Tristan Welch (Requiem/Sutras)
SPB: You often primarily play a very ambient style – How do you typically begin the songwriting process for a composition?
Welch: What's funny with me is that my ambient style is really just a punk or hardcore song. It's just over the years of not having full bands available or people who like the same sort of sounds that I like -- along with my fascination for interesting sounds I've ended up in an ambient style. The process begins with a riff, a selection of notes or a cool sound that I get out of guitar and effects pedals. My ideas or my process comes in spurts. I tend to give a song a good 4 or 5 hours at first. Then I'll revisit it and either trash it or keep going with the process. The beginning process is a big, hours-long deep dive into a riff and then figuring out arrangements, layers and feeling. I typically name a song very quickly as well to give myself something to go off of.
