= Bands Like Rush

Fluttr Effect is a Boston-based prog rock band with an eclectic makeup and interesting history. Founded by main songwriter and guitarist Troy Kidwell – their music draws on some unusual elements: 70s-era prog rock textures and production, jazz & classical instrumentation and arrangement, and tinges of near-eastern folk music – and a little bit of hard-core chops & virtuosity for good measure.

I talked with Troy about the band’s origins, journey to where they are now, and his plans for the future of both Fluttr Effect and his own fledgling career as a producer and record label entrepreneur.

I knew when I started this podcast that I might be stretching it to call every band I interview a “band that sounds like Rush”. Fluttr Effect more straddles the art-rock/classical/jazz crossover areas – more than it sounds like a copy or disciple of Rush. Still, anyone who is drawn to Rush’s core greatness, which is all about great songs, interesting themes, and awesome chops – will appreciate and enjoy Fluttr Effect.

Ben Sommer: Do you want to just maybe start off a little bit about yourself and the band and its history?

Troy Kidwell: Sure, Vessela and I formed Fluttr Effect after a previous project Wave fell apart. They were all Berkelee kids who had then graduated and then moved away. And we were basically wondering what we’re going to do. It was her on vibes – she didn’t really have the electric vibes then – and me on guitar, and we were just jamming in her basement. It turned out that Jason, our drummer, was her roommate and he just came down the basement one night and asked if he could sit in and it was fantastic – and we knew Valerie from previous projects and my original idea was to have a deejay instead of a rhythm section. But the deejays I know were too busy. Then I thought a tuba player would work – because I knew a tuba player; he was too busy.

Ben: You wanted a tuba player???

Troy: He was awesome. He would duct tape an SM-58 to the bell and play it through a Marshall bass stack.

Ben: It sounds fun.

Troy: It was the meanest tuba ever, so I was like, “I want that.” But we eventually settled on Valerie because we were like, “Who else can we call?” Though knew Val and she was a classical player, so we weren’t sure if she was going to dig it. But it turns out she did and we found ways to make it work, so with her, we have the classical thing going. Vessela and she have that in common because they are more classical players. Jay and I are more of the rock players, so it worked out.

Ben: You kind of have an unconventional line-up, so is Val the cello player?

Troy: Yeah

Ben: What’s the rest of the group comprised? Do you guys switch it up or do you have a primary instrument each?

Troy: We have our primary instruments, me on guitar and Jason on drums and Vessela on MIDI marimba and Valerie on cello. But we really don’t have a bass player per se, but we’ve all handled the bass functions. There is a lot of synth bass, a lot of cello. Mostly cello is the bass, but not always. I’ve even cut the baselines for everybody. The guitar through an octave pedal is the bass, so that kind of mix is often used in terms of instrumentation. But other than that, everybody has their primary instrument and I’ve lately been forcing everybody to sing more back-up vocals.

Ben: Oh, good.

Troy: But musicians are scared to sing usually.

Ben: Well, not really. Non-singers are afraid to sing.

Troy: Yeah, well, I mean, you don’t get to be a singer until you sing.

Ben: Yeah. So you’re all “Berkelee Kids”, as you say, but maybe you’re not a kid. Do you work there, is it your day job?

Troy: Yeah, well, my day job is a night job. I supervise a building full of practice basses that Berkelee has and I pretty much hang out and do interviews on Skype and make sure the kids don’t burn the place down and hang out with Berkelee kids all day, or I’ll practice bass maybe.

Ben: Yeah, cool.

Troy: I didn’t actually go to Berkelee. Well, me and Val are old friends. She didn’t go to Berkelee either, but the other three, they all went to Berkelee and knew each other from Berkelee. I didn’t set out to make a band per se. It was just – we were playing and it just sort of most organically grew. We started playing songs I wrote because I had songs written.

Ben: Yeah.

