Q + A with Wes DeBoy

Wes DeBoy is an audio engineer/producer based in the Circle City. He has worked with many Indiana artists, including Rodeo Ruby Love, New Terrors, and I Dream in Evergreen, to name a few. With 10 years of recording experience under his belt, DeBoy continues to shape the sound of local artists out of his Eastside home studio.   

Jacob Click: What sparked your initial interest in music and audio engineering?

Wes DeBoy: I was in high school, and I bought an audio interface. I started recording my own music as well as my friends’ bands. In college, I did my first album for a band called Arrah and the Ferns, and at that point, I realized that I liked helping capture others’ music more so than writing my own. So I started working more with other musicians around that time. I like to think the musicians play the instruments, and I play the musicians. You know, I get to emphasize the drums in this section, the vocals in this section, or move the guitar over here, put the keys over here, that sort of stuff. It’s a lot of fun; it’s kind of like cooking.

JC: Who are some of your favorite local artists?

WD: I don’t know if I’m allowed to play favorites. Most of the people I work with I enjoy. Right now I’m working with a guy named Sam Law, and we’re doing sort of like a pop-ish record. It’s like Maroon 5 meets Muse with Bruno Mars. He’s cool. I’ve done a couple albums for a band called Rodeo Ruby Love, which has been fun. They’re like an indie-pop band. I Dream in Evergreen is another artist I worked with a couple years ago, and we’re going to do another album this summer/fall. There’s a lot of cool artists here, and I want to work with more of them.

guitars

JC: Which of your projects has been the most enjoyable thus far?

WD: Some of the ones i’ve already named for different reasons. I guess it’s been a couple of years now, but I did this record for a band called Faux Paw. I mixed it, and it was a lot of fun. It’s sort of like this controlled chaos rock, like, a little bit noisy but still catchy. But every project is fun in some right, it seems like. What’s fun for me is figuring out how to achieve the sound the artist is after or create a sound for the artist. So, Sam Law is really pop oriented so we’re looking for a lot of clean, clear tones. New Terrors was a little more electronic and sort of ambient. Faux Paw was more dirty and fuzzy sounding. So it’s fun to create these sounds for the artists. They have these sounds in their heads, and I kind of help get them down into a recorded format.  

JC: If you could work with any artist, dead or alive, who would it be and why?

WD: I don’t have an easy answer to that. I have a strange relationship with music. I’m more about sounds, interesting sounds. I don’t have these huge idols. Obviously there’s all sorts of amazing sounding records out there. I suppose Queen for instance. All the layering and talent they had would be a lot of fun to record and mix. They literally wore out the tapes they recorded on because they tracked so much. Not that more is better, but in that case, I think it would be a lot fun.

JC: What advice do you have for creative people looking to start their own business?

WD: I think you know it’s just a matter of getting out there and doing it. So when I was in college, I was always recording bands for school assignments as well as when I had free time. It’s just what I enjoy doing. The trick is, you always want to keep improving and getting outside of your comfort zone. And sometimes that’s difficult because maybe my kind of zone is rock, right, but maybe I want to get more into country or more into hip-hop. You just kind of have to meet people in those areas, work with them, make records, and keep doing it. So I think the same goes with other creative avenues–you just have to stay consistent and challenge yourself in order to succeed.

 

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