Tag: The Wood Brothers
Oliver Wood Gets “Weird” On Second Solo Album, ‘Fat Cat Silhouette’
As the frontman/guitarist of The Wood Brothers, Oliver Wood is well versed in the art of roots experimentalism, but even that genre-blurring trio can’t satisfy all of his curiosity. With his second solo album, Fat Cat Silhouette (out now), the singer-songwriter set out to reach a new creative plane of existence.
Featuring nine playful, untethered tracks exploring pure sonic adventurism, the set became a case study in songwriting for songwriting’s sake; it’s a joyful mix of folk, jazz and free form pop. Recorded analog to tape by Wood Brothers percussion polymath Jano Rix, it features guest appearances by Katie Pruitt and Los Lobos saxophonist Steve Berlin, and some of the most irreverent, open-minded musical journeys ever taken. Each day, Wood would wake up, grab a coffee and sit down in a comfy chair, looking out the window to write whatever crossed his mind. The result was musical mood-shift, just a refreshing as it is insightful.
Ahead of another Wood Brothers tour, BGS talked with the artist about clearing his creative mind and getting “weird.”
It seems like you were purposely expanding your horizons on this second solo record, right? Why did you want to open up the floodgates?
Oliver Wood: I don’t know, it just felt like time to do that and time to experiment. … The Wood Brothers, we put out an album last spring and when we were done, I guess I was just still writing tunes. But also, I’ve always just liked in the last few years to make it a point to collaborate with some people outside of the band. And then production-wise, I felt like we’ve just done this album with The Wood Brothers a certain way, and a lot of times we react as artists and as writers. You sort of react to what you did before, and you try to be different, even though there’s not necessarily an exact sound in mind. It’s like, “What can we do that’s weirder?”
I love that idea of being a little weird, because why not, right? But the funny thing is that as a band, The Wood Brothers does not exactly seem limiting in terms of creativity.
No not at all.
So was there just still more in you, that had to get out creatively, or what?
I think so, yeah. And I’m sure there’s a subconscious part of me that wants to figure out what is my musical identity. I know what it is within The Wood Brothers. That’s sort of our bread and butter, but when I do my own thing, I feel like I can do whatever I want. … Maybe nobody will even hear it, so why don’t I just do get as weird as I want to get?
In the album bio, you talk about practicing songwriting without self-judgment and I think that’s a cool idea. Can you explain what that is to you and how you go about getting there?
Yeah. I think that is, first of all, almost impossible. However, maybe putting myself in a frame of mind that I was under less pressure to make something that people would like helps get there. It’s all subconscious, but when we’re with The Wood Brothers, even though we’re not trying to please anybody but ourselves, we do have to make our living, so in the back of our heads it’s like, “Oh, this song will sound good at Red Rocks or the Ryman Auditorium.” In other words, “People are going to love this.” I can’t help but think that in the back of my mind probably. But as far as writing without judgment and what that looks like? I think it looks like trust. I think it looks trusting that oftentimes your first instincts are right.
You don’t have to fix something or change something. You can trust that your soul and realness is going to come out if you just let it, and you write something down or play something, rather than going over it and editing it. I feel like I did that a lot with lyrics on this record. I wrote some things and I was like, “That doesn’t make any sense.” I caught myself thinking that, and then I was like, “Screw it. I trust that that’s what my subconscious told me to write. And it’s real.” I don’t think you really have to try to do that. In fact, the more you try, the less authentic it might be.
What came out is these nine tracks that to me are really playful and enthusiastic. What do you like about where the sound went? You definitely took some leaps.
Well, I talked with [album producer and fellow Wood Brothers member] Jano a lot about maybe being a little bit less on the drum set side, a little more on the percussion side. He is my favorite drummer ever, but sometimes I get tired of drum sets. I mean I love classic rock ‘n’ roll and R&B drums, all that stuff. But sometimes when you think about it, it sounds like everything else. So it was like “What if we didn’t have that?” There was one point where it’s like, “Jano, why don’t you do that percussion part vocally?” With the song “Whom I Adore,” not only did he play the Sitar and the tambourine, but he also did this weird shaker part with his mouth. Sometimes when you avoid one thing, you have to innovate to replace it with something else. And that was kind of the idea.
