Interview: Can Can’s Essential Music Collection with Pink & Pezzner
We are over the moon with excitement for the upcoming release of Live at Can Can: Can Can’s Essential Music Collection, a series of songs made and recorded by our in-house music creators and producers, culminating in a compilation of some of the most iconic, beloved songs from Can Can productions over the years.
Chris Pink and Dave Pezzner, the duo behind the brilliant music duo Pink & Pezzner, sat down with the Can Can Blog to chat about the unique, live recording process, the future of bringing Can Can home with you, and how nearly impossible it is to pick a favorite track.
Read on to get the behind-the-mix scoop on Can Can’s inaugural Essential Music Collection, and keep an eye out for the 15-track full album dropping on August 1st on Bandcamp for $14.99, and the 6-track EP hitting Spotify for streaming on August 5th.
THECANCAN.COM: For fans who may not know, what is Live at Can Can: Can Can's Essential Music Collection?
Chris Pink: It's a collection of music that we've been recording live on the Can Can stage, or in our formal studio at Fred Wildlife Refuge, since we moved into the new theatre. Dave and Robbie set the stage up to essentially be a recording studio. Then, we have our vocalists come in and we record them live and with minimal takes.
Dave Pezzner: That pretty much sums it up. The collection itself is the “best of” every show that we do. About halfway through a show run, we arrange a recording session where all the vocals are recorded inside Can Can, and then I take them back here to the studio to mix them down and turn them into full pieces.
THECANCAN.COM: Can you tell us a bit more about the technical side of this release? What’s the biggest difference between recording in the studio and recording on stage?
Pink: I think that one of the biggest, most clarifying differences is the ambiance and atmosphere. For us, it’s not about having the coolest mic and the best gear. In my mind, I always feel that the Can Can stage is the most comfortable place for our singers to record. They can get into character, and they can express themselves as they would in a show. They feel the energy. It's a certain kind of muscle memory, like a recall of the live performance experience. That, to me, is the biggest difference.
Pezzner: We've been recording show songs since the Can Can was in the old space down on Pike Street. But, back then, we didn't record inside the theatre. When we did vocal sessions, we would have the performers come into the studio, and everybody would do takes. I would then find that the mixing process took a little bit longer to get everything to sound natural. At the end of the day, the performances were not exactly the same as what you were hearing on the stage, as Chris was mentioning. Now that we have this new space and there's all this room, we find that when the performers are recording, it is a lot more genuine and all the theatrics really come through.
There’s also another part of the technical process that is a little bit different from what we would do in a studio. On stage, we put everybody into one single microphone, and if we need space to create a distance or, what Chris was saying, the ambiance of the room, we can have the performers pull back or step forward. At the end of the day, it all comes out sounding much, much better.
THECANCAN.COM: What was the process of choosing these "greatest hits" from all that Can Can has done?
Pezzner: We have many pieces and so many versions of songs that we've done so far. The library, at this point, has gotten quite big, and it's all really great. So, it's very, very difficult to choose. It's been very difficult to figure out, “What are the best takes for this particular release?” Every time I put together some kind of a compilation of what I think is the best, the list is way too long for any one release, and whittling it down is just so difficult.
Pink: Because we record live, there are also technical things that might not get the best take of this or best take of that. As Dave said, there's just so much. There's so much to sort through that, even once we’ve got our choices whittled down, getting through the entire list of listening takes hours and hours. I like to listen to the songs in their entirety because we may need to make changes in the mix. There is a lot that goes into the finite details of it all.
THECANCAN: What do you see for the future of Can Can’s Essential Music Collection? Will there be other variations to come?
Pink: That's the hope. We've gotten really good at wrangling everything after shows and recording songs while they’re still hot off the press. We’ve been able to consistently capture recordings when the songs are still in the performers’ voices and they still remember the emotional context of the songs. It's become a little bit easier for us to facilitate and put together. But then there's the post-production, which is such a long process for us because there's so much that goes into it. So, in my mind, we'll just keep recording every show. Maybe this “Essentials” format of release will come out in different forms. Maybe it's the whole soundtrack of a show, like “Crimson and Clover: Live at Can Can.” Or maybe it's another collection of various songs from various shows. Time will tell, and we'll find out as we continue to create fully original shows. That also makes it easier because we don't need to rely on other material that requires us to participate with any other entity in order to use it.
Pezzner: Yeah, exactly. It's much easier when we have we have our original pieces that emerge from the shows.
THECANCAN.COM: What do you hope the listening experience is for the audience?
Pink: We get a ton of requests from folks wanting to know about this song or that song after they see a show. Or, maybe people can come to one show but not to another. It's a combination of fulfilling the needs of our audiences from many perspectives. We want to provide our audiences with the ability to discover new songs and new content that we create. It allows our audiences to say, “Oh, I like that song from that show. Maybe I'll go check out the show in the theatre!” Another part of that is audiences being able to access the music immediately following shows. Right now they can go to our Spotify, and check out bits and pieces of this, that, and the other thing like our inspirational playlists, but they don't have direct access to our actual songs sung by our actual performers. We will have the ability, at some point in time, for audiences to download songs immediately following the show at any point in time.
Pezzner: I love the idea of this. I just love that we're doing this. Up until now, the only way anyone is going to experience the product of all of this immense amount of music work that we put into the shows is to literally just show up to the show. When that show is over, the music gets filed into the archive. And then the next time you may hear that song, it will be likely done differently in another show or it gets revamped almost entirely. I love that people are going to be able to revisit this awesome work that we're doing.
THECANCAN.COM: What tracks are you most excited for folks to listen to?
Pezzner: I think my favorite one is the Vince Mira song that we put into one of the shows. It’s actually more of a studio piece than a live piece.
Pink: That is such a great number.
Pezzner: Amongst the songs that are actually recorded live at Can Can…let me look at my list, here…We did a jazzy version of “Creep” by Radiohead. Jasmine sings it, and it just gets so emotionally intense as the song evolves. I really love that one. That's one of my favorites, for sure.
Pink: There are just so many of them. But, “Salutations” from the Hitchcock Hotel is one of my favorites. I feel like it's one of those songs that really represent the show in existence as a sort of trademark musical number. It's just so weird and quirky, but it makes sense all at the same time. Every time I turn it on, I'm like, “Oh my God, I love this number.” It's so unique in its own feel, own vibe, and own energy.
Pezzner: I love that one.
Pink: It feels like it's a character on its own.
Pezzner: It's very theatric and switches gears through all these various moods throughout it. It's a lot of fun.
Pink: And, as Dave mentioned, I'm also a fan of the Vince Mira song and “Creep.” There are also going to be some songs from our current show, Crimson and Clover, that we actually haven’t recorded yet. We don't have the new vocals recorded yet. We’re going to do “Angels and Demons,” which we previously did with Brett Amaker, but now with Richard doing the vocals. I love that song, and I'm excited to get it re-recorded and back into the ethos. It's such a fun number, and we wrote it so long ago. It's nice to have it come alive again.