Troy: And Jason is a drummer. He didn’t really write songs. Vess, she composes, but in more of a classical style – film scoring. And Val didn’t really write tunes at that time, so I was the only guy writing tunes so we just ended up playing mostly my tunes. So that’s how we started musically and then it evolved from there, of course. After a few years, I was able to tailor my music to what I had. Now, I learned more about writing for cello, more about writing for marimba and with things Jason would and would not play, with things that the band could and could not play. We can’t really do a super-authentic reggae thing, but we’re working with the limitations. I’m more of a work-with-what-you-got artist rather than “unlimited options” – that would be totally overwhelming for me.

Ben: My favorite Stravinsky quote is something like “Put a stylistic straight-jacket on yourself, so once you concentrate on the idea instead of the style’.

Troy: Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Ben: Say, are you the primary songwriter then?

Troy: Yeah. Val has a couple of tunes and there are a lot of hybrids. We all show up with ideas and then it develops as we bounce it around and rehearse and learn the song and everybody learns their parts. I just try to write as much as they need to figure out what the song is and obviously, when I’m writing a keyboard part or a synth part for Vessela on MIDI marimba, I can’t play as well as she can. My keyboard chops aren’t as good as her marimba chops and it’s kind of different. So I try to write as little as I need to give her the idea for the song and then let her elaborate on it in her marimba way and let Val elaborate on her parts in her cello way and all three of them come up with ideas all the time that I never would have thought of, so it gets arranged by Fluttr Effect after I come in with sometimes with pretty sketchy ideas.

Ben: Yeah, so for the newbies out there that heard you, throw out some names or styles that either you hear people compare you to other bands or artists or that you think your music embodies.

Troy: Well, for me, personally King Crimson is probably my biggest influence. They totally changed everything for me and also John Zorn and Mr. Bungle. That whole idea, I think a lot of my stuff has is blocky in texture, with rapid stylistic changes, and dramatic shifts in texture. Tool, a lot of people compare us to Tool because of the odd time signatures that we’ll do, but that comes from our Balkan background and where Vessela comes in. She’s Bulgarian, so a lot of the more Middle Eastern and Balkan sounds and influences come from her. The band that her and I were in previous to this was a Balkan jazz-rock fusion group, so that’s where I learned to play Bulgarian and Balkan. We had Greeks and Macedonians and Bulgarians in the band that we were in before that, so they gave me a quick tutorial on it and just threw me on the fire and I started running with it.

Ben: What’s the hallmark of the Balkan style? If you are to say one or two things that would strike you with that style of music? Is it the scale? Is it the…

Troy: Yeah, the Balkans are interesting because it’s a middle ground between Western classical and Middle Eastern music. They have a lot of odd time signatures and Middle Eastern modalities, but in terms of structure and song form and stuff, it really has a lot of Western theme, especially the Balkan classical music is like that. We were played folk music. Every mother teaches her kids folk music in Bulgaria. So I guess it’s like learning ‘Blue Grass’ over here or something like that. But from playing that kind of stuff, with the odd time signatures and things are more organic and dance-oriented rather than sort of prog rock mechanical or mathematical sort of things like that.

Over there, they just feel like long and short beats and they jump around in this certain pattern and then it just happens to be a 9-beat pattern or something like that, so I like that a lot when I start getting into that because in the numbers prog rock before that and this opened up a whole world for me of thinking about being able to groove in 7 and 9 and 11 and all that sort of things and how to do it and there is some ideas, and I love that sound, that Balkan and Middle Eastern sound.

So that just carried over into Fluttr from the band previous to that, because that’s just one of the things that we have just been doing for a couple of years with our previous band and musically, that was awesome for me. It was exotic and I was learning new at that time and the band previous to that was our first band with all these Berkelee Cats and I got spoiled. Those guys were amazing. So it’s the enthusiasm for what we were doing before it carried over into Fluttr.

