Joe Trohman
On Keeping his Creative Flow with Apogee’s ONE
Recent Projects: Fall Out Boy, The Damned Things
After reaching mainstream success as the lead guitarist in Fall Out Boy, Chicago-native Joe Trohman has joined forces with a few other notable rockers to form The Damned Things. Debuting together for the first time in June 2010 in New York City, Joe and his new bandmates Keith Buckley (Every Time I Die), Scott Ian and Rob Caggiano (Anthrax) and Andy Hurley (Fall Out Boy) draw from their respective musical backgrounds to create a rich heavy metal sound both uniquely gritty for rock fans and hook-laden enough for radio. Using GarageBand to demo and Logic to mix his demos, Joe talks about how he approaches writing and recording material with The Damned Things, and how the built-in mic and converter in his “incredible” Apogee ONE bring all the disparate parts to life.
What’s your creative process like?
“For my new band, The Damned Things, the process has morphed slightly over the years since we started as a side gig. The majority of the music I’ve been writing myself and is brought to the band once I feel good about it. I also had a lot of unfinished material sitting around and when Rob Caggiano joined the band. He and I worked on the remainder of those together.
Once all the music is ready to go, we will take it to Keith Buckley. He writes the bulk (99.99%) of the lyrics, comes up with his own melodies and has really cool, very specific rhythmic phrasing that lends itself well to the music. From there, Rob and I will work with Keith to fine tune lyrics (very little fine tuning) and melodies.
Some of the earlier songs were arranged with almost the whole band, and some of the later tunes were arranged by myself and Rob. Everyone in the band has his own ideas and styles that, when incorporated into the music, shape the outcome of the songs.”
What drew you to using Apogee’s ONE?
“What I like the most about the ONE is its quality combined with its portability. If you know what you’re doing, you can get studio quality material tracked with it. I actually just did overdubs for a record at home using my ONE.”
“What I like the most about the ONE is its quality combined with its portability. If you know what you’re doing, you can get studio quality material tracked with it”
“Even if you don’t know what the hell you’re going for, the ONE’s mic pre and processing adds warmth and richness to your sounds, which is inspiring. It makes it possible for someone who wants to record demos, or someone who needs to get real stuff tracked on the fly, and done right. I’ve been using it since it was released, mainly to demo songs/albums. It helps me towards getting the sounds I need. It has tons of options, and it’s quick to the point. I tend to be impatient when I want to record new ideas; I don’t want to lose them. I can hook up the ONE really fast, get it synched and get going.
ONE truly is a tiny studio in many ways. Its pocket-sized stature makes it insanely portable, which is great for me because I’m constantly on the road. Everything I track through it comes to life. The built-in mic on ONE is great for either vocals or acoustic recordings and the inputs make it very easy to get quality live and direct sounds. Not to mention that the mic pre is killer! It keeps my creative juices flowing without causing any frustrations whatsoever.”
Check out The Damned Things