I use this really dull, rubber-bridge guitar on a lot of the songs, so there’s some more atypical guitar sounds. And of course, Steve Berlin and the bari-sax was a really cool thing. There was one section where we were wishing we had a horn section and instead Jano and I just sang all the parts. That was for “Star In the Corner,” and we just sang them like idiots – like fake opera singers! It’s kind of silly, but it was like, “That’s cool. And we haven’t done that before.”
That to me was the way to go to be non-judgmental, to be like you called it, playful. Sometimes you feel like you can control something and make it just perfect. But the opposite of that is letting go and trusting that if you try something, it may or may not turn you on, but when it works, it’ll surprise you and delight you. And that’s so much more fun than trying to control something and never quite being happy.
Tell me about the track “Little Worries.” This contains the album title, Fat Cat Silhouette, which is so fun. How does that song speak to the project overall?
Some of the themes, I feel like bloomed from that song. I have a ritual where I’ll go downstairs in the morning and have a cup of coffee in this armchair, which is right by a window facing my front yard. And I usually go down there and I write and sometimes I just write in a notebook, just sort of freeform. Sometimes it’s working on a song, but it’s wide open and several of these songs kind of started that way.
The idea of the Fat Cat Silhouette was really just an actual thing. I’m sitting there in that chair with my cup of coffee and I have these semi-transparent sheer curtains, and there’s a cat sitting there looking out the window. Sometimes for me – and I’m pretty sure for a lot of other songwriters – you don’t know what you’re going to write about, but you may see something that gets you started. And so the beginning of that song is literally me describing sitting in the chair with my cup of coffee and there’s a fat cat silhouette in the window.
That sort of observation, oftentimes if you write it down, can lead to a story. The first song on the album, “Light and Sweet,” happened the same way, sitting in the same spot looking out the window and there’s a sparrow. I started the song and then I started fantasizing. He’s on the phone with his lawyer talking about his divorce with his soon to be ex-wife.
[Laughs] You don’t hear many songs about bird law.
Exactly! But with the “Little Worries” song, I think writing that song and writing in general every morning is a good way for me to deal with anxieties and overthinking things. And that kind of turned out to be what that song was about.
How about “Yo I Surrender.” This is another track about giving up control, but also I think the most fun on the record. I love how you said it has the worst guitar sound ever. Why does that work for you?
That’s one that Jano and me and [bassist] Ted [Pecchio] were warming up one day, and we just started playing that groove. We just had fun playing that groove and I saved it on my phone, and then Steve Berlin from Los Lobos was in town with his bari-sax, and we invited him to come into the studio, help us finish writing that song. So the four of us sort of arranged the music and parallel to that, I was starting to think about the lyrics. I was also reading some cool books that were giving me some cool vocabulary words that I was like, “I just want to use that word. I don’t even care if it fits. I don’t even care if it makes sense.” It was definitely one of those things where it was musically such a group effort, and then lyrically one of those things – let it be weird, let it be ambiguous. I think some of my favorite songs that I’ve heard over the years are always a little bit ambiguous.
Photo Credit: Alysse Gafkjen
LISTEN: The Wood Brothers, “Line Those Pockets”
Artist: The Wood Brothers
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Line Those Pockets”
Album: Heart Is the Hero
Release Date: April 14, 2023
Label: Honey Jar/Thirty Tigers
In Their Words: “‘Line Those Pockets’ has a unique collaborative aspect. It started out as a campy kind of folk ballad, but then we heard this cool drum and keyboard part that Jano had worked up. So we married the lyrics to Jano’s piano part. It was ambiguous enough that Chris and I had different interpretations of the harmony. So everyone’s separate visions came together in the finished song. It emerged as a sound and song we’ve never made before. A weird pseudo Latin-reggae groove with a poppy hook. Absolutely new territory for The Wood Brothers, which is always something we’re trying to accomplish as we write for each new album.” — Oliver Wood, The Wood Brothers
Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez
The BGS Radio Hour – Episode 211
Welcome to the BGS Radio Hour! Since 2017, this weekly radio show and podcast has been a recap of all the great music, new and old, featured on the digital pages of BGS. This week, we bring you new music from our June Artist of the Month, Chris Thile, as well as Robert Finley, Oliver Wood, and much more! Remember to check back every week for a new episode of the BGS Radio Hour.
