Casey Frensz Interview
Q: Can you talk about your history as a musician?
A: I don't remember a time when I wasn't fascinated by sound. Some of my earliest memories are the sounds of my mother singing nursery rhymes to me, and the sound the wheels of my stroller would make as my mom and I took walks through our neighborhood. When I was young, I was fortunate to live with a family who sang along to the radio in the car. I discovered classic rock while sitting in the car with my dad while my mom and sister were in a dance class one day, and that inspired me to want to learn to play the guitar. My grandpa bought me my first guitar when I was eight (a little half-sized classical acoustic), and a few years later I started playing the saxophone in school band. By high school, I was enrolled in as many music classes as I could take at playing in a local band called Fforte Adore with some other local teens. We made two records and performed quite a bit around the Milwaukee area between 2007 and 2011.
When I graduated from high school I went to Lawrence University to study music education. While there, I took sax lessons for the first time in my life and began setting much higher standards for myself as a musician. My education classes gave me the opportunity to try out all of the different instruments, which I really enjoyed. I also had the amazing experiences of learning didjeridu from our dean, Brian Pertl, and scored an internship with Pauline Oliveros at the Deep Listening Institute. These musical experiences opened my mind to a much broader and more spiritually significant concept of music than I'd ever previously held.
I also spent my college years recording and touring the nation as the leader of the funk band Porky's Groove Machine. I played tenor sax and sang in the band, and learned valuable performance skills. I probably played 500 shows with the band over the years, and learned a ton about how to be a dynamic performer, how to write songs with other musicians, and how to deal with the drama of the music industry. The group gave me the boot in 2018 and I've been creating my music alone since then.
I made my first solo record when I was 15, multi-tracking with audacity and an Internet chat microphone on our family's windows XP computer. Since then, I've refined my process quite a bit and gathered superior equipment. My last four albums (Spiral, Identity Games, Captain Queso and the Revealing Science of Groove, and Learning to Love) have all been recorded in my Minneapolis home. I spend most of my time these days working at school, teaching lessons, buying and learning new instruments, and building up my home studio. I also love attending the local blues jams here in the Twin Cities - that's where I go now to get lessons from the old-timers and local legends.
Q: I was reading you teach music at a high school? Has that shaped how you create music?
A: I would say so, for a few different reasons. First off, teaching constantly forces me to re-evaluate my perspectives on life. At my current school, many students don't have all of their basic needs met - it forces me to be humble and grateful for what I have, and it's also made me more process-oriented rather than strictly results-oriented. Being a teacher has helped me realize that students at any level are capable of making really beautiful, amazing music together when they cooperate and focus - on the flip side, even great instrumentalists will make terrible music if they aren't willing to cooperate. This realization often leads me to thinking about how to really make music work - music isn't good when every part demands the limelight all the time, most instruments and sounds spend most of their time playing lines that support another sound or a larger idea in the music. I bring this to my own composition regularly - my music features extensive layering of different musical voices, much like a symphonic band or orchestra, but the individual lines are usually pretty simple and open, leaving room for my melodies to cut through. I think often about the "job" or "natural role" of the different instruments and their musical voices. Every instrument could provide an exciting focal point in a piece of music, and I try to create little opportunities for a bass or a clarinet to briefly shine, but I've found that my compositions work best when I let the instruments do their most natural jobs and play idiomatic lines.
The other huge thing that teaching offers me is faith in musicians. Anybody can learn music if they are willing and interested, I am sure of this. Music education is a birthright and it's amazing to see what some people will start to create as soon as you provide them with an instrument and some basic knowledge. I feel confident that as long as I continue teaching, I will have a steady flow of great future artists to listen to and collaborate with as my students grow. I am very much looking forward to listening to the music my students create as they continue to discover themselves and develop their skills.
Q: What is your creative process like?
