Pedro: Cause I have like a real fear doing this and forgetting to press record.
Kris Redus: Hahaha equivalent of that is, ⁓ my studio just one room. And so, ⁓ so I ever ⁓ do like any recording or anything with my monitors on. always in ⁓ And so whenever an artist is over here and... And we record something and then want to take headphones off and just turn the speakers on and listen to it and just be able to talk easier and stuff like that. I'm always so afraid and I've done it on a good handful of occasions where I'm gonna forget to turn the speakers back off when we're doing the next take and then their vocal has all kinds of ridiculous bleed from the speakers on it and if you have headphones on, you won't notice that it's doing that.
Pedro: Mmm.
Kris Redus: And you may go through all these takes and get great, great stuff. And then you go back and you listen and be like, ⁓ my god, this is unusable. Terrible.
Pedro: Speaking of studios and stuff, ⁓ we have a mutual friend, which is Mr. Mason Shirley. He's the one that told me about you. So I want to thank Mason for reaching out because man, I was doing some, you know, some research on you and you got some really interesting stuff. But first I want to talk about it's seven o'clock in the morning. And you told me, which is fine because I, this is the usual time I get up to go to work and stuff.
Kris Redus: Yes, yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Pedro: But you told me you're, you're, I guess, most creative, like super early in the morning. Like, how did you figure that out?
Kris Redus: ⁓ Yeah, so it's kind of by necessity. ⁓ So I have six kids and still have a full-time job. I work at Second Baptist Church as the worship leader. So that's my office hours there during the week or nine to five. And so if I'm doing extra music stuff, it's either got to be late at night,
Pedro: Hmm.
Kris Redus: or it's got to be early in the morning. I guess the first few years of being here in town, I tried to get real involved in the music scene and get in with a handful of bands and was doing a lot of gigging in the evenings just to bring in more money because my wife stays at home with the kids. But the downside there was that I just felt like I was always gone and never able to be present with the kids. And so I was getting to a point where I wanted to rework my whole schedule ⁓ so that I could be at home and be more present. And just realizing if I'm going to take time for my own outside music endeavors, it's got to have to be early morning or late at night. And so I just decided I'm going to try the early morning thing. and just got to where I loved it and I can feel a big difference in, I call it like fresh early morning brain or like frantic late night adrenaline brain. And I think those are just two very different head spaces that you're in. ⁓
Pedro: Yeah.
Kris Redus: And I don't know, mean, every once in a while, something like the schedule will lay out such that like, I'll realize, okay, if I'm gonna finish this song this week, it's gonna work better for me to go late at night and not have any kind of cutoff time and just be able to work as late as I need to until I finish the thing. Rather than... being up in the morning and being like, I'm gonna get up before, I'm gonna drink coffee, get going, be getting productive things done by about five. But yeah, usually, yeah, yeah. But then I'm gonna have a hard cutoff time because I just, I make sure that I'm over helping the family get up and eating breakfast with them before I need to head off to the office for the day. the mornings have a cutoff time.
Pedro: And that's what time you get up, right? Four o'clock. And that's when you're up to... ⁓
Kris Redus: which is healthy in a lot of ways because ⁓ it keeps me from overdoing it on a song or what I'm working on. Because getting ear fatigue is a big thing. I can sense whenever I've been working on something too long and I'm losing perspective on it and I need to just come back with fresh ears and I'm gonna have way better ideas. So. ⁓
Pedro: Yeah. So just hit pause, save, walk away, come back.
Kris Redus: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. just sometimes I'll come back to it and I'll realize, okay, the thing I was chasing is not the right direction. Let's re-recalibrate here. that is, I think most of the time that is really helpful for me. And it's just nice to be able to like take it slow. I'll usually start. Morning by just sitting drinking coffee and pulling up some random music to listen to and inevitably that's gonna Be inspiring me towards certain ideas or whatever and and and and it's gonna be that the song I pull up to work on like I'm gonna have different ideas then then if I had like Got the kids down for bed and then rushed over here and be like, okay I'm gonna blast you finish in this song and I'm already in like adrenaline mode
Pedro: Hmm. Cause you're also like, man, it's getting so late. I need to go to bed.
Kris Redus: You know, what we're Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So I just love the feeling of taking it slow and everything's so peaceful and quiet in the mornings. Yes, absolutely.
Pedro: Hm ⁓ Early morning clarity. That's awesome, man. That's cool. I don't ever remember like getting up at four o'clock in the morning to do something. But you know, you might be on to something.
Kris Redus: That didn't used to be, for sure.
Pedro: You might be onto something. I may give it a go. Like I have a little studio here, but this is like a straight up just a home thing, right? I do it by myself. know, but I did record ⁓ my band's album here, Seattle Rising. We did like an original stuff and it was just all here, know, my guitars and then we sent it out to a studio ⁓ to get everything like mixed right.
Kris Redus: Uh-huh. Yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Nice, yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Pedro: It's kind of one of those things where the studio was like, hey, if you're going to do this by yourself, like do it by yourself. Get all your tones. Like, don't come ask me for the tones. Just like, I would just like put the finishing touches on it. Do you prefer doing that too? Or do you prefer working? ⁓ Like if somebody is going to send something to you, do you prefer them to make all those creative decisions before it gets to you? Or do you like prefer doing it from scratch with somebody? Are you open to doing something like that? Like how does that process work for you?
Kris Redus: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I work with people on all those different levels. A ⁓ lot of what I do is remote drum tracking. So somebody will send me a song, and they'll tell me any ideas that they have as far as drums. Like they might send me a reference song and be like, I really like the drum vibe on this song.
Pedro: Mmm.
Kris Redus: And then I'll just on my own time, I'm going just pull it up and listen and create drums and record it all and then send them an mp3 of the whole thing and say, OK, here's my idea. Let me know what you think. You me to change anything or do you like it as is? And I'll go back and do another pass if they want some changes. And then at the end of it, then I'm going send them all of the individual mic channels. And then they can do with that what they will. That can be as bare bones as somebody from their bedroom. What they send me is just a rough mix of their vocal and their acoustic guitar. Or it might be a producer who has worked up a... They might be basically finished with the song, ⁓ but they just have programmed drums in there and I'm coming as one of the very last things I'm going to replace their programmed drums.
Pedro: Mmm.
Kris Redus: So, ⁓ and it can be anywhere in between those two ends of the spectrum.
Pedro: Do you find it comical when somebody has programmed drums like that? Or you just see it as part of the writing process?
Kris Redus: No, it's just totally normal. I get it, from a producer perspective, you need to have some kind ⁓ of reference for what the drums are bringing to the song, ⁓ at least in a placeholder kind of way. ⁓ really, my perspective on like... when you should do the drums is changed a lot over the years. I think whenever I started, I guess I always had heard the mentality that the drums are like the first thing you want to record. And then everything else builds off of that and can line up timing-wise. There's definitely something huge to be said for that approach. But there's also a lot of magic in just using some kind of
Pedro: Hmm.
Kris Redus: placeholder at the beginning for your sense of time and then saving drums for a lot later in the process because, and that's definitely the way I do it most of the time whenever I'm doing my own productions. Even if I do, like I don't even know how to program drums, okay? That's not in my wheelhouse at all. But so most of time when I'm doing my own songs, I'll play something on the drums.
Pedro: Okay
Kris Redus: But I know it's like demo, just to line out the timing and get the overall feel there. And I'm going to build out the rest of the arrangement with stuff. But then I'm going to end up wanting to come back later and think like, OK, as the whole song has developed, I'm just wanting to hear different things on the drums that are like really sinking into some aspect of... Just because I'm so big on the drums giving lots of character to the song.
Pedro: Mm-hmm.
Kris Redus: And if I'm playing the drums at the very beginning with, and the music that I'm actually hearing, I'm playing along to is super bare bones. In a lot of ways, I'm kind of just guessing as to what the full thing is going to end up sounding like. So when I get to that end perspective, that perspective obviously has changed because I've added so many different things.
Pedro: As you should. Mm-hmm.
Kris Redus: And so I'm going to end up, it's not uncommon for on my own songs for me to retract the drums like two or three different times because I end up having new ideas at the end of it. So yeah.
Pedro: So how do you keep yourself from like stopping from like over analyzing it? Like when do you know like, okay, enough is enough. Like I've been working on this for five months. I've re-recorded this drum like six or seven times. Like how do know enough is enough?
Kris Redus: You know, honestly, that's a battle with every song. And I think... That is definitely one of the big struggles with working largely on my own as a producer. And it's something that is not as much of a struggle whenever in person in the studio, if it's with Mason or somebody else, part of the magic of going to a studio and collaborating with people in real time. is that you're all vibing off of each other and you land on a decision and you all just kind of know, okay, this is right and we're gonna go with this and you're not even gonna give yourself the option of second guessing it later on down the road. And it's just like, you could sit there and endlessly keep trying ideas but part of the magic and of like paying, there's an artist paying for studio time, you're on the clock.
Pedro: Mm-hmm.
Kris Redus: You've got to reach a decision, you've got to just commit and move on and know that your decision in that moment was the right thing. So when you're working totally on your own, you don't have all those same constraints like making you commit to a decision. So that can be a major pitfall. But I always have this balance of like, ⁓ do work so much for other people. I've got a whole queue right now of other songs for other artists that I need to be tracking. ⁓ It's kind of a big deal if I'm gonna set aside time to work on my own music. I know I can't spend too long on it. If I do...
Pedro: Mmm.
Kris Redus: that's other paying clients money that's not coming in. So that's just like a hard practical constraint that does kind of keep me from going on too long. But in general, I do end up spending a very long time on my songs, but it's just chipping out a way at it little by little as I can fit time in the schedule.
Pedro: Sure. So. So when you're doing like your own song, you basically like you can handle the drums, you do the piano, you do guitars, you do vocals, you do the production, you do... So like how do you... How do you switch between those hats all the time? Because like you're doing the drums, right? Because that's your like your main thing. So how do you know like you're not overdoing it on the piano? How you know you're not overdoing it on the guitar, on the vocals?
Kris Redus: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So in a lot of ways, it kind of feels like one thing. ⁓ think being a songwriter and a producer, that gives me a certain perspective no matter what instrument I'm playing. it's just kind of a whole ⁓ head space. Whenever I'm playing the drums,
Pedro: Hmm.
Kris Redus: I'm still trying to think more in terms of like, what is the big picture of the song need? And I'm trying really hard to not get... so into all the little nerdy details of the drums that I'm losing perspective on what really matters for the song. And it would be really easy to overdo and overplay on all of the little drum details and then realize later on, didn't leave myself any space to really do anything on other instruments. So, so.
Pedro: you
Kris Redus: always keeping that producer perspective. well, and like as I'm playing the drums, I'm also, there's part of my brain that's thinking like, okay, this is the pattern I'm playing and this is what I'm gonna want the bass to do interacting with this back beat. yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, as I'm workshopping ideas, I just, this is the way my brain thinks. Like I'm playing something on the drums.