And then once Jay came in, it was 50% rock, 50% classical with some Balkan influence with the whole mix of band changed a bit and it became a little more rock with more of the classical and Balkan influence. That’s where the sound comes from. That’s where our sound evolved. It was a little bit of everybody’s personality fused together. Since we worked, I didn’t go into planning a rock band or anything like that, so it was just 4 people who knew each other and we just sort of put it together with what we had with no intention of being a rock band that’s going to take over the world or anything like that.

Ben: So if you’re the primary songwriter, I’m interested because you’ve got a couple of classical players in the group with some vocal right now, but then you say one of your guys in the band does composing, so what your process is like when you’re composing? So do you give any glimpse into saying you bring a kernel of an idea and leave the players to flush it out. Do you write stuff down on paper?

Troy: I’m not so much a paper guy. I write sketches down. And I have in the past come in with pieces that were written out in detail, but the earlier stuff was more like that. But as we learned to work together in what each other could do, I didn’t have to write all of that anymore. So that was what I’m saying that I just try to write enough for them to get the idea of the song, to get the idea of the part that I want them to play, but the flushing out part is all of that. So the process pretty much is I come in with some sketch and for different songs, there are different amounts of sketch actually, so sometimes it’s just, “I’ve got these 3 chords and here is a cool rhythm. Let’s see what we can do with that.”

And other times, I’ve got everything mapped out in my head and we just sort of expand on that as we’re learning the song because, of course, as soon as I’m teaching them the song, somebody will make a mistake, but we would like that mistake or we’ll immediately hear it’s not working and change the whole thing to minor or whatever we do at the time. Once you get it in the room and 4 people start playing on it, you’ll actually hear what it sounds like as a band as opposed to my drum machine and keyboard at home that I’m writing with. It takes on a life of its own and that’s where everybody’s personality comes in and you can’t really predict where it’s going to go with all of these.

People have thrown ideas at you from 3 directions and often I just let it run in some direction and we’re not afraid to practice the song in a certain way and then just scrap it if we realize that’s a dead end and we don’t really like it. We’ll try this as a funk song for 3 weeks in rehearsal and then decide we hate it and turn it into something else later on, so that’s also part of the learning process.

Ben: Did you do improvisation at all or is it just improvisation is just an element into conjuring up the right arrangement?

Troy: I structure improvisation where it goes and usually how long it goes on. I never wanted us to be like a jazz or jam band or anything like that, but just a sort of show off with solos and stuff and that’s just great. But that’s one of the things I don’t really like a lot about prog music is the wonkiness of it and that’s all great. You know I love chops and stuff like that, but this stuff that sticks with you are great songs and great pieces of music, so I wanted to be more focused on that rather than blazing chops and good solos, which people in this band can do but no one really feels like that kind of player either. I mean, in a way, I’m lucky. That’s what I like because I’m trying to get anybody in this band to play a solo. Sometimes it’s like pulling teeth, especially with Jay. He never wants a drum solo and it’s the opposite of what people usually expect from a prog drummer

Ben: It sounds like you guys are like over-talented people with inferiority complex. They don’t want to sing, they don’t want a solo, come on!

Troy: Well, they wanted to do what they do well and that’s the classical player element with the girls. It’s something you practice and rehearse and it’s structured and you have a very clear idea of what it is that you’re trying to do and achieve, and we have sections where it’s like once this happens, it’s kind of open-ended or the intros open and we try to say we’ll try this idea, but we don’t always have the total idea of how long it’s going to be, when it’s going to end, or what we’re going to do while we’re in it. But usually, in terms of open solos, we’re all pretty conservative. When we do take solos, no one does that 20-minute solo that we have to drag him off stage with the hook to finish. Everyone is pretty good about taking as long as they feel the solo needs without it being overbearing.

Ben: Right.

