Daren Callow – On stage with Charlie Savigar and VoiceLive 2

Daren Callow is the singer, songwriter and guitarist with Dare To Be Charlie an exciting acoustic duo where he performs alongside fellow singer-songwriter Charlie Savigar and in the Charlie Savigar band. In live shows he uses a TC Helicon VoiceLive 2 voice processor to create a surprisingly powerful and panoramic sound. Daren also plays guitar and sings in Charlie Savigar’s own contemporary country rock band.

Joey: Can you give me a brief bio, how and why you got into music and a bit about your history?  

Daren Callow (DC): I’ve been playing in bands since I was 18. My younger brother (Drumtech graduate and busy session player – Haydn Callow) has always wanted to be a drummer and in a bid to keep up with him I took up playing electric guitar. I pretty much bought a guitar one week and played our first gig the next, that’s a slight exaggeration but it’s not far from the truth – I barely knew a chord. I also took up singing lead vocals and writing songs right from the start. We’ve been in bands together on and off ever since and played all over the UK and some parts of Europe and the USA. After that band split up I performed in a number of other indie and rock bands this time providing backing vocals and lead/rhythm guitar. In a lean period between bands I went through a brief period of playing as a solo artist on the London open mic scene, which is a tough test of your songs and playing.

Frustrated that I wasn’t making enough impact I bought a TC Helicon VoiceLive 1 and a looper pedal and let my creativity run riot, I loved the sheer range of harmonious and strange noises it made. It was as one of these acoustic nights that I met Charlie and then bumped into her two years later at the launch of a compilation album that we were both on. She was looking for a bigger live sound and I stepped in to add some vocals (and percussion!) with my VL 1 and later my VL 2. It seemed logical to add some guitar too so we started to work on that as well.

Charlie Savigar (CS): Prior to Daren joining the band It was only me singing and my songs were crying out for a backing singer. When Daren became part of the line up I soon realised that he was bringing far more than just his vocal talents, indeed he had this amazing vocal processor unit (VL 1 and now VL 2) where he was able to produce so much more than just a single harmony here and there. Soon my band had a whole new dimension to it, an additional characteristic if you like, all produced by Daren’s creative ability to use the VL 2 to its greatest potential.

Joey: What genre would you say your music is and what effects from your TC-Helicon Product really add to/are important for performing that genre?

DC: Charlie’s songs cover a wide range of musical styles, but her main preference is for songs with a Country sound. We’ve also dabbled in Blues, Gospel and both light & heavy rock! This is great for me as I really get to be creative with the VL 2. We use doubling and slapback delays on the Country songs and a variety of reverbs, big choral effects on the gospel and a smattering of flanging for effect here and there. We coined the phrase “contemporary country rock” to cover her sound and that’s basis of it.

I also write my own material and perform this both as a duo (Dare To Be Charlie) and, more occasionally these days, as a solo artist. I’ve used everything from distortion, chorus, tempo-tapped delays, massive choral sounds, loudhailer and telephone effects to name but a few.

CS: For me Daren’s use of slap back delay really enhances my songs-this is an effect often used by guitarists when playing country music and I find it works really well vocally to.

Joey: Who are your musical influences?

DC: My favourite band is The Police but I also love Muse, Morrissey, Ultravox and Radiohead. This might well explain my love of effects on guitar and voice and the creativity I like to add to the songs. Vocal-wise I’m also very influenced by Bruce Cockburn (Canadian singer-writer) and bands like Elbow. I’m always keen on people who sing with their own accent!

CS: My main musical influences are Bonnie Raitt and Shelby Lynne. As a female singer-songwriter it is easy to look up to these artists for inspiration. Bonnie Raitt has an incredible voice and is an amazing slide guitar player. Shelby Lynne writes beautiful melodies and I love her use of rich three part harmonies-something that Daren uses on a number of our songs. I have also been influenced by Black Rebel Motor Cycle Club, Keane and Pearl Jam.

Joey: What cd/record or song do you put on when you really want to get inspired?

DC: I might play Synchronicity by The Police or anything at all by Elbow or Morrissey. I also love Nik Kershaw who has produced three great albums recently, full of some really good songs. A must for any singer-songwriter to check out. I also particularly love live music, so might play one of my live performance DVDs: U2, The Police and Morrissey live are particularly inspiring.

Joey: What sized audiences do you play to and type of venues/gigs?

DC: I’ve played at all sorts of sizes of venues in the past from just the barman and his dog to several thousand. With Charlie we’re playing 200 – 300 capacity venues depending on if it’s our gig or a support slot. The audience is growing all the time so we’d expect the venue sizes to grow.

Joey: Do you write your own songs – How do you go about doing that?

