Courtesy of Suzanne Singh
With live music on hold, the band Rocket Cat recorded videos for a pair of songs from their debut EP Radiant Transmission. That is the plus side. The minus side is her side band Mixtape had cancellations for a number of outdoor festivals that so many local music groups count on financially each year.
How has the lockdown affected your creativity?
“It was challenging to stay motivated to practice with no upcoming gigs. A big part of our band experience is social time together through practices and gigs,” front woman Suzanne Singh says. “Since we couldn't be together, we found creative projects to keep us connected virtually.”
During the time off, the band released two “safe at home” music videos for songs from Radiant Transmission.
“It was fun to dive into those songs again and to work on new technology through audio and video recording and editing. Chris [guitarist Chris Guse] developed a behind-the-scenes video tutorial to explain how to create and edit a virtual project and we leveraged the project to raise funds for Imagine MKE to support our local artistic friends who lost income from event cancellations.”
Singh was finishing up her semester at MATC in audio production. When the school switched to the on-line curriculum.
“AVID (the company that produces the ProTools software for music studio recording) offered extra iLoks licensing for students to access ProTools for a limited time. It's been a great opportunity to sharpen my production skills and keep my brain focused on something other than anxiety-producing news reports,” she says. “I rely on long periods of quiet time to write and I’ve had a constant houseful of distractions since the lockdown started. I kind of feel like I’ve wasted an opportunity to crank out tons of lyrics, but creativity doesn't always follow your best laid plans.”
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Singh also said the lockdown offered time to collaborate with her 16-year old son Julian, who plays drums. “He has a lot of experience writing and producing his own music and I share my school info with him so we can both improve our skill set. It's kind of cool and I'll be super sad when he graduates next year and goes off to college.”
Do you have a routine or schedule for staying in practice or working on new material?
“Nope. I have good intentions to stick to a schedule and practice more each week, but I don't. I find it very hard to get motivated to sing. Once I do practice, I always feel 100% better, but I am reluctant to practice when my whole family is within ear shot,” Singh says.
“Finding quiet time has been difficult and I went right from obsessing about COVID 19 info to obsessing about protest info without missing a beat. I have a social science academic background, so I really don't want to miss anything that's playing out right now in our world.”
Are you making plans for when you can resume playing in front of people again?
Singh’s covers band Mixtape recently played its first post-lockdown show at SoLu Estate Winery in Cascade. She describes the experience.
“It was weird—almost surreal—driving out to the middle of the countryside for a couple of reasons. I had only been out in public a handful of times for grocery shopping since mid-March so that was my first extended outing,” she says. “It was also strange to move from the social unrest of the city after several nights of protest live streams, sirens and helicopters to the quiet and calm of the countryside. The contrast was intense.”
Mixtape’s other singer was in quarantine in the days leading up to the gig for possible COVID 19 exposure and awaiting test results, so he missed the gig.
“We realized this is going to be a problem for bands and venues if one person in the group gets exposed. I hadn’t seen my bandmates in four months—and it was difficult to greet them with a wave from a distance instead of hugs all around,” she says.” It felt awkward to stay in my social distancing stage bubble for a four-hour set. It definitely wasn't as fun for us to not be together in a way we are so accustomed to.”
