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Ruth Fisher: As I said, I have got Jesse Fischer live on the line from New York. Hi Jesse!

Jesse Fischer: Hey Ruth, how are you?

RF: I’m doing good, how are you?

JF: I’m doing great, I’m doing really well! Good to hear your voice.

RF: It’s been a while! It’s been just about a year, maybe just a year and a half, something like that, since we’ve last chatted.

JF: Yeah, a little over a year.

RF: That’s right, you’d just released your previous album, the EP, wasn’t it?

JF: Yeah, I think it was last August. Flipped.

RF: That’s right, that’s right. So, we’ve obviously going to be talking about the new album, but I just want to know, I know this has been an incredibly busy year for you, what are the highlights that have been this past year for you?

JF: It has been crazy, Flipped coming out was a big milestone, and I really, really enjoyed making that record and putting it out, and the response that we got was great, but after that I ended up doing some other things. I produced a record and engineered a record for a good friend of mine named Andre Henry, and that was just released, so that was a big deal. I did some other production and engineering work for a friend name Gabriel Wallace, who goes by the name Manuals, and his record came out. And then of course, we recorded Homebrew, which is the new Soul Cycle record. So that’s basically been it, I’ve been working on a lot of production in the studio, been travelling a little bit here and there.

RF: You’re gigging quite a bit, aren’t you?

JF: Yeah, we’ve been really just trying to branch out.  I’ve been using the band on other artists’ recordings, we’ve been collaborating a lot, and it’s been a great year. Looking forward to great things with Homebrew as well.

RF: Oh, I think this is going to do it, I really do. So it’s your fourth album with Soul Cycle, and again I noticed you’ve used a number of great musicians and singers in particular, Gretchen Parlato is the one on “You’ve Got a Friend”, but I also noticed you used Stefon Harris, who’s a really great vibraphone player. Did you know before you started the album that you wanted to use some specific artists, or did the album sort of come together, and then you thought, ‘that would suit that guy,’ or how did it work?

JF: Well, a lot of this music was actually written years ago. The song that Stefon was on, I wrote four or five years ago, and sort of was waiting for the right time to use it. And it came up when I was planning the album, I really wanted a vibraphone, and I didn’t really know anyone that played vibes. So was asking friends, ‘hey do you know anyone that plays, I want someone that sounds like Stefon Harris,’ because I’ve always been a fan of his — his playing, his style, his writing — I’ve actually been a fan of his writing and his arrangements for 10, 15 years. So it turns out that, when I was speaking to Gretchen’s manager, she also manages Stefon, and we got to talking, and I was like, ‘hey, let me get Stefon on the record’. It was actually our first time meeting, it was really, really cool. He came through, he just played his butt off, he sounds incredible, and it was great to have him on the record. And actually after we had recorded, I was listening back to some of his old stuff, and I realized how much he had actually influenced my whole writing style, so it kind of came full circle to have him on the track.

RF: And Gretchen, obviously she’s really taking off now, she seems to be travelling all over the world. And again, you always seem to do cover versions of these songs with a slight difference, if that’s the wrong way of putting it, it’s not your usual standard cover. You know, everybody will recognize it, but you have your own idea about how you want to go.

JF: Yeah, you know, I love doing cover songs because it’s a great challenge, you know. It’s a challenge to present a song that people have heard, and to give them something new, but yet still, you know obviously I want them to — I wanted to capture that feeling that they had when they first heard the song.  I don’t want to do something that’s crazy obscure and like, totally change it up so they don’t even recognize it. I want to hear something like, when I listen to somebody’s cover version, I want to think ‘Oh, I love that song. Oh wait, they did something different with it, you know that’s really interesting!’

RF: No, it’s very true. This latest album Homebrew, for me, I might be completely wrong, but I was going to ask you, how do you feel that this album is different from the previous ones, from a listener’s point of view, not a musician’s point of view? I was gonna say that some albums have been, either they’ve been jazz, or they’ve had the soul in them, but this one seems to be a whole mixture, you’ve got jazz, and you’ve got the soul sounds in it.

JF: Huh, that’s interesting.

RF: Am I completely wrong? [laughs]

JF: No, you can’t be wrong, that’s what you’re hearing. I really need to know what other people hear, because I know what I hear, but I’ve been listening to it about five zillion times, you know? I guess my — what was I thinking? I mean obviously, everything I do is jazzy and I’d like to think everything I do is soulful, you know, in different proportions on each one. This is definitely different from Flipped, because Flipped was consciously more contemporary, and this is more of a throwback, but I think this is the first one that really focused on, actually, rock music, and influenced from psychedelic rock, and garage rock. That was a big part of my childhood and I kind of got away from that when I got more into jazz, but I wanted to re-capture that raw energy that a lot of rock music has, I wanted to capture that sound and that psychedelia that a lot of the stuff from the 60’s and 70’s has. So, I think this is the first album where we feature the guitar a lot, and it’s the first album where I was consciously trying to get some of that psychedelic rock influence. But it’s great, if it sounds jazzy and soulful, that’s great, cause that’s what I want to do.

