Fred Armisen on “100 Sound Effects”

0:02This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Fred Armisen, well, he's got a thing about sound. He does a bit where he claims to be able to imitate every single accent in American speech. Pittsburgh, Jensko there. Jensko there to Pittsburgh. And then down to Baltimore, Motor Oil. I always think Motor Oil. Baltimore. Motor oil. Then down to Virginia. And on Saturday Night Live, he co-wrote the recurring sketch about how people talk in L.A. Get back on San Vicente, take it to the 10, then switch over to the 405 North and let it dump you out into Mulholland where you belong.

0:49Recently, Armisen announced an album called 100 Sound Effects, and the track titles are a little like punchlines themselves. First time homeowner switching circuit breakers, Romanian crowd at rock club shouting for an encore. I confess, I wasn't sure if this was an album album or a concept art, but it's a real album and it's even coming out soon on vinyl if you're so inclined. Well, hi. Hi. So I played this album for myself and my cat last night. She was confused. Uh-huh. There are no birds on it, I don't think, so she was not that interested. That'd have to be a separate album for animals, because they're a different audience.

1:33The New Yorker's Michael Shulman met up with Fred Armisen, and they recently went out to do some sound recording of their own. Okay, let's start with the basics. Like, what is this thing, and how did you come to do it? 100 sound effects. It was kind of like I was lamenting that there aren't sound effects albums in our lives as much or in my life. I feel like they just used to exist more or they were more present. Like there'd be like a Halloween one. You just see them everywhere. It was like I thought I was like, oh, I should make one. Just like the titles of the ones that used to exist were always like, you know, door closing.

2:16you know uh there would be like some street sounds sirens like airplane sounds and stuff so it was just from that I was like well what would a new version of it be like and instead of just you know taking out my phone and just recording stuff I wanted to treat it properly like let me go to a recording studio and really do it let me try to mimic some things that I've heard before. And it really kind of took about a year of booking more time at a studio and then a few things out on the street. But it was mostly studio stuff. Well, when you picture people listening to this album, what do you picture?

2:56Are people like sitting and listening very intently? Or is it background noise? Or is it? I picture someone, in reality, I picture someone playing it for their friend. Oh, that's fun. It's more like, hey, look what just came out. And so not going through the whole thing, but just playing little parts of it, you know, and then it looks good in the record collection. So it's like not in the music section. It's like, oh, then here's a sound effects record that actually came out more recently. Right. Well, I mean, it's like a novelty item. Kind of. But also maybe practical. That would be a dream. I mean, you mentioned the sort of classic sound effects albums.

3:32Yeah. That you used to see. Did you like own them growing up? Did you own these? Only Halloween ones. I remember ghoul sounds, you know.

3:43And I guess they'd be used for, you know, haunted mansion amusement, you know, like during Halloween. Oh, actually, I had a G.I. Joe single, the toy G.I. Joe. And I think those were heavy on sound effects. and they weren't advertised that way but there was a lot of like crawling through the dirt kind of stuff. War sounds. Or adventure sounds. Oh yeah, yeah. Gotta grab this rock. Almost got it. And that kind of thing.

4:20Wow, it is a lost art form. Yeah, yeah. So the sounds are subdivided. But was that where you started, kind of like thinking about different scenarios in life, like a plane or a music store or stuff like that? Yeah. Like I started with all the music stuff. I was like, that's easy. I wanted to do someone tuning a guitar and it's in tune except for when they strum it. It's out of tune. That happens sometimes to guitar players. We're like, I just tuned it. Why is it still out of tune? Okay. Well, let's hear that one.

5:19Yeah, it's just something that happened. So it started there because those are easy to record. Just, you know, set up an amp and everything. So the music ones were just, it was a good starting point. Well, yeah, and you, I think before you were in comedy, you were in a punk band. Yeah. And people know you're a drummer. You were in Trench Mouth, a punk band, starting in the 80s. So I imagine that you just lived a lot of your life around the sounds of bands doing their work. Yeah, and there's so much sound checking. So much of your life is just sound checks. Sorry, this is the sound of a New Yorker writer writing down what you're wearing.

5:59Final shirt. And this sound is my reaction as I look down to my shirt. Black pants. Okay, I got it. So you also did things out in the field. Can you tell me about sort of where you went out to record more organically? There were, I spent some time in Ireland working, and there were sounds of parts of the kitchen, you know, the washing machine, the dryer, that to me sounded very European. Oh, really? Like opening doors. Like there's this different sound to even a front door. It's like a lever and it's like hardwood. So there's no way to recreate that. So with that, I used a portable recorder and just did, you know, front door opening, fob opening the building door.

6:50And then I recorded the washing machine and the dryer because I think their dryers are just very different to ours. There's usually one unit that does the same thing. It's way at the end. Oh, yeah, European small dryer with some confusion. Yeah. Okay, let's listen to that because now I'm really curious what this dryer sounds like.

7:17Oh, that's an interesting little beep thing, yeah. Yeah, what does that mean? What is triangle? That's you giving up? Like, what's going on? No, this really happened where, I mean, I was recreating it, but I couldn't figure out how to unlock it. I was like, it says it's done. Why won't it open? Huh.

7:42Whoa, what was that? No idea. The dryer just making a move? No idea. And these are new machines. That is mysterious.

7:55Oh, my God. That was like an alien landing. That was really unsettling. That's something I wouldn't be able to do in a studio. It's just so specific to being there. Things like that I had to do there. So you grew up in Long Island. And are there particular sounds that you associate with where you grew up? Yeah, definitely. There were like a lot of like delis and pizza places. And opening those doors, there was a jingle usually sound. It's like how The Sopranos ends. Oh, that's right. Spoiler alert. But like the last thing you see is Tony looking up and the door jingles, right? Are you in general like someone who is sensitive to sound more than other people, do you think?

