Can You Hear the ‘Noise,’ ‘Lady’? The Homekeepers’ Four-Track Debut Shakes The "Untouchable Music Scene"

By Karly Maroney

Christian Daelemans of The Homekeepers delves into the archival recording process for his self-titled album The Homekeepers, and his ability to adapt and learn so he can create the sound of music he wants to be remembered by, which is not just a TikTok song with a million streams.

You can listen to The Homekeepers debut album "The Homekeepers" on YouTube.

Christian Daelemans: My name is Christian. I play guitar and I sing live. That is how most people will see us. But in terms of recorded music, I write and record it all. I want to make music. I can play the instruments, so I record it. Then I have some friends, Dylan on bass and lately Drew on drums. We come together and play all the stuff I write live.

Karly Maroney: You mentioned you do the recording, writing, mixing, mastering, everything for your music. What is your favorite part of that process?

Christian: Honestly, I think my favorite part is recording. Mixing is fun, you get to play with all the knobs, but then you think to yourself, Man, I actually have to do this. I jumped to eight tracks lately, and that is double as much to listen to on speakers. Then you listen back, realize something does not sound right, and do it again until you are just kind of done. But recording is my favorite, and also writing. Writing is fun, even if it is annoying. It is fun to watch the tape roll and think to yourself, I am really recording right now. You feel really cool while you do it. I love that.

Karly: I saw in your Bandcamp bio that you play free live shows out of your living room. Is that still true?

Christian: What was going on in early 2024, when it says free shows, that basically just means three friends came over a few times. I bought a tiny little PA speaker so I could have my amp in my living room and sing into a microphone that went through the PA. I would play guitar, sing, and sometimes add drums for a friend. That was the first iteration of The Homekeepers. But that was only a few times.

Karly: What is the scene like where you are from: Huntingtown, Maryland, (Southern Maryland?)

Christian: The music scene here is… there is no music scene. It is just where some musicians live. There are no venues down here. In 2024 we played our first show at a place called Venus in Charlotte Hall, but that closed down. We always have to go north for shows. I do not even know of any other bands based here other than us. We did play one show at a local library. The audience was mostly high school kids, and they loved it. I think it was exciting for them because there is nothing like that down here.

Karly: How does your environment shape you and your bandmates as artists?

Christian: I feel like we are outsiders in a cool way. It really motivates me. I am down here in the middle of nowhere, but I feel like I am talented enough to hang with some of the people up in Baltimore, well Northern Maryland in general. When you think of the Maryland scene, with young people it is emo, screamo, hardcore. I grew up on 70s classic rock. It is a completely different world, but I still feel like I have something to bring to the table. Following all these untouchable accounts and spaces in 2023, when I bought a guitar and wanted to make great music, really inspired me. And now we are kind of getting there. That is awesome to me.

Karly: Which songs do you think are truest to who you are as an artist?

Christian: That is a good question. I think two songs. One is Calco. It is two and a half minutes of a normal verse chorus song, and then it has this big solo. I pulled some weird melodies I really like. Sometimes I even catch my bandmates humming that solo. The other is Lady. That is going to be the one kids like, I think. That bass line, I do not even know what I did, but it is really good. It is the most memorable part.

Image courtesy of Christian Daelemans.

Karly: As an artist, you have a lot of inspirations. How do you pull from those references and still make your own sound?

Christian: Sometimes I think of a song I love, but I know I cannot make that again, it is its own thing. So I ask myself, What is the feeling it gives? What are some cool parts of the arrangement?  Usually I will strum some chords I think sound cool, and that is the beginning stage. Then I develop it into something familiar to me. Like, if there is a cool double track solo in a song I love, I might think, Maybe I can make it like that.

There is a song called Because I am a Boy by Makeout Videotape that I really love. I strummed it once on guitar and thought, This is literally my attempt at this song. These days I am trying to develop things even further, not copying songs, but understanding genre and figuring out how I write my own.

[Can’t make it to a show? Instead, just reach out to your favorite artists and let them know you enjoyed their music.]

Christian: Yeah, just listen to the album. You said earlier about shows and money and how it is expensive to appreciate artists. Going to one of my shows, I do not feel that is the utmost way to support me. When I see you at a show, I am not like, This is the best thing you could have done to support me. Literally just reach out to me, just comment, This is really cool, I love this, and play my stuff if you want to play it. That means the most to me.

If you just tell me, I really love this, because sure, I do this for myself and if I did not like it, I would not do it. But I cannot discount the fact that I love when people appreciate and say that what I do is awesome, because I think it is awesome when I make it. That is the whole point of it, to be awesome.

Image courtesy of Christian Daelemans.

Karly: When did you first discover that you wanted to record music in this process? Especially when we have all this equipment, we have GarageBand, and it is pretty accessible to just record on your phone. When did you discover you wanted to record on a four track?

Christian: I was just getting more into Mac DeMarco. I eventually ran out of all the gear that he used. The same guitar he used, I have the same bass he used. Through my research, I discovered he only used it on Salad Days. Even though he had it in pictures since 2012, he did not use it beyond that one album. By this point, I had already started recording stuff on BandLab and released my first EP.

I realized it is one thing to play live and sound like the artist you love, but that is such a local thing. Not everyone is going to hear that. So what do you do? You record like your favorite musician sounds. You record in a way that sounds so good. Then you realize, there is a reason why all the money went into recording studios back in the day, and why it was so expensive. Everyone wants to be recorded well.

I do not use the same exact gear as Mac because his machine would definitely break really fast. I just wanted something in the tape realm. When I got that four track cassette, it was cheap enough for me at the time, and I thought, Let’s just try this. It looked cool. I wanted to sound like that. And it was fun. You hit record, you play, you hit stop, and then it comes back at you and it sounds real, even though it technically is not. Digitally recording will always be the most accurate, but tape is fun and alive. It is so simple. When I tried to record on Reaper, a digital audio workstation, there were so many buttons. I would hit stop and it would ask, Are you sure you want to stop? And I am like, yes. And then again, Are you sure?  For me, it is about the music. And for you, recording is about leaving something lasting.

I know at the end of the day, when I am an old man or in the ground, maybe a hundred years from now if the internet still exists, what I leave behind will be the music. Not a TikTok that got a million plays, but the sound I made. That is what I like about music. It is the sound.

Image courtesy of Christian Daelemans.