SPITT TAKES: INTERVIEW SESSION #2
Cellar Door
Recorded on October 7, 2021
Chicago, Illinois
This past October, I planted myself on a fluffy floor pillow in the living room of Chicago-based producer Bobby Gallowitch’s north-side apartment and discussed the phenomenon of thoughts. Gallowitch raised the point that we as people are capable of downloading ideas. Which may not sound significant, but to Gallowitch, recognizing the intrinsic value in bringing new concepts to the table is in itself valuable. The ability to encourage new perspectives, according to Gallowitch, creates higher empathy. With this mindset, tuning into the power to conceive new melodies, lyrics, and beats, is the simplest way Gallowitch produces soundscapes under the name Cellar Door.
His upcoming debut full length album exports these thoughts in an ego-facing return to balance. The incorporation of deliberate, solar dripped elements in his work -Gallowitch originally planned on releasing his fourth solo project on June 20th, 2021, the day of the summer solstice- is therefore used to generate emotions from an unemotional machine. Touching upon this, the two of us dove into what unconventional performances might look like in the future, the rejection of a passive listening experience, and the passage of harmony from life to sound.
WHO ARE YOU & WHERE ARE YOU FROM?
Should I say Bobby or Cellar Door?
EITHER/OR WORKS.
I’ll say I’m Cellar Door. I’m from Valparaiso, Indiana, but I live in Chicago. For work, I am an audio engineer at an audio rental and sales shop. Outside of work I make music but from every angle. I produce, I can record, mix, master, and I also do sound design for visual media.
WHAT ABOUT SOUND PRODUCTION AND DESIGN DREW YOU IN?
There’s a specific catalyst that got me into electronic production. The EP is called Chunk of Change by Passion Pit. Growing up I always gravitated towards hearing songs I liked and then trying to play them by ear on the piano. I wasn’t always great at it, I consider myself to be a parrot in many ways. I like replicating things I hear. That’s what really got me into sound and music in the first place; hearing something that I like and creating that on my own. As soon as I do that, moving onto the next thing. Once I could do it, I wanted to do something else.
WAS THAT OUT OF BOREDOM OR OUT OF INTEREST IN WANTING TO LEARN MORE?
When I was doing that on the piano I was nine, ten years old. It was something to do on my friend's piano. The reason I mentioned that EP by Passion Pit was the use of samples on the album. That was a whole other level beyond playing melodies on instruments, you have to learn how to speak to this machine in order to make it work. They’re [Passion Pit] using these ones and zeros to generate ideas on the other end that people can interpret emotionally. Emotions passing through this emotionless medium coming back out and being received as emotions on the other end. That was what really got me into producing electronically. As I started learning about gear and interfaces it was a lot more interesting than I initially thought. Going to school for audio transitioned my idea of making music and totally flipped it around. I was more interested in making computers and digital gear to create sound effects. I swung completely the other way and was doing sound design for film. For my own personal music, I do everything. No one else is a part of my process unless we’re collaborating. Collaborations are a little bit different. I don’t often meet with people in person, it’s always just sending back and forth. I’ve really leaned into that process during the pandemic.
YOU PREFER, IN A PHYSICAL SPACE, TO WORK ON YOUR OWN?
I think anyone would agree but I feel at my most vulnerable when I’m by myself. I definitely put up walls even with people that are close to me. When it’s someone that I meet on Instagram who wants to work on music, I don’t want them in my room while I’m trying to come up with ideas. When you’re working through melodies it’s hundreds of terrible, laughable ideas that come out. You’re getting everything through until you hear something you like. That’s hard for me to do in front of someone I don’t really know. It’s even difficult for me to do it in front of people that I do know. During collaborations I’ll always do my part then hand it off and bounce ideas back and forth.
COMING FROM A MUSICAL BACKGROUND, HOW HAS THAT IMPACTED YOUR WORK IN SOUND DESIGN?
It completely fostered my interest in sound design. I started production before anything else. Only after I went to school and learned engineering did I approach it from a musical standpoint. It’s definitely influenced what kind of projects I want to work on. Music is my anchor, I don’t feel like doing sound for a documentary where I’m just editing dialogue. I’d rather do sound for a film like Her where I get to compose and create sound effects that implement just as much of an emotional impact as the music itself. Arcade Fire scored that entire movie, they wrote the piano pieces. It really just blew me away. I realized I wanted to make music for feature films and do sound for feature films. I think both can play an important role in bringing that type of media to life, placing the viewer in a world you create.
HOW HAS THE PANDEMIC AFFECTED YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS?
I think the amount of creativity has definitely fluctuated similar to the state of the pandemic. Initially, because I’m introverted and all of my creativity comes out at home anyway, it was kind of awesome. I realize that comes from a very privileged standpoint, I had somewhere safe I could be to quarantine. I had this bloom of creativity and ended up finishing the last EP I released [I Planned On Having Nightmares, 2020]. In terms of my work process, that was one of my most consistent projects that I’ve seen through start to finish. It’s what I wanted it to be. I can still listen to it without thinking ‘Oh God I should delete this off my Spotify’. It’s a project I’m proud of. I realized I could see things through. If I have an idea and can’t finish within a certain amount of time, it just sits and collects dust.