Troy: And like you said, getting Jay to do solo. He plays great parts. You know he loves to play parts, but trying to do just some flashy solo with chops is tough because he has chops and sometimes I just want that. I want this blazing fill or something like that and I can usually coax it out of somebody then. Sometimes, it’s coaxing. I’m just like, “Come on, you’ve got the chops. Just hit it.”

Ben: I’m curious. You guys have been around for a while. You haven’t achieved superstardom, not that you’re shooting for that. I’m just wondering where you guys want to be, where you thought you’d be, what your ambitions are? I mean, with people I’ve talked to, it runs all the way from a guy we talked last week from this UK band, The Treat. They held that tone on moving forward and he’s very aggressive and I talked to another band called Tiles. They’re from Detroit. They’ve been around from eons. They called themselves the anvil of progressive rock. They just never seem to get it anywhere, but they have an underground following. So where you do guys you think fit into this spectrum?

Troy: Yeah, like I said, I was surprised with the success that we have. It was just another one of the bands in my life that played some gigs and maybe have some fans and stuff, but into the 90′s too, when the Internet and all of that stuff was coming out, it became much more tangible for bands to have a following and know what the following was. So Flutter took off. We were shocked as anybody when people seemed to be digging it and we won the Emergenza Festival and got a lot of publicity out of that and we’re playing big shows and stuff like that around here in Boston and New England and touring all over the place, working it and we all got burned out. It’s cool, but it’s at the same time, once you turn what you love into a business and making money at it. It can take away from that. I wish I could spend all my time playing music. You didn’t have to spend a lot of time doing other stuff; working on my website doing Mail Merges. We’re the guys that did these things.

Ben: Yeah.

Troy: Not that I hate Mail Merge, it’s awesome.

Ben: Are you still doing that?

Troy: Yeah. I mean, we still get orders and stuff like that and I’m still the guy that puts it in the box and mails it to you and it’s awesome, but at some point, you can take it for granted and it can become a drag. I wish I could play my guitar right now, but I’ve got to go and do this and I’ve got to go and do that and I’ve got to maintain the band and everything. It was us, so that idea of what success was to us kind of change. Because I don’t think we were going to be a huge rock band, so I always pictured some sort of success being more around like we could pay our bills and not to have to have another job. That’s all anybody was really looking for and to some extent that’s still what we would hope for, but in terms of how we were doing it, that has changed. Like marketing online, selling albums and things like that are great and we’ll continue to do that, but in terms of driving around the country in a van and touring around and stuff like that, that’s a hard life.

Ben: When Emergenza happened and this was a few years ago, you guys did not have the day job? You weren’t babysitting the practice rooms at Berkelee – or were you?

Troy: Well, luckily because Vessela and I both worked at Berkelee and lucky for us that we do because that’s just one of the few places selling job I had ever in my life when I can, “Hey, I’m taking 3 weeks off to go on tour.” Instead of groan like your co-workers who were like, “Awesome, where are you going? That sounds great. I wish I could go with you.”

Ben: That’s very cool.

Troy: And Jason was the guy who had the hard time because he has a real job usually. He’s an engineer of some kind depending on where he’s working, and Val teaches and gigs. She’s the only full-time musician in the band. She is just constantly hustling, doing gigs and teaching and recording and a million things at once. But she’s an amazing ball of energy that just keeps running. She really loves what she does, so she makes it happen.

Ben: So where do you want to be? Are you where you are now as you have a very flexible day job. This other fellow I talked to the other week from New York has the exact same thing. He made a conscious choice to be a temp. He’s got a rotating temp job at this hospital where he takes off whenever he wants to do a 3-week European tour or whatever, but that’s like it. Is that the kind of life you guys are looking for?

Troy: Well, no, not really. I mean, we still want to make a living playing music, but doing it in the tour-bus fashion is different. Selling albums and doing things virtually is more of the idea for me these days. The girls still like to play out and do a lot of that stuff a lot more than I do, so they’re also in another group called Goli. They play constantly. They busk on the street and stuff like that. So in terms of that, they’re more into the playing-live-for-money kind of idea, but I’m hoping for a new business model.