Robert Finley – “Sharecropper’s Son”
Singer-songwriter Robert Finley first picked up a guitar at age 11. He was raised in Jim Crow-era Louisiana amongst a family of sharecroppers and knew from a young age that his dream was to sing. Now, at sixty-seven-years-old, that dream is alive and well with his newly-released, third solo album, Sharecropper’s Son, made in collaboration with Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys. BGS recently caught up with Finley to talk about the new album, and how his upbringing and vast life experiences have shaped his music.
DoomFolk StarterKit – “Look at Miss Ohio”
For David Swick of DoomFolk StarterKit, recording any of Gillian Welch’s work is an honor. His cover of “Look at Miss Ohio” has a balance of lightness and melancholy in its’ arrangement, which Swick says represents the song’s theme of “making peace with uncertainty.”
Zach Person was inspired to write “Wanna Fly” after reflecting upon the social and political intensity of 2020. He cites “Dylan-esque” protest songs and the openness of the western plains as the two main influences of this powerful track.
“Call Me Up,” from Lula Wiles’ new album, Shame and Sedition, is a lighter track amongst an album that aims to transform listeners and enact change. Between tender harmonies and mellow piano chords, the trio describes meeting with an old acquaintance, singing, “I know you’ve been taking it rough / You gotta just call me up.”
Oliver Wood – “Face of Reason”
BGS spoke with Oliver Wood of The Wood Brothers for a 5+5 in support of his new solo record, Always Smilin’. He told us about his biggest influences — from Ray Charles to Levon Helm — as well as how hard times can be processed through songwriting. When asked to write a mission statement for his career, he stated: “Just be completely yourself, because that’s all you have, and that’s enough.”
Dana Sipos’ “Breathing Barrel” is a meditation of being at peace with the present moment. Written immediately upon returning home to the city from a music residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts, deep in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies, this song is an attempt to integrate a very powerful experience into the more mundane, everyday life.
Shannon McNally reimagines Waylon Jennings’ “This Time” by giving the lyrics a personal spin — singing not about a lover, but instead about her relationship with the music business as an artist and as a woman. For McNally, the song’s directness is a breath of fresh air, and it helped her get into the headspace that permitted her to sing the rest of the album.
The name Chris Thile is likely familiar to fans in any corner of roots music. Growing up in southern California, Thile rose to popularity with his childhood (and sometimes still adult) band Nickel Creek, and has since helped form the Punch Brothers, the Goat Rodeo Sessions, and other noteworthy collaborations. However, this summer Thile brings something special — a completely solo album entitled Laysongs. In celebration, he is our Artist of the Month, so be sure to stick around all month long for exclusive content from Chris Thile.
Mara Connor recorded “Old Man” at the same age Neil Young was when he wrote it about a caretaker who lived on his ranch. When she first heard the track, she was struck by the amount of empathy the songwriter exhibited at such a young age. Connor states that the song is an affirmation of how the world would be a better place if we took the time to see the humanity in each other’s eyes.
2020 was a difficult year for us all, and it seems that we need uplifting music more now than ever before. “Thankful” is just that. The lyrics are a powerful reminder of the things we have to be grateful for and of the important things in life.
Inspired by their recent release and the blooming of spring, Rising Appalachia’s Leah Song created a Mixtape for BGS, entitled Rising Appalachia’s Love Songs for Blooming Spring. The playlist features heartbreakers and heart-menders from John Prine to Hozier that are sure to make your heart bloom.
