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Back in the '70s, every Queen album was emblazoned with a bold and adamant claim: "No synthesizers!" Thirty years later, Shuttlecock takes a similar stand in their press kit, proudly announcing that the Toledo born/Indianapolis based Electronic/Rock duo (guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Ken Chojnacki and drummer/vocalist John Hubbell) does not use samplers, sequencers or MIDI equipment to fashion their coolly aggressive repertoire, either in the studio or onstage. That's quite an accomplishment, given Shuttlecock's full-bodied sonic presentation and obvious lack of bodies to distribute musical duties among.
"The agenda to use exclusively analog equipment and no MIDI is really based on the sounds," says Chojnacki. "The sounds are much more interesting and every time you're not guaranteed the same sound, because of human error or the instruments might be a little too cold or a little too hot. There are all these variables involved that are minute, relatively speaking, but always result in some interesting quirk."
Of course, to make two people sound like four took a slight ballooning of Shuttlecock's collective learning curve.
"We had to learn the instruments we were playing," says Chojnacki. "John's not only playing the acoustic drum kit, but he's also employing the use of these old Simmons Electronic drum triggering devices. So while he's playing the kit, he's playing melodies and bass lines with the Simmons.
And I'm not only playing guitar and singing, I'm also playing with my feet on a Moog Taurus pedal synthesizer. It took a little time to get up to speed and be able to do all that efficiently."
Shuttlecock was formed nearly eight years ago when Chojnacki and Hubbell parted ways with Omaha, the band they had both been a part of for some time. After a European tour, the pair decided to strike out on their own, first envisioning a new band and then slowly realizing that they might be able to craft the sound they were looking for without increasing their ranks.
"At the time there was a lack of a decent pool of musicians we might be interested in," says Chojnacki. "We came across these instruments and thought, 'Hey, let's try this and see what we can do.' The result to our ears was quite pleasant so we thought we'd continue onward."
The first difficulty that Chojnacki and Hubbell faced was in building an audience for Shuttlecock. The Shuttlecock sound was fundamentally different from Omaha, so the pair worked hard to create a new fan base.
"We started from scratch, pretty much," says Chojnacki. "Omaha was a standard five-piece Rock band. It was a completely different direction, primarily because of being a two piece, and making the types of noises we were making."
Chojnacki says the sound of Shuttlecock today is very close to the sound that he and Hubbell had in mind when they started the band in 1998. The duo has evolved over the past eight years, but in subtle ways.
"We've become more efficient in playing the instruments, and we've become more efficient in the actual process of writing the music around these instruments," says Chojnacki. "As a result, I think the music is much more interesting than when we started out. Not so much always more complex, but sometimes a little more simplified, and in ways you wouldn't expect. We try to reinvent ourselves on each record."
Chojnacki and Hubbell have given themselves plenty of opportunity for reinvention over the course of their eight-year history. The band has released three albums to date, as well as a pair of early singles and a downloadable live show (all of which can be found at shuttlecockohio.com). All of their recorded output to that point had been helmed by producer/Shellac bassist Bob Weston, an association that has led a number of critics to draw a line between Shellac and Shuttlecock. Chojnacki understands the comparison but points out more cogent reference points as far as actual sonic influences.
"Primary influences are like Laurie Anderson and King Crimson, because John comes from a great Jazz background," he says. "We always get compared to Shellac. Some early '80s stuff gets thrown in there, too, and people pull that out because of the noises of the instruments that were used in the early '80s, so inevitably someone mentions The Cure or New Order or Joy Division. I wouldn't cite them as being entirely incorrect. The other one that some people have actually got is the Silver Apples, which is a duo as well."
For Shuttlecock's latest album, the as yet unreleased Simulation Assimilation, the band shifted gears and recorded with Kevin Ratterman at his Funeral Home studio in Louisville, Ky. Although the studio change was initiated because the band couldn't afford Weston's production fee this time out, the switch helped them with one of their desired goals for the new album.
"During our live show, there is often improvisation. Sometimes it's subtle, sometimes not so subtle. Sometimes it works great and sometimes it flops. But we wanted to incorporate more of that into the studio setting," says Chojnacki. "This time we had some sketches of the music that weren't really worked out so a large portion of the material was improvised to a certain degree."
Simulation Assimilation was planned for release last year but the small West Virginia label Shuttlecock had signed with for the album went toes up. Chojnacki and Hubbell clearly don't want a similar situation with the next label, so they're taking their time in comparing opportunities, thus Simulation Assimilation remains unreleased for the time being.
Until then, Shuttlecock will continue melding the delicate precision of their Electronic influences with the pummeling thunder of their Rock influences to create their unique sonic signature. As a duo.
"People are always asking if we'd be interested in having them play with us," says Chojnacki. "But John and I have developed a dialogue now between us that would make it hard to integrate anyone else. It just wouldn't work."
SHUTTLECOCK (shuttlecockohio.com) plays The Comet in Northside on Saturday.