A: If I'm just setting out to write a single song, I have a variety of methods I might use, but I'd typically start with either a bassline, lyrics, or an intriguing chord progression and then simply start recording, listening back, and filling in the spaces in the sound. I can easily produce a song from nothing in a day or two using this method. When I write a single song, I don't worry much about trying to make it too perfect or complete - I'm usually content to highlight one or two good musical or lyrical ideas and leave it at that.
I have a much more consistent process for creating an album, which I intend to continue doing once per year. My albums are concept albums, and the concepts for at least five future releases already exist in my mind, perhaps with some fragments of imaginary music. I develop new concepts all the time and once a year I pick the concept that most honestly represents my current thoughts and emotions. During this process of choosing which concept I will devote my efforts to, I work a lot and listen to music voraciously. When I'm listening, I'm not necessarily looking for inspiration, mostly just enjoyment, but once I've been on a kick for a while, my mind starts to fill up with little melodic and rhythmic ideas. When I feel prepared, I write all of the lyrics for the album and edit until I think the story I'm trying to tell is clear enough, then I might make some further edits just to make lines fit together better when they start being set to music. I let the emotional message of the lyrics guide my choices in style and instrumentation. Once I get to work recording, my process is almost entirely aural - listening to parts and deciding on the next appropriate layer, but occasionally I'll use notation software to help compose more intricate parts or longer melodies. I have interfaces set up on both floors of my house so that I can quickly capture ideas whenever they strike. Living alone affords me the opportunity to work throughout the night if that's when I feel most productive (it often is). When I get going on a record, it's not unusual for me to work 18-20 hour days until it's finished - I'll get home and from work and record until I fall asleep. I try to minimize the mixing and mastering work by capturing clean, authentic instrument sounds on the front end of everything. Finishing an album usually takes me around 400-500 hours spread over the course of two-three months.
Q: Can you talk about your history as a musician?
A: I don't remember a time when I wasn't fascinated by sound. Some of my earliest memories are the sounds of my mother singing nursery rhymes to me, and the sound the wheels of my stroller would make as my mom and I took walks through our neighborhood. When I was young, I was fortunate to live with a family who sang along to the radio in the car. I discovered classic rock while sitting in the car with my dad while my mom and sister were in a dance class one day, and that inspired me to want to learn to play the guitar. My grandpa bought me my first guitar when I was eight (a little half-sized classical acoustic), and a few years later I started playing the saxophone in school band. By high school, I was enrolled in as many music classes as I could take at playing in a local band called Fforte Adore with some other local teens. We made two records and performed quite a bit around the Milwaukee area between 2007 and 2011.
When I graduated from high school I went to Lawrence University to study music education. While there, I took sax lessons for the first time in my life and began setting much higher standards for myself as a musician. My education classes gave me the opportunity to try out all of the different instruments, which I really enjoyed. I also had the amazing experiences of learning didjeridu from our dean, Brian Pertl, and scored an internship with Pauline Oliveros at the Deep Listening Institute. These musical experiences opened my mind to a much broader and more spiritually significant concept of music than I'd ever previously held.
I also spent my college years recording and touring the nation as the leader of the funk band Porky's Groove Machine. I played tenor sax and sang in the band, and learned valuable performance skills. I probably played 500 shows with the band over the years, and learned a ton about how to be a dynamic performer, how to write songs with other musicians, and how to deal with the drama of the music industry. The group gave me the boot in 2018 and I've been creating my music alone since then.
I made my first solo record when I was 15, multi-tracking with audacity and an Internet chat microphone on our family's windows XP computer. Since then, I've refined my process quite a bit and gathered superior equipment. My last four albums (Spiral, Identity Games, Captain Queso and the Revealing Science of Groove, and Learning to Love) have all been recorded in my Minneapolis home. I spend most of my time these days working at school, teaching lessons, buying and learning new instruments, and building up my home studio. I also love attending the local blues jams here in the Twin Cities - that's where I go now to get lessons from the old-timers and local legends.
Q: I was reading you teach music at a high school? Has that shaped how you create music?
