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photo by Gretchen Robinette

Great to be featured in Indie Artist Buzz again!  This piece is hot off the press…..

Late this summer we featured rock cellist Noah Hoffeld in our Indie 5-0 series here on independent Artist Buzz. TODAY we get the opportunity to delve deeper into Noah’s psyche. Below tells us in his own words what the transition from Classical cellist to rock cellist was like:

Moving from Classical into Rock wasn’t easy to do. Though many artists in Rock’s brief history have been inspired by Classical Music, only a few were full-on classically trained.  When I think of it, just a handful come to mind- Zappa, Johnny Greenwood, and that great pianist who plays on Freebird. I’m sure there’s a bunch I don’t know of. In Jazz, there’s Miles who, like me, attended Juilliard. It’s cause Classical Music is a very picky head, almost religious in its worldview. Devotees eschew other music like zealots shun a foreign prophet. Though I’ve known some Classical musicians to use Rock as a muscle relaxant, for one to actually pick up a guitar would be beyond bizarre and would cause everyone, them and anyone in a Marshall Stack’s radius, extreme discomfort. Why? Because from a young age they’re taught to revere Classical compositions like Sacred Scrolls. Then they feel powerless to leave anything worthwhile of their own to the future, beyond their interpretation of what has come before. And when asked to improvise, most recoil in utter dread and shame. Sad, no?

To prison-break that mind-cell takes enormous desire, or overwhelming need, like in my case. If you’ve been to the movies, you know the music teacher determined to make you great or destroy you in the process. After four years of abuse, I wasn’t gonna blaze a mind-blowing solo trail, unseating Yo-Yo Ma. And as I was graduating, cello was just making its way into Rock with geniuses like Nirvana. Perfect timing! In sessions with Rock musicians, I discovered new challenges without the sticky head-trips.

I found being around songwriting was infectious and it wasn’t long before I was writing too. Really just a hobby at the time, I liked the results and the process. I kept at it while observing the means and methods of the masters. My hands on the cello, my ears on the songs: how a lyric was shaped to powerful effect or a turnaround thrust a pre into a chorus. Songwriting is wizardry for sure. Me, the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. 

Now every time I tried to stop, writing came back. I was a surgeon trying to amputate his own arm and it wasn’t gonna happen without a lot of blood. Too much for me to shed and survive. So bit by bit, I learned to record and produce. I made my new LP ‘Play Human.’ Found my Inner Rocker. These days rocking out’s the only way I can fully express myself: The cello is there, weaving in and out of grungy guitars and f’d up synths- freed from the Classical cellblock. And I’m free too, to sail the High Seas of Rock and catch the big bad soundfish who swim the Inner Ear Canals.

Playing my own tunes gives me a deep satisfaction I never knew possible. I know Classical Music will always be in my heart. And I’ll always practice it to stretch my cello chops. Who knows? Maybe someday I’ll return to the Classical stage and perform. But for right now I’m happy rocking out, cello-shredding my days away for the Gods of Rock n’ Roll on High.

- Noah Hoffeld

Visit Noah’s website and Twitter to keep up to date with everything going on in the cellist’s world.

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So psyched to have a guest piece here on The Vinyl District- the amazing magazine for all things indie and vinyl.  Here's the piece in its entirety (interspersed with the tracks and video they shared) for those whose fingers are sore from clicking all day :)

“My first associations with vinyl come from that proto-musician phase of life known as childhood. Crouched over a Playskool turntable with my proto-girlfriend, listening to proto-music. Like a gateway drug for the under-ten crowd, album versions of Hollywood movies, like novelizations in sound, were the first recordings to catch hold of my small ears. They dragged me down into a life-long addiction to recorded music, the grooves in vinyl like tracks on a user’s arm.”

“Planet of the Apes was a great album, dialogue from Charlton Heston and cast alternating with orchestral interludes, or sometimes overlain. I never saw the movie itself! The sonic images were lucid enough to seduce my imagination; I knew the story back to front and the grandiose music penetrated deep in my subconscious, laying the groundwork for years of imitation.

As years went by, proto-girlfriends became girlfriends. Proto-music became music. Or sort of. I was still fascinated by the allure of a good story and, as I grew, just graduated to a little more grown-up stories. A huge favorite of my pre-teen years was Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, narrated by David Bowie. “Are you sitting comfortably?” David would ask in his most White Duke of voices…”Then let’s begin.”

Over and over I returned the tone arm to its origin and allowed the undulations of sound to drench me. In moments of angst and torment, feeling I couldn’t bear the world, David’s voice would soothe me. The sounds of the flute, oboe, french horns, and strings would elevate my mood and lighten my load. Transported by tales and tones, perhaps addicted and dependent on them for survival, I was able to navigate the darkness, laying anchor in a harbor of sound.

But from there it was an endless fall into ignominious gloom! Record followed record followed cassette, followed CD. Maybe what distinguished my plunge from others’ was the strange blend of Classical and Rock I grasped at, spinning hopelessly down that tunnel of sound. Songs now replaced my childhood dependence on musical movie renditions and Meet the Orchestraalbums. The perfect combination of story and sound, songs rolled the two into one and became the ideal delivery agent for both. I was hooked on rock ‘n’ roll.

As the cello became a central part of my life in high school, my listening horizons both contracted and expanded. Today when people ask me what bands I followed in youth, my reply is “pathetically few.” Bowie, The Beatles, U2, Lou Reed, Prince, and a few others. Deeply knowing just a fistful of artists, I missed out on a whole lot of good shit. At the same time, I listened to everything Classical under the sun—my training required it and I loved it. Then Classical and Rock vied for dominance in my heart, clashing like Vader and Luke for rule of the Empire.

Today, the two seem to have made peace. On my studio turntable, I spin a mixture of thrift-store Stravinsky and purple-vinyl Bjork from Rough Trade in my Williamsburg, Brooklyn neighborhood. In songwriting and producing, too, the two musics of my teen years have nestled closely. Elements of my albumPlay Human, like the strings in “Stop Slow Down,” or the rising lines in “Role of Rock,” betray my need to harmonize big, bad Rock with the beauty of orchestral writing. I search still to find that safe harbor where the strains of life past and present can once again be stilled. And celebrated in sound.”
—Noah Hoffeld

Noah Hoffeld’s debut release, Play Human is in stores now.
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