Keegan DeWitt Creates 'Terrifying' Sounds on 'Thunder Clatter' -- Song Premiere

Posted on Apr 26th 2011 10:30AM by Cameron Matthews
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Keegan DeWitt wasn't intending to make music his ultimate career. Growing up in Portland, Ore., DeWitt attended a fine-arts high school where he studied theater and film. This eventually led him to New York City where he studied under famous playwright David Mamet at the Atlantic Theater Company Acting Conservatory, as well as Philip Seymour Hoffman at his LABrynth Theater Company.

It wasn't until Dewitt started to score films that he knew he had a future in music. Nine movie scores later, a full-length album. an EP and a 7" single under his belt, the dance-folk troubadour is back with a small taste of what's to come and a newfound cohesion within his seasoned band.

Listen to 'Thunder Clatter'

"Ever since releasing 'Nothing Shows' last summer, my band and I have slowly been compiling material for the new record," DeWitt tells Spinner. "It started with really functioning as a proper band together -- 'Two Hearts' was our first true collaboration -- and letting that song be the primary piece of the creative process. Once everything found its place, we were really free to start being as creative as possible.

"'Thunder Clatter' is based on an original loop we created during a rehearsal by clinking on bottles, stomping and clapping. We then took that, fed it back through many different effects and re-tracked organic marimbas/kalimbas and more on top of the processed loop. Many of the sounds you hear in the track are happening more than once, in different incarnations, all over the top of a simple, building hook. This was certainly a new phase for us -- an exciting one -- where the band was thriving and our creative minds were firing as much as possible."

"We tried to use all these different layers to portray the redundancies, entanglements, nuances and chaotic firings of your brain when you first understand what it means to glance at someone and see them entirely different from everyone else," he adds. "Separate, unique, and terrifying."

Keegan DeWitt's 'Thunder Clatter' can be heard on his forthcoming EP, tentatively due in August. The track will also be given away as a free download card at the following Daytrotter Barnstormer shows.

Upcoming Tour Dates

Daytrotter Barnstormer Tour:
April 26 -- Free Range Film Festival Barn, Wrenshall, Minn., 6PM
April 27 -- Hoosier Grove Barn, Streamwood, Ill., 5:30PM
April 28 -- Lakeview Farms Barn, Dexter, Mich., 6PM
April 29 -- Kalyx Center, Monticello, Ill., 7PM
April 30 -- Codfish Hollow Barn, Maquoketa, Iowa, 7PM

Other Shows:
May 6 -- Rockwood Music Hall, New York, N.Y., 9PM
June 16 -- The Mercy Lounge, Nashville, Tenn., 8PM

Download Keegan DeWitt Songs | Buy Keegan DeWitt Albums