BY COLIN MCGUIRE
Performance plus pandemic are in the
Special to The News-Post
He owns one of the most popular recording studios in the area, Mystery Ton Studios in Monrovia, and he also plays guitar in one of Frederick’s (kind of) prog, (kind of) rock outfits, Time Columns. He also collaborated with me on Frederick One Take, an FNP-backed web series that featured local artists performing and being interviewed on a monthly basis (find those episodes on YouTube!). As I sat down with Kenny Eaton for our chat, a lot was on my mind, including the current status of Time Columns, how his studio fared during the COVID-19 pandemic, what inspires him to keep playing music and, of course, if he intends to run Mystery Ton forever. The answers, as you’ll find, are as follows. First, I don’t want to bury the lede. I was talking to Jordan [Miller] about two months ago and he told me you guys are a two-piece again? That’s right. So, you can confirm? Allegedly, yeah. So, what happened? A lot of sex, tons of drugs, extremely violent. Some international trafficking laws [laughs]. No, you grow in different directions and motivations change and Stefan [Sandman] is killing it in Half Heard Voices. I’m personally really good friends with him. We’re all really good friends, still. It’s just that sort of thing. How much does that change the band? I ask because when I played with Joe [Jalette, in DoubleMotorcycle], there was a big difference between when it was just the two of us and when we invited other people in. Have just you and Jordan had a chance to play with just you and Jordan? Not a ton. The workflow is kind of changing. The thing with Jordan and I is that we’re both similar in that we’re maniacs about other things. I think both of us were maniacs about the band for a while, at the same time, and now, he’s really into film and I’m really into running a studio. So, we’re both kind of doing our own things while the band is its own thing right now. We have a record we’ve been working on that’s pretty much done, but that will come out when it’s ready. Yeah, it’s been five, six years! [Laughs]. The record’s basically done. I’m sick of talking about it. I’m not even going to ask you about it. I’ve asked you about it too 12
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Thursday, July 28, 2022
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72 HOURS
much through the years. Good. Stefan’s on the record? Yeah, and he killed it, too. Honestly, without getting too much into it, music should be something you have fun doing, and it shouldn’t be this thing where you have all these expectations, like, “Bro, when’s your record going to come out?” I play music because it’s fun and it makes me feel good, period. So, when it comes out, it’ll come out. ... Well, it’s fun with a giant asterisk next to it. Like, some people chill and watch a movie, and to me, it’s a different kind of fun. It’s not easy pleasure. It’s overcoming a challenge, and doing something difficult is fun sometimes. Right. We got to a place where we kind of said, “If we ever end up writing music again, that’s just because we want to. There’s no need to go play out and do all of the things that go along with it.” It kind of sounds like that’s where you are with it, like you don’t even care if Time Columns ever plays out again. Oh, no, I do! I love that. I think it’s awesome and fun and I’d really like to do that. I think it’s OK to make music whatever you want it to be within healthy parameters. Music is my career, but that’s from running a recording studio. Whereas, if you want to make your career being in a band, working your butt off, playing shows and pushing it and doing an album a year and practicing all the time ... I did that for a while and it was awesome and it was fun, but it’s not the only way it has to be done. You can have your own relationship with music, and being in a band and it can be whatever you want
Equipment at Mystery Ton Studios.
Kenny Eaton adjusts cables in his recording studio, Mystery Ton Studios, in Monrovia on July 25. it to be. So, that relationship for me right now is changing, and it’s hitting a new stride. I’m reconnecting with it in a different way. I don’t have to go out and play shows all the time or have a release
plan for this record. Also, there’s a very healthy dose of, “I don’t know what’s going to happen.” When we talked before, you said you were going to shop the record. Are you still going to do that? Yes. So, you do take it seriously! Of course! Yeah. That’s part of the fun. Do you have a writing process with Jordan? It’s very strange right now because we wrote three bangers — three brand new songs that are some of my favorite material we’ve done. It’s just really fast and simple, and I really like the style of it. It’s minimal in terms of how the guitars are layered, but the way the minimal layers are interacting are pretty complicated, so I like the idea of small amounts of pieces making something that’s larger than the sum of its parts. I feel that in the past, I’ve been guilty of writing via quantity. I’d be like, “Here’s the part,” and then put eight guitar parts on top of it, and now
