Nate Query got connected with OHOM at the end of 2018 through his neighbor Mark Mojdehi, a former OHOM board member and CRCI Music Program director. Nate, well known as the bassist of The Decemberists, was brought in to take on the challenge of assisting our incarcerated colleagues while they record music inside as well as mixing their recordings on the outside. 

The studio (situated inside CRCI’s Chapel) catered to musicians inside who could sign up for a time slot during the 2-hour window the studio was open each week. The space morphs each week to accommodate whoever shows. “Some guys want to play instruments with a bunch of other guys and jam out. Other guys want to work on their lyrics, rapping or singing, to beats.” Originally, several regulars helped model what was possible in the space, becoming mentors and spreading the word. Within a few months, there were around 10-20 people actively participating in the program creating music ranging from rap, heavy metal, country, and Native American drumming.

To make this happen, the volunteers continue to navigate the complex technical challenges of creating a recording studio inside a prison: “We had to figure out ways to record without using a computer or any device with connectivity… on something small enough to bring in and out. Then, we had to figure out a way to transfer those recordings to something they could listen to.” They ended up using a digital multi-track recorder (which looks like a very small mixing board) with an internal hard drive where the guys can record multiple different tracks. “It was a lot of tackling one thing at a time and fortunately I’m old enough that I recorded before computers. Using the technology that is pre-computer makes more sense in prison because there are so many rules around connectivity and wireless.” 

Nate created a recording system where “guys could have a beat on one track and a lead vocal on another, or they could double it, have someone else sing the hooks, or layer a bunch of stuff.” Then, Nate takes the recording out, mixes it down, and puts it on an old iPod to be brought back to the facility the following week. Their strategic swapping of iPods back and forth means that anything recorded one week can be heard, newly mixed, the next. 

Staying committed to music as a form of self-expression, Nate stressed, “We really made a point of emphasizing that they can say what they want to say and talk about what they want to talk about.” Thus, the music is uncensored. However, Nate noted, that just like on the outside, “Black guys rapping graphically gets a lot more attention than white guys swearing in metal bands but everybody’s doing it.”

He acknowledges that when listening in he’s “not always comfortable but that’s okay with me.” Nate says that’s not the point. “I’ve always been more attracted as a listener and as a performer, to music that is a little confusing to me, that I don’t totally understand. That’s where it starts to get interesting to me.” Nate grapples with this notion while considering his work at CRCI: “The prison is designed for my comfort. I’m coming in as a volunteer, I’m totally safe, I’m badged… I’m hyper-aware of the fact that I am coming in with all this privilege and institutional support and protection…  I want to build enough trust that people feel that I’m not in the way and that it’s their space.” 

When navigating a situation where a young black man called him Sir, Nate was reminded of the power dynamics at play: an older white guy that he needs to talk to in a certain way. “I was like, I haven’t come as far as I thought to build the right kind of trust. And I’ll probably never be totally trusted in there. It takes a lot of work to make this thing work in a way where they feel like they’re free in there. And they’re not going to, it’s prison. But music can be… when you’re in the moment of making music you can feel like it’s a step towards being free.”

Ultimately, relationships formed through music are familiar for Nate, “There are so many relationships I have with musicians where we mostly just get together to play music. And playing music together can make you feel really connected but maybe you barely talked or you barely know each other. In prison, working together on their music… we’re not doing a lot of chit-chat. A lot of these guys I don’t know anything about because we’re not talking much. And oddly enough, if we were talking, who knows what we’d have in common or what we’d talk about.” 

Instead, as they sit together working on the recording or listening to it back, Nate is “gleaning what [he] can and connecting to it.” He says, “It feels like a real connection that is hard to put into words and in some ways, more valuable than words.”

During the time this article was written, the studio, which had been closed due to Covid-19, reopened in July. In the studio, everyone is masked unless singing and there are 6-8 people at a time working. The program has a healthy roster of 23 people.

Newest update regarding Music Studio: As of late September, volunteers have been suspended again but the DOC staff are running the program internally until we are able to get back in. The recording equipment no longer has to be hauled in and out, a great result of these newest regulations. Nate is given a thumb drive with new music that he mixes and sends back in.

If you’re interested in seeing OHOM’s music work being done in prison and the relationship to music and healing, check out this video.