Crafting a song with the Autumn Project

The Autumn Project, whose new album, “This We Take With Us,” will be released in June . (Credit: Erich Ernst/Special to Metromix)

Local instrumental trio the Autumn Project manages to find a way to create catchy, accessible songs without lyrics.

Without a singer grabbing the spotlight, it’s easier to see this band as a collaborative unit, with each member creating an essential component of the challenging, experimental music they produce.

So how do they do it? We asked the Autumn Project’s John Huffman, 27, (baritone guitar and bass), Mike Gustafson, 34, (percussion, keyboards) and Jess Huffman, 31, (guitar) to break down how they compose a song.

John: Usually I start out with a riff or chord progression on my own at home or just goofing around in the studio. I don’t exactly tell the fellas “Hey, we gotta play this killer lick I came up with!” but usually kind of naturally introduce it into a practice session.

We’ll take that piece of the song or that progression and play it over and over for a while and everybody gets an idea for their parts. We’ll agree that we all like the chords and they have “potential” to be something and talk about what might need to happen with that part, and that there may need to be something else building up to that part or it needs to be played softer or louder at certain points.

After a week or a few days, when Mike and I have forgotten how to play most of what we’d done, we find out that Jess has been practicing and playing with the song every day that week, and has come up with three or four parts to fit into the song.

We then spend the next practice re-figuring out what we had played and then piecing Jess’ parts in and changing tempo/loudness/softness around. After we have a good idea of how we want the song to sound and feel like, we’ll continue to “jam on it” for weeks or months, all while starting other pieces.

Jess: Once John plays something catchy, but-not-too-catchy, Mike joins in on drums, playing a driving beat, giving the piece of sense of forward motion. As that happens he creates keyboard loops to fill space and add ambiance. I round out the sonic picture with my guitars and magic boxes — aka effects pedals — to “fill in the gaps” and “put the icing on the cake” if you will.

Mike: We usually take the route of using the studio as a songwriting tool, but the new record was the first we have ever recorded 100 percent pre-written. It was recorded live at the Vaudeville Mews, our home stage. We had the entire room to ourselves for three days. We then took those tracks back to our home studio .