By Keith Walsh
Turns out Boston has a lot more going on culturally than baseball, cream pies and a little band called The Cars. George Bolton, calling himself The Screaming Pope, named after Francis Bacon’s revolutionary painting of 1954, creates immaculately engineered synthpop, sending it to the world from somewhere near coastal Massachusetts.
Bolton, a graduate in video from Boston College of Fine Arts, tells me he was an assistant engineer at The Cars’ former studio, SyncroSound, and that from his immense net of musical connections, he met James Brown and funkmaster George Clinton taught him “the secret handshake.”
But about the music. As evidenced by the latest album, Jacob’s Ladder, The Screaming Pope boasts a massive sound, achieved with Logic and software synths. He tells me that my hunches as to his influences are correct. “Moroder, Kraftwerk and New Order were all definite influences,” he writes. “Some of the references to them are ‘playful,’ some serious.”
As Bolton tells it, he cycled through various iterations of technology before settling on his current setup. In a message exchange, he told me: “I’ve used Reason, Traction, and Garageband, but I mostly use Logic. I use hardware and software in tandem, but I’m inclined to using software more and more these days.” Indeed, software synths are widely used, being laptop-ready and infinitely flexible.
Electronic music runs through Bolton’s veins. “I used to sell sounds for various synths and samplers on the international market in the 90’s,” he told me. “I had a hardware setup for years, starting with an Arp Axxe, Synsonic Drums, and electric guitar and bass, and alto sax. Early on I had a reel to reel with sound-on-sound, a rack delay and some stompboxes, etc. I sold my Axxe for a Moog Liberation. Some bands I recorded we used my reel to reel and a rented board and mics and recorded live in people’s basements. That’s how I got started in engineering. After I ditched the reel to reel, I used other peoples four track cassette recorders, before buying my own, and a Sony DAT eventually.”
The drums of The Screaming Pope are crisp, clear, and varied– that’s because Bolton has amassed an extensive collection of sound samples. “I use a lot of loops from all kinds of sources,” Bolton writes., “(old sampling CD’s, Logic Loops, Logic Drummer is also kind of fun- especially if you use kits that don’t match the patterns out of the box, and programming my own drums- I don’t use a hardware drum machine much anymore except through software or loops). I’ve been meaning to dig out a lot of my old custom sounds and samples that I used to sell and use some of them!”
The credentials of The Screaming Pope shine through on the pristine sound of the recordings. Bolton has expertise to spare on this self-produced project.
Bolton writes: “I’ve worked with Jeff Hudson from Jeff and Jane, I was in the first version of what became Die Warzau, I helped with a lot of music videos including Manufacture’s two videos from their second album (I majored in Video at Art School), Sweetie (not the West Coast one), played keys in Chainsuck before they were signed to Wax Trax, Greg Hawkes from the Cars produced the first Dresden Danse album (a band I fronted), Fred Gianelli from Psychic TV produced some songs on the second album, did session work and engineering with many other bands. I was into Punk/New Wave originally and a lot of the bands I listened to were Art School students.”
Bolton got a lot of inside experience working with bands in Boston, and has been involved in the local electronica scene up close. “There was definitely a Techno/Industrial scene in Boston a while back, it was just small compared to Europe and Chicago. We all knew and worked with each other, and I was often enlisted to work with guitar bands when they wanted a Techno or Industrial influence to modernize their sound.”
The Screaming Pope On Spotify
George Bolton On Soundcloud
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