Interview: Catching Up With James Riotto + Stream New Single “Mineral King”

Working as a full-time house producer/engineer at Tiny Telephone Studios in San Francisco, songwriter James Riotto has kept up honing his own sound on top of his regular gig. Riotto’s forthcoming new EP, Mineral King, blends his considerable talents on the production side with inspirations from natural wonders and reflections on his past and his place in the world.

To go along with a stream of the EP’s title track, GroundSounds sent over some interview questions to get to know Riotto better. Check it all out below and be sure to visit Riotto here for info on his work at Tiny Telephone and be sure to catch him live at Rickshaw Stop on July 20th.

Hi, James! Congrats on your new EP. Can you tell us a little more on who you are and how you first started the project?

Thank you! I’m James Riotto, and I’m a producer/engineer and songwriter from Oakland, CA. I started working in the studio because I’m a musician, not because I was particularly interested in the technicalities of audio engineering, at least at first. I just wanted to learn how to make better records for my own music. Over time, the balance has shifted and my own music has taken a bit of a backseat as I’ve focused on producing records for other people. It was pretty gradual, but it’s now been about seven years, and I realized that I wasn’t playing out much, I hadn’t been writing music the way I used to, and I really didn’t want that essential part of me to atrophy.

So around the time I found out my wife was pregnant I told myself I needed to write and record some new songs or I would never do it. We now have a nine month old daughter!

What’s your songwriting process like? Who are some of your biggest influences?

I listen to so much music. I’m a pretty avid collector of hi-fi vinyl, so I end up listening to a bunch of 45rpm jazz records by Mingus and Coltrane and Miles Davis, etc, as well as incredible classical recordings from labels like Everest, Reference Recordings, and Decca. So that’s a lot of Bartok and Stravinsky and Mahler and Shostakovich.

In terms of real influences, I think I’d have to say my clients, collectively. I make so many records with tons of different people, and it’s impossible not to pick up on ideas or processes, and sort of bookmark them for my own use later. Being in the studio, at it’s best, is a constant process of discovery, so that’s really inspiring to me. I don’t really have a process for myself. It’s different for every song.

I spend a lot of time telling my clients that I don’t really like the guitar. It’s pretty boring and everyone plays it and so on. In the past, I’ve really not had guitar in my music. But for this EP, I think I wrote every song on the guitar. It was a challenge to myself, I think, because I’m not a very good guitar player and it forced me to write really differently than I’d done in the past.

What are some of the larger themes at play on the EP? What sort of headspace where you in when writing it?

Like I said earlier, I was writing these songs while my wife was pregnant. There was a whole lot of self examination and freaking out going on. Mainly that had to do with the idea of how privileged I am to just randomly be a white man. I get to make music for my job! I can basically do whatever I want. It’s really bizarre to know that and at the same time to see so much inequality and unfairness in the world.

I think a lot the record is about these feelings of guilt and privilege, and at the same time realizing that I have these conflicting ideas of crazy ambition and also the desire to just live really simply and spend time with my family.

Any dream collaborators or acts you would like to produce?

I really look up to artists who are incredibly ambitious with their music, and have the ability to take the time needed to really craft something special. In this sense, I have some sort of touchstone artists that just continue to inspire me over a long period of time. These include Kanye West, Bjork, Radiohead, Joanna Newsom, Grizzly Bear, Kendrick Lamar, James Blake.

I don’t see myself there yet. What I do imagine, in a dream scenario, is that I collaborate with someone that shares this spirit of creating really bold, challenging music. I think there are a lot of artists on the brink of this really groundbreaking creativity, and I’d like to help them realize it.

Any new artists/venues/purveyors of the arts in your local scenes you could turn our readers onto?

Of course I am somewhat biased, but the studio where I work is really quite remarkable. John Vanderslice started Tiny Telephone 20 years ago, and he now has three studios that are booked every day of the year. We record on large format Neve consoles with incredible microphones and a phenomenal collection of instruments, and we run very stable Studer and Ampex tape machines. It’s a really special place, and I’m continually inspired by the work that happens in these rooms.

Where can we follow you and any shows coming up?

I’m very excited about a show I have coming up on July 20th at Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco. Meernaa and Kacey Johansing are on the bill also, and they are two of my favorite bands, as well as being some of my closest friends. I’ve made music with all of those guys for many years now, so it’ll be a really fun hang that night. Kacey just put out an excellent record (which I engineered) and Meernaa is releasing some new music, too, if I’m not mistaken (also engineered by me!).