Ben: Right.

Troy: Jay and I are more a studio rats. I would much rather be in the studio recording than on stage, not that I dislike stage. I really yearn for a gig when I’m in the studio for too long, but I’m more like 80% studio, 20% gig. The idea of getting it on tape and recording is for us, so finding a way to make things that way would be the best idea for me. If I never leave my house, if I could stay in my basement, pick on my music.

Ben: So you’re a real composer.

Troy: Like that. I like to drink coffee 24 hours a day if somebody would support that.

Ben: Sounds like fun. So do you have any concrete idea how to make that a reality? Selling albums is a dicey business now, right?

Troy: So make popular music. I’m starting my own record label as well, Trojan Horse Power Records, and doing or expanding to more than just Fluttr. I’m doing my solo stuff and I’ve been producing other artists as well since last summer and diversifying, making stuff. I’m an eclectic person, so I’ve some electronic stuff in there. There some more folk. I’m producing this hip-hop poet that I know around here in Boston and setting up my own label just to have an outlet for these guys because they are artists. They don’t want to set up websites and deal with all of that stuff. And now that they’ve done that for Fluttr, I know how to do it, so I might as well take the skill set that I’ve learned from that and expand and Fluttr is just one more avenue in that outlet, in that umbrella that I’m setting up for ourselves.

Ben: That sounds excellent. I hear exactly where you’re coming from. I mean, so you have the skill set. You’ve already built it. You don’t want to do the other thing, which is touring and that life. So I mean, I feel that same way. I mean, I’ve got a several friends around me who make amazing music and they are like you. They want to stay in the basement and just produce and not share with anyone and that they don’t care about that. It kind of drive you nuts, so it’s almost like, gee, I’d like to get it out there. I mean, that’s something I actually thought about and doing some sort of record label. Is that kind of how you started or is it just more of find a business model that would get you away from the night shift?

Troy: Well, it’s a little bonus. Basically, my friend, Ramiro Milan, he’s an artist named on my label. He’s a friend of mine and he came for a 4-day weekend and stayed at my house and we recorded some tunes and I really liked how they were working out, but at the same time, he’s not a guy that is going to really push him or do much with him. It seemed like a shame to let them go to waste. I’ve been working also with Kara, our old singer again and doing this electronic project with her in a kind of Goldfrapp-like stuff and we had a couple of songs recorded and I just noticed one day, if I put all these things that I’ve been producing together. I’ve got a bunch of stuff. With Fluttr things, I didn’t feel like I’m doing anything particular. I’ve just been floating around with all these projects, but putting them all together, it was just starting to look like…

Ben: A label.

Troy: Yes. So I was, “Well, give them all a name and a web page and let’s try to sell all of these stuff. The idea for me now is to bring back the single, the idea of releasing one or two songs at a time. I don’t have to work on the big album that comes up once a year and I’ve got 12 songs on it and all of that stuff. I will work on those things when I feel when I have an album. I viewed the album as more than just 10 songs you put together and that’s just what most albums are, not to knock them, but I want to release singles, yeah. That’s how I write and record, so I record them one at a time.

Ben: Right and that is what most people do and I think Phil Spector once said, like in the 60′s when albums were new, he said its the dumbest idea ever, “You know, an album is like 8 or 9 cruddy songs surrounding one hit single.”

Troy: Yeah, exactly.

Ben: It seems like it’s almost full circle now. A lot of people are doing that because the people aren’t consuming music in album form anymore. They’re picking and choosing, so why the hell not produce in that way.