RF: Yeah, that was my first impression of the album. And again, it’s quite funny because I remember when you first sent it over to me, after you sent me “You’ve Got a Friend” with Gretchen, you said, ‘Oh, I think we’re gonna release ‘Dark Waters’ next,’ and I said ‘Oh, I’m feeling K.C. Bounce!’ And then actually I ended up playing ‘Dark Waters’ in the end. It’s funny how each week, I end up hearing something completely different, ‘Oh actually, that will fit in with my show next week’, or something, you know. It works out both ways, it’s quite an interesting album. Now it’s going to be released on the 27th of September?

JF: Yep, it’s available for pre-order now from our website, and it’s gonna be in stores and iTunes and everything on the 27th, next Tuesday.

RF: Alright, very close, very close. Um, give us your website address again.

JF: Oh, it’s soulcyclemusic.com, and you can just find me on Facebook and Twitter, just search for ‘Jesse Fischer’ or ‘Soul Cycle’.

RF: Yes, we’re not related because Jesse spells it with a ‘C’. But I wouldn’t mind being related to you, with such a good musician in the family, that’d be marvelous. Tell me, why did you call it ‘Homebrew’?

JF: Well, there’s a few different layers to that. First of all, we recorded it ourselves in our own studio, we did the engineering ourselves, the graphic design, I did all that ourselves, so it’s a very homemade, homegrown, do-it-yourself kind of album. And on top of that, I was on tour last year and I got to go to the Stax Museum of American Soul, which is in Memphis, and I was studying — you know, Booker T and the M.G.’s was the house band, Otis Redding, Carla and Rufus Thomas — all these legends had made their records there, and I was inspired by, kind of how small the studio was actually, and how they made such great records with kind of older equipment, you know, they didn’t really have the most professional stuff.  There just, it was basically, they were doing it themselves, they were making their own sound, and it came out sounding very raw and very funky, I think more so than the polished Motown stuff. So, that’s kind of what I was coming from. The name ‘Homebrew’ actually came from the Homebrew Computer Club, which was where Apple Computer was founded, and again, it was just two guys in a garage, just making their own computer for fun, and from that came Apple, which was copied by all the other personal computer companies. I’m just inspired by people who want to take their own route and make things themselves, not necessarily do what’s expected of them or do what the corporate thing is to do, you know, don’t have all that corporate money, but just have a little bit of passion and creativity

RF: Right, and make something happen.

JF: Yeah, just make it happen, right from scratch, do it from scratch, do-it-yourself.

RF: Absolutely. Now, I’ll tell you what is expected of you, and this is my orders here: when am I gonna get to see you play live?

JF: Hey, [laughs] we’re waiting to be invited, so hopefully we’ll be there soon.

RF: I have to get working on this, don’t I?

JF: Well, I do too. I’m sort of wearing a lot of hats, between the music and doing my own PR and doing my own booking… right now we’re focusing on Atlanta, and New York of course, which is where we live, and the Eastern seaboard, D.C., but I want to do something in the U.K. very soon. I really love it there, and we have a lot of fans — we have a lot of support with blogs, different radio stations, so we’ll be there soon.

RF: I hope so. I’ll start working on it a bit more now. Jesse, thank you so much for taking the time. I know that you put back a dinner for me to actually do this, I do appreciate it.

JF: No, not a problem at all! My pleasure.

RF: Wish you all the best with this album, and I look forward to the next one now, I get excited, it’s like Christmas, you know.

JF: Oh yeah, the next one’s going to be completely different, again, so, I have a whole bunch of new things up my sleeve.

RF: Of course, I wouldn’t expect anything different from you, Jesse.

JF: Thanks so much, Ruth! I wanted to send a shout-out to all our fans in the U.K., and especially to my girl who’s listening online.

RF: Absolutely. Jesse, we’ll speak soon, and we’ll be plugging this album for sure.

JF: Thank you Ruth!

Great in-depth interview with DJ Cut from SoulCuts about the inspiration behind Homebrew and the writing process. I talk about my influences (from Debussy to Oliver Nelson to the Beatles), the ups and downs of wearing so many different hats as an indie artist, and how I never wanted to be a performing musician!

Read the full interview here.

We recently were lucky enough to do a transatlantic phone interview with Ruth Fisher of Solar Radio in the U.K. She’s a thoughtful interviewer and a great supporter of our music! Check it out:

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Ruth Fisher: And talking of lovely music, I’m delighted to say I’ve got Jesse Fischer — and we’re not related, believe it or not, even though we have the same name — I’ve got him on the phone, and I’m going to play one track from his album which has just been released — the band is called Soul Cycle — and then I’m going to bring Jesse on and we’re going to have a little chat with him and we’ll find out more about him and the band and the music. But in the meantime, enjoy this.

["In A Sentimental Mood" plays.]

RF: Alright, I’m going to bring it down ever so slightly, and bring Jesse in. Can you hear me Jesse?

Jesse Fischer: Yes, I can!

RF: Marvelous, marvelous. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview with me. We’ve been trying for a couple of months now to get it together, so thank you.

JF: Thanks for having me on the show, it’s great to be here.

RF: Well, all I can say is I think after this, people are going to want to know what Soul Cycle is. I first heard about you a couple months ago, or actually, a bit more than that, when I was sent the album Mosaic, and I knew nothing about you guys except I liked what I heard. So, give me a little bit of background about the band and how you put it together, just so that people get an idea of what you do.

(more…)