Pedro: Hmm so you kind of have like a basic layout in your head so then as you track and you just kind of
Kris Redus: and that just implies a lot of different things on other instruments. And so it's like I'm committing to a whole arrangement decision with this idea. And then I might hear it back, and even though those other things aren't there, like I'm still imagining them in my head. And I might figure out right away, okay, I don't like how this is laying out with the vocal. Let's try a whole different arrangement decision. ⁓ So it definitely like, It all kind of is the same thing whenever you're ⁓ thinking like a producer. And I've heard enough session musicians that I really look up to express that to some extent or another, like the best session players are always thinking like a producer. Like even when you're not producing, but somebody's bringing you in to just play on their song. They're bringing you in because they... they're gonna trust you to serve the song. And so you're really trying to, ⁓ even if it's your first time hearing the song, and I've gotta come up with something to play, in like 30 seconds, I'm trying to get inside that songwriter's head and that producer's head and come up with stuff like that. I'm trying to very quickly immerse myself into their vision and think, okay, if I'm... imagining this musical idea like several steps ahead of where it is right now. Like what does my intuition say needs to happen here? And it's not just that like, ⁓ this would be cool on the drums, but like here's the big musical picture that needs to happen. Okay, what do the drums need to do to get it there? Yeah.
Pedro: So it's not so much about just trying to be flashy for the sake of being flashy. It's more about what helps the song move forward.
Kris Redus: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, very much most of the time it's a less is more. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Being a session player will teach you to lose the ego real, real fast. ⁓ Because it's so rare that anybody wants anything like super intense or technical. ⁓ There are definitely times whenever
Pedro: So sometimes you got to keep your own ego in check then. Sure.
Kris Redus: whenever people will be like, I want you to just bring it on this last chorus and like have lots of wild crazy stuff. And it's like, okay, I've got to be able to pull off this kind of stuff like in one take and not mess it up. Okay, so now I'm drawing on all of my years of like nerdy technique stuff. you, you.
Pedro: Sure. Have you ever had like a crazy ⁓ request like, man, I'm writing this worship song and right here when this bridge hits, I want you to think you're Danny Carey from Tool and just go crazy. Like have you ever had anything like ridiculous like that?
Kris Redus: Every once in a while, I mean, I've never had the tool reference, but I've definitely had references like, I need you to sound like Darren King from Mute Math, or like, This needs to be a total Travis Barker thing here because I don't know. That's the fun part about working with like indie artists who aren't on a big label and who don't have like very strict parameters of like what is acceptable in this genre. Like they can get away with doing whatever they want in their song. And so it's especially when you get people who are like coming in really creative.
Pedro: sure. Sure.
Kris Redus: It's so fun working with an artist who has a lot of vision on their own as opposed to just being, oh yeah, whatever you want to play, it's okay, man. But like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so yeah, sometimes you'll have some pretty wild requests come in for like, I want something in this vibe or this vibe. And that's what keeps it so fun.
Pedro: So some sort of direction is good. Sure.
Kris Redus: Because it's always different. You never know what you're going to end up being asked to play.
Pedro: So you're having like all these like different requests like so how do you like how do you do that tone chasing in 2026 when it's just like sometimes just so easy to just go digital and just get like a sample or something like that so how long do you spend on trying to find the right drum sounds in this modern day age where everything's just kind of in the palm of your hand?
Kris Redus: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's a big deal to me. And one of the things that I've kind of just tried to make as a little niche for myself is like, I want to be the tone guy. And so I've just spent years and years and years learning to tune drums and learning to try to replicate sounds off of different records. And whenever somebody gives me a reference, for ⁓ like, I want the drums like the vibe on this song. I know that a big, like one of the big things about what they like about that is the drum sounds. It's not just the things that the person is playing on that recording, but it's like the way that the drums sound and what that aspect is bringing to the mix. ⁓ And so like square one of that is, okay, let me get my drums and that. ballpark of tone. then, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm pulling different kick drums, different snares, different cymbals, ⁓ the whole big thing. I mean, obviously I ⁓ a ⁓ collection of drums and sounds that are really like kind of tailored to my certain
Pedro: But then you're switching like drum pieces around. Are you like researching what kind of drums they use, heads?
Kris Redus: tastes. And so there's a lot of sounds that I just don't particularly enjoy, like super bright piercing rock sounds. That's not my thing. So I don't have many drums and cymbals that do things in that vein, but people don't really come to me for that. But most other types of drum sounds, I can be able to capture almost anything. somebody needs. And so yeah, I'm changing out drums, doing lots of fast re-tuning and the dampening is a huge part of getting different drum sounds. it might be that like I'm just putting a little bit of tape or I'm using studio rings or I'm putting towels over the drums or like all of this stuff just sounds different. And I'm getting a lot better at
Pedro: Hmm.
Kris Redus: hearing a drum sound on a recording and I can come up with a pretty good guess of what kind of dampening they're using to shape those tones and be able to capture sounds like that pretty quickly. ⁓
Pedro: ⁓ okay. That's pretty cool. Do you have like a secret weapon there in the studio that you always go to when you're having a hard time either figuring something out or you need that one sound and the customer's not really having it? He's like, you know what, let me get this. ⁓
Kris Redus: Yeah Yeah, hold up. I've one of my secret weapons that just works way more often is these towels. These are literally from AutoZone. They're like leather towels that you get for like, I guess wiping down a windshield or like a car finish or whatever. You can wash them yourself. They come in these big sheets and so I just cut them to various sizes.
Pedro: ⁓ my god, I love this. Please explain.
Kris Redus: But they just sound so good on the drums. I'll place it over the entire drum head, or I might fold it in half and just take a binder clip and clip it over the edge, just covering one inch of the drum head or something like that. And I'll hold it there and I'll play the drum and I'll listen to the sustain or the character of it. And I'll think, OK, it needs to be shorter. I'm going to scoot this a little bit more toward the middle and then play and listen right there.
Pedro: you
Kris Redus: I have this big duffel bag that I bring with me to every session and it's got just tons of towels and tambourines and shakers and whatnot, but a lot of it is just various dampening devices. You could put a bandana, just a standard bandana over the drum and... It's gonna sound a certain way. I think it's gonna end up sounding kind of thin, but then you put one of these towels over and it's just thicker and there's like this, the leather kind of texture on it. It just brings out this warm, fuzzy resonance out of the drum that is just magical. yeah.
Pedro: This is kind of like what I was talking to Mason about, like trying to keep the human feel and human creativity always in your recordings that it's like I told him like there's a certain point. ⁓ So like I'm a rock guy. Like I listen to a lot of rock music, but I listen to everything. There was a certain point, and I don't know when that point started, that all the rock bands started to sound the same.
Kris Redus: Uh-huh. Yeah, man. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Pedro: the guitar tones, the drum tones, the bass tones, the way that they're singing, like the vocal chains. Like, I just don't know what it is, but it's starting to sound the same. And I just really haven't, or maybe I'm just not doing enough. It could be that too, right? I'm not perfect. Maybe I'm just not doing enough research and finding bands that I really like. But I think after a while, you know, how convenient some of the stuff is, and I'm not knocking anybody that uses plugins and stuff like that, because I use plugins in the Seattle Rising record, right?
Kris Redus: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sure.
Pedro: We have a very distinct sound, 90s grunge and post grunge alternative rock. So I just happened to own Neuro DSP plugins and they have the Soldano amp plugin and they have Tom Morello's 90s plugin that sounds like Rage Against the Machine. So I just blended those two together and then boom 90s guitar sound, right? So nothing wrong about that. Oh, that's a great one.
Kris Redus: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. nice. ⁓ huh. have Cory Wong's ⁓ Neural Guitar Plugin that I'll use quite a bit. Mm-hmm.
Pedro: Yeah, I have a relationship with Neuro that honestly I don't want my wife to find out I have this relationship with Neuro because I think she will divorce me. But sometimes just sitting in a studio with a real amp and a real cab, you have this feeling and then being able to dial stuff in with your own fingers, there's that human touch. ⁓
Kris Redus: ⁓ mercy. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Pedro: responsive, you know, just being responsive to the touch that says something that creates something special like the albums from the 60s and the 50s and the 70s and the 80s and the 90s. Right? So like, how do you, how do you always, how do you like, how do you try to capture that magic? Cause I mean, you just said it with the little towel, right? I don't know if I asked, I don't know if I asked the AI, Hey, how do I get this? Like, what do you think? It's not going to send me to auto zone to buy that. Right? So
Kris Redus: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ I, just, I saw another, one of my favorite drummers like recommend those and I was like, ⁓ my gosh, I gotta do that. But in general, ⁓ yeah, I think the, just one of the, one of the goals that, that, that you just gotta have today, like more than any other time in music history, I think is this like relentless quest to be unique and human. ⁓ Especially with all the AI stuff. If the goal is to sound more massive than the next band... like massive and clean and like to have the most perfect stadium filling rock tones ever. Like, sorry, AI can do that better. ⁓ Or if I want the most perfect clean pop drum sound, AI can do it better than I can do. But if the goal is to be of weird and quirky and unique and you know I can come up with stuff that AI is not going to come up to and like it might be ⁓ like it might not be as perfect and classic sounding but it's going to be unique and interesting and I think in our day and age like that's more valuable and that's why you would choose to bring a real human on your song rather than just saying, hey, Suno, create me the perfect rock drum sound for this. It's going to come up with something that sounds amazing, but is it going to feel unique and creative? is it going to give you this feeling of, my gosh, that brings a whole other dimension to this song that I never would have.
Pedro: Mm.
Kris Redus: landed on and that's going to make me have all kinds of different decisions down the road. I mean, yeah, I don't know. I just think... And we can't be chasing perfect anymore because AI has that on block. So now the goal is just to be more fearlessly creative and weird and quirky.
Pedro: I mean, how impressive it is to listen to some of these bands in the 60s and the 70s playing so perfect without a click, just being good musicians, right? Just.
Kris Redus: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. Well, and in a lot of ways, they're not perfect. Like, you hear their tempo wavering like crazy, or you might hear notes that were like, shanked a little bit or whatever, but that's just part of the magic. Like, it's not perfect, but there's so much intensity and there's so much emotion and so much like, rawness there that, you you hear stuff that's like,
Pedro: Right. And that's what made the song the song.
Kris Redus: every note is perfect and it's perfectly on the grid. it's just, it doesn't have the same soul or punch that classic recordings did and that's a big part of it. ⁓
Pedro: Sometimes just stuff you can't teach to, right? It's just something that maybe like you just kind of like have within you sometimes.
Kris Redus: Yeah, I think a lot of that just comes down to musical intuition that you're drawing like when you're working on a song and you're making really quick decisions about what needs to happen in this layer or that layer. Really like the biggest thing that you're drawing on is your lifetime's worth of music listening and how much time you've spent poring over this record or that record, ⁓ all of your lifetime worth of studying music is all coming to bear in this moment when you're creating something here because I might be thinking like, okay, this song is totally giving me vibes from this other song and this song and maybe a little bit of this song and so I'm like, split second my brain is pulling all of these different references in and I'm creating something that's kind of pulling in from all of them but being its own unique thing. And I think everybody to some degree, even if you're not recording, maybe you're just coming up with an arrangement for your band, you're drawing on, even if it's at a deep subliminal level, this song kind of sounds like these other songs from my favorite artists.