Troy: Yeah, and the idea, like when we were recording albums with Fluttr with going in and doing all of the drum tracks and then doing all of the cello tracks and then doing all of the guitar tracks with this another toms or maintenance, it’s cool. But one of the things I like about is each one has its own flavor because I go into the studio and I spend a weekend working on this one song and then next week I come back and I start over from scratch and I work on another song and that’s how it works. So I like that idea of each one having its own sound and character and with my diversity, one week it could be a hip-hop track, the next week it could be some heavy metal and that’s all good. I should be able to release all of that stuff.

And if you’re not into electronic stuff, then you do not have to buy the electronic tracks, but there will be other stuff on there that you’ll dig, hopefully.

Ben: You’re going to keep the band going? Or if you get too successful, then you’re back in that rut where you’re doing all the muck work of keeping the business running. You’re not practicing your guitar and twiddling with mixes in the basement.

Troy: Not to knock that. If success demands it, I will certainly do it happily. And the touring and playing out is not out of the question, but the idea of driving yourself around in your van and living in the jeep isn’t really what any of us are that excited about anymore. The longer you do it, the harder that overnight trip to New York becomes and me driving back and showing up here in Boston at 8 AM and being work at noon gets old after a while as well as expensive with the price of gas. So I totally forgot where I was going with this. If I can be successful at home in my basement recording good stuff, I’ll be happy doing that, too.

And one can lead to the other, so I’d rather approach it from an angle of having that magic track that’s out there and people love it and it takes me somewhere. And if someone wants to drive me on tour, then I will be all over it, but driving myself 6 or 8 or 10 or 12 hours a day is not any fun anymore. And Fluttr might play out. We’ve got another album in the works. I’ve been in the studio diligently working on that all winter. That will be coming out soon, so we’ll see what happens after we released that. We’re even debating whether we’re going to release a CD or if it’s going to be in digital only if anything. And I’m more digital, but the audience demographic for prog music likes CDs.

Ben: Why is that?

Troy: We’ll, we’re older guys. People that don’t either trust their computers or like their computers or we have had request for Vinyl, man. So younger people don’t mind digital only. Some do like my roommate. He’s a guy in his 20s and he wants a CD. He wants a physical thing he can hold with shiny graphics and all of that stuff, and that’s great. But I think most people are digital people. So either way, if you only release it in one format, somebody is going to be upset, so you’ve got to get it out there in as many ways as you can but physical CDs cost a lot more to produce, so it’s debatable.

Ben: So are the people looking for Vinyl, those really old fuddy duddies or they’re just like “retro-kids”

Troy: A little slightly. We’ve got a older couple fans – the kind of guys who saw YES in ’74 and stuff like that and those guys want Vinyl because obviously Vinyl is the best thing.

Ben: Ever.

Troy: Ever.

Ben: Yeah.

Troy: And then you’ve got more like young hipster kids. The cool thing about hip-hop is that sort of kept Vinyl alive. We still have deejays and stuff to go out and search new Vinyl.

Ben: That’s true.

Troy: And people still release things on Vinyl. It’s not a bad idea if you ever think you might have some kind of dance club hit to make some Vinyls.

Ben: Right, that’s good.

Troy: And it’s a cool thing in terms of having something people can hold in their hands. That’s a cool thing to hold in your hands, even if I didn’t have a Vinyl player. I do, but if I didn’t, I could have Fluttr Effect album, I think I will get it and Managed Neil is really good at that because they sort of have levels. It’s sort of for $10, you get the files, for $20, you get the CD with the flashy graphics and for $50, you get the limited edition DVD/CD/extra packaging sort of thing, so they’re really good with that because a lot of people do want stuff and some people just want to hear the songs and some people want a really kick-ass shiny thing to hold, so they’re really cool. He’s really good to check out for that stuff. He’s always on the cutting edge.

Ben: He gets a lot of press from that with people they’re making, so it’s great giving the consumer what he or she may want, which is not always a cookie cutter CD jewel case.

Troy: Exactly.

Ben: But then it’s also you can almost give away the low-end stuff because it doesn’t cost you anything and then you just make up the difference by upselling to your psychotic hard-core fans.