DC: The songs we play with Charlie’s band are all written by her. She’s extremely prolific and is constantly writing. I do write my own songs too and we’ve also co-written a few that we perform with our duo. Most commonly one of us will have a riff or idea and we’ll spend a lot of time jamming and working on the details of the song. Charlie writes on piano as well as guitar so we have a real range of styles and ideas to choose from. All sorts of things can kick the process off, from a lyric idea to a sound-effect. I must confess I have written music/songs in the past just so I could use a particular vocal effect.

I should also add that it’s a real passion of mine to be involved in original music. There is always a temptation to play covers as the audience response is usually greater due to familiarity, but I believe that when you have great original music you should persevere with it. Even if the going can be tough…

Joey: What led you to use your TC-Helicon Product and how did you first hear about TC-Helicon?

DC: You know I can’t remember exactly how I heard about or why I decided that I had to have my original Voicelive 1. I guess it was just a desire to add an extra dimension to my performance. I’m sure I probably just saw an advert in a magazine and thought – I have to have one of those!! It wasn’t particularly easy to use the VL1 in open mic nights and so on as it’s output was on jack at line-level and most sound engineers at that level struggled to come to terms with it. I persevered though as it sounded amazing when set-up right, I was also running it in stereo, a luxury I don’t get that often now, and used it in all the musical projects (including art / soundscape pieces as well as more conventional music) I was involved in. When I saw the VL2 I was actually reluctant to upgrade at first as I loved my VL1 so much, but in the end it’s a much more sophisticated product and works perfectly for what I need with Charlie. It also has XLR outputs at mic-level!!

Joey: How has your TC-Helicon Product changed the way you work?

DC: It’s made me think about things to a much deeper level. For example I now have to think about the key of the song and what scales are involved if I want to harmonise with the VL2. Prior to this I just sang what sounded nice! Within the band we also make a lot of use of the ability to have tempo-synched delays. I always set up the patch with the Shortcut pedal flashing in the correct tempo. Charlie, Haydn (drums) and myself all use this visual cue to make sure we start songs in the correct tempo. In fact I’ve even modified the unit slightly by removing the plastic surround to that pedal to make the light easier to see. With the VL2 we can now recreate anything that we do in the studio and this can create an amazing effect live. Even if it does mean a lot more work for me!! Oh and sometime a bit of a tap-dance on stage!! We’ve also made use of the Aux input to let us play intros to songs off our iPod. That’s certainly given us another layer of options to use. We’re also a very forward looking band, we use the latest guitars, the latest guitar effects and we want the very latest kit for our vocals too.

Joey: Do you find your TC-Helicon Product helpful in the writing process? If so, in what way?

DC: In truth we rarely use it in the early stages of writing songs, but where it comes into it’s own is in the next stage of finishing off. It really lets us add a “studio” polish to the sound and hear harmonies and so on without having to record and produce the tracks. Another area it really helps with is re-inventing an older song. Charlie has a song called Wash that I set up a tempo-aligned delay for. Whilst working with this I was clapping along and using the delay to give us the time, this turned out to make a great intro for the song (clapping with the tempo and then adding in a big harmony to let it ring out). We also used a big choral sound to create a new sung middle-8 that sounded like a gospel choir. With my own music which sometime goes into more abstract areas I do like to just pick a patch at random and see what ideas it throws up, I’ve certainly written one or two pieces this way. Guitarists do it all the time with multi-effect units so it’s great that vocalists can work this way now.

Joey: What effects do you find you use all the time from your TC-Helicon Product? What are your favourites/staples?

DC: Reverb with everything! As mentioned I also always have the tempo and key set for the song. This means I can quickly add tempo-synched delays and harmonies if I feel they are needed. For Charlie’s Country material we also use some slap-back delays and doubling to help create the sound of the recorded material. For my own stuff I love the more unusual effect, flanging, big choral effects and so on. Oh and on the VL1 I used to love the telephone voice, the loudhailer / radio effects are great on the VL2, but I kind of miss the old effect. It always got a great reaction, nobody expected that sort of thing… very Radiohead or REM esque.

Joey: Do you use your TC-Helicon Product in the studio; if so tell us a bit about how you do that and what aspects you find great in the studio setting.

DC: Absolutely! It’s an amazing box of tricks and gives us such an amazing range of effects very quickly. Sometimes we’ve developed songs live using VL effects and we have no other way to re-create these in the studio (the middle-8 of my song Lightkeeper is a good example of this). I’ve also used it as a vocal pre-amp for tracking demos; it gives a great sound straight out of the box so it’s easy to use in a home or demo studio. I’ve been tempted to use the auto-tune from time to time, but haven’t succumbed yet!! In truth though it’s real advantage is letting us re-create the studio sound live. Subtle things like vocal-doubling can have a really great impact live and add a sheen of gloss to the sound which really sets us apart from other acts. Long Way Home (as featured in the video) is a great example of this. It was produced by Gregg Jackman (Seal, Enya etc…) and the VL2 lets us recreate what he did in the studio. From subtle voice-doubling to the tempo-synched delays in the middle-8. In fact the VL 2 is such a big part of what we do that we had to make sure it was in the video!!