Pedro: you
Kris Redus: And so the things that you're deciding to play are kind of in the vein of this other thing that is in the back of your mind. And so I think we're all doing that in some way or another. ⁓
Pedro: How you keep yourself from ⁓ tastefully stealing instead of just straight up plagiarism from your favorite bands and sounds?
Kris Redus: Well, that's always a hard line to walk to. I've heard this quote my whole life. I don't know who it's attributed to, but good artists borrow, great artists steal. And I think the heart of that is getting it like. Find something you love that a total master has done and figure out to the very best of your ability how to copy that and try to get in that person's head and just get so the closest that you can possibly achieve to sounding like that person. ⁓ Yes, absolutely. ⁓
Pedro: And it will 100 % make you a better musician too, for sure.
Kris Redus: that's just gonna immerse itself into your musical DNA and then when you're creating something on your own, it's gonna be uniquely your own, but it's gonna be very informed by all those different things that you have spent the time working on a study. So, oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, totally. Whenever, and I grew up,
Pedro: And what a great compliment, right, for you. Somebody's like, man, this sounds like, this sounds like, you know, this band, like you wrote this.
Kris Redus: Like my formative years as a musician in high school, I was in a punk rock band with two of my best friends. And so ⁓ I was just obsessed with Travis Barker and Blink-Wanute too at the time. And I had so many Blink records just memorized note for note on the drums. yeah. I mean, I'd...
Pedro: Such a good drummer.
Kris Redus: really like my musical tastes have evolved like so much since then but but but like that's just where like you know whenever we were writing songs as a band like I ended up I think without even realizing it I totally ripped off like so many Travis Barker drum parts ⁓ but but just because that was where my head was at and I had spent so much time like pouring over and learning his drum parts that whenever I went to create my own, they ended up sounding like almost note for note like this song or that song of theirs. But it's like, I think as the years went on, I was able to do it in a more authentic way to where I could pull in lots of bits of that vocabulary, but then still end up coming up with things that felt unique to me. ⁓
Pedro: Mm-hmm.
Kris Redus: And so I'm big on the idea of like, when I'm working on song, I may be very obviously trying to channel a particular drummer and trying to think like, what would Steve Jordan play on this song? And that's absolutely the vibe that the song needs. So like, I'm going to try to do my best Steve Jordan impression here.
Pedro: So you're kind of creating a persona for you to embody when you're...
Kris Redus: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And inevitably, I'm not gonna end up sounding like Steve Jordan. I'm gonna end up sounding like me, but me trying to get in somebody else's head, who in my brain is just like the perfect exemplification. I don't think that's real word, I don't know. But like the perfect example of this particular vibe that the song needs. Like that's the hitspace I need to be in. So yeah.
Pedro: So whenever earlier when you're you're saying like you're drawn from like your years of studying music and listening to music you went to school for music right you went to painting for Howard Payne University is that correct? And then you got a master's in
Kris Redus: Mm-hmm. Yes, My bachelor's... Yeah, yeah. My bachelor's is from Howard Payne University and I studied like classical percussion. And then my master's is from Southwestern Seminary. It was just school for ministry, but at that time they had a jazz studies concentration that she could be in. So I got to study with an... incredible jazz drummer. ⁓ Yeah, yeah, so I'm very much coming from a studied music perspective, but also like... at the core of my DNA, like, I still grew up learning rock songs by ear and stuff, so I'm definitely not like a... stiff ⁓ classical musician. I appreciate that world and I love music theory and stuff, but I'm still very much like a by ear, ⁓ played by field guy.
Pedro: Sure. Yeah. That's Did that like going to to get your masters out of that influence you in any way to pursue that world after you graduated to go into church ministry music like in that? OK.
Kris Redus: Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ Yeah, I knew, well, so when I started college, I thought I was on track to be a band director or like a percussion director at a bigger high school that could sustain a full-time percussion guy. ⁓ But then ⁓ senior year, so, but I had always been involved in ⁓ music ministry at any church that I had been in.
Pedro: Hmm.
Kris Redus: like playing drums or guitar or like playing and singing or whatnot. That has just been a huge part of my life. Yeah, for sure, for sure. ⁓ And ⁓ so summer before my senior year of college, was leading music for a children's camp ⁓ at a Christian camp. And I just felt like God was telling me this is actually the path that... ⁓
Pedro: So you kind of grew up in that environment.
Kris Redus: that I'm supposed to be on. And so I switched up my degree plan a little bit. I told my wife, we were just dating at that point, but I told her, I don't think I'm actually supposed to be a band director. I think I'm supposed to go into ministry. And she was like, well, duh, I've been telling you that for years. And he wouldn't listen to me. So yeah, she was right.
Pedro: So that's when you knew she was the right one.
Kris Redus: But yeah, so then I went to school for ministry and I was so insane, just realizing like, I am so not cut out to be in a classroom of kids. I mean, I love kids, but I am not good at managing a whole room full of wild kids. So.
Pedro: ⁓ man, you're telling me. I'm a soccer coach. got about 16 of them I have to keep in check.
Kris Redus: I just, my brain will get overloaded so fast with that. Yeah.
Pedro: just full of energy and I mean have my son is 12, I coach his soccer team so there's about 16 boys there and then this year my daughter's coach fell through so I'm coaching the eight-year-olds so yeah talk about patience.
Kris Redus: Uh-huh. Yeah. ⁓ man, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I love soccer, so I know. ⁓ But I am too nice to manage a room full of kids, because at a certain point, you gotta just lay down the law. And ⁓ can't. I know. I can't do it.
Pedro: Hmm. Yeah. They'll walk all over you, That's funny. by going back to like your ⁓ writing music for church and all that, like what's the biggest challenge you have of making, translating these words that are changed so many people's lives. Words are like really old and ancient. They have a lot of history behind it. How do you get that? How do you change that to inspire you to write songs for in this modern day era, even though of
Kris Redus: ⁓ yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.
Pedro: you know, just like a modern congregation, like how to make that feel fresh for people that are going to church.
Kris Redus: Yeah, well, so I love the challenge of taking a concept or like ⁓ a scripture verse and trying to come up with a melody and a way to present it that feels unique and compelling. ⁓ a huge part of what you're trying to do whenever you're writing for a congregation is sing. ⁓ is it's gotta be like compelling and intuitive. You when you're writing for yourself as a solo singer, songwriter or whatever, like you're, you're, you kind of have just like a, ⁓ a blank canvas and you could come up with anything and as long as it feels unique and it lays out well for your voice, then it feels good. But, but when you're writing for a big group of people to all sing together, that puts a tighter set of parameters around it. I'm a person who can get overwhelmed by the number of options that I could do, so I appreciate having some really tight boundaries. I'm trying to think of things that are a little bit more spacious and open. ⁓ And like rhythmically, it needs to be simple enough that people can predict where it's gonna go and they can all, like if it's super syncopated and the melody is kinda jumping all over the place, then if a big group of people try to start singing it all at once, they're not gonna be able to do it, they're not gonna be able to sync up. But if it's like very predictable and you can tell where the melody is gonna go,
Pedro: Mm-hmm.
Kris Redus: and you just, kind of have this innate sense about what's coming next and it's always a good market. Like by the time I get to the end of the chorus, people are already singing along, then they're like, I know, okay, this is intuitive. They can tell where it's going. This is great.
Pedro: Which is like you've done a great job if you're doing that because the whole purpose is unity, right?
Kris Redus: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. ⁓ The entire goal is to be able to give people a chance to sing together and unify an expression of worship to the Lord. And so I don't want my writing of the song to make it harder for them to do that. I'm trying to set them for success and be able to get to that goal sooner. And so then the challenge is to... write things that have an intuitive quality to them but that also feel fresh and unique. Because I spent so much time ⁓ pouring over these classic hymns that people from all kinds of different church backgrounds, there's a certain ⁓ collection of hymns or older songs that have been used in worship that so many people know. And so you're analyzing and you're drawing on those and thinking, okay, what makes this so rich and why have people continued to want to sing these songs for hundreds of years? There's some quality about these melodies and these words that really resonate with people. And so I want to try to get to the heart of those qualities and bring them into my own writing. But it's very easy. to come up with things that sound very unoriginal. You can tell exactly where they're going. I know where this is going and this is not fresh. It doesn't move me at all because it doesn't feel new. That challenge is just really exciting to me.
Pedro: Sure. Mm-hmm. So you want to add some? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I bet when that pays off, you know, that's you know, you've done well.
Kris Redus: Yeah, yeah, for sure. And there's definitely been times where something I've written I was super excited about and then I bring it in front of the congregation to sing it and it's like nobody gets it. And by the end of it, I'm thinking, okay, this either, I just need to scrap this idea or it needs to go back to the drawing board and like try to figure out what about this is not intuitive. it's so like, I don't know, any songwriter whatever kind setting they're writing for. They'll tell you, the real litmus test is when you perform it in front of people, how does it land? And especially whenever you're trying to get other people to sing it, you know right away whether it's landing, whether they're getting it and they're participating along, or if it's fallen flat. And just the more times that you do it, ⁓ the better sense you have in the writing phase of whether people are gonna get this or not. And it's just incredibly valuable to show it and get feedback from different people and get people's gut reaction to it. Is this really intuitive? Can I tell, do I understand this from the get go or are they getting to the end feeling like, okay.
Pedro: Hmm.
Kris Redus: What is
Pedro: How many people do you show the songs to before you take it to the congregation and play it and have them learn it?
Kris Redus: ⁓ Well, it's, ⁓ you know, most of the time if it's, because my schedule for writing something will a lot of times be like, I know that we're gonna be singing this, I mean that we're supposed to use something in worship from this particular psalm. ⁓ Like this week it's Psalm 115. And like I know for months that that, that scripture is coming up on this Sunday. And so I need to figure out some way to use this in our worship. And so I'm looking ahead and I'm thinking, like, I don't try to write something every week, but it's a nice challenge ⁓ whenever I'll read through something and be like, okay, I can definitely write something from this. Let's do it. And so a lot of times I'm starting something the week before. kicking around some ideas, but I'm really finalizing it on Monday or Tuesday of that week. And then I have a Wednesday night rehearsal with my team. So a lot of times that's the, like I'm showing real people in a real room ⁓ this for the first time and I'm kind of gauging on their reactions. are my musicians getting this from the beginning? And did they have a sense like,
Pedro: Hmm.
Kris Redus: Are my vocalists able to sing? Are they able to find harmonies? And are my musicians able to find something really quickly that makes sense to play? Or is everybody really struggling with this, like knowing where to fit in with it? And if they're struggling, then that tells me, okay, that's probably gonna be that the people in the congregation are also gonna struggle. And so I need to rethink a lot of this and try to make some tweaks before Sunday comes. ⁓ so, yeah.
Pedro: Hmm And I guess that's the part that we talked about earlier about keeping your ego in check too.
Kris Redus: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Pedro: They are not getting this. This is such a good song.