A: I would say so, for a few different reasons. First off, teaching constantly forces me to re-evaluate my perspectives on life. At my current school, many students don't have all of their basic needs met - it forces me to be humble and grateful for what I have, and it's also made me more process-oriented rather than strictly results-oriented. Being a teacher has helped me realize that students at any level are capable of making really beautiful, amazing music together when they cooperate and focus - on the flip side, even great instrumentalists will make terrible music if they aren't willing to cooperate. This realization often leads me to thinking about how to really make music work - music isn't good when every part demands the limelight all the time, most instruments and sounds spend most of their time playing lines that support another sound or a larger idea in the music. I bring this to my own composition regularly - my music features extensive layering of different musical voices, much like a symphonic band or orchestra, but the individual lines are usually pretty simple and open, leaving room for my melodies to cut through. I think often about the "job" or "natural role" of the different instruments and their musical voices. Every instrument could provide an exciting focal point in a piece of music, and I try to create little opportunities for a bass or a clarinet to briefly shine, but I've found that my compositions work best when I let the instruments do their most natural jobs and play idiomatic lines.
The other huge thing that teaching offers me is faith in musicians. Anybody can learn music if they are willing and interested, I am sure of this. Music education is a birthright and it's amazing to see what some people will start to create as soon as you provide them with an instrument and some basic knowledge. I feel confident that as long as I continue teaching, I will have a steady flow of great future artists to listen to and collaborate with as my students grow. I am very much looking forward to listening to the music my students create as they continue to discover themselves and develop their skills.
Q: What is your creative process like?
A: If I'm just setting out to write a single song, I have a variety of methods I might use, but I'd typically start with either a bassline, lyrics, or an intriguing chord progression and then simply start recording, listening back, and filling in the spaces in the sound. I can easily produce a song from nothing in a day or two using this method. When I write a single song, I don't worry much about trying to make it too perfect or complete - I'm usually content to highlight one or two good musical or lyrical ideas and leave it at that.
I have a much more consistent process for creating an album, which I intend to continue doing once per year. My albums are concept albums, and the concepts for at least five future releases already exist in my mind, perhaps with some fragments of imaginary music. I develop new concepts all the time and once a year I pick the concept that most honestly represents my current thoughts and emotions. During this process of choosing which concept I will devote my efforts to, I work a lot and listen to music voraciously. When I'm listening, I'm not necessarily looking for inspiration, mostly just enjoyment, but once I've been on a kick for a while, my mind starts to fill up with little melodic and rhythmic ideas. When I feel prepared, I write all of the lyrics for the album and edit until I think the story I'm trying to tell is clear enough, then I might make some further edits just to make lines fit together better when they start being set to music. I let the emotional message of the lyrics guide my choices in style and instrumentation. Once I get to work recording, my process is almost entirely aural - listening to parts and deciding on the next appropriate layer, but occasionally I'll use notation software to help compose more intricate parts or longer melodies. I have interfaces set up on both floors of my house so that I can quickly capture ideas whenever they strike. Living alone affords me the opportunity to work throughout the night if that's when I feel most productive (it often is). When I get going on a record, it's not unusual for me to work 18-20 hour days until it's finished - I'll get home and from work and record until I fall asleep. I try to minimize the mixing and mastering work by capturing clean, authentic instrument sounds on the front end of everything. Finishing an album usually takes me around 400-500 hours spread over the course of two-three months.
Q: What are some of themes of your latest release Learning To Love?
A: Learning to Love is a record of gratitude and joy. My last three releases all came from a place of trying to process pain, and I finally feel that the music and my life choices have brought me back to a place of comfort and empowerment. I wanted to capture the feeling of love and joy seeping back into life. I wanted to be honest, but unafraid of the strange contradictions and paradoxes that show up all around us. I wanted to focus on the beauty and love that are always present, untouched by the harshest elements of our reality. In undertaking this mission, I wanted to do it from a place of humility and gratitude. Regaining happiness wasn't something I could do alone, it took the love of friends, family, and music - I wanted to pay tribute to those remarkable gifts and remind others of their value.
