Mojave Phone Booth Talk New Album, Favourite Instruments And More

 

Mojave Phone Booth is Tobey Torres-Doran and Mitchell J Doran, both formerly of Snake River Conspiracy. Tobey is the lead vocalist, we met each other when Mitchell joined SRC as lead guitarist/programmer/songwriter.

 

What is your earliest musical memory?

 

Mitchell: My earliest musical memories are of film music I was hearing on television. The steady hum of the VCR underneath whatever was playing. Probably something scored by Elmer Bernstein.

 

Tobey: My earliest musical memories are of my mother and grandmother singing along to songs in the car when I was very young.

 

When did you begin songwriting?

 

Mitchell: I spent a long time studying music theory and studying the guitar before I started writing. I was playing the guitar as a child, and I feel like there’s not much to say as a songwriter when you haven’t really lived yet. When I was a teenager I played in bands and on records with people that were a lot older than me, and I would contribute parts to songs. But during that time I was mostly brought in to finish someone else’s song or to flesh it out with my parts. I started recording music in private on a four track cassette recorder in high school and wrote a bunch of songs. That was eventually upgraded to a computer with Cubase and then ProTools software, and I wrote music constantly from that point forward. The more I got into recording the more I switched from studying how to play technical guitar parts and how to solo over key changes to how to sculpt and capture a drum kit, or how to arrange a song. After I was hired as a recording engineer and session musician, my heroes slowly changed from people like AL Di Meola and Chick Corea to include other people like Jack Joseph Puig, Brian Wilson, Phil Spector, etc. When I was recording as a session guitarist one day the producer heard me playing the drums in the live room and hired me to play some drum parts on a record, and from around that time forward I started playing all of the instruments on my songs.

 

Tobey: When I was in SRC I co-wrote songs for the album, which was my first time contributing as a songwriter. I changed (or tried to change) a lot of the perspective of the songs from being weak to coming from a place of self empowerment.

 

You have released your third album ‘Blood Doctor: Volume One’. How did you want to approach the making of the album?

 

Mitchell: I wrote all of the basic instrumental tracks for this album in over the course of ten days. I ended up with twenty songs, and the first ten that I was able to come up with strong melodies for ended up being the ten songs on the album. The sound of this record is kind of a reaction. I was very frustrated with a lot of reverb tambourine music I was hearing.

 

Tobey: With Mojave Phone Booth we started out without a lot of equipment because a previous band member stole all of our instruments and recording gear. So the first album was a lot of re-establishing ourselves. The second album “Hollow the Numbers” was a step forward and this third album, Blood Doctor Volume One, is the truest expression of who we are as a band and of me as a singer.

 

Where did you record the album and who produced it?

 

Mitchell: I produce all of our albums. We recorded it in our home studio in the San Francisco Bay Area.

 

Do you have any interesting, funny or memorable stories from the recording sessions?

 

Mitchell: We used an old Apple IIc computer from the 80’s to generate some of the sounds on the album. The first sound you hear on the record is the Apple IIc booting up.

 

Who were the musicians who performed on the album with you?

 

Mitchell: I played all of the instruments, there were no guest musicians this time. Tobey is actually a pretty good bassist, and she played some additional bass parts on this album.

 

Did you use any particular instruments, microphones, recording equipment to help you get a particular sound/tone for the record?

 

Mitchell: I really like the way David Lynch approached his art. If something “accidentally” happened – he paid attention. And often the “mistake” became something really beautiful. So when something “malfunctions” in the studio, or starts coming out wildly different from intended, I seize on it and try to follow through with what the potential results may be. The outro solo in the song Ceramic is a good example of that. The programmed synth part was being affected by the drum pads on an AKAI sampler that was set to the wrong channel, and it made the whole thing sound underwater and echoed.

 

Another time a motor caught fire and I recorded the sound and then ran it through a guitar amp.

 

Sometimes it’s better to work with what’s happening to you as opposed to imposing your will on the song. I get the need to prove yourself as a writer but cool things get thrown away way too often. I try not to do that.

 

Which of your new album tracks hear you at your a) happiest, b) angriest and c) most reflective?

 

Mitchell: This is not a happy album. The songs are about a lot of our friends who died or family who betrayed us.

 

Tobey: I feel like this record has many layers to it, there are varied emotions in each song. Like Mitchell said – family sometimes can be your worst enemy. This record was cathartic for me.

 

One of the tracks is the single ‘Ceramic’. What was the story/inspiration behind the track?

 

Mitchell: This chorus for this song existed for a while as a scratch melody and synth bass line that I recorded into a voice memo. The words on this were hard to come up with. I realized while I was writing it that it fits into the larger concept of the album, relating to days of the week, eclipses, vampire film posters, blood, etc.