Kris Redus: Yeah, yeah, nobody's... Yeah, right, right, right. If I'm trying to impress people with my fancy ⁓ cerebral writing, but it's not actually resonating with anybody, that's... And there's definitely been...
Pedro: Can't you tell I've dampened this with a towel from AutoZone? Come on.
Kris Redus: ⁓ Somehow all these different things relate in my brain. yeah, yeah, yeah. It definitely makes you be in this mindset that as a musician, you're here to serve the moment. And I think that's a big thing that just kind of permeates everything that I do musically. in worship, I'm here to serve this moment, to help everybody be able to sing together, to let these ⁓ scriptural truths that we're focusing on, let these resonate in people's hearts, and in the clearest way that I can. And so, if I'm arranging songs with our band, or if I'm writing something, I'm trying to let this come about in this fresh way, and to... You know, of course I'm bringing my artistry into it, but my artistry is not the goal. I want it to be like freshly intuitive and not with people come away thinking like, ⁓ Priscilla's such a great writer or whatever. Like I'm wanting to people to come away thinking like, wow, this scripture that we focused on, like this really came alive for me in a way that I hadn't thought of it before.
Pedro: Hmm.
Kris Redus: Like that's the end goal that I want. ⁓ Yeah.
Pedro: So do you kind of like try to intentionally steer the church's music in a certain direction or just like it's just whatever comes comes?
Kris Redus: Yeah, I've definitely, ⁓ I have kind of honed this artistic vision for our music over the years. ⁓ And it's really just like, based on ⁓ the culture of our people and the culture of the musicians that I have. ⁓ think if you turn on Christian radio, there's a very particular sound that most of these hit songs have. And it's largely because everything that you hear on Christian radio is coming from one of four big megachurch organizations who are putting out. music and it just happens to be that everybody on the globe like loves this music but it's kind of a weird bizarre thing in the Christian music world that like every virtually every hit song is coming from one of these four places and so therefore the the the kind of the pressure that all church musicians feel across the globe is to sound like
Pedro: Hmm.
Kris Redus: one of these other churches. And at the end of the day, it's like I God brought this group of people here to this church for a specific reason. And I don't think it was for us to try to sound like some other church. I think it was for us to try to sound like us and be able to give our community a musical offering that feels unique to us. so I spend a lot more time in the like... the folk music world, the singer-songwriter Americana kind of world. And there are a lot of artists, like artists writing Christian music and music for congregational worship that is more in the folk singer-songwriter kind of vein. ⁓ And it doesn't make it on the most popular radio. ⁓
Pedro: Mm-hmm.
Kris Redus: playlists and whatnot, but it's still incredible music. And so that's a lot of the music that I will pull in is more in that vein. And most of everything that I write is definitely trying to take ⁓ folk music and like...
Pedro: And these are decisions you're making as a worship leader, right? These are the kind of day to day decisions you have to make.
Kris Redus: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. And as far as like what songs are we going to sing and when I'm arranging, yeah, yeah, yeah, when I'm rehearsing our band and I'm kind of shaping these arrangements, I'm not using a like, like the classic.
Pedro: The songs, the styles, like all of that.
Kris Redus: Christian radio approaches, there is very much this massive stadium rock kind of sound. ⁓ But I don't really have any players in my church who can get those sounds. So I have a lot more players that are maybe older or they're just more versed in like singer, songwriter, folk music. Yeah, right. If I had a different...
Pedro: So it also comes down to the human material you have too.
Kris Redus: set of musicians, my sonic goals would be very different. at the end of the day, I want the way that our music sounds to feel really unique to us. And I don't ever want to come off sounding like we're trying too hard to be something that we're not. And we're just coming off sounding really cringy. ⁓ Because I think you can get
Pedro: Mm hmm. This is some great advice for up and coming, like people that want to become worship leaders.
Kris Redus: Yeah, I mean even from just a, ⁓ not even in a church setting, I'm sure you've seen bands playing live where you think like, ⁓ they're trying way too hard to be something that they're not. ⁓
Pedro: Yeah, it just doesn't feel authentic.
Kris Redus: And yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And so maybe our authentic doesn't look anything like the church down the street's authentic. And that's great. I love it. So.
Pedro: Yeah. You know, like you're talking about, you know, God had a purpose of bringing this particular people to this particular church in this point in time. But like I've, I've read that you've played in some incredible places. Like you played a Carnegie Hall. Is that correct? Yeah. You've played it. You played in Ukraine at the Lviv Opera House. Like, but why, why do you choose Corpus? Like why Corpus?
Kris Redus: ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Well, just, ⁓ I think God very clearly called my family here to this church and the Second Baptist Church is where I'm at. And we love this church so much. Everyone is so sweet. The staff is great to work with. ⁓ And we just really feel like this is where God has planted me and my ministry. is where he's planted my family. even like, I've had opportunities to do a lot of other cool things musically that are super exciting. this is still where I really feel like God has us as a home base. so yeah, thank you.
Pedro: or lucky for us. To have somebody man as really, I don't even know like exactly to this, you're just full of knowledge man. It's great to have people in the local scene, not just in church scene, but just in music scene in general that has a lot of knowledge. So one of the reasons why I want to talk to you man, like you just, you got so much depth and knowledge. is great. So you and your family are very involved with music as well, right?
Kris Redus: ⁓ ⁓ man, I appreciate that. Thank you.
Pedro: You guys did an album together, is that correct?
Kris Redus: Oh yeah, yeah, we did. So back in 2020, okay, so backstory. We were a foster family for like four years. We originally just had two biological kids of our own, but my wife and I both come from big families with lots of kids. And so we just always kind of knew that we would, that would be our.
Pedro: Okay.
Kris Redus: calling as well and at some point we just felt like God was leading us into the foster and adoption world and just learning more about like what a crazy need there is in that world and just so many kids that need somewhere to go either temporarily or forever. And so anyway we just dove headlong into that ministry and we ended up adopting four kids.
Pedro: Mm-hmm.
Kris Redus: out of foster care and we just really felt like we're musicians, like we don't have a whole lot to ⁓ bring to the world in various ways, but like we can write songs about this experience and we can just like hopefully put some music out there that is inspiring to other people who have been down this road and need to feel seen ⁓ or to people who are curious about this and want to hear the heart of people who have been in this ministry. Anyway, so we wrote a whole record of songs about it and it was my first real project as a producer. I had been doing a lot of studio drumming for Mason for several years, but this was my first big foray producing a whole project and playing all the instruments and I learned so much about it. ⁓ I had done a lot of songwriting before then, ⁓ but this is where I feel like I really learned how to write songs. And it was just such a fun project to do with my wife. We had always played together, like me accompanying her singing or us leading worship together or stuff like that. But this was a really fun project, taking this kind of thing on together. And it was definitely tough to... ⁓
Pedro: Mmm. Hmm.
Kris Redus: be able to record all the final vocals late night while our are sleeping, ⁓ to bring a whole studio set up at home for a few months. because my studio has always been somewhere else other than in our house. But to be able to get to the finish line of this record, I had to move a whole mobile set up into our house for three months or so and be able to like.
Pedro: Hmm.
Kris Redus: vocalist quietly late at night so we don't wake up kids. ⁓ It was a wild experience. But ⁓ yeah, so fun. Yeah, yeah, and that's out there under the artist's name, Kristen Becker-Reedus, and the record's called Be The Village, Songs of Hope for Foster Care. ⁓ So yeah. So I have a ⁓ big batch of songs that I've written like... ⁓
Pedro: Hehehehehe You learned a lot. That's awesome. That's awesome. So what's next?
Kris Redus: Christian songs either for congregational worship or just more singer-songwriter oriented songs that I'm working through right now, ⁓ releasing on my own. ⁓ I put out a single last month called O Praise the Lily Jesus ⁓ that I'm super pumped about and I've got one coming out in a couple weeks. It's called Empathy and ⁓ definitely like... ⁓ just new territory for me. I've learned so much as a songwriter and a producer and I'm really, really proud of this music and I'm so excited for it to get out there. Like I said, a bigger batch of songs that I'm gonna be chipping away at over the next year. So hopefully in the next year have at least an EP, if not a six, seven song record. I would love to be able to do like a whole full length record, but when I'm still balancing, like, a chunk of my income is working on music for other people, so like, carving out time for my own music is tough. ⁓ Taking the financial hit of not ⁓ playing music and having income coming in, you know, if I'm taking a month to work on my own music, that's not income that's coming in. So it's tough to balance. But ⁓ I have made that a big priority over...
Pedro: Yeah, I feel you, Yeah.
Kris Redus: this year, I'm, and it's just fulfilling in a very different way, like finishing my own music and getting it out there. Yeah, so pumped.
Pedro: Yeah, think everybody wants to eventually put something out that they've rode top to bottom and then not because like I want to people to see what I can do by myself, but mostly just like to put your own ideas out there because sometimes you're in a band with people like your ideas get shut down or.
Kris Redus: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pedro: people are not even shut down at the end of the day the song just kind of becomes something else right so it's really fun to write something that you've imagined top to bottom and just hoping other people like it too you know
Kris Redus: Yeah, yeah, totally. And what's been kind of new for me on these songs is bringing in more collaboration. ⁓ If I have a toxic trait as a producer, it's being a little too micromanaging over my own music. I'm not like that when I'm working on other people, but when it comes to my own music, I kind of have every detail sculpted out the way that I want it to be. And I know that even if I'm not the best, you know,
Pedro: Mm-hmm.
Kris Redus: electric guitar player in the world, still, can chip away at it long enough and I can get it the way that I hear it in my head. But I have been like just biting the bullet and bringing in other people in the process and it's been really rewarding. So there's, I'm still playing most of the things on here ⁓ on these music, but I, in some like very notable ways, I'm bringing in other people and it's bringing a lot of dimension.
Pedro: Yeah.
Kris Redus: to these songs that, like just skill sets that I don't have. Like I brought in somebody on these past two songs. His name's Matt York. He's the professor of woodwinds at A &M Corpus. And I had him play a bunch of different woodwind layers, saxophones and flutes and clarinet and bass clarinet and all kinds of cool stuff that's just like this whole other rich layer to my music. And then a friend of mine from college that's writing
Pedro: Yeah, that's so cool.
Kris Redus: string arrangements and yeah, it's like I'm definitely seeing the benefit of branching out and bringing in other people here. So that's been really fun as well.
Pedro: Thanks, man. Well, I just want to say thank you for doing this. You spoke about how you have to you chip away time to write your own music and work on, you know, work on projects to bring income. And here you are taking time to come talk to me. So I appreciate that. I know your kids are probably going to either either up already or they're going to be up here in a little bit. ⁓ It's Saturday. So who knows? Right. They could wake up. Yeah, we're to go see who's up and see who's ready to eat some breakfast. But thank you so much.
Kris Redus: Yeah. Yeah! Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna go see who's up. Mm hmm. Exactly. Yeah.
Pedro: This was really fun dude, I hope to see you out and about again. ⁓ Maybe catch you on a show with two jammed together, it'd be really fun. Alright brother, I appreciate you, thanks so much. You too, bye bye.
Kris Redus: Yeah, sure man. Totally, love that. All right, have good rest of day.
