Waterdeep

For many who’ll end up reading at least this far, Waterdeep represents a beautiful legacy of music and a wonderful tension of Christians in the arts. The former spans well over a decade and everything from tribal worship projects (Enter the Worship Circle, anyone?) to honest folk/pop arrangements (gotta love Sink or Swim, even after all these years). The latter, well, anyone who’s paid much attention to the spoken or musical statements of Don and Lori Chaffer know that they helped pioneer a Christian’s way out of the contemporary Christian bubble into a respected place where artists can truly begin to flourish and speak the beauty and truth of God in a broken world.

In this first of three segments with Waterdeep, Soul-Audio digs deep into the band’s storied history from the New Earth Coffee House in Kansas City to recent stunning albums like Heart Attack Time Machine. We also wrestle with Don Chaffer about the larger concepts of art and faith and what it means for Christians to create meaningful art. It’s a thorough conversation and one worth reading. Come back through the week for the next two sections, but for now here’s part one.

Soul-Audio: I know the Pink and Blue project is very much a his/her project. So I wondered about the writing process when you’re writing only for yourself versus writing for Waterdeep or for the two of you. Is there a difference?

Don Chaffer: No, there’s not. I just write songs. Actually, both of us have a lot of songs and most of Lori’s aren’t finished. They’re just in a bunch of pieces. So when it comes time for an album, in her case, she’s picking songs that maybe are finished and then others that are the strongest pieces. In my case, I tend to finish a song and then have to revise them to tighten them up. I probably have 100 songs that are either finished or close to it right now or at any given point. So it’s about combing through them and determining similarities in the sound and what kind of record we think we want to make. I wish I could say it was scientific, but that would be the difference between science and the arts, right? I don’t know.

But I do usually just write. I’ve never consciously written for an album that I can remember. That’s not to say that I haven’t consciously written for things. I have a publishing deal in Nashville now and I go out there every couple months and co-write a lot. But for my own stuff, it’s only when the inspiration strikes and I’m just lucky that it strikes a lot. [Laughs]

SA: When you go and co-write with someone, there’s got to be a different feeling there or level of artistic intimacy, for lack of a better word, than when you’re at home writing for yourself or with Lori, right? Is that weird to let people in to that place?

Don: To be honest, I’m not sure that I have let people into it. My wife, maybe. I’ve written one other song with a writer in Nashville for this side project called Khrusty Brothers and actually for the musical part of it, meaning stage musical. That’s another conversation. But I would say that is ‘in there.’ Usually my approach when I’m co-writing is to take the role of interviewer or assistant. My disposition toward artists is that ‘your name is on this so what is it that you want to say, how do you want to say it and how can I help you?’ Obviously, my name is on it, too, but it’s a much different thing. I want to help them accomplish whatever they want. That feels like a different space than me simply wanting to get something down or exploring certain thoughts or emotions. Naturally, that stuff comes out in the context of writing with a person. But it’s not the primary feature.

SA: I know you’ve also been doing a lot of production on the side. Is that something you really enjoy or does that provide a good outlet apart from only songwriting?

Don: Yeah, I always used to say when we were on the road that if I had to choose between the studio and the road that I would choose the studio. Apparently one day I did choose that. [Laughs] First of all, we had our first kid, Miles, back in ‘04. My dad was gone a lot when I was kid and I thought that I didn’t want to do that whole routine and so we wanted to stabilize and do the thing that made the most sense within that, which was production work. I’d already done a bit of it and I thought we could make a run of it. We’ve managed to succeed and we’ve been at it for five years so far and we’ve been able to see it turn upward if you will.

As far as enjoying it, I love it. I just never get tired of sonics. I was telling my wife the other day that I find that especially when I’m tracking a record, there’s a certain head space or soul space that I get into that has everything to do with the sonics. But not in the sense of technical sense, like that was a certain microphone, but there’s this feeling a record will have that I find myself turning over in my head a lot during the days of the tracking. I really like that space and my favorite part is when you get to the vocals or when you’re putting the final vocals on. That’s when all the synergy starts happening. You’ve been laying the groundwork for these great moments to happen and it’s when the vocals come in that it all comes together.

SA: What are you working on now?

Don: I’m doing a solo EP with a women named Courtney Reed who is in a band called Maeve from Boston. I did a record for them two records ago and Charlie Peacock did their last record. We’re doing this EP which is an interesting blend of roots music and electronic music. Then I’m doing four songs on a new Heath McNeese record, who is a rapper on 7Spin. I did songs with a pop/rock band called Attaboy and then I’m finishing up this ’60s sounding gospel/folk, Scripture song family band. It’s bizarre sounding and it does sound bizarre, but it’s really pretty fascinating music. They’re the Mayhew Family. Then there’s a worship leader from Oklahoma City named Brad Kilman and I’m finishing that up. He had that song called “We Are Hungry” on one of the Passion CDs. He’s from the church that Charlie Hall came out of and, at one point, James Smith came from. It’s this fertile ground for worship leaders.

SA: Are you always spinning this many plates?

Don: No, but it does seem there are three open at a time. That’s part of the function of the way things work, especially as other people mix, then I finish tracking and overdubbing and editing while someone else is mixing another project. Then I hand that off to somebody and we’re off to tracking the next thing. It’s not always this busy though. I don’t usually have five projects open.

• www.waterdeep.com
• www.myspace.com/waterdeepmusic

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#1 Soul-Audio » Features » Waterdeep on March 4th, 2009 at 10:11 am

[...] Waterdeep – Monday Mar 2nd, 2009 [...]

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