ARE THERE PROJECTS YOU’VE RELEASED THAT YOU STARTED AT ONE POINT, ABANDONED, THEN CAME BACK TO?
There’s none that I’ve abandoned and come back to yet. There’s one in the process right now. I'm working on finishing my first full length album that I’ve taken a hiatus from to work on another project for someone else. Previous work has either been rushed or just not as intentional as my process now. Not to say that my older stuff isn’t valuable to me, but moving forward I’m way more intentional with my music and sound than I was before. At the beginning, I didn’t have music on Spotify, so I’d just put something together. The first album I released I attached the wrong file and there was one song that wasn’t mastered. I’ve made mistakes like that along the way. Now I’m way more patient and intentional. In terms of the pandemic, after that initial burst of creativity, I branched off. After staying home on unemployment for so long I lost inspiration. I wasn’t coming home to put forward an idea I’d had that day. The ideas were always there but almost too accessible to the point where I never touched it. It’s a weird correlation, you don’t want to work but the more I work the more inspired I am to create. I’m fighting for this balance. If I’m not working, I’m not going to create because I’m already centered.
WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING TO PULL FROM WHEN CREATING YOUR FIRST FULL-LENGTH ALBUM?
My goal is to stay completely true to myself and release something I am 100% happy with. The album is focused on balance which anything that I’ve ever made has been about. That’s just who I am as a person. Sometimes I feel so imbalanced that creating something about being balanced makes me feel more balanced. It's meant to be a project that comes purely from myself but if it reaches the right people, someone will hear it and create their own world instead of being forced into my own creation. Something that is so genuine and purely intentional that makes people reflect on their own. A project that does that for me, which has been an inspiration in all my music, is Moon Shoes EP by Ravyn Lenae. When I listen to that, I get lost in this whole other universe. I want to make something like that. It’s a place I can go to. I want people to consume it in their own way.
YOU DON’T WANT THE ALBUM TO BE A PASSIVE LISTENING EXPERIENCE.
I really want it to spark something in people.
WOULD YOU SAY THIS IS THE MOST INTIMATE YOU’VE BEEN WITH CREATING A PROJECT?
Yea, definitely. All the way down to the title of it. I’ve been very adamant about not filtering out ideas that come to me. If an idea comes to me, there’s intrinsic value in that. The fact that there’s nothing there and you have something just downloaded in your brain. If I receive something, that’s a gift. I want to take that and write it down.
ARE YOU INTERESTED IN PERFORMING AGAIN NOW THAT LIVE EVENTS ARE COMING BACK?
Yes and no. I don’t enjoy performing in the traditional sense, standing on a stage. That isn’t how I created my art, it’s totally unnatural to do once every few months. I was in my room when I was making mistakes and fucking up a bunch. I can’t do that live. It’s the same reason I don't like mixing live sound. I want to go in and edit, finish something, listen to it, and consider how I feel about it. My idea of performance has changed along with that. As opposed to me standing on stage, I’d rather do a curated listening experience. The audience receives the content I created in the same environment and state I was in. For example, a silent disco but at a park. I’m pressing play on my album but we’re all sitting together and experiencing it the way I would imagine. It would be something unconventional if I started performing again. I’d rather do something more reflective.
YOU’VE MENTIONED A LOT MORE INTENTION AND VULNERABILITY BEHIND WHAT YOU’RE WORKING ON NOW. DOES THIS STRAY FROM THE WORK YOU INITIALLY RELEASED?
Yeah, I think at least my personal stuff. It's evolving with me as a person. I've had music out since 2018. Since then, obviously, I've changed a bunch. I've lived with different people. I've lived in different cities. Lived in different apartments, with different roommates, both good and bad situations. So as I'm growing as a person, I want to make sure that my art is evolving with me. And I'm not just sticking to something to appeal to people that may have liked some of my older stuff. I think it's consistent, but it's aged and more mature. It's grown with me. I'm not as sensitive to other people's opinions as when I started making music and releasing music.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE EVENT SPACE? WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO PERFORM IN THE FUTURE?
My favorite event space... I really like Chicago venues like Thalia Hall. The Riviera just because I've seen a lot of artists I like there. I think if I had to pick a venue in Chicago, I’d probably say MCA [Museum of Contemporary Art]. I saw Ravyn at MCA. I don't know if it was necessarily the best venue for a show but the fact that I saw Ravyn Lenae there was enough for me. In terms of performing I would personally want to do what I mentioned earlier, a curated listening experience. It’d be at the WNDR Museum or somewhere weird. Somewhere you're just out of your element. I want to be in the sphere of mirrors where it's just a bunch of fog and flashing colored lights. Somewhere completely strange and unconventional, I guess. Yeah. Trampoline places like a Sky Zone. People jumping on the trampoline, listening to my music - that would be ideal for me.
You can find Bobby Gallowitch on Instagram: @cellardoorox
You can also contact his email at cellardoorox.mgmt@gmail.com.
*This interview has been edited for clarity and to fit article size
Interviewed and Transcribed by Lauren Neher
Photos: Anna Messina, 2019
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