8:49I mean, are you always that aware of it? I can't compare myself to other people, but I would say that it's like a major part of my life and maybe my career in a way that like what, you know, got me there is like more about sound. and the sound of an accent. Mm-hmm. Like, which chicken and egg is it? Do you think that you were sensitive to noises and that got you interested in listening to how accents sound? Yeah, definitely. Or was it being an actor who had to do accents got you more sensitive to listening? No, no, no. It's the first version. My parents weren't American. They became American. But my dad's from Germany and my mom's from Venezuela.

9:37And we lived in Brazil for a little while. So there was a lot of sort of relearning of how people talk, especially moving to New York. Like New York has a very specific way that people sound. So it was like it was easier to notice. Because of my life, it was easier to notice that people sounded different. What were the sounds of Brazil? God, it was so different. First of all, as cliche as it might sound, the sound of the music in the streets, because they had samba schools, not educational schools, samba being like a school, meaning a group of percussionists. And we lived right near Copacabana Beach and somewhere around December or so they'd start rehearsing.

10:22So that's one sound you would hear is like the sound of drums.

10:28TV sounded really different. And the Brazilian kids, so we spoke English and we went to an American school. How old were you when you lived in Brazil? I was like seven and eight or something. But the kids, not in a mean way, would make fun of kids who spoke English, the Brazilian kids, and they would mimic us. And so we'd be talking. They'd be like, they would say like, Like, that was their version of what we sounded like. Huh. Right. And, yeah, it just, everything sounded different there. What about SNL? Does SNL have particular sounds, like sets moving and stuff that stuck with you? SNL has such a specific sound that it's what I picture most with the, because I love SNL.

11:24With the cold open, there's like this hiss right at the cold open. I don't know. I don't know what it comes from. The mic's being on or something. So you hear the audience giggle a little, but then there's this like whoosh. And it's only SNL where you're like, they're about to start the cold open. It must be half a second. But there's a sound that's like, it begins this way. Right, right. Fred Armisen talking with The New Yorker's Michael Shulman. More in a moment.

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13:55Well, Fred, I'm hoping that we can head out and do some field work right now. Sure. If you're up for that. You up for that? I'm up for it. All right.

14:07And sometimes elevator conversation sounds like this. New York is like almost too easy in that there's so many sounds going on at the same time. But I think maybe we could do a good job of like maybe finding some specifics. So we're in a deli and this is the sound of a busy deli. So we're at an ATM. We're getting the hitting of buttons and numbers. This is getting out cash. This is looking through a cooler for a soda that isn't there. Like a drink that you can't find. You're going through it. You're like, oh, they're out of whatever. So this is someone looking through it.

14:56Good. We could do I found what I was looking for. Oh, yeah. Let's do that. Let's do that. Okay. So that'll add a vocal quality to it. Okay. There we go. This is someone from Philadelphia, and they're ordering crepes. Hi. Can I just get the lemon crepe, please? So we're going into a tunnel, one of those sort of overpass things in Central Park. So what you hear is a violin or a fiddle player in the distance coming closer. So we're passing a fiddle player.

15:41Okay, so we're coming up on something very particular to Central Park South. Right. What do we have here? We've got a horse and carriage. Now, I don't want to do anything to alarm the horse. No. But the horse is just being really quiet. Yeah. So there's... Should we ask this guy? We wanted to get a sound of a clop, but I don't want to affect the horse. Okay, okay, okay. It's okay, it's okay. Horse, do you have anything to say?

16:18Okay, okay, we'll leave him alone. Very quiet horse, we have nothing from this horse. Let's see, let's maybe wait here a moment in case... Sure. Some horses do go by. Because now I'm dead set on it. Can we, we're just getting some sound effects around New York. What about clopping his hoof? Is that okay?

16:43I think it's a no. It's a no, yeah. No, that's all right. We don't want to bother you. It's fine. I wonder if we could fake clopping sounds. just as a sense of... It might fail, right? Like, maybe we won't get it. Oh, I have something. Yeah. Let's say that we had... Here, sunglasses case. This is great. So let's say... I'm going to go on that wood over there. Let's say we had, like, a directive that we had to get clapping noises that we're not allowed back unless we get something. So let's fool our boss, so to speak. Okay.

17:24Maybe I'll go slower. That's pretty good. That's not bad, right? You layer it with a little, like, here. Yeah. Or maybe... I have another plastic. That'll help. Yes. Is it for this thing? Yeah. But... Okay. So, let's start at the top. So, this is horses clopping in Central Park. And I'll try to mimic that one.

18:00That was amazing because right as you were doing that, we should note, an actual horse and carriage went by and you just mimicked the exact rhythm of what you were hearing. Yeah. With a couple of glasses cases and equipment cases on this wooden banister thing. You never know. Okay. The horse looked over. Yeah. The horse was like, is that my wife? Or are you making fun of me? You think I'm a joke?

18:38Comedian Fred Armisen. His new album, 100 Sound Effects, comes out on Drag City Records. Michael Shulman is a staff writer for The New Yorker, and I'm David Remnick. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Oh, should we maybe just get this? Sure. Is this horse going by?

19:04Excellent. Now we can compare. Yeah, we can compare how we did with the glasses case. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yarns. with additional music by Louis Mitchell and Jared Paul. This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Sommer. And we had special assistance this week from John DeLore. With guidance from Emily Botin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barish, Victor Guan, and Alejandra Deckett.

19:42The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Charina Endowment Fund.

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