The six songs I wrote offer six different angles of how I have learned about what love means. “Black Hole” addresses the paradox of being trapped within my individual ego, yet unmistakably connected to all the life that is around me - it asks the question, what will we truly find when we take the plunge to look deep inside? “My Drum!” expresses deep gratitude for the empowerment that comes from creating music, and the honor of being part of music's cosmic mission - it brings this message in proper style, sharing the sheer joy of groove. “Learning to Love” shares the simple message that it is what we have to give that makes us valuable and gives our lives purpose, not the things we feel have been taken from us. “Mama's Shakin It “ is the song that my mother has always deserved, but never gotten - the realization one day that my mother is the reason I have the opportunity to exist on this beautiful planet hit me hard. I am grateful to be alive, and I am grateful to my mom. There are times I have been impatient and unkind to my mother, this song is a better path. “Always Gonna Be Here” serves as another ode to music, but also reflects colloquially on the nifty idea that no one and nothing is ever truly lost to history - we will perish, but there are so many ways our legacies will continue...too many to even imagine - I hope my legacy is one of love and creativity. The last track, “Everybody Needs Friends” is about the beauty of friendship. I usually work alone, but it was a great honor to be joined on this track by my favorite musicians in town. I don't know what I would do without the friends who share their music with me, it's an incredible honor to have the talents of Allen Kirk, George Moye, Marcus Bell, Reid Ziolkowski and Mike Arceneaux on this song. The song makes specific reference to the Shaw's Bar and Grill Monday Night Blues Jam, where I met Allen, George, and Mike - I love the Monday night jam passionately, and I encourage any readers to check out the local jams in their neighborhood. The efforts of local musicians to create a community space for jamming, collaboration, and mutual support is humbling, inspiring, and beautiful.
Q: Have you played any of the material live or perhaps virtually?
A: “Always Gonna Be Here” is one of two songs that I've ever recorded which didn't require multi-tracking, so I have played that a few times over livestreams, though nowhere in person yet. I've also performed piano and guitar renditions of “Learning to Love,” as well as guitar renditions of “Black Hole” and “My Drum.” I like to play a song or two for my classes at school at the end of our lessons- everything is over video for that as well now. It's strange sharing music with virtual audiences, but I appreciate the way that technology provides the platform for people like me to share their passions with anyone who might be paying attention. I've certainly enjoyed watching the video content that other artists have been creating during this time.
Q: What else should we know about your music?
A: I love music so much, it's hard to find a style or an instrument that doesn't make me excited and joyful. Because of this, I've always suffered a musical identity crisis - am I a saxophonist? Am I a guitarist? Am I a rock star? Am I a composer? I want to be all of those things, and I'm finally getting more and more comfortable with the idea that I don't have to choose. I won't be the best at any instrument I play, but I am always gaining new understandings of how the different sounds work together, and what makes music most impactful. I get more joy from buying a new instrument and starting over as a beginner than I do attempting the hardest pieces I can find on the instruments I've already become proficient at. Being a multi-interested musician has always served me very well as a teacher, but it makes marketing my recordings pretty difficult. My music doesn't stick to a single style. It’s hard to predict what I will create next. I have confidence that those things will end up serving me in the long run, as I create a catalogue of works with something for everyone scattered here and there, but right now it's hard to latch on to any kind of promotional scene or network. I work hard to make my music carefully and thoughtfully - if you're willing to take the chance on an adventure with me, I promise to always reward the careful listener with something unique and tasteful. I'm curious to meet my audience as time continues on - I believe they are out there!
