Upcoming music podcast has unique way to showcase talent

Manhattan Beach resident Hunter Porter’s experimental podcast, “New Noise,” will be a distribution method to get his and his collaborators, including longtime friends Maxwell Hamilton and Rob Nagelhout, new music to a larger audience. It is also a vehicle for fledgling bands to get a platform they would not normally have.

“My whole thing is trying to find new creative ways to put music out because everybody is doing the same thing now,” Porter said. “They hit social media hard, they promote it, then they play the show and it’s kind of done. To me it seems very stale… there’s no excitement around music releases, especially live music.”

Hunter has been developing the script for “New Noise” for well over a year. The episodic podcast follows fictional characters who read an article that rock n’ roll is dead, so they quit their day jobs and set out so save an entire genre of music by forming their own band.

Woven into the narrative will be original music from the fictional band in the podcast, Hunter’s new music as well as projects from Hamilton and Nagelhout that will be incorporated into the score of the podcast. Porter feels that if a song is tied to a narrative, it only makes the song more interesting.

“If the bridge is really popping in the song and you really like the bridge, we can throw that in, cut it up so that when you hear it in the framework of the script and the dialogue, it catches the ear of the listener more and makes them more inclined to buy the song,” Porter said.

Porter explained the concept is similar to hearing a song in a movie.

“Whenever they have a really cool part with a featured song, the two mediums coming together is sort of what makes you remember that song,” he said. “You can tie it to something now. Nowadays it’s especially hard to get people to listen to five seconds of a song.”

Forming a band

The three friends have been collaborators on a number of projects growing up in the South Bay. Porter and Hamilton spent years in the band Slow Kids at Play until they disbanded to pursue other projects several years ago.

Hamilton, who is also an actor and filmmaker and is from Manhattan Beach, formed DRFTRS. The first project from the band that was recently launched includes a five-song EP, or mini album, and accompanying videos.

“I just started working on these songs and over the past three years, kind of plunking out a couple of tunes I just had in my back pocket for awhile,” Hamilton said. “Once I had a collection of songs that were kind of presentable, I brought them to Hunter. He said, ‘Lets do it, let’s record it.’”

Hamilton said last summer they set up a mic in Hunter’s Manhattan Beach apartment and started a music collaboration that brought in Mira Costa alumnus and drummer Andy Jimenez to help record at Studio 637 in Hermosa Beach a day after Thanksgiving. Over the next eight months they kept adding instrumentation to the new songs.

“It still has this garage indie sound that we didn’t want to cover up… I’m still a beginner at guitar,” Hamilton said. “It’s honest, it’s true.”

But Hamilton didn’t want to stop at just an EP, so he wrote an anthology series, basically a short film, and put it to new music. The 35-minute film is a day in the life of five people in Los Angeles, which Hamilton has a starring role.

“It’s a weird idea, it’s not a music video, but it’s not a short film… it’s somewhere in between that’s hardly been done. Beyonce kind of did it with the “Lemonade” album, so I guess I’m trying to compete with Beyonce. Wish me luck. The fun thing was we really didn’t know what we’re doing when we started.”

The EP, “ie: The Fear That Binds Us,” was released at the end of July. The videos for the songs that will be edited into a short film were shot partly in Manhattan Beach and El Segundo. The videos were released on YouTube every couple days until part five was released on August 3.

Hamilton said about 80 percent of the film was shot to music.

“It was kind of like shooting a silent film,” Hamilton said. “It was my first time directing and writing. I figured let’s start at the beginning lets start with silent film… next we’ll make it a talkie.”

Nagelhout, a Manhattan Beach native who went to USC with Porter, has been the go-to producer, engineer and bass player for Porter and Hamilton over the years. He produced and engineered Slow Kids at Play’s second album, and he has produced Porter’s most recent projects while playing bass.

His new band has been working on a new EP, which is expected to be complete in a couple months.

“We’re doing it ourselves, the recording the writing, the engineer, mixing, and all of that… I like the fact we get to have our hands on everything,” Nagelhout said. “It’s a lot of work, but we can save money by not outsourcing.”

Next stage

Porter said one of the next steps with the project is to put on live events and concerts, which will be recorded, to get the podcast listener engaged with a live show to build a larger network.

Porter’s plan is to have the fifth episode being the live show where the fictional band performs, allowing them to improv with the live audience.

“Anyone can be a part of it get to hear themselves in podcast following week,” Porter said. “It’s another level of engagement for a listener rather than just wanting to go see a band, paying a cover, have a couple beers and go home.”

Porter added, “We want to respectfully and hopefully get people back to that place where you can spend hours listening to the same body of work because they’re so many levels to it.”

Nagelhout said in today’s world, anyone can make a record on a laptop, so promotion is the “biggest thing” and with technology today, there are many opportunities for cross promoting their new music as well as supporting other bands.

“A lot of people are doing it independently because there a lot more opportunities,” Nagelhout said. “If you hold onto as much of the rights to what you’re doing as you can, you have a lot more opportunity to make some money. You may have to do your own promotions, but at least you have full creative control.”

Porter said the podcast is expected to start the end of September or early October. They are looking for a roster of bands that would be interested in being featured in the podcast.

“We’re trying to get our music out there and people listen to it and if we have a popular platform, people can come and find these songs,” Porter said.

For more information about “New Noise,” contact Porter at [email protected]. For more on the band visit https://spoti.fi/2MvA7Fb.