Eli Lev’s “As It Is” began to develop halfway through a 10-day meditation retreat he went on near the Florida coast at the beginning of the year. He states, “I experienced silent sunrises over the ocean and brilliant sunsets over the bay that brought on infinite color variations and led me to a unique insight that everything is changing while staying exactly ‘as it is’ in every moment.”
Featuring the sweet sounds of classic country twang and harmonies by singer-songwriter Michaela Anne, Kyle Lalone’s “Learning How to Love” is a song that details the process of understanding how to be a good partner and showing up for someone in a relationship.
Photos: (L to R) Robert Finley by Alysse Gafjken; Shannon McNally by Alysse Gafjken; Chris Thile by Josh Goleman
BGS 5+5: Oliver Wood
Artist: Oliver Wood
Hometown: Boulder, Colorado (born & raised); Nashville, Tennessee (current locale)
Latest Album: Always Smilin’
Personal nicknames: O
Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?
I’d have to say that Ray Charles has influenced me the most. And I don’t claim to sound anything like Ray, but I think most of my heroes are people who combine all types of American music and come up with their own unique recipe. Artists like Ray, The Band (especially Levon), Dr. John, Sly Stone, The Allman Brothers Band, Aretha Franklin, and Allen Toussaint. It could be a long list, but all of them are able to combine musical traditions in their own way to create a unique voice. And as much as I love traditional music, I really get excited when someone creates something unique by mixing up those traditions and adding their own personality. Ray was a master at that, and I’ve probably listened to him more than anyone.
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
My favorite memory of being on stage is when my brother Chris and I got to sing with Levon Helm (multiple times!). We did several shows with Levon and his band, but the most memorable were the Rambles at Levon’s barn. Being in that intimate space and standing right next to him at his drum kit and singing “The Weight,” with him smiling at us and egging us on… that was a huge highlight for me. To meet and sing with your hero is a pretty rare and special thing.
What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc. — inform your music?
Other art forms definitely inform my music, especially books and films. I love stories that have ambiguity and abstraction, like a David Lynch film or a Faulkner book. I like when you can feel something without fully understanding it. And the ambiguity allows for personal interpretation. It’s nice when something isn’t completely spelled out for you and you can draw your own conclusions. And a great thing about books is that you can put your own pictures to the images and characters described in the stories (which is why movie adaptations often disappoint). That can happen in songs too. And I like when I’m able to write a song based on my own experience and images in my head that resonates with someone else, even though they may interpret it in their own way.
What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?
I’d say the toughest songs to write are often the most rewarding and cathartic. When my mom was dying I found there was no way to not write about it. My brother and I were so consumed by her illness (ALS) and passing that it just became part of our work. And as painful as it was, it was also a way to process and understand the situation (and a way to immortalize our mom). Songs like “Loving Arms,” “Blue and Green,” and “Don’t Look Back” came from that time. In the years since then I have found that writing tributes to my close friends who passed away was a difficult but healthy pursuit.
If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?
Stop giving a f#%k and just do it. Don’t worry, think, hesitate or compare yourself to others. Just be completely yourself, because that’s all you have, and that’s enough… Of course I’m not there yet, but that’s what I’m going for.
Photo credit: Joshua Black Wilkins
BGS 5+5: Brigitte DeMeyer
Artist name: Brigitte DeMeyer
Hometown: San Francisco, California
Latest album: Seeker
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Well, my husband calls me Bubba. My friends sometimes call me B, or Brig. My nieces and nephews call me “Tante Brigie.”
What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?
I always knew I loved to sing, as far back as age 12 when I won the talent show at summer camp. I sang whenever I could, in church, in school musicals, in various bands, just for the fun of it. But, in my late 20s I was asked to jump in and sing at an informal party with a very talented friend who was playing acoustic guitar for folks. He played in such a way that a feeling came through me when I began singing, it was like I left the building and got lost in the song. I felt like notes were coming through me from somewhere else.