Troy: Yeah, exactly. He’s got a great model and he’s got a team to push it.

Ben: So your new album is coming out. Do you have a projected date?

Troy: Oh, well, let’s say June 1st.

Ben: Oh, good.

Troy: Or the 10th. So yeah, there is not a lot left for me to do on it. So this album was recorded at home and Jay and I moved in together and put our studios and decided to record the Fluttr album at home. Doing it one song at a time in your basement, in your bathrobe with your cup of coffee is great, but at the same time, things can linger.

Ben: Yeah, it doesn’t put the fire under you.

Troy: Yeah, and really, in terms of our recordings before, they’re great now when I listen back. But at the time, I remember, listening to a lot of those and it’s like hating your guitar sound. We didn’t the toms on that one. We didn’t like the kick drum on that one or the cello was terrible on this track. But in the studio when you have time to always go back and really tweak things and fix things and be as obsessive-compulsive as both Jay and I about these things. So at home, 3 weeks later when you’re still listening to that track and you’re recording the back-up vocals, you’re like “I really hate my guitar part. I’m going to go ahead and change it. I need a better tone.”

Ben: Go back and do it.

Troy: And you can, which is great. I think we’re going to come up with a really cool album, but at the same time, you can over-obsessed about things and we do kind of need a little fire under our ass with things sometimes to get things done, but I’m not in any hurry. I want to make the album and I want to make and release it, so this is first time ever for Fluttr that I’ve just said, “It’s going to take how long it takes and when I’m done with it, I’ll let you guys know.” So I haven’t been in any hurry to do anything to really crank it out. If I don’t know where to go with the track, I take a time off listening to it just because I couldn’t listen to all that stuff again. You lose perspective when you’re working on it every day all day.

Ben: Yeah.

Troy: It’s like smelling perfume. After a couple of them, you just can’t tell anymore.

Ben: Or drinking beer.

Troy: Yeah, exactly. You’ve got to take some time off and get some perspective on it, so I took some time off and now I’m back at it hopefully with some fresh angles and certainly with renewed spirit to get it done and to get excited about it. You don’t listen to it. You come back to it and you don’t hear the things you didn’t like anymore. You hear the things that are good about it and that’s important to remember as an obsessive artist. There are parts in there that sound great, and the longer you’re allowed to do it and depending on the person, you can really over-analyse yourself and really tweak too much sometimes. Sometimes it’s the spirit of it that needs to come out and not the technicalities.

Ben: So where can everyone find you online?

Troy: Well, yeah, we’re at FluttrEffect.com, of course. The label is not really ready to go yet.

Ben: Yeah.

Troy: So we’ll hold off with the Trojan Horse thing, but I mean, you can put it out there. It certainly not promotional yet, so the spring has been very busy for me. Hopefully, with all of these, I’m going to take a big, creative dump at the end of the spring and put it all out there at once. It’s all building up right now.

Ben: Awesome.

Troy: So I guess I’m producing 3 other people, so I’m finishing their stuff up and at the same time finishing Fluttr and doing the label, so hopefully, all of these are going to coincide with the big release right around June 1st or somewhere there that just says here’s to everything. The promotion for Fluttr will cross over into promotion for the label and the label promotion can cross over with the Fluttr promotion and we can use both things to help each other.

Ben: Cool.

Troy: So that’s idea. Yeah, we’re on MySpace, Facebook and we have a Twitter, so we’re all on of the social media.

Ben: That’s it. That’s the hat trick with all 3 of them?

Troy: Yeah, yeah. The social media hat trick is these.

Ben: It’s nuts.

Troy: Everybody has got a Twitter.

Troy: You’ve got one of each and yet you’ve got to say the exact same thing on each, so they might as well be one. All right, it’s great talking with you and thank you for your time.

Troy: You’re welcome. Thanks, man, and well, hopefully hear from you soon.