Kris Redus: Hahaha equivalent of that is, ⁓ my studio just one room. And so, ⁓ so I ever ⁓ do like any recording or anything with my monitors on. always in ⁓ And so whenever an artist is over here and... And we record something and then want to take headphones off and just turn the speakers on and listen to it and just be able to talk easier and stuff like that. I'm always so afraid and I've done it on a good handful of occasions where I'm gonna forget to turn the speakers back off when we're doing the next take and then their vocal has all kinds of ridiculous bleed from the speakers on it and if you have headphones on, you won't notice that it's doing that.
Pedro: Mmm.
Kris Redus: And you may go through all these takes and get great, great stuff. And then you go back and you listen and be like, ⁓ my god, this is unusable. Terrible.
Pedro: Speaking of studios and stuff, ⁓ we have a mutual friend, which is Mr. Mason Shirley. He's the one that told me about you. So I want to thank Mason for reaching out because man, I was doing some, you know, some research on you and you got some really interesting stuff. But first I want to talk about it's seven o'clock in the morning. And you told me, which is fine because I, this is the usual time I get up to go to work and stuff.
Kris Redus: Yes, yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Pedro: But you told me you're, you're, I guess, most creative, like super early in the morning. Like, how did you figure that out?
Kris Redus: ⁓ Yeah, so it's kind of by necessity. ⁓ So I have six kids and still have a full-time job. I work at Second Baptist Church as the worship leader. So that's my office hours there during the week or nine to five. And so if I'm doing extra music stuff, it's either got to be late at night,
Pedro: Hmm.
Kris Redus: or it's got to be early in the morning. I guess the first few years of being here in town, I tried to get real involved in the music scene and get in with a handful of bands and was doing a lot of gigging in the evenings just to bring in more money because my wife stays at home with the kids. But the downside there was that I just felt like I was always gone and never able to be present with the kids. And so I was getting to a point where I wanted to rework my whole schedule ⁓ so that I could be at home and be more present. And just realizing if I'm going to take time for my own outside music endeavors, it's got to have to be early morning or late at night. And so I just decided I'm going to try the early morning thing. and just got to where I loved it and I can feel a big difference in, I call it like fresh early morning brain or like frantic late night adrenaline brain. And I think those are just two very different head spaces that you're in. ⁓
Pedro: Yeah.
Kris Redus: And I don't know, mean, every once in a while, something like the schedule will lay out such that like, I'll realize, okay, if I'm gonna finish this song this week, it's gonna work better for me to go late at night and not have any kind of cutoff time and just be able to work as late as I need to until I finish the thing. Rather than... being up in the morning and being like, I'm gonna get up before, I'm gonna drink coffee, get going, be getting productive things done by about five. But yeah, usually, yeah, yeah. But then I'm gonna have a hard cutoff time because I just, I make sure that I'm over helping the family get up and eating breakfast with them before I need to head off to the office for the day. the mornings have a cutoff time.
Pedro: And that's what time you get up, right? Four o'clock. And that's when you're up to... ⁓
Kris Redus: which is healthy in a lot of ways because ⁓ it keeps me from overdoing it on a song or what I'm working on. Because getting ear fatigue is a big thing. I can sense whenever I've been working on something too long and I'm losing perspective on it and I need to just come back with fresh ears and I'm gonna have way better ideas. So. ⁓
Pedro: Yeah. So just hit pause, save, walk away, come back.
Kris Redus: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. just sometimes I'll come back to it and I'll realize, okay, the thing I was chasing is not the right direction. Let's re-recalibrate here. that is, I think most of the time that is really helpful for me. And it's just nice to be able to like take it slow. I'll usually start. Morning by just sitting drinking coffee and pulling up some random music to listen to and inevitably that's gonna Be inspiring me towards certain ideas or whatever and and and and it's gonna be that the song I pull up to work on like I'm gonna have different ideas then then if I had like Got the kids down for bed and then rushed over here and be like, okay I'm gonna blast you finish in this song and I'm already in like adrenaline mode
Pedro: Hmm. Cause you're also like, man, it's getting so late. I need to go to bed.
Kris Redus: You know, what we're Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So I just love the feeling of taking it slow and everything's so peaceful and quiet in the mornings. Yes, absolutely.
Pedro: Hm ⁓ Early morning clarity. That's awesome, man. That's cool. I don't ever remember like getting up at four o'clock in the morning to do something. But you know, you might be on to something.
Kris Redus: That didn't used to be, for sure.
Pedro: You might be onto something. I may give it a go. Like I have a little studio here, but this is like a straight up just a home thing, right? I do it by myself. know, but I did record ⁓ my band's album here, Seattle Rising. We did like an original stuff and it was just all here, know, my guitars and then we sent it out to a studio ⁓ to get everything like mixed right.
Kris Redus: Uh-huh. Yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Nice, yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Pedro: It's kind of one of those things where the studio was like, hey, if you're going to do this by yourself, like do it by yourself. Get all your tones. Like, don't come ask me for the tones. Just like, I would just like put the finishing touches on it. Do you prefer doing that too? Or do you prefer working? ⁓ Like if somebody is going to send something to you, do you prefer them to make all those creative decisions before it gets to you? Or do you like prefer doing it from scratch with somebody? Are you open to doing something like that? Like how does that process work for you?
Kris Redus: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I work with people on all those different levels. A ⁓ lot of what I do is remote drum tracking. So somebody will send me a song, and they'll tell me any ideas that they have as far as drums. Like they might send me a reference song and be like, I really like the drum vibe on this song.
Pedro: Mmm.
Kris Redus: And then I'll just on my own time, I'm going just pull it up and listen and create drums and record it all and then send them an mp3 of the whole thing and say, OK, here's my idea. Let me know what you think. You me to change anything or do you like it as is? And I'll go back and do another pass if they want some changes. And then at the end of it, then I'm going send them all of the individual mic channels. And then they can do with that what they will. That can be as bare bones as somebody from their bedroom. What they send me is just a rough mix of their vocal and their acoustic guitar. Or it might be a producer who has worked up a... They might be basically finished with the song, ⁓ but they just have programmed drums in there and I'm coming as one of the very last things I'm going to replace their programmed drums.
Pedro: Mmm.
Kris Redus: So, ⁓ and it can be anywhere in between those two ends of the spectrum.
Pedro: Do you find it comical when somebody has programmed drums like that? Or you just see it as part of the writing process?
Kris Redus: No, it's just totally normal. I get it, from a producer perspective, you need to have some kind ⁓ of reference for what the drums are bringing to the song, ⁓ at least in a placeholder kind of way. ⁓ really, my perspective on like... when you should do the drums is changed a lot over the years. I think whenever I started, I guess I always had heard the mentality that the drums are like the first thing you want to record. And then everything else builds off of that and can line up timing-wise. There's definitely something huge to be said for that approach. But there's also a lot of magic in just using some kind of
Pedro: Hmm.
Kris Redus: placeholder at the beginning for your sense of time and then saving drums for a lot later in the process because, and that's definitely the way I do it most of the time whenever I'm doing my own productions. Even if I do, like I don't even know how to program drums, okay? That's not in my wheelhouse at all. But so most of time when I'm doing my own songs, I'll play something on the drums.
Pedro: Okay
Kris Redus: But I know it's like demo, just to line out the timing and get the overall feel there. And I'm going to build out the rest of the arrangement with stuff. But then I'm going to end up wanting to come back later and think like, OK, as the whole song has developed, I'm just wanting to hear different things on the drums that are like really sinking into some aspect of... Just because I'm so big on the drums giving lots of character to the song.
Pedro: Mm-hmm.
Kris Redus: And if I'm playing the drums at the very beginning with, and the music that I'm actually hearing, I'm playing along to is super bare bones. In a lot of ways, I'm kind of just guessing as to what the full thing is going to end up sounding like. So when I get to that end perspective, that perspective obviously has changed because I've added so many different things.
Pedro: As you should. Mm-hmm.
Kris Redus: And so I'm going to end up, it's not uncommon for on my own songs for me to retract the drums like two or three different times because I end up having new ideas at the end of it. So yeah.
Pedro: So how do you keep yourself from like stopping from like over analyzing it? Like when do you know like, okay, enough is enough. Like I've been working on this for five months. I've re-recorded this drum like six or seven times. Like how do know enough is enough?
Kris Redus: You know, honestly, that's a battle with every song. And I think... That is definitely one of the big struggles with working largely on my own as a producer. And it's something that is not as much of a struggle whenever in person in the studio, if it's with Mason or somebody else, part of the magic of going to a studio and collaborating with people in real time. is that you're all vibing off of each other and you land on a decision and you all just kind of know, okay, this is right and we're gonna go with this and you're not even gonna give yourself the option of second guessing it later on down the road. And it's just like, you could sit there and endlessly keep trying ideas but part of the magic and of like paying, there's an artist paying for studio time, you're on the clock.
Pedro: Mm-hmm.
Kris Redus: You've got to reach a decision, you've got to just commit and move on and know that your decision in that moment was the right thing. So when you're working totally on your own, you don't have all those same constraints like making you commit to a decision. So that can be a major pitfall. But I always have this balance of like, ⁓ do work so much for other people. I've got a whole queue right now of other songs for other artists that I need to be tracking. ⁓ It's kind of a big deal if I'm gonna set aside time to work on my own music. I know I can't spend too long on it. If I do...
Pedro: Mmm.
Kris Redus: that's other paying clients money that's not coming in. So that's just like a hard practical constraint that does kind of keep me from going on too long. But in general, I do end up spending a very long time on my songs, but it's just chipping out a way at it little by little as I can fit time in the schedule.
Pedro: Sure. So. So when you're doing like your own song, you basically like you can handle the drums, you do the piano, you do guitars, you do vocals, you do the production, you do... So like how do you... How do you switch between those hats all the time? Because like you're doing the drums, right? Because that's your like your main thing. So how do you know like you're not overdoing it on the piano? How you know you're not overdoing it on the guitar, on the vocals?
Kris Redus: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So in a lot of ways, it kind of feels like one thing. ⁓ think being a songwriter and a producer, that gives me a certain perspective no matter what instrument I'm playing. it's just kind of a whole ⁓ head space. Whenever I'm playing the drums,
Pedro: Hmm.
Kris Redus: I'm still trying to think more in terms of like, what is the big picture of the song need? And I'm trying really hard to not get... so into all the little nerdy details of the drums that I'm losing perspective on what really matters for the song. And it would be really easy to overdo and overplay on all of the little drum details and then realize later on, didn't leave myself any space to really do anything on other instruments. So, so.
Pedro: you
Kris Redus: always keeping that producer perspective. well, and like as I'm playing the drums, I'm also, there's part of my brain that's thinking like, okay, this is the pattern I'm playing and this is what I'm gonna want the bass to do interacting with this back beat. yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, as I'm workshopping ideas, I just, this is the way my brain thinks. Like I'm playing something on the drums.