When I opened my eyes at the end of the song the room of people had gone quiet and all had gathered around me and erupted into a joyous cheer at the end of the song. It was the first time I remember getting naturally high from singing. I have spent my whole career chasing that feeling of connection to whatever came through me that day. It can come from anywhere. Collaborating with someone with the right chemistry, connecting with the audience, or just being by myself writing. They may not be the best performances of my life when that happens. But, it’s about the feeling I get, from connecting to something higher. It’s also really fun to play with friends. Energy exchanging and collaborating. Hope all that makes sense.
What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?
I guess I would say the toughest time trying to write a song is when I am super happy. You have to really dig in deep and create something out of nothing. “Cat Man Do” came out that way. It took me a year to write that song. You have to make up a character or situation from scratch. I have enough life experiences to draw from. And, inspiration can come from anywhere so I force myself to be open and pay attention. You mix a little fiction with imagination and add a bit of grease and salt, or sugar if that’s what the song calls for. Approaching a song like a poem or a story is something I enjoy as well, or using old language that isn’t vernacular is fun. It makes the song feel deeper and have more character I think. Though it has to make sense to the listener as well, so finding balance lyrically there is tricky at times.
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
I have so many. But one of them, was at Humphreys in San Diego in 2014, when I opened for Gregg Allman. He was in the wings watching and listening to me during my whole set. When I came off the stage, he approached and told me I had a beautiful voice. I told him he did. That was a great day. Another great memory was in Ullapool, Scotland, sitting in at the pub with those raucous Scots listening in. They are so appreciative and warm in the U.K. I love performing there.
Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?
This is an easy one for me. I am an avid horse enthusiast. I am often out at the barn where I board my horse, which is surrounded with rolling hills and wildlife, like hawks, coyotes, goats, etc., and a neighboring cattle farm. Horses for me remind me nature is king, and give me that feeling of connection to something higher as well. I come home way happier every time I go and spend time with my horse. It is also a confidence builder.
If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?
I would say trust your gut, and just be yourself. Don’t try to sound like anyone else, or write like anyone else. And don’t let anyone tell you what is right for you. If you need to get your mix right, do it. Don’t settle. Also, I was told I was too old in my late 20s to begin my career. I did not listen. I forged my own path kind of organically. Oh yeah, and ALWAYS surround yourself with people who make you happy in your work. If the vibe is there, the music will follow. It shows in the music.
WATCH: The Wood Brothers, “Honey Jar” (The Muse Live 2020)
Artist: The Wood Brothers
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Song: “Honey Jar” (Live)
Album: The Muse (to be released on 2-LP vinyl in March 2021)
In Their Words: “It felt so good to play together for a day and get a small taste of the fun we have touring and playing shows. It’s like we didn’t get to go to summer camp this year. We miss it so bad. We’re looking forward to connecting with fans and friends on the live chat, as well. The community around the band means so much to us, so it’ll be really fun to be together with everyone.” — Oliver Wood, The Wood Brothers
Photo Credit: Come To Life Media
BGS Podcast Network: Weekly Roundup // March 27
Well, it looks like some of you folks might be finding yourself with a bit more time on your hands! And in the age of podcasts, this situation presents a wonderful opportunity. Thankfully, here at BGS we’ve had a steady stream of episodes flowing each week, and have no intention to stem that flow any time soon.
So grab yourself a cup of coffee, settle in, and tune in to our roundup of this week’s podcast releases. And make sure to follow along on our social media [Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram] and right here, where we’ll round up our new releases each week, as well as some past favorites:
The String – Ron Pope
Ron Pope is a case study in good indie art and commerce. He’s an admired songwriter with an avid following for his cathartic, detail-laden songs and his wide-ranging command of roots and rock and roll genres. A Georgia native, he got his career moving in New York and then moved to Nashville, where he’s raising a daughter and keeping the songs flowing.
Craig Havighurst meets with Pope in this latest episode of The String, and takes a radio field trip to Nashville’s shrine of analog recording, Welcome To 1979.
