Name: Trad.Attack!
Members: Sandra Vabarna (Bagpipes), Jalmar Vabarna (Guitar), Tõnu Tubli (Drums)
Nationality: Estonian
Current release: The new Trad.Attack! album BRING IT ON is out March 31st 2023.
If you enjoyed this Trad.Attack! interview and would like to know more about the band, visit their official website. They are also on Instagram, Facebook, twitter, and Soundcloud.
Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?
With Trad.Attack! we have a very pragmatic solution:
On one side our music is mostly derived from Estonian traditional music, whether it’s the instruments (bagpipes, jaw harps, whistles or flutes), lyrics (dialects that even Estonians don’t understand) or styles of songs (worksongs, wedding songs, lullabies etc.). And on the other side there’s everything else.
The thing is to be persistent in doing what you do and not limiting yourself to only the things you know - call it an eternal search with roots.
For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?
I guess we never wait for chance but take action and when chance occurs you just decide if it’s worth it.
Generally we do a lot of planning and charting while making music and also while working on our social media or live performances. When in the studio, we keep a chart of what we are doing or what we haven’t done yet and we've had a band calendar for years as a grand unifier.
But in our line of business you have to be flexible, always.
Is there a preparation phase for your process? Do you require your tools to be laid out in a particular way, for example, do you need to do 'research' or create 'early versions'?
Our main preparation is that we have a lot of archival recordings which we listen to and see if something clicks. But other than that it’s in a way plain old rock’n’roll: We come together and try out different ideas and then do ‘early versions.’
But with Bring It On we took it to another level for us. After the early sessions we did 3 separate sessions in the studio and every one of them was a month long. So we really took our time in the studio, to experiment and take everything apart and then analyse and put it back together, then do another run etc.
Then we had the crazy idea to feature our international friends (The East Pointers, Ravid Kahalani, Iberi choir from Georgia), not to mention having friends and family come over and sing and add their flavour to the mix.
In short, a lot of everything.
Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?
In our band everybody is an individual and since we’ve been friends for a long time we know each other's kinks in that sense.
But basically everything has a role: good coffee is a bliss, as is exercise but also reading and everything in between. But when we start creating the most important thing you need is time to do it …
What do you start with? How difficult is that first line of text, the first note?
We usually start with jamming (mostly Jalmar and Tony) and making riffs and beats that inspire or listen to some cool archival recordings to find something that clicks with us. Or Sandra gets the backing track to create a bagpipe or whistle melody. Sometimes one of us comes up with a tune or an idea also, but it usually starts to form when we play it and that’s kind of the key.
Our secret is that we have to be able to play the songs without using any equipment other than our instruments.
When do the lyrics enter the picture? Where do they come from? Do lyrics need to grow together with the music or can they emerge from a place of their own?
Lyrics are important but since we use Estonian traditional songs and we have surprisingly many dialects it’s a bit different. Most of the songs are chants or runo-songs and there's a lot of repetition involved.
Therefore for us it is firstly important to understand what is the theme of the tune and then pick the lyrics, because the songs can be very-very long and that can get a bit boring. So eventually we pick lyrics that fit the theme but also have enough characteristics to play with.
What makes lyrics good in your opinion? What are your own ambitions and challenges in this regard?
Rhythm. It probably differentiates between languages but generally we try to find lyrics that won’t have to be bent or stretched in order to understand it better.
But because most are runo-songs or chants or something similar and it is in Estonian, it’s quite fun. But not always easy.
Once you've started, how does the work gradually emerge?
When we started out, there was a lot less preparation. Almost none. Our first rehearsals and also first “studio” recordings took place in Sandra’s living room. In the bedroom we took our first picture with Tony’s cheap digital camera.
In a way we had made our research already, because we studied in the same university (Viljandi Cultural Academy, which is a branch under Tartu University). Practicing our instruments and also our stage experience was already there, having played in different bands and studying a.s.o. We just wanted to make a party band that never rehearses and would only play for a lot of money and have a lot of friends join us.
Today, almost 10 years later it is a totally different thing. We do our research and we do early versions too. Bring It On was made over a period of two years, with a lot of creating in and out of studio. We tried to really produce and not shy out on trying everything from synths (“Ella”) to making our own archival recordings with traditional singers from the South of Estonia (who happened to be Jalmar’s mother, sister, niece and their friends).
Finally came the process of mixing (with Silver Lepaste from Clockwork Studio) and that took another couple of months. It was all the more exciting but also brought a lot of knowledge.
Many writers have claimed that as soon as they enter into the process, certain aspects of the narrative are out of their hands. Do you like to keep strict control over the process or is there a sense of following things where they lead you?
When creating, you have to be ready to sail where the winds blow. But having a good understanding of what you want to achieve is also important.
You just have to mix the unknown with the known, easy-peasy.
Often, while writing, new ideas and alternative roads will open themselves up, pulling and pushing the creator in a different direction. Does this happen to you, too, and how do you deal with it? What do you do with these ideas?
We try to keep an open mind and most of the finished tunes are totally different from the original raw demos. Some of the stuff is still in the “unfinished” stage and it may be that they’ll never be finished.
But sometimes they make up a whole album (we made a special digital edition for the demos that didn’t make it to our previous album, “Make Your Move”, called “Mymiatures - Songs That Never Grew Up”).
There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?
Estonians are known for their paganism. We are no different. We don’t go too esoteric while creating. What is important is that you take time and also finding a nice place can be inspiring.
And we’ve done that but with Bring It On the place to be was the studio.
Especially in the digital age, the writing and production process tends towards the infinite. What marks the end of the process? How do you finish a work?
It’s all about gut feeling for us. Since the thing we do, which is mixing our Estonian old traditions with the sound of today, is kind if unique, it gives us the freedom to experiment but also a kind of freedom to say: ”That’s how it should be, let’s leave it like it is.”
Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practice?
It is very important to just “sleep on it”. And also we take our time separately to work on stuff like finding the best lyrics or beats or the right harmonic structures or sounds a.s.o.
What's your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? How involved do you get in this?
With Bring It On we really dug deep into the rabbit hole and saw through every detail of the process. All the process was mostly done at Clockwork Studio, with our dear friend and frankly a mad genius, Silver Lepaste and his trusty sidekick Elijah Ivanov, whose ears were always on our recordings and fingers on the mixing desk.
We used different analogue and digital instruments, sampled, re-sampled, re-amped, used the reverb of the hallway, played tuba, and whatnot. It was a wonderland.
After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?
Well, for us it’s probably a relief or something similar. But in a good way, cause bascially we’ve done everything we could possibly do.
And after the studio you have to start rehearsing for live performances. So there’s little time to feel down or whatsoever. :)
Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?
Most probably in whatever we do, there is kind of a reflection of our past memories, future hopes or dreams and the present that we experience.
Basically everything can be put to music. But whether we decide to create something from those feelings is another question.
