My name is Joel Nettesheim. I am Trappers Cabin. I’ve been making albums under this name for 10 years now. There have been a number of albums, many only heard by friends and family. Albums like 33, Sad Strange Songs, Mountain, Home, Mistakes and so on. The first album I really mass produced and put out there was called Blue Sky Black Bear. This album was a bit conceptual and more of an experiment in production and songwriting. It came at a time when I began to take my music a bit more serious that times past.
Illustration by Nick Benson
I never had any training when it comes to recording. While living in Milwaukee I picked up a Fostex 4 track cassette recorder. This is how the early albums were made, experimenting with the sounds, speed of the tape, vocal harmonies, etc. Since I had not recording education to guide me, I began to create my own sound. I learned a lot in those earlier years. As I was sending the albums out to friends, they began responding to it, letting me know how much they liked this song or that song. It wasn’t until then that I began to realize my own potential.
After Blue Sky Black Bear, I began to understand “the mix” and the importance of production a bit more. At first, it was all about getting the ideas down and that was good enough (a real lo-fi sound). After that, I began to understand how to use space within the sound. I began to listen to the production more of all my favorite albums growing up. I learned how to make the instruments come alive. My creativity began to grow as well. This all led to my next album For My Friends. This album was loosely based on the Animal Farm by George Orwell and my love for animals. This was the first album to really get me some attention on larger scale. NPR did a review of the album and they also featured me on Top 10 Great Unknown Artists of 2007. The funny thing is I didn’t even know I was on the list….that’s how unknown I was. A friend told me about it. I began to get a good amount of emails from fans, not just friends or family, but real fans. It woke me up a bit and helped me realize that there are people out there enjoyed my music. It was quite a feeling.
My next album was a little more “out there”. I have always been a fan and appreciated bands that went out on a limb and did whatever they wanted sonically and creatively. Bands like Captain Beefheart, Ween and Frank Zappa always inspired me. I feel like I have some of that in me as well. I think when anyone listens to my albums they will note that however pretty the song is it still has a bit of wacky or weirdness to it. I like that, that is who I am so it’s only natural it would show up in my music as well. Trappers Mind embraced that wackiness throughout the whole album. The Onion newspaper reviewed and said it was one of the left field surprises of 2008, sort of like if Dark Side of the Moon had been written by Paul McCartney. Now, I know what you are saying and I would agree with you. To mention Paul McCartney and Dark Side in a review about my little album is a little over the top…. I mean come on BUT I’ll take it where I can get it.
When I was younger I was driven, I wanted to create 2 or 3 albums a year like they did in the old days. I wanted to be 40 years old with 30 albums under my belt. Something happened after Trappers Mind though, that drive seemed to relax a bit. I’ve recorded new material and had it ready for an album but I wanted to slow down a bit. I waited a couple years and put together my latest album Here We Are. After the craziness of Trappers Mind, Here We Are is a more stripped down album with themes and questions we all have about life and death. The few who have heard it claim it’s the best one yet. I think it’s great but also just another rung of the ladder.
Trappers Cabin Illustration by Nick Benson