The Show On the Road – The Wood Brothers
Just before our world as we know it shut down, putting a halt to The Wood Brothers’ West Coast tour – along with the entire live music scene – Oliver and Chris Wood spoke with host Zach Lupetin about their renewed musical bond, their brand new album Kingdom in My Mind, the East Nashville tornado, and much more.
Give this episode a listen and then give the album a spin to help you groove through the lockdown.
The Breakdown – The Seldom Scene, “Live at the Cellar Door”
If ever there was a party of a bluegrass album, the Seldom Scene’s classic 1975 release, Live at the Cellar Door, is it.
Hosts Patrick M’Gonigle and Emma John interview original band members Tom Gray and Ben Eldridge to find out what was really going down on that mad and marvelous night.
The Shift List – Restaurant Workers Relief Program
This week on the Shift List, a replay of our conversation with Chef Edward Lee, recorded back in 2018.
Chef Lee is helping to lead the way in bringing restaurant workers relief with his Restaurant Workers Relief Program through The Lee Initiative. Due to the closure of restaurant and worker across America, thousands of restaurant workers have an urgent need for assistance, and they need our help now more than ever.
In partnership with Makers Mark Bourbon, Chef Lee is transforming restaurants across the country into relief centers for any restaurant worker who has been laid off or has had a significant reduction in hours and/or pay. The Lee Initiative, in conjunction with local chefs in every majorly affected community across the country, is offering help for those in need of food and supplies, and each night, they’re packing hundreds of to-go meals that people can come to pick up and take home.
For more information and to donate, visit leeinitiative.org, and in the meantime, while we’re all trapped indoors, continue to support your local community by ordering takeout and pickup.
The Show On The Road – The Wood Brothers
Right before the whole world as we know it shut down and they shortened their West Coast tour due to COVID-19, host Z. Lupetin spoke to Oliver and Chris Wood — Americana pioneers The Wood Brothers — about their renewed musical bond, how they grew up in Colorado jamming with their biology professor dad, and how they just barely missed the great East Nashville tornado earlier this month. When it rains it does pour, it seems.
LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS • MP3
The Wood Brothers’ brand new record, Kingdom in My Mind, is a sweetly funky, ballsy, bluesy, booty-shaking, and romantic improvisational masterwork. Do yourself a favor and turn it up loud and proud — it will help you groove through the lockdown. If there is anything that’s clear in this deeply strange and unsettling time, it’s that we need music more than ever.
How the Wood Brothers Made an Album out of a Print Shop Jam Session
The Wood Brothers have been together as long as they were apart. For fifteen years or so Chris and Oliver Wood pursued separate careers — Oliver out of Atlanta as a blues/rock guitarist and singer, and Chris out of New York as the bass player with the uncanny jazz/jam success story Medeski, Martin & Wood. Then they sat in together and felt a pull energized by family ties and musical curiosity, and their folk duo was born, about fifteen years ago.
Chris jokes that over seven studio albums and uncountable miles on the road, they’ve been on “a slow rise to the middle” but that’s far too self-deprecating. Their last opus, 2018’s One Drop of Truth, was nominated for a Grammy, and not long after it was released the band headlined the Ryman Auditorium and Red Rocks Amphitheatre (their hometown shrine, as they grew up in Boulder, Colorado). In September, they released their fourth live album, culling songs from a two-night stand at the Fillmore in San Francisco, where their highly developed musical telepathy — between the brothers and with drummer/keyboard player Jano Rix — was on vibrant display in a warm sonic atmosphere.
Newly minted is Kingdom In My Mind, an 11-song collection inspired largely by the feel of a new studio. The band and their sound engineer Brook Sutton had to move out of the old church-like studio where they’d made One Drop of Truth, but they found a new place nearby on Nashville’s west side. The brothers spoke to BGS about how that new destination shaped the sound of their latest project.
BGS: I understand that shaking down your new recording space produced proved unexpectedly productive?