Pedro: Hmm so you kind of have like a basic layout in your head so then as you track and you just kind of
Kris Redus: and that just implies a lot of different things on other instruments. And so it's like I'm committing to a whole arrangement decision with this idea. And then I might hear it back, and even though those other things aren't there, like I'm still imagining them in my head. And I might figure out right away, okay, I don't like how this is laying out with the vocal. Let's try a whole different arrangement decision. ⁓ So it definitely like, It all kind of is the same thing whenever you're ⁓ thinking like a producer. And I've heard enough session musicians that I really look up to express that to some extent or another, like the best session players are always thinking like a producer. Like even when you're not producing, but somebody's bringing you in to just play on their song. They're bringing you in because they... they're gonna trust you to serve the song. And so you're really trying to, ⁓ even if it's your first time hearing the song, and I've gotta come up with something to play, in like 30 seconds, I'm trying to get inside that songwriter's head and that producer's head and come up with stuff like that. I'm trying to very quickly immerse myself into their vision and think, okay, if I'm... imagining this musical idea like several steps ahead of where it is right now. Like what does my intuition say needs to happen here? And it's not just that like, ⁓ this would be cool on the drums, but like here's the big musical picture that needs to happen. Okay, what do the drums need to do to get it there? Yeah.
Pedro: So it's not so much about just trying to be flashy for the sake of being flashy. It's more about what helps the song move forward.
Kris Redus: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, very much most of the time it's a less is more. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Being a session player will teach you to lose the ego real, real fast. ⁓ Because it's so rare that anybody wants anything like super intense or technical. ⁓ There are definitely times whenever
Pedro: So sometimes you got to keep your own ego in check then. Sure.
Kris Redus: whenever people will be like, I want you to just bring it on this last chorus and like have lots of wild crazy stuff. And it's like, okay, I've got to be able to pull off this kind of stuff like in one take and not mess it up. Okay, so now I'm drawing on all of my years of like nerdy technique stuff. you, you.
Pedro: Sure. Have you ever had like a crazy ⁓ request like, man, I'm writing this worship song and right here when this bridge hits, I want you to think you're Danny Carey from Tool and just go crazy. Like have you ever had anything like ridiculous like that?
Kris Redus: Every once in a while, I mean, I've never had the tool reference, but I've definitely had references like, I need you to sound like Darren King from Mute Math, or like, This needs to be a total Travis Barker thing here because I don't know. That's the fun part about working with like indie artists who aren't on a big label and who don't have like very strict parameters of like what is acceptable in this genre. Like they can get away with doing whatever they want in their song. And so it's especially when you get people who are like coming in really creative.
Pedro: sure. Sure.
Kris Redus: It's so fun working with an artist who has a lot of vision on their own as opposed to just being, oh yeah, whatever you want to play, it's okay, man. But like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so yeah, sometimes you'll have some pretty wild requests come in for like, I want something in this vibe or this vibe. And that's what keeps it so fun.
Pedro: So some sort of direction is good. Sure.
Kris Redus: Because it's always different. You never know what you're going to end up being asked to play.
Pedro: So you're having like all these like different requests like so how do you like how do you do that tone chasing in 2026 when it's just like sometimes just so easy to just go digital and just get like a sample or something like that so how long do you spend on trying to find the right drum sounds in this modern day age where everything's just kind of in the palm of your hand?
Kris Redus: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's a big deal to me. And one of the things that I've kind of just tried to make as a little niche for myself is like, I want to be the tone guy. And so I've just spent years and years and years learning to tune drums and learning to try to replicate sounds off of different records. And whenever somebody gives me a reference, for ⁓ like, I want the drums like the vibe on this song. I know that a big, like one of the big things about what they like about that is the drum sounds. It's not just the things that the person is playing on that recording, but it's like the way that the drums sound and what that aspect is bringing to the mix. ⁓ And so like square one of that is, okay, let me get my drums and that. ballpark of tone. then, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm pulling different kick drums, different snares, different cymbals, ⁓ the whole big thing. I mean, obviously I ⁓ a ⁓ collection of drums and sounds that are really like kind of tailored to my certain
Pedro: But then you're switching like drum pieces around. Are you like researching what kind of drums they use, heads?
Kris Redus: tastes. And so there's a lot of sounds that I just don't particularly enjoy, like super bright piercing rock sounds. That's not my thing. So I don't have many drums and cymbals that do things in that vein, but people don't really come to me for that. But most other types of drum sounds, I can be able to capture almost anything. somebody needs. And so yeah, I'm changing out drums, doing lots of fast re-tuning and the dampening is a huge part of getting different drum sounds. it might be that like I'm just putting a little bit of tape or I'm using studio rings or I'm putting towels over the drums or like all of this stuff just sounds different. And I'm getting a lot better at
Pedro: Hmm.
Kris Redus: hearing a drum sound on a recording and I can come up with a pretty good guess of what kind of dampening they're using to shape those tones and be able to capture sounds like that pretty quickly. ⁓
Pedro: ⁓ okay. That's pretty cool. Do you have like a secret weapon there in the studio that you always go to when you're having a hard time either figuring something out or you need that one sound and the customer's not really having it? He's like, you know what, let me get this. ⁓
Kris Redus: Yeah Yeah, hold up. I've one of my secret weapons that just works way more often is these towels. These are literally from AutoZone. They're like leather towels that you get for like, I guess wiping down a windshield or like a car finish or whatever. You can wash them yourself. They come in these big sheets and so I just cut them to various sizes.
Pedro: ⁓ my god, I love this. Please explain.
Kris Redus: But they just sound so good on the drums. I'll place it over the entire drum head, or I might fold it in half and just take a binder clip and clip it over the edge, just covering one inch of the drum head or something like that. And I'll hold it there and I'll play the drum and I'll listen to the sustain or the character of it. And I'll think, OK, it needs to be shorter. I'm going to scoot this a little bit more toward the middle and then play and listen right there.
Pedro: you
Kris Redus: I have this big duffel bag that I bring with me to every session and it's got just tons of towels and tambourines and shakers and whatnot, but a lot of it is just various dampening devices. You could put a bandana, just a standard bandana over the drum and... It's gonna sound a certain way. I think it's gonna end up sounding kind of thin, but then you put one of these towels over and it's just thicker and there's like this, the leather kind of texture on it. It just brings out this warm, fuzzy resonance out of the drum that is just magical. yeah.
Pedro: This is kind of like what I was talking to Mason about, like trying to keep the human feel and human creativity always in your recordings that it's like I told him like there's a certain point. ⁓ So like I'm a rock guy. Like I listen to a lot of rock music, but I listen to everything. There was a certain point, and I don't know when that point started, that all the rock bands started to sound the same.
Kris Redus: Uh-huh. Yeah, man. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Pedro: the guitar tones, the drum tones, the bass tones, the way that they're singing, like the vocal chains. Like, I just don't know what it is, but it's starting to sound the same. And I just really haven't, or maybe I'm just not doing enough. It could be that too, right? I'm not perfect. Maybe I'm just not doing enough research and finding bands that I really like. But I think after a while, you know, how convenient some of the stuff is, and I'm not knocking anybody that uses plugins and stuff like that, because I use plugins in the Seattle Rising record, right?
Kris Redus: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sure.
Pedro: We have a very distinct sound, 90s grunge and post grunge alternative rock. So I just happened to own Neuro DSP plugins and they have the Soldano amp plugin and they have Tom Morello's 90s plugin that sounds like Rage Against the Machine. So I just blended those two together and then boom 90s guitar sound, right? So nothing wrong about that. Oh, that's a great one.
Kris Redus: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. nice. ⁓ huh. have Cory Wong's ⁓ Neural Guitar Plugin that I'll use quite a bit. Mm-hmm.
Pedro: Yeah, I have a relationship with Neuro that honestly I don't want my wife to find out I have this relationship with Neuro because I think she will divorce me. But sometimes just sitting in a studio with a real amp and a real cab, you have this feeling and then being able to dial stuff in with your own fingers, there's that human touch. ⁓
Kris Redus: ⁓ mercy. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Pedro: responsive, you know, just being responsive to the touch that says something that creates something special like the albums from the 60s and the 50s and the 70s and the 80s and the 90s. Right? So like, how do you, how do you always, how do you like, how do you try to capture that magic? Cause I mean, you just said it with the little towel, right? I don't know if I asked, I don't know if I asked the AI, Hey, how do I get this? Like, what do you think? It's not going to send me to auto zone to buy that. Right? So
Kris Redus: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ I, just, I saw another, one of my favorite drummers like recommend those and I was like, ⁓ my gosh, I gotta do that. But in general, ⁓ yeah, I think the, just one of the, one of the goals that, that, that you just gotta have today, like more than any other time in music history, I think is this like relentless quest to be unique and human. ⁓ Especially with all the AI stuff. If the goal is to sound more massive than the next band... like massive and clean and like to have the most perfect stadium filling rock tones ever. Like, sorry, AI can do that better. ⁓ Or if I want the most perfect clean pop drum sound, AI can do it better than I can do. But if the goal is to be of weird and quirky and unique and you know I can come up with stuff that AI is not going to come up to and like it might be ⁓ like it might not be as perfect and classic sounding but it's going to be unique and interesting and I think in our day and age like that's more valuable and that's why you would choose to bring a real human on your song rather than just saying, hey, Suno, create me the perfect rock drum sound for this. It's going to come up with something that sounds amazing, but is it going to feel unique and creative? is it going to give you this feeling of, my gosh, that brings a whole other dimension to this song that I never would have.
Pedro: Mm.
Kris Redus: landed on and that's going to make me have all kinds of different decisions down the road. I mean, yeah, I don't know. I just think... And we can't be chasing perfect anymore because AI has that on block. So now the goal is just to be more fearlessly creative and weird and quirky.
Pedro: I mean, how impressive it is to listen to some of these bands in the 60s and the 70s playing so perfect without a click, just being good musicians, right? Just.
Kris Redus: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. Well, and in a lot of ways, they're not perfect. Like, you hear their tempo wavering like crazy, or you might hear notes that were like, shanked a little bit or whatever, but that's just part of the magic. Like, it's not perfect, but there's so much intensity and there's so much emotion and so much like, rawness there that, you you hear stuff that's like,
Pedro: Right. And that's what made the song the song.
Kris Redus: every note is perfect and it's perfectly on the grid. it's just, it doesn't have the same soul or punch that classic recordings did and that's a big part of it. ⁓
Pedro: Sometimes just stuff you can't teach to, right? It's just something that maybe like you just kind of like have within you sometimes.
Kris Redus: Yeah, I think a lot of that just comes down to musical intuition that you're drawing like when you're working on a song and you're making really quick decisions about what needs to happen in this layer or that layer. Really like the biggest thing that you're drawing on is your lifetime's worth of music listening and how much time you've spent poring over this record or that record, ⁓ all of your lifetime worth of studying music is all coming to bear in this moment when you're creating something here because I might be thinking like, okay, this song is totally giving me vibes from this other song and this song and maybe a little bit of this song and so I'm like, split second my brain is pulling all of these different references in and I'm creating something that's kind of pulling in from all of them but being its own unique thing. And I think everybody to some degree, even if you're not recording, maybe you're just coming up with an arrangement for your band, you're drawing on, even if it's at a deep subliminal level, this song kind of sounds like these other songs from my favorite artists.