 

Did you work with anyone else in terms of the songwriting?

 

Mitchell: No, I write the instrumental tracks then come up with a melody and words that I like enough to show to Tobey, and then she interprets that and adds to it. Sometimes how Tobey does things is wildly different from what I had in my head and comes out way cooler. Other times it’s like she sings it exactly how I was imagining it, and it’s almost spooky.

 

Was it a difficult album to write?

 

Mitchell: The instrumental tracks all happened fast, and the melodies slowly developed on top of that while I was working on the instrumentals. The words, or pieces of them, start to develop within the melody. Sometimes one word or the corner of a word sneaks into the melody and they eventually chain together. It’s like watching a polaroid slowly process and develop. Eventually you start to see the whole thing and can fill in all of the blanks with purpose. I think that the song tells you what it’s about. If you try to sit down and write about a specifically chosen subject, it can sometimes end up dishonest in a way – and doesn’t end up working out often.

 

Who designed the album artwork?

 

Mitchell: I have designed the front cover art for all of our albums. There is a great graphic designer named Jon Krop who has a company called Atomic Pop Monkey who works with our label and he makes designing the covers one million percent easier. Finishing the art and layout for the first two albums without him was… stressful. It’s one of the most frustrating parts of making a record for me personally, dealing with safety area and print area and the cut and fold lines and the RGB format and making sure the band and album name shows up on the spine properly – I don’t like all of that stuff. I like designing the image on the front (the fun part).

 

Jon is great because I can get things halfway there, send him all of the parts I used to make my version and then he does it properly in a way that will print correctly and everything else.

 

Where is your hometown and could you please describe it in five words?

 

Mitchell: Daly City, CA: A ghost blimp crashed there.

(See the Unsolved Mysteries segment from 1992)

 

Tobey: Fremont, CA:

• Diversity
• green rolling hills
• BART
• Dumbarton Bridge
• White Witch

 

How do you look after your voices?

 

Mitchell: I sang some songs on our first two albums but not this time and I don’t think I’m going to be singing on any of our records going forward. I think my energy is better spent making songs for Tobey to sing.

 

Tobey: The only thing I avoid is drinking cold beverages while or before singing. I never smoked cigarettes and don’t really drink. So it’s not really problem for me.

 

Do you have any live dates planned in the UK/Europe in 2025/2026?

 

Mitchell: Nothing scheduled yet but we are working with a booking agent in those territories and will be heading to the UK/Europe soon.

 

Do you have a touring band and what do they play?

 

Mitchell: The latest live version of Mojave Phone Booth is me and Tobey and a pile of electronics. We’ve previously had a live drummer, but that always sounded sloppy to me. And he’d be playing parts that aren’t on the record. I think we sound 100 times better with just electronics.

 

What two things do you hope to have achieved once you have left the stage?

 

Mitchell: That the video effects kept going behind us and none of my equipment stopped working.

 

 Do you have any favoured stage instruments, effects, pedals, microphones etc?

 

Mitchell: I love MOOG synthesizers, and Tobey always uses an SM58 live because they are durable and can survive her scream.

 

You are given the opportunity to write the score for a film adaptation of a novel that you enjoy. Which novel is it and why?

 

Mitchell: The Hawkline Monster (1974) by Richard Brautigan. It’s a great story that starts to unravel as the characters begin to lose their identities after being exposed to a chemical in a house built over an ice cave. It’s pretty disorienting towards the end and I love it. I know they’ve been trying to make a film adaptation since the 1970s but it never happened. Writing for something like that would be interesting.

 

Who are some of your musical influences? Do you have any recommendations?

 

Mitchell: I’ve tried as hard as I could to avoid listening to contemporary music. I have always gone backward and dug for things that others aren’t listening to. I listen to a lot of concrète and early electronic music from the 50s and 60s. Right now I really love an album from 1995 called Doopee Time that one of my all time favorite producers made. His name is Yann Tomita and his recordings are amazing. I always come back to that album of his. It deals with the concept of thoughts floating in space and how we interact with them. It’s somehow very playful but very deep at the same time.

 

Tobey: Bjork, Morrissey, Martin Gore, Annie Lennox, Stevie Nicks, Pat Benatar, Madonna, Aimee Mann, Dale Bozzio, Terri Nunn, Debby Harry, Elizabeth Fraser, Allison Moyet, Kate Bush, Sinead O’Connor, Richard Butler, Simon Lebon, Martha Davis.

 

What makes Mojave Phone Booth happy and what makes you unhappy?

 

Mitchell: Tobey made a very mean face like she was going to burn through my soul with her eyes when I asked her this question.

 

(Both laughing)