This electronic music producer is remixing animal sounds from the Phoenix Zoo

Brian Fogarty has been making music for more than a decade. But over the past several months, he’s started working with new collaborators: animals.

He says he’s been trying to introduce more organic sounds to the synthesizer music he makes. As part of that, he’s partnered with the Phoenix Zoo and the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California; Fogarty says he’s made 8 or 9 songs that feature animals as the primary focal point.

And, when he came by the studio recently to talk about his music, The Show asked when he tells people he’s a musician and they ask what kind of music he plays, what he tells them.

Full conversation

BRIAN FOGARTY: So, I kind of go back to my roots. I did study music theory and I took a couple years of piano, and I was obsessed with the guitar as a teenager. So that’s kind of where it all started.

But lately, I’ve been getting into kind of more like synth-pop. I’m really inspired by the bands like LCD Soundsystem and Sylvan Esso. And so I have a lot of music out like that, but I just wanted to have some fun this year.

So, I started like — I heard a mourning dove call outside of my apartment, and I was like, “Wow, I really want to integrate that into a song,” and that was my first one. And then I just started looking to different animals. I found a coqui frog, and then I found some sea lions and stuff like that. So now I’ve just been making some fun music that kind of incorporates more organic sounds, especially animal noises.

MARK BRODIE: All right. So, I want to play just a few seconds here of the the song that you wrote with the mourning dove. Let’s take a quick listen.

[MUSIC PLAYING WITH A MOURNING DOVE CALL]

MARK BRODIE: So, how did you get close enough to the dove to record its sound? I mean, typically birds, like you approach them, they fly away.

BRIAN FOGARTY: So, I actually do a mix of two different things. I’ll either record the animals myself, or I’ll use recordings that I found online that are like pretty high-fidelity. And that’s what actually led to me partnering with like the Phoenix Zoo and the Aquarium of the Pacific, was I found them, like, “Oh, they have really good clips online, both the video and the audio,” because obviously they can get really close to the animals. So by partnering with them, I was able to like use their sounds with them.

Other than that, I have a co-worker who got me a little microphone that plugs into my phone so I can like pop it in on the go. I always have my backpack on me, and so I’ll just set my phone to record and I can walk up and try to get the microphone as close as possible.

MARK BRODIE: But like, you have a song with a jaguar. I assume you weren’t like approaching the jaguar with your phone and microphone to try to record its sound. This is one maybe that you found the sound of the of the cat making?

BRIAN FOGARTY: I am not that brave, no. I will give all credit to the Phoenix Zoo for that one. That was their video.

MARK BRODIE: OK. So, when you heard the mourning dove, what went through your mind in terms of, “This actually could really work in the kind of music I do”?

BRIAN FOGARTY: I think, so, the mourning dove call is a very — they repeat the same note like three times after their call in very like steady, rhythmic form. And so, I just kind of had that note going over and over in my head and I just started thinking of music around it. And so, when I first got a recording of one that was usable, I just plugged it in, started using it.

I found a video online that really had a good visual aspect for it, and I did edit the sound of the mourning dove to kind of repeat where I wanted to, to line up with the metronome for the song.

But I try to keep all the animal noises as organic as possible. There is so much you can do with digital audio software to kind of distort the noises and fit into some sort of narrative that you want, but I thought the point of the whole process was to like showcase the animals how they sound naturally.

So I really try to do as limited editing as possible on the animal noises, just make them sound good or maybe make them more rhythmic. But that’s what really drew me to the mourning dove was that steady, repeated call that they have.

MARK BRODIE: What’s the process like for you to come up with the music around the animal sound? Like, do you get an animal sound and then come up with something? Do you have to wait to hear what the sound sounds like from the animal and maybe what you can do with it rhythmically? Like, what’s your process like?

BRIAN FOGARTY: So, I will say — I think this applies to anything creative — is you just have to start. I can sit back and like try to imagine in my head what a good song might be, and sometimes that is fruitful and I do think of something that I end up using. But a lot of the times, I’ll sit down with the audio, and I’ll try something for an hour, I’ll go on a little walk to refresh my ears, I’ll come back, it’s terrible, I don’t like it.

And I’ll just try again. And I think, like, it’s so fundamental to the creative process to just get in there and just keep trying, because it’s almost like lightning. You never know where it’s going to strike, but you’re never going to be able to see it if you’re not looking for it.

MARK BRODIE: Have you found that using the animal sounds has helped your music evolve or change in any way?

BRIAN FOGARTY: Absolutely, yeah. So, I really like recording and producing music. I’m not much of a performer, so I really have fun recording and producing music, and every time I sit down and work on a project, I learn something new.

MARK BRODIE: Are there animals that you would like to incorporate into a song that you haven’t either gotten or found the sound for yet?

BRIAN FOGARTY: So, I’m a member at the Desert Botanical Gardens. I go there all the time. There’s some frogs there that sound really cool. I’ve captured them a couple times. I don’t know how I want to incorporate them yet.

MARK BRODIE: I noticed that one of the videos you made included giraffes, which famously don’t make sound.

BRIAN FOGARTY: Right. So part of it — I did not use any giraffe sounds in there. The Phoenix Zoo is kind of enough to give me tickets to go and like get recordings, and I did use some flamingo recordings I got there and some gibbon calls.

[MUSIC PLAYS]

BRIAN FOGARTY: But just for the visual aspect of it being kind of a visual story too, I just included some clips from that trip.

MARK BRODIE: So, I am far from an expert on club music, but listening to the songs you’ve made, it wouldn’t seem out of place to hear those at a nightclub.

BRIAN FOGARTY: Yeah, I think that is a good take. I really like Daft Punk. They’re a big inspiration. And one thing that I’ve learned is that sometimes the most genuine, simple music is what resonates with people the most. And it’s actually really difficult to come up with something that’s both new and simple. But I try to do that, even though I’m incorporating like kind of like basic club sounds, I try to do something fresh with it every time and come up with something new and simple.

I remember when I first got into playing the guitar and I learned how to solo and I was just soloing over something and I listened back to the recording, and yeah, I had technique and could hit notes, but they didn’t tell a story at all. And that’s when I learned that ... because music is a language, the best thing we can do is just be authentic and genuine and kind of like speak through it to deliver like a fully formatted thought.

MARK BRODIE: Has doing all this given you a different appreciation for nature or helped you see animals or other aspects of nature in a different way?

BRIAN FOGARTY: Yeah, I definitely would say that’s the case. I have been a member at the Desert Botanical Gardens and Boyce Thompson Arboretum and all of that for a while, and I actually went to college for environmental science, so I’ve always been a fan of nature. But it’s really opened my ears.

MARK BRODIE: All right. Brian Fogarty, musician, thanks so much. I appreciate it.

BRIAN FOGARTY: Thank you.

KJZZ's The Show transcripts are created for audience accessibility. Transcripts are created on deadline with the assistance of AI tools and then edited, and may not be in their final form. The authoritative record of KJZZ's programming is the audio segment.