Pedro: you
Kris Redus: And so the things that you're deciding to play are kind of in the vein of this other thing that is in the back of your mind. And so I think we're all doing that in some way or another. ⁓
Pedro: How you keep yourself from ⁓ tastefully stealing instead of just straight up plagiarism from your favorite bands and sounds?
Kris Redus: Well, that's always a hard line to walk to. I've heard this quote my whole life. I don't know who it's attributed to, but good artists borrow, great artists steal. And I think the heart of that is getting it like. Find something you love that a total master has done and figure out to the very best of your ability how to copy that and try to get in that person's head and just get so the closest that you can possibly achieve to sounding like that person. ⁓ Yes, absolutely. ⁓
Pedro: And it will 100 % make you a better musician too, for sure.
Kris Redus: that's just gonna immerse itself into your musical DNA and then when you're creating something on your own, it's gonna be uniquely your own, but it's gonna be very informed by all those different things that you have spent the time working on a study. So, oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, totally. Whenever, and I grew up,
Pedro: And what a great compliment, right, for you. Somebody's like, man, this sounds like, this sounds like, you know, this band, like you wrote this.
Kris Redus: Like my formative years as a musician in high school, I was in a punk rock band with two of my best friends. And so ⁓ I was just obsessed with Travis Barker and Blink-Wanute too at the time. And I had so many Blink records just memorized note for note on the drums. yeah. I mean, I'd...
Pedro: Such a good drummer.
Kris Redus: really like my musical tastes have evolved like so much since then but but but like that's just where like you know whenever we were writing songs as a band like I ended up I think without even realizing it I totally ripped off like so many Travis Barker drum parts ⁓ but but just because that was where my head was at and I had spent so much time like pouring over and learning his drum parts that whenever I went to create my own, they ended up sounding like almost note for note like this song or that song of theirs. But it's like, I think as the years went on, I was able to do it in a more authentic way to where I could pull in lots of bits of that vocabulary, but then still end up coming up with things that felt unique to me. ⁓
Pedro: Mm-hmm.
Kris Redus: And so I'm big on the idea of like, when I'm working on song, I may be very obviously trying to channel a particular drummer and trying to think like, what would Steve Jordan play on this song? And that's absolutely the vibe that the song needs. So like, I'm going to try to do my best Steve Jordan impression here.
Pedro: So you're kind of creating a persona for you to embody when you're...
Kris Redus: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And inevitably, I'm not gonna end up sounding like Steve Jordan. I'm gonna end up sounding like me, but me trying to get in somebody else's head, who in my brain is just like the perfect exemplification. I don't think that's real word, I don't know. But like the perfect example of this particular vibe that the song needs. Like that's the hitspace I need to be in. So yeah.
Pedro: So whenever earlier when you're you're saying like you're drawn from like your years of studying music and listening to music you went to school for music right you went to painting for Howard Payne University is that correct? And then you got a master's in
Kris Redus: Mm-hmm. Yes, My bachelor's... Yeah, yeah. My bachelor's is from Howard Payne University and I studied like classical percussion. And then my master's is from Southwestern Seminary. It was just school for ministry, but at that time they had a jazz studies concentration that she could be in. So I got to study with an... incredible jazz drummer. ⁓ Yeah, yeah, so I'm very much coming from a studied music perspective, but also like... at the core of my DNA, like, I still grew up learning rock songs by ear and stuff, so I'm definitely not like a... stiff ⁓ classical musician. I appreciate that world and I love music theory and stuff, but I'm still very much like a by ear, ⁓ played by field guy.
Pedro: Sure. Yeah. That's Did that like going to to get your masters out of that influence you in any way to pursue that world after you graduated to go into church ministry music like in that? OK.
Kris Redus: Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ Yeah, I knew, well, so when I started college, I thought I was on track to be a band director or like a percussion director at a bigger high school that could sustain a full-time percussion guy. ⁓ But then ⁓ senior year, so, but I had always been involved in ⁓ music ministry at any church that I had been in.
Pedro: Hmm.
Kris Redus: like playing drums or guitar or like playing and singing or whatnot. That has just been a huge part of my life. Yeah, for sure, for sure. ⁓ And ⁓ so summer before my senior year of college, was leading music for a children's camp ⁓ at a Christian camp. And I just felt like God was telling me this is actually the path that... ⁓
Pedro: So you kind of grew up in that environment.
Kris Redus: that I'm supposed to be on. And so I switched up my degree plan a little bit. I told my wife, we were just dating at that point, but I told her, I don't think I'm actually supposed to be a band director. I think I'm supposed to go into ministry. And she was like, well, duh, I've been telling you that for years. And he wouldn't listen to me. So yeah, she was right.
Pedro: So that's when you knew she was the right one.
Kris Redus: But yeah, so then I went to school for ministry and I was so insane, just realizing like, I am so not cut out to be in a classroom of kids. I mean, I love kids, but I am not good at managing a whole room full of wild kids. So.
Pedro: ⁓ man, you're telling me. I'm a soccer coach. got about 16 of them I have to keep in check.
Kris Redus: I just, my brain will get overloaded so fast with that. Yeah.
Pedro: just full of energy and I mean have my son is 12, I coach his soccer team so there's about 16 boys there and then this year my daughter's coach fell through so I'm coaching the eight-year-olds so yeah talk about patience.
Kris Redus: Uh-huh. Yeah. ⁓ man, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I love soccer, so I know. ⁓ But I am too nice to manage a room full of kids, because at a certain point, you gotta just lay down the law. And ⁓ can't. I know. I can't do it.
Pedro: Hmm. Yeah. They'll walk all over you, That's funny. by going back to like your ⁓ writing music for church and all that, like what's the biggest challenge you have of making, translating these words that are changed so many people's lives. Words are like really old and ancient. They have a lot of history behind it. How do you get that? How do you change that to inspire you to write songs for in this modern day era, even though of
Kris Redus: ⁓ yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.
Pedro: you know, just like a modern congregation, like how to make that feel fresh for people that are going to church.
Kris Redus: Yeah, well, so I love the challenge of taking a concept or like ⁓ a scripture verse and trying to come up with a melody and a way to present it that feels unique and compelling. ⁓ a huge part of what you're trying to do whenever you're writing for a congregation is sing. ⁓ is it's gotta be like compelling and intuitive. You when you're writing for yourself as a solo singer, songwriter or whatever, like you're, you're, you kind of have just like a, ⁓ a blank canvas and you could come up with anything and as long as it feels unique and it lays out well for your voice, then it feels good. But, but when you're writing for a big group of people to all sing together, that puts a tighter set of parameters around it. I'm a person who can get overwhelmed by the number of options that I could do, so I appreciate having some really tight boundaries. I'm trying to think of things that are a little bit more spacious and open. ⁓ And like rhythmically, it needs to be simple enough that people can predict where it's gonna go and they can all, like if it's super syncopated and the melody is kinda jumping all over the place, then if a big group of people try to start singing it all at once, they're not gonna be able to do it, they're not gonna be able to sync up. But if it's like very predictable and you can tell where the melody is gonna go,
Pedro: Mm-hmm.
Kris Redus: and you just, kind of have this innate sense about what's coming next and it's always a good market. Like by the time I get to the end of the chorus, people are already singing along, then they're like, I know, okay, this is intuitive. They can tell where it's going. This is great.
Pedro: Which is like you've done a great job if you're doing that because the whole purpose is unity, right?
Kris Redus: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. ⁓ The entire goal is to be able to give people a chance to sing together and unify an expression of worship to the Lord. And so I don't want my writing of the song to make it harder for them to do that. I'm trying to set them for success and be able to get to that goal sooner. And so then the challenge is to... write things that have an intuitive quality to them but that also feel fresh and unique. Because I spent so much time ⁓ pouring over these classic hymns that people from all kinds of different church backgrounds, there's a certain ⁓ collection of hymns or older songs that have been used in worship that so many people know. And so you're analyzing and you're drawing on those and thinking, okay, what makes this so rich and why have people continued to want to sing these songs for hundreds of years? There's some quality about these melodies and these words that really resonate with people. And so I want to try to get to the heart of those qualities and bring them into my own writing. But it's very easy. to come up with things that sound very unoriginal. You can tell exactly where they're going. I know where this is going and this is not fresh. It doesn't move me at all because it doesn't feel new. That challenge is just really exciting to me.
Pedro: Sure. Mm-hmm. So you want to add some? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I bet when that pays off, you know, that's you know, you've done well.
Kris Redus: Yeah, yeah, for sure. And there's definitely been times where something I've written I was super excited about and then I bring it in front of the congregation to sing it and it's like nobody gets it. And by the end of it, I'm thinking, okay, this either, I just need to scrap this idea or it needs to go back to the drawing board and like try to figure out what about this is not intuitive. it's so like, I don't know, any songwriter whatever kind setting they're writing for. They'll tell you, the real litmus test is when you perform it in front of people, how does it land? And especially whenever you're trying to get other people to sing it, you know right away whether it's landing, whether they're getting it and they're participating along, or if it's fallen flat. And just the more times that you do it, ⁓ the better sense you have in the writing phase of whether people are gonna get this or not. And it's just incredibly valuable to show it and get feedback from different people and get people's gut reaction to it. Is this really intuitive? Can I tell, do I understand this from the get go or are they getting to the end feeling like, okay.
Pedro: Hmm.
Kris Redus: What is
Pedro: How many people do you show the songs to before you take it to the congregation and play it and have them learn it?
Kris Redus: ⁓ Well, it's, ⁓ you know, most of the time if it's, because my schedule for writing something will a lot of times be like, I know that we're gonna be singing this, I mean that we're supposed to use something in worship from this particular psalm. ⁓ Like this week it's Psalm 115. And like I know for months that that, that scripture is coming up on this Sunday. And so I need to figure out some way to use this in our worship. And so I'm looking ahead and I'm thinking, like, I don't try to write something every week, but it's a nice challenge ⁓ whenever I'll read through something and be like, okay, I can definitely write something from this. Let's do it. And so a lot of times I'm starting something the week before. kicking around some ideas, but I'm really finalizing it on Monday or Tuesday of that week. And then I have a Wednesday night rehearsal with my team. So a lot of times that's the, like I'm showing real people in a real room ⁓ this for the first time and I'm kind of gauging on their reactions. are my musicians getting this from the beginning? And did they have a sense like,
Pedro: Hmm.
Kris Redus: Are my vocalists able to sing? Are they able to find harmonies? And are my musicians able to find something really quickly that makes sense to play? Or is everybody really struggling with this, like knowing where to fit in with it? And if they're struggling, then that tells me, okay, that's probably gonna be that the people in the congregation are also gonna struggle. And so I need to rethink a lot of this and try to make some tweaks before Sunday comes. ⁓ so, yeah.
Pedro: Hmm And I guess that's the part that we talked about earlier about keeping your ego in check too.
Kris Redus: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Pedro: They are not getting this. This is such a good song.