Joey: How did the band or your music act come about, what are you currently doing and what’s coming up?  

DC: Charlie and I met originally in 2007 at an acoustic night in London. I don’t remember a great deal about the night except that there was a full-on band playing in the room next door which meant it was a bit tough to play acoustic songs. Charlie really impressed me and so we swapped MySpace links as people did in those days! I stopped by her MySpace from time to time so she was in my mind when I was asked to suggest other acts for a compilation album I was submitting a track to. She ended up with a track on that album too so we met up again at the album launch in Margate in 2009. We really enjoyed each other’s music and were keen to work together. The perfect excuse came a few weeks later when her guitarist quit the band suddenly. I stepped in at the last minute to add some backing vocals with the VL1 and the partnership grew from there. Charlie guested on some of my songs and eventually we worked out some second guitar parts for her songs and I joined the band permanently. The collaboration has grown to involve our duo (Dare To Be Charlie) where we play a combination of both of our songs, and my occasional contribution of a guitar line or lyric to Charlie’s songs.

CS: We are currently promoting our music video Long Way Home and the video will be appearing on several internet TV music sites over the next couple of months. We are also working on new material and plan to go in to the studio to do some more recording with a couple of new producers. As far as performance goes, we are looking to do some support slots in the UK and also have the opportunity to play some shows in Germany and Sweden.

Joey: Can you share any tips & tricks you’ve discovered with your TC-Helicon Product? I.e. have you discovered any great features that other people may not have?

DC: I’ve mentioned the tempo-flashing before, but I have to say that’s my favourite trick. It’s really become second nature to glance down at the unit if I’m starting a song and make sure that I kick it off at the right speed. I also use the Delay switch to just click in the effect for one or two words with a more prominent delay. This involves some dexterity when you are singing and playing guitar at the same time, but it’s well worth it. Oh, people might not know that it does a great Cylon impersonation too! As a Battlestar Galactica fan I think this is wonderful! One other little tip is to make up a microphone cable that is just the right length to run from the microphone into your VL box. This keeps things neat and out of the way and means the sound engineer doesn’t have to run around finding cables for you. Another tip for guitarists is to make use of MIDI – I also have a multi-effects unit for my guitar, but rather than change two patches I run a short MIDI cable from the VL2 to the guitar effects and change both from the TC Helicon unit. In the future we may well use this more often allowing me to change patches for the other guys in the band without them having to worry about it.

Joey: Can you share with us how and with what effects one of your presets is made up?

DC: For Charlie’s song – Call On Me – I have a 1 voice tight double effect on. Level: 0dB, Humanize syle – tight, Humanize amount- 50 panned C. Snappy Room Reverb – -2dB. Harmony – 1 Voice Above, G#, MAJ1, Level -5dB, Doubling ON Double level 0dB. V1 Scale: +1ve. I then have a Step set up to switch all the above effects off and switch the FX on: TRANSDUCER, Routing: Lead, Style: Radio: Distortion Type: 4 Distortion amount -20 – this allows me to switch in a “telephone” style voice for the middle 8 where I do a “The number you have dialled is not available, please hang up and dial again” spoken monologue.

Joey: If you could give one piece of advice to any up-coming musician/vocalist about either the music business or being a vocalist/musician… what would that be?

DC: Practice! Everyone sits down and plays their guitar, but who takes a serious approach to practicing vocals? The VL 2 is great for this, plug in a mic and a pair of headphones and off you go. I also have versions of all Charlie’s songs with my parts muted on my iPod. Stick this on and you can practice everything in detail. I have to practice not only singing and playing, but switching effects in and out. The more you practice this the more it becomes second nature.

CS: PMA-which stands for Positive Mental Attitude – for me the hardest thing about being a musician is finding the mental power to never lose sight of your dreams and to never give up! You can be the most talented musician in the world but if you don’t have the tenacity and mental strength to support your talent/s then becoming a successful musician may be difficult. You can be anything you want in life, so just keep believing!

Joey: Plug time for yourself! What is your overall philosophy or approach when it comes to singing/composing/playing live/recording/mixing?

DC: Creativity and originality. I know it’s hard to do something really original these days but that’s no excuse not to try. I love weird noises and odd effects and using them in songs. But I also love the technological challenge of playing guitar, singing and switching in and out a range of effects. Hopefully it ends up with an original approach to performing that’s not the norm these days. And above all, a great sound!