By Keith Walsh
One of the most mellow songs from the early Talking Heads catalog is “Heaven,” which with its sweet melodies and dreaminess was an instant classic when it was released in 1979. Now Brandon Niznik (Wise Owl) has released a special cover of this song from “Fear Of Music” in reggae style, along with a remix of that cover with his colleague from Black Market Dub, Nate Bridges. These versions play up the ethereal nature of the tune — in each, reverb is almost an instrument in itself. The Black Market version is particularly abstract, something out of the ordinary for the project. I had the opportunity to ask Niznik about this song and his workflow in his studio in Los Angeles.
Synthbeat: Is there something special about the songs you pick to do reggae covers? There is some timeless quality about these songs….
Wise Owl: Yes, they’re all from my list of personal jams! “Heaven” is the fifth song in a series of reggae cover versions that I’m doing called ‘Wise Owl Sings His Favorites’ and that’s really what it is. The first step in choosing the song is that it’s a song I’ve loved for years and listen to over and over for personal enjoyment. After that, there are musical criteria such as, can I sing it? Every song I pick has an original singer on the recording that is way better at singing than I am, so if I toss out all the songs on my list that I can’t do a sufficiently good job singing, that narrows it down quite a bit! Then after that, I look for a song whose music would be exciting or enjoyable for fans of that song to hear in a reggae style. Some songs are already too similar to reggae for it to be interesting, and so I like to choose songs that we would have a hard time imagining what it would sound like as reggae. That’s why I picked Talking Heads, Tears For Fears, Beck, David Bazan, and Maze. My list of future songs has Deftones, Alicia Keys, George Harrison, all kinds of stuff.
Synthbeat: Did you play everything? How did you originate the drums?
Wise Owl: By default I play and sing everything except the drums and percussion. That’s bass, rhythm guitar, lead guitar, piano, organ, synths, and the vocals. Then, as I’m recording, I’ll often find that there’s a particular part in the song that my playing style isn’t suited for, or that I’m not good enough to play. So I take that as an opportunity to invite my friends to play in the instruments and styles that they specialize in. I’ve had Nate ‘Black Market’ Bridges, Brian ‘Dub Robot’ Wallace, Stan Loken, Patrick Simon, and Ian McGuinness, and others play and sing on my songs in moments when their vibe is what the song is asking for, rather than mine.
When it comes to drums, I use these really high-quality reggae drum tracks from horsemandrums.com and drum-drops.com. They’re from a library of drum tracks that were played mostly by Horseman Williams, and some by Style Scott from Roots Radics. I take those raw tracks, edit them to establish the performance I want for the song, and mix them myself.
Synthbeat: Is it from your studio in LA? What DAW do you use? Is it Reason?
Wise Owl: Yes, these days I do everything from Adult Treehouse, my studio at my house near Downtown LA. I only use Reason for the instruments, which you know by now I love! The DAW I use is REAPER, made by a company called Cockos. I love REAPER, it’s the greatest thing to happen to me, and I recommend it to every producer who doesn’t want to use ProTools or Logic, or can’t afford it. I like it better. Plus, all you gotta do is check out the videos on the YouTube channel “REAPERMania“, and you will never be lost.
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