Kris Redus: Yeah, yeah, nobody's... Yeah, right, right, right. If I'm trying to impress people with my fancy ⁓ cerebral writing, but it's not actually resonating with anybody, that's... And there's definitely been...
Pedro: Can't you tell I've dampened this with a towel from AutoZone? Come on.
Kris Redus: ⁓ Somehow all these different things relate in my brain. yeah, yeah, yeah. It definitely makes you be in this mindset that as a musician, you're here to serve the moment. And I think that's a big thing that just kind of permeates everything that I do musically. in worship, I'm here to serve this moment, to help everybody be able to sing together, to let these ⁓ scriptural truths that we're focusing on, let these resonate in people's hearts, and in the clearest way that I can. And so, if I'm arranging songs with our band, or if I'm writing something, I'm trying to let this come about in this fresh way, and to... You know, of course I'm bringing my artistry into it, but my artistry is not the goal. I want it to be like freshly intuitive and not with people come away thinking like, ⁓ Priscilla's such a great writer or whatever. Like I'm wanting to people to come away thinking like, wow, this scripture that we focused on, like this really came alive for me in a way that I hadn't thought of it before.
Pedro: Hmm.
Kris Redus: Like that's the end goal that I want. ⁓ Yeah.
Pedro: So do you kind of like try to intentionally steer the church's music in a certain direction or just like it's just whatever comes comes?
Kris Redus: Yeah, I've definitely, ⁓ I have kind of honed this artistic vision for our music over the years. ⁓ And it's really just like, based on ⁓ the culture of our people and the culture of the musicians that I have. ⁓ think if you turn on Christian radio, there's a very particular sound that most of these hit songs have. And it's largely because everything that you hear on Christian radio is coming from one of four big megachurch organizations who are putting out. music and it just happens to be that everybody on the globe like loves this music but it's kind of a weird bizarre thing in the Christian music world that like every virtually every hit song is coming from one of these four places and so therefore the the the kind of the pressure that all church musicians feel across the globe is to sound like
Pedro: Hmm.
Kris Redus: one of these other churches. And at the end of the day, it's like I God brought this group of people here to this church for a specific reason. And I don't think it was for us to try to sound like some other church. I think it was for us to try to sound like us and be able to give our community a musical offering that feels unique to us. so I spend a lot more time in the like... the folk music world, the singer-songwriter Americana kind of world. And there are a lot of artists, like artists writing Christian music and music for congregational worship that is more in the folk singer-songwriter kind of vein. ⁓ And it doesn't make it on the most popular radio. ⁓
Pedro: Mm-hmm.
Kris Redus: playlists and whatnot, but it's still incredible music. And so that's a lot of the music that I will pull in is more in that vein. And most of everything that I write is definitely trying to take ⁓ folk music and like...
Pedro: And these are decisions you're making as a worship leader, right? These are the kind of day to day decisions you have to make.
Kris Redus: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. And as far as like what songs are we going to sing and when I'm arranging, yeah, yeah, yeah, when I'm rehearsing our band and I'm kind of shaping these arrangements, I'm not using a like, like the classic.
Pedro: The songs, the styles, like all of that.
Kris Redus: Christian radio approaches, there is very much this massive stadium rock kind of sound. ⁓ But I don't really have any players in my church who can get those sounds. So I have a lot more players that are maybe older or they're just more versed in like singer, songwriter, folk music. Yeah, right. If I had a different...
Pedro: So it also comes down to the human material you have too.
Kris Redus: set of musicians, my sonic goals would be very different. at the end of the day, I want the way that our music sounds to feel really unique to us. And I don't ever want to come off sounding like we're trying too hard to be something that we're not. And we're just coming off sounding really cringy. ⁓ Because I think you can get
Pedro: Mm hmm. This is some great advice for up and coming, like people that want to become worship leaders.
Kris Redus: Yeah, I mean even from just a, ⁓ not even in a church setting, I'm sure you've seen bands playing live where you think like, ⁓ they're trying way too hard to be something that they're not. ⁓
Pedro: Yeah, it just doesn't feel authentic.
Kris Redus: And yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And so maybe our authentic doesn't look anything like the church down the street's authentic. And that's great. I love it. So.
Pedro: Yeah. You know, like you're talking about, you know, God had a purpose of bringing this particular people to this particular church in this point in time. But like I've, I've read that you've played in some incredible places. Like you played a Carnegie Hall. Is that correct? Yeah. You've played it. You played in Ukraine at the Lviv Opera House. Like, but why, why do you choose Corpus? Like why Corpus?
Kris Redus: ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Well, just, ⁓ I think God very clearly called my family here to this church and the Second Baptist Church is where I'm at. And we love this church so much. Everyone is so sweet. The staff is great to work with. ⁓ And we just really feel like this is where God has planted me and my ministry. is where he's planted my family. even like, I've had opportunities to do a lot of other cool things musically that are super exciting. this is still where I really feel like God has us as a home base. so yeah, thank you.
Pedro: or lucky for us. To have somebody man as really, I don't even know like exactly to this, you're just full of knowledge man. It's great to have people in the local scene, not just in church scene, but just in music scene in general that has a lot of knowledge. So one of the reasons why I want to talk to you man, like you just, you got so much depth and knowledge. is great. So you and your family are very involved with music as well, right?
Kris Redus: ⁓ ⁓ man, I appreciate that. Thank you.
Pedro: You guys did an album together, is that correct?
Kris Redus: Oh yeah, yeah, we did. So back in 2020, okay, so backstory. We were a foster family for like four years. We originally just had two biological kids of our own, but my wife and I both come from big families with lots of kids. And so we just always kind of knew that we would, that would be our.
Pedro: Okay.
Kris Redus: calling as well and at some point we just felt like God was leading us into the foster and adoption world and just learning more about like what a crazy need there is in that world and just so many kids that need somewhere to go either temporarily or forever. And so anyway we just dove headlong into that ministry and we ended up adopting four kids.
Pedro: Mm-hmm.
Kris Redus: out of foster care and we just really felt like we're musicians, like we don't have a whole lot to ⁓ bring to the world in various ways, but like we can write songs about this experience and we can just like hopefully put some music out there that is inspiring to other people who have been down this road and need to feel seen ⁓ or to people who are curious about this and want to hear the heart of people who have been in this ministry. Anyway, so we wrote a whole record of songs about it and it was my first real project as a producer. I had been doing a lot of studio drumming for Mason for several years, but this was my first big foray producing a whole project and playing all the instruments and I learned so much about it. ⁓ I had done a lot of songwriting before then, ⁓ but this is where I feel like I really learned how to write songs. And it was just such a fun project to do with my wife. We had always played together, like me accompanying her singing or us leading worship together or stuff like that. But this was a really fun project, taking this kind of thing on together. And it was definitely tough to... ⁓
Pedro: Mmm. Hmm.
Kris Redus: be able to record all the final vocals late night while our are sleeping, ⁓ to bring a whole studio set up at home for a few months. because my studio has always been somewhere else other than in our house. But to be able to get to the finish line of this record, I had to move a whole mobile set up into our house for three months or so and be able to like.
Pedro: Hmm.
Kris Redus: vocalist quietly late at night so we don't wake up kids. ⁓ It was a wild experience. But ⁓ yeah, so fun. Yeah, yeah, and that's out there under the artist's name, Kristen Becker-Reedus, and the record's called Be The Village, Songs of Hope for Foster Care. ⁓ So yeah. So I have a ⁓ big batch of songs that I've written like... ⁓
Pedro: Hehehehehe You learned a lot. That's awesome. That's awesome. So what's next?
Kris Redus: Christian songs either for congregational worship or just more singer-songwriter oriented songs that I'm working through right now, ⁓ releasing on my own. ⁓ I put out a single last month called O Praise the Lily Jesus ⁓ that I'm super pumped about and I've got one coming out in a couple weeks. It's called Empathy and ⁓ definitely like... ⁓ just new territory for me. I've learned so much as a songwriter and a producer and I'm really, really proud of this music and I'm so excited for it to get out there. Like I said, a bigger batch of songs that I'm gonna be chipping away at over the next year. So hopefully in the next year have at least an EP, if not a six, seven song record. I would love to be able to do like a whole full length record, but when I'm still balancing, like, a chunk of my income is working on music for other people, so like, carving out time for my own music is tough. ⁓ Taking the financial hit of not ⁓ playing music and having income coming in, you know, if I'm taking a month to work on my own music, that's not income that's coming in. So it's tough to balance. But ⁓ I have made that a big priority over...
Pedro: Yeah, I feel you, Yeah.
Kris Redus: this year, I'm, and it's just fulfilling in a very different way, like finishing my own music and getting it out there. Yeah, so pumped.
Pedro: Yeah, think everybody wants to eventually put something out that they've rode top to bottom and then not because like I want to people to see what I can do by myself, but mostly just like to put your own ideas out there because sometimes you're in a band with people like your ideas get shut down or.
Kris Redus: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pedro: people are not even shut down at the end of the day the song just kind of becomes something else right so it's really fun to write something that you've imagined top to bottom and just hoping other people like it too you know
Kris Redus: Yeah, yeah, totally. And what's been kind of new for me on these songs is bringing in more collaboration. ⁓ If I have a toxic trait as a producer, it's being a little too micromanaging over my own music. I'm not like that when I'm working on other people, but when it comes to my own music, I kind of have every detail sculpted out the way that I want it to be. And I know that even if I'm not the best, you know,
Pedro: Mm-hmm.
Kris Redus: electric guitar player in the world, still, can chip away at it long enough and I can get it the way that I hear it in my head. But I have been like just biting the bullet and bringing in other people in the process and it's been really rewarding. So there's, I'm still playing most of the things on here ⁓ on these music, but I, in some like very notable ways, I'm bringing in other people and it's bringing a lot of dimension.
Pedro: Yeah.
Kris Redus: to these songs that, like just skill sets that I don't have. Like I brought in somebody on these past two songs. His name's Matt York. He's the professor of woodwinds at A &M Corpus. And I had him play a bunch of different woodwind layers, saxophones and flutes and clarinet and bass clarinet and all kinds of cool stuff that's just like this whole other rich layer to my music. And then a friend of mine from college that's writing
Pedro: Yeah, that's so cool.
Kris Redus: string arrangements and yeah, it's like I'm definitely seeing the benefit of branching out and bringing in other people here. So that's been really fun as well.
Pedro: Thanks, man. Well, I just want to say thank you for doing this. You spoke about how you have to you chip away time to write your own music and work on, you know, work on projects to bring income. And here you are taking time to come talk to me. So I appreciate that. I know your kids are probably going to either either up already or they're going to be up here in a little bit. ⁓ It's Saturday. So who knows? Right. They could wake up. Yeah, we're to go see who's up and see who's ready to eat some breakfast. But thank you so much.
Kris Redus: Yeah. Yeah! Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna go see who's up. Mm hmm. Exactly. Yeah.
Pedro: This was really fun dude, I hope to see you out and about again. ⁓ Maybe catch you on a show with two jammed together, it'd be really fun. Alright brother, I appreciate you, thanks so much. You too, bye bye.
Kris Redus: Yeah, sure man. Totally, love that. All right, have good rest of day.
