind of situations are always fun for me; like when I worked with Brendan Benson a couple years ago. We worked well together, just two people. Even though I ended up doing way too much on his stuff. And when I work with Beck and stuff, that's just cuz we're friends and obviously I like Beck. So that happens very naturally. I'm not going to name any names, but there's a couple records that have come out recently where I was like 'oh, I forgot I did that like five years ago, and man I wish they didn't put my name on that'.
NATN: Do you ever say no to anyone?
JF: I do. I do have a hard time saying no to people; i don't want to hurt their feelings. But I get so many records now, there's got to be something that knocks me out about it. Even if it's just a sort of sentimental quality that I get from the music. There's a band in Canada that I'm gonna mix, and it sounds a lot like me, and it sounds a lot like XTC, and it's kinda flattering, but I don't want to do stuff that's so...obvious, for me. That's why it was so fun for me to play with Air and really be brought into that scene and then like doing the TV Eyes record, just doing these that people don't really expect. I love that. Like this band I might be working with here -- it's really jagged and angular, little street-punk bullshit. Much more like that than people associate me with. But I can get my head around that. That is my record collection. My music isn't totally reflected in my record collection, like the music that I make. My record collection is really obscure; I just love the hunt for obscurities and finding that perfect song that meets all my criteria, like energy, melody -- which is very rare that I find something that meets my criteria for melody, which is why my stuff is so melodic. That's me, and the other aspect of me, that has that aspect of post-punk and whatever, that's just my record collection creeping in on my influence, you know? But yeah, I'm trying to learn how to say no. It's a battle.
TROY CARPENTER | Troy Carpenter founded NATN from a Chicago apartment during the ambitious winter of 1998 with co-conspirators Ben French and Jonathan Cohen. After a five-year stint in New York, he and wife Lourdes have recently relocated to Indianapolis, where he spends days listening to music and nights in the kitchen at Elements restaurant. Musical heroes: Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Super Furry Animals. What else makes life worth living: Sushi, Phucty, runs in the park, and the Atlanta Braves.