JESUS KARATE with Winston Hauschild

Friday, 11. 19. 2010  –  Featured, People You Should Know

Jesse Donaldson

If you’re only a casual observer of the Vancouver music scene, he might be the busiest person you’ve never heard of.

But with a producing resume that features albums and demos for more than fifty local artists (including Hannah Georgas, HeyOcean!, and Juno Nominees Carmen and Camille), a second full-length album nearing completion, a tour in the works, a schedule that includes at least three ongoing projects for local artists, a position as one of MusicBC’s Board of Directors, and his own compositions regularly appearing on network television, songwriter/producer/musician Winston Hauschild has something of a quiet empire on his hands. Working from his cozy Main Street studio and deftly applying his talents as a producer, multi-instrumentalist, and businessman, Hauschild has managed to capture the Holy Grail that eludes a great many Vancouver musicians: making a living.

“I was always interested in making records; and I was always interested in the production of records, and interested in what made them sound the way they sounded,” he muses in his affable, off-hand manner. “I just had myself a little recording setup, and one day somebody said to me, ‘Would you do some demos for me?’ After doing that, I found that I really enjoyed being involved with somebody else’s work. I started putting myself out there, asking, ‘Hey, does anybody want some demos?’ And then I started to get so busy doing those that I was able to quit my day job and do it full-time. Then, those demos morphed into doing full records; and people liked the work, and it was getting critical acclaim, and I thought, ‘Hm, maybe I’m half-decent at this.’”

Born Ryan Hauschild in Summerland, BC, Winston is no stranger to the music scene, having played in a number of bands in the Okanagan region, settling for a time in Kelowna before finally making the move to Vancouver in late 1993.

“When I lived in Kelowna,” he recalls, ”I played in a band called Middlesex, and we were doing pretty well. Any big act that came through Kelowna, we opened for them… We opened for The Village People,” he notes with a wry grin. “But you have to go to a major centre to be part of a scene. I mean, Kelowna’s got a great music scene, but once you reach the pinnacle of that scene you kind of have to move on.”

With the release of his debut album, Passengers, Hauschild was brought to the attention of local critics and ranked next to Hot Hot Heat and The New Pornographers as one of the top local acts of the year. His songs — catchy, melodic indie-pop layered with dense harmonies and combined with musical and production prowess — are the stuff of music supervisors’ dreams. As a result, more than half of Hauschild’s recorded material has been licensed for major television shows, among them PainKiller Jane and CBS’ ’The Ghost Whisperer’.

“It’s the new radio,” he says of licensing. “Ten years ago, you’d make a record and try to get it on the radio. This was for two reasons: because you wanted to get royalties, and because you got exposure. Now people seem to be leaning more towards TV and film for that same purpose. As artists, we generally submit a lot of our stuff to music supervisors and pitch them for all different shows. We’ll say, ‘I think this song would be really good on this or that.’ It’s all about contacts. For me, it has taken quite a few years to get to know the people who do it. And I’m at the point now where I’m actually able to start pitching artists that I produce. I have this guy in LA, and he’s always looking for new music. He’s saying to me, ‘Listen, if you’ve got anybody you’re producing that you want to submit, just do it.’ It’s a great way to make money. It’s a great way to get your music out there.”

Hauschild’s own album, slated for release in spring 2011, is still untitled. There has been no shortage of ideas, though: among them, “What’s Your Fucking Problem?” (after the track of the same name), or, after an impromptu exclamation by Hauschild’s longtime collaborator and sometime co-producer Shawn Cole, “Jesus Karate”.

“When we were getting sounds for the record, we came across this drum sound that was just so amazing,” Hauschild grins, “and Shawn was just so excited that, instead of saying ‘Jesus Christ’, he just shouted out ‘Jesus Karate’. And that just became the catchphrase through the rest of the recording process.”

Having been involved in Vancouver’s music scene for more than ten years, working and playing alongside a number of the city’s heavy-hitters, Hauschild is overwhelmingly positive about the progress the community is making.

“I think it’s really coming around,” he says enthusiastically. “Five years ago, everybody was complaining that Toronto had such a camaraderie amongst the bands, [with] artists banding together to create this great community. I think, in the last five years, we’ve created a really exceptional community here in Vancouver. People like HeyOcean!, Said the Whale, and Dan Mangan, these people all know each other and there’s a sense of teamwork now. Everybody’s helping one another out. Everybody’s friends. No one’s untouchable.”

He smiles.

“Aside from that, there’s all this great work coming out of Vancouver. There are bands here making great records. It’s becoming a real industry. I think it’s really just Vancouver’s time.”