Oliver: In our downtime we’ve always had some sort of rehearsal space, whether it was Chris’s basement or something, where we would just improvise and come up with musical ideas. I think all of us enjoy the art of improvising and playing music without thought and without purpose. We’re not trying to write a song. We’re not trying to sound good even. We’re just trying to play something new. Chris and I will react off each other, or off Jano, and do that musical communication that can happen if you just listen. We’ve always done that. And we’ve always recorded it on a phone or on a laptop just to remember. Whereas this time we set up and did the same process but we had a professional studio and an engineer miking everything up so it was usable.
Chris: Yeah, we didn’t know what we were doing. We didn’t know this was going to be the beginning of a record. We’d got a studio and put a lot of work into getting it up and running and sounding how we wanted it with baffles and things like that. But then it was, well, this is a huge room. Where do you set up? Where do you put the drums? Let’s put them over here. Let’s see what that sounds like. And we set up near each other and threw some mics up intuitively. I think we were struck immediately as soon as we heard playback. Even with that haphazard setup, it sounded great. Something about the room made us play a certain way. It felt magical and inspired. So immediately we looked at each other and said, “Maybe this is how we make this record.” So we did maybe five sessions where we set up and improvised in different parts of the studio. There’s a big A room, which you could almost fit an orchestra, and then a smaller, dryer room. So we had fun with all kinds of different variations.
Can you give us a visual and the background of the place and why it became home?
Chris: It’s an old print shop. So what we call the B room is smaller. It’s probably where people came in and got stuff photocopied.
Oliver: And then the back room — after it was a print shop and before we got it — was a dance studio with a dance floor and high ceilings. It was probably a warehouse at some point. This is not a fancy building. It’s cinder block.
So you had to look at this print shop/warehouse/dance studio and imagine a plan?
Chris: It was easy, and it had to do with the layout. It was very clear immediately. The control room goes here. From that room you have access to both tracking rooms. There’s even a lounge. There’s a room with a loading dock that can also be an isolation room. And it’s all in a circular layout. Everything about it was easy to imagine how we could be up and running quickly once we got our stuff in there.
Oliver: It was luck. And it was cheaper than we expected. But I’ll add to that process that Chris was talking about. The improvising we like so much, almost never can you use that stuff on an album. Normally you perform songs to make albums. So Chris got really good at editing these improvs. These are just jams, maybe in the key of A for 20 minutes. Maybe we switch chords every once in a while. Maybe we don’t. But Chris started chopping them up (in audio software). And we realized that we could arrange these improvisations.
And the beautiful thing — which usually gets lost — is your first impression of things. Like when you’re inspired. You play something, and you’ll never do it again. But we actually captured those moments and were able to use them on the album. And so the things that all of us love about albums are these anomalies, little mistakes or weird things that bleed together — things that if you were thinking about a song you’d never have played. To us, that had a freshness that Chris was able to chop up, and we were able to write lyrics over these new collage-y things.
Chris: Like Sly Stone said, there’s a rhythm when you don’t know what you’re doing. And we really take that to heart. I think that’s why a lot of musicians who have been doing this a long time really cherish first takes. Because before all the musicians really know the song, they’ll play things that they’d never play once they really know the song. For a lot of us, I mean for me certainly, it’s always a red flag when we do a take and I feel like I really nailed (it). It’s almost a guarantee that that’s not the take. Not the good one. The good one was the one before, when I was searching and didn’t quite know what was happening next.
Oliver: Discomfort is good.
Chris: A little bit, yeah. You don’t want to know too much.
Right out of the box on “Alabaster” there’s this over-driven sound like a Rhodes piano and I wonder if maybe that was just an accident that worked?
Oliver: Absolutely. That was recorded the first day we set up. Jano was playing drums and keyboard at the same time. He had this keyboard rig with a crappy little amplifier and it just sounded like that. And again, we weren’t thinking about a song at all. We were all in one room in a circle, and it just happened to be cool.
