Village Theatre's Sound Man Makes Music

As a high school student, Gino Scarpino wrote songs in the back of a school bus in Bellingham. Today, Scarpino is the resident sound designer for Village Theatre and is on the verge of releasing a debut indie pop album, The Great Equalizer. For four years, he and co-writer Kevin Hyatt – otherwise known as More Than Lester – have been creating and recording the album, due in February 2011, with the help of producer and Posies front man Jon Auer. After a decade of experience with sound design – including touring with six Broadway shows and most recently working on Anne of Green Gables at Village Theatre – Scarpino said he wouldn’t ever want to leave that world entirely. “I would say it’s the beginning of wanting to express myself a different way,” he said, “and we’re going to see how that goes.” HEATHER OLSON

How do you approach sound design? Everyone is a sound designer. If you think about how you used to play as a child, the thing we could bring to every situation was sound. Playing with dollies you would make them talk, or you would play guns, “chtchtcht.” Everyone brings a sense of sound into almost every situation, every conversation. I look at a situation and I let it hit me viscerally as though I’m playing along with it.

How do you compare sound design to being in a band? I think it’s the same exact collaborative experience from a different perspective. In the theatre we get to work with the writers in the room. They and the directors are leading the conversation. It’s our job to respond to that. It’s the same sort of thing working in a band, only this time I’m the writer/director. I throw as much material against the wall as I can with Kevin and we sift through that.

Has that building process you were talking about, specifically with sound cues, helped with creating these songs? I think of songwriting as very architectural. There are sections and layers, and somewhere in that construction I try to tell a story or be emotional, to say something that evidently I need to say.

Were you in bands in college? Yeah. I had a few bands, I mean, didn’t we all? Weren’t you in a band in college?

No, I just had a bunch of friends in bands. I was in a bunch of those bands.

So do you see your songwriting continuing beyond this album? I hope so. That’s so not up to me, you know what I mean?

You’ll just keep going. The truth is that I can’t stop doing this. I did it as a teenager, I became a sound designer, and I still love and want to do this. I am stuck with it, and I’d best be happy with it. If other people want to come along, I fuckin’ love that, I really do. •