Poolhouse is a three-piece band in Salt Lake City who have been releasing music since 2020. After a series of singles in 2021 and 2022, they finalized the release of their first EP, Blue. They followed suit with another EP, Tape Machine, in 2023. This year, they’ve been releasing a string of singles and teasing an upcoming album, which will be their first full-length. Already, the singles have gained more attention, and the band has secured regular spots playing live in Salt Lake and the surrounding areas full-time.
In this episode, I sit down with the band’s lead singer Jake Buckner and guitarist Johnny Steed. They dive into the reasons why self-producing was the direction they wanted to go for this next album and how they built the confidence to finally do it. Plus, they talk about their experience with “demoitis,” which, in short, is the kind of attachment artists feel to the often lower-quality demos of their songs. They even share a demo of their own from Tape Machine. It was one they re-recorded in the studio and sent to a producer, but they were still fond of the old version and the unique way they made it.
“I definitely think we’re trying to capture a vibe and something real more than anything,” Buckner says.
“Something real” is a common goal for any artist, but one that’s constantly toiled over and more difficult to achieve than it sounds. It’s “the magic,” and it feels like a moving target; something one has to endure trial and error to finally hit. “Yeah, you might not be able to audibly hear it all the time but like … you can feel it,” Steed echoes.
For Poolhouse, producing themselves was the dart that finally hit the bullseye. But it took courage to get there. Buckner says the turn-around time for an EP took up to a year using a producer. By the time they received masters for projects they’d sent in, they’d already evolved and had written entirely new songs.
After recording their single “Deep Cut,” which was released in May, they had a realization.
“That was when we first realized, ‘We can do this,” Buckner says. “Before that we were sort of afraid … not afraid, maybe a little bit but more so not believing that we were good enough to produce ourselves even though we felt our songs were really good, we just didn’t think the quality of recording we were able to get was good enough.”
Poolhouse’s message couldn’t be more clear to me: do everything you can to see your creative vision through, and compromise at nothing to get there. Believe in your own ability to take the reins. And be “silly goofy” while you do. –Mary Culbertson