Chris: We were thinking sounds more than anything. Oliver had this great Stella guitar that he recently got set up. I’m sure Jano played that sound on purpose because he liked it. It was very intuitive and in the moment. So he didn’t have to worry if it was fitting a song or not. He just liked the sound. That’s kind of what we were going for.
You both come from improvised music backgrounds, one jazz and one blues-based. When I heard these tracks, I felt like the Medeski, Martin & Wood approach and the Wood Brothers approach have never been closer. Also, Jano plays with even more freedom. This feels like a jazz record in many ways.
Chris: I absolutely agree. This is the most meshed those worlds have ever been. It was definitely a long-term goal to get to this point. Little by little, not only integrating the MMW background with the songwriting, but also, just as you said, Jano is such a talent and can do so many things. Great drummer. Amazing keyboard player, percussionist. Great singer and producer. So to integrate all of his talents into what we were doing as a duo took some time, you know?
I think that’s why it works. When you improvise, all your knowledge, all the music that’s inside you, can come out. It’s not restricted by a song that’s been written already. Jano’s drumming and all of our playing is featured more because we were improvising to create the source material for the songs and were able to keep that. In the past I loved all the songs, but there’s a lot more that we can do. Improvising is a way to showcase that.
Oliver: It does inform how you play live too. We learned that you don’t always have to be right on the money. It’s fun to pretend like you’re in a punk band for a minute or something and kind of let loose and try something different.
Here it is about 15 years into this journey. Maybe it’s been an even bigger force in your lives than you thought. What have you learned, as musicians and family?
Oliver: I bet we take it for granted doing it all the time and being busy with it, but certainly in the last 15 years I feel like Chris and I were slightly estranged in that we were living in different places and playing with different people. We had sort of lost touch. So initially, yeah, the music brought us back together and we were able to combine our shared interests and experiences. That was awesome, and it was how we reconnected as brothers. And it’s nice to have a family business, especially a creative one, where we get to do that together and make a living too.
Chris: Yeah, people usually frame the beginning of this band as if it must have been a casual side project. But I never thought about it that way. It was exciting from the beginning. And for both of us, in different ways, coming full circle. We grew up with our dad playing music live around the house, you know, folk songs. Playing and singing. And that was, we realized, a huge influence.
I always liked singing when I was younger and ended up in Medeski, Martin & Wood, an instrumental band, for 20 years. I hadn’t been singing, so it was scary, but it was something I was really excited about getting into again. And just the way we write songs and composing with my brother is really fun and different. Whereas MMW was, as you said, a lot of improvisation, I also like writing. It was nice to get into that too.
Pulling back, MMW was a band that took real jazz to the jam band audience. And I feel like there are bands that hover between the world of the jam audience, which loves freedom and surprise, and the songwriter audience, which focuses more on the lyrical emotion. And maybe those bands never quite get totally accepted by either camp. How have you all mapped that?
Oliver: That’s well put, and I think we ride that fence, and enjoy it for the most part. It’s a nice balance. Personally I like to hear somewhere in the middle. I like to hear a good song, but I also like to hear some musical interplay. I think a balance of those things is really cool.
Chris: Yeah, one of the things that can be amazing about music is when there’s some mystery. You don’t quite understand what’s happening up there but it still is engaging. And how do you do that? There’s no formula. Nobody knows. Which is why we never get tired of this job. You know, you can’t figure it out. You stumble upon it sometimes, but it’s not always obvious how you get to that magical balance between the two.
Oliver: It’s always a fun challenge for us to take a good simple song but set it apart and give it its own sound. So use a weirder guitar. Use a broken thing. But make it something you haven’t done before and you haven’t heard somebody else do before. That’s kind of what we’re always doing.
We talk about this all the time. Sometimes we’ll write a song and use just cowboy chords and write it like a country song. Then [we’ll] mess up the music completely and make it our own thing somehow. So it’s a combination of all this classic stuff we love. And then, how can we make a new classic?
Craig Havighurst is host of The String from WMOT Roots Radio in Nashville and a longtime journalist covering roots music.
Photos: Alysse Gafkjen