Will Kotheimer: How has the sound of Sojourn Music evolved from that time?

Eddy Morris: Well, that was just a live recording that we tried to fix a little bit in the studio, the best we could.  It never got released because we’d covered copyrighted music and they wanted us to pay more money for the licensing than we had budgeted for the whole CD. So I said, “Mike, why don’t we just take the same amount of money and just record the next CD?” I think it was $500 for the next one.

WK: Was that next record [Jeremy Quillo’s] With the Angels?

EM: Yeah I think that was. And getting back to that first live one — there was some loophole that you could give away CDs of the music without paying for licensing so we just did that.  It was straightforward worship music in some ways, but in some ways more loose.  I don’t want to say “hippie” because it’s such a cliche but you know, that drum circle thing mixed in with didgerydoos (sic) and cellos, noisier guitars.  And then With the Angels — Quillo’s stuff was a bit more subdued, a little more refined but still noisy guitars, and we did the best we could do with whatever equipment we had at the time.

So all the way up till now the most current — my latest involvement was tracking the live ones with such awesome musicians on Before the Throne. That’s what made it so awesome: awesome songs with awesome musicians, and it was mixed by Neil (Robins) with Pro Tools, which took it up a bizillion levels in terms of polish.  He did things that I couldn’t do with my equipment.  It would have still been awesome because the songs were great and the musicians were great — but it would have sounded more raw.

WK: Can you speak about These Things I Remember?

EM: Yes, it was just exciting to be a part of it. There was such a heart of worship and very much a spirit of the Lord present in the songs and in the people singing them and recording them, and each song was unique and different.  As in Before the Throne, there is no way anyone knew it would have turned out the way it did because it was tracked live with very few overdubs after the fact.  Very exhausting because we took more time and the performances were so good.  At some point I shut down because I was afraid to mix it anymore; I was afraid to botch it.

And so we took about 3-4 weeks off and finally I just rolled up my sleeves and went into the studio — it took 2-3 weeks, 2-3 days per song because the equipment I had — it’s not Pro Tools so I made my own automating and I woudn’t stop until it was where I thought it should be.  Sometimes that took 10-20 hours per song.

WK: Getting the tones just right?

EM: Right. Getting the drums to sound really nice, etc.  It depends on the song; whatever the song called for.  And it was all over on that record, so that I couldn’t get just one template and and it was done, because the drummers were different drummers, different drum sounds, playing on different songs.  Alex had three microphones and one was pointed at the ceiling.  We were going for some Led Zeppelin, if you will, drum sound, which is a cliche, and no one ever gets it, but that’s what we did.

WK: I think that’s fascinating because most people who might be reading this who heard the recording didn’t think about how mics were set up or what actually went into recording it to get this sound or that sound.

EM:  Well for those that might be interested — On These Things I Remember I was using a lot of microphones at the same time.  I was mixing anywhere from 2-12 microphones all on the same instrument and mixing them to get whatever kind of tone that was interesting to me.

WK: Just to clarify, when you said you were doing everything “live” is that actually “live,” does that preclude split tracks?

EM: That’s the way Before the Throne was recorded.  It was “One, two, three,” and everyone played the song.  There were so many open mics that there was no way to replace the instruments afterwards — or it was very difficult to.  We tried it on a couple of tracks, but the drums bled into the piano, the piano and drums bled into the upright bass.  The guitars were outside so we could retrack the electric guitars.  We could retrack some of the vocals.  But a lot of it we had to leave the way it was because it had so much bleed from the other instruments you couldn’t replace that track.  Of the Sojourn records, the only records that were done like that was the first live record and Before The Throne.

WK: And that allows the musicians to play off of one another.

EM: Exactly.

WK: Alright. I want to go in a different direction here.  Of the Sojourn musicians, you seem to have the most experience, or at least longevity, in music.  So in terms of mentoring others I was wondering if you could paint us a picture of how, say, you and Mike Cosper have been able to mentor artists such as Brooks Ritter and Chad Lewis.

EM: Well, both of those artists are better than me in some aspects.  The problem you encounter when you look at yourself as an artist is that it’s very hard to view yourself accurately.  Or with songwriters, whether it’s with Jeremy Quillo or anyone else, the song becomes such a part of you.  When someone hears it, they are not feeling what you are feeling.

You can fall in love with the way the thing works and it may not come across as well to other people.  So I often offer what I want to hear, or if it’s a criticism I say, “I think I’d like this song better if you did this,” or “I didn’t like this song at this point because of this.  I didn’t like this word.”  And I am really just offering my opinion.

I’ll qualify it with, its the opinion of someone who has heard hundreds of thousands of songs and truly loves music and loves the person I’m offering my opinion for, but I could be wrong.  You know that song — you hate it — then the tenth time you hear it you like it?  Or you don’t like a record that you buy and you toss it off, and then a year or two later, “I love it!”

WK:  You’ve engineered other records beside Sojourn CDs.  Do you usually give your opinions if people ask for them?

EM: I do.  If it’s going to make it a better record. Unless they don’t want it. If I can help them out I usually give my opinion.

WK: Did you ever play bass and engineer on a recording?

EM: Yes.

WK: Did you ever get that role as an artist and an engineer confused from the standpoint of what you were talking about, being able to judge what sounds good?

EM: Yeah and I prefer not to play when I’m recording for that reason.  Its easier to mix it when I’m not in it because I’ll either go too low or too high when I’m mixing.

WK:  I have one more question, just to tie it up. I just wanted to give you the opportunity to talk about any of your personal goals or plans for recording or doing your own stuff, or being a musician at Sojourn.

EM: I’m kind of in a transition right now. I’m at Seminary and my heart was to go into ministry.  I don’t know if the Lord will call me and open the door but if he does I might go somewhere else.  So the torch has been passed to Mike and Neil to build a studio at The 930, and I might or might not be part of that process in the future.  At least for now that’s not a goal.

Worship: I love worship and God’s blessed me to be gifted in making music for worship.  I play Sunday mornings at another church right now and it is a blessing for me to play wherever; it really is! But its hard being a single father 24-7 and playing my morning gig, which I get paid for, then playing at Sojourn in the evenings.  It’s taxing on the family, but it’s a blessing; I love doing it.

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Thanks to Eddy for sharing his thoughts and memories, as well as pouring himself out as a dedicated servant to Sojourn over most of the last decade.  Also thanks to Will Kotheimer for conducting this interview.

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