A: Learning to Love is a record of gratitude and joy. My last three releases all came from a place of trying to process pain, and I finally feel that the music and my life choices have brought me back to a place of comfort and empowerment. I wanted to capture the feeling of love and joy seeping back into life. I wanted to be honest, but unafraid of the strange contradictions and paradoxes that show up all around us. I wanted to focus on the beauty and love that are always present, untouched by the harshest elements of our reality. In undertaking this mission, I wanted to do it from a place of humility and gratitude. Regaining happiness wasn't something I could do alone, it took the love of friends, family, and music - I wanted to pay tribute to those remarkable gifts and remind others of their value.
The six songs I wrote offer six different angles of how I have learned about what love means. “Black Hole” addresses the paradox of being trapped within my individual ego, yet unmistakably connected to all the life that is around me - it asks the question, what will we truly find when we take the plunge to look deep inside? “My Drum!” expresses deep gratitude for the empowerment that comes from creating music, and the honor of being part of music's cosmic mission - it brings this message in proper style, sharing the sheer joy of groove. “Learning to Love” shares the simple message that it is what we have to give that makes us valuable and gives our lives purpose, not the things we feel have been taken from us. “Mama's Shakin It “ is the song that my mother has always deserved, but never gotten - the realization one day that my mother is the reason I have the opportunity to exist on this beautiful planet hit me hard. I am grateful to be alive, and I am grateful to my mom. There are times I have been impatient and unkind to my mother, this song is a better path. “Always Gonna Be Here” serves as another ode to music, but also reflects colloquially on the nifty idea that no one and nothing is ever truly lost to history - we will perish, but there are so many ways our legacies will continue...too many to even imagine - I hope my legacy is one of love and creativity. The last track, “Everybody Needs Friends” is about the beauty of friendship. I usually work alone, but it was a great honor to be joined on this track by my favorite musicians in town. I don't know what I would do without the friends who share their music with me, it's an incredible honor to have the talents of Allen Kirk, George Moye, Marcus Bell, Reid Ziolkowski and Mike Arceneaux on this song. The song makes specific reference to the Shaw's Bar and Grill Monday Night Blues Jam, where I met Allen, George, and Mike - I love the Monday night jam passionately, and I encourage any readers to check out the local jams in their neighborhood. The efforts of local musicians to create a community space for jamming, collaboration, and mutual support is humbling, inspiring, and beautiful.
Q: Have you played any of the material live or perhaps virtually?
A: “Always Gonna Be Here” is one of two songs that I've ever recorded which didn't require multi-tracking, so I have played that a few times over livestreams, though nowhere in person yet. I've also performed piano and guitar renditions of “Learning to Love,” as well as guitar renditions of “Black Hole” and “My Drum.” I like to play a song or two for my classes at school at the end of our lessons- everything is over video for that as well now. It's strange sharing music with virtual audiences, but I appreciate the way that technology provides the platform for people like me to share their passions with anyone who might be paying attention. I've certainly enjoyed watching the video content that other artists have been creating during this time.
Q: What else should we know about your music?
A: I love music so much, it's hard to find a style or an instrument that doesn't make me excited and joyful. Because of this, I've always suffered a musical identity crisis - am I a saxophonist? Am I a guitarist? Am I a rock star? Am I a composer? I want to be all of those things, and I'm finally getting more and more comfortable with the idea that I don't have to choose. I won't be the best at any instrument I play, but I am always gaining new understandings of how the different sounds work together, and what makes music most impactful. I get more joy from buying a new instrument and starting over as a beginner than I do attempting the hardest pieces I can find on the instruments I've already become proficient at. Being a multi-interested musician has always served me very well as a teacher, but it makes marketing my recordings pretty difficult. My music doesn't stick to a single style. It’s hard to predict what I will create next. I have confidence that those things will end up serving me in the long run, as I create a catalogue of works with something for everyone scattered here and there, but right now it's hard to latch on to any kind of promotional scene or network. I work hard to make my music carefully and thoughtfully - if you're willing to take the chance on an adventure with me, I promise to always reward the careful listener with something unique and tasteful. I'm curious to meet my audience as time continues on - I believe they are out there!