For the past 25 years, Ropeadope Records has been churning out incredibly innovative music from across genres, providing a platform for some of the most underrated voices in Philly jazz and the jazz world at large. With a relentless creative spirit that allows them to forge new paths in the world of music, Ropeadope has spent a quarter of a century trusting their instincts. These instincts have led them to Grammy accolades, working with Terrace Martin and Tin Hat Trio and racking up one of the most impressive and expansive discographies since Blue Note. 

As the label celebrates its historic run and sets its sights on Ropeadope’s future, Glide had the pleasure of speaking with Louis Marks about the label’s origins and their refreshing approach to running a record company. You can read our full conversation below.  

You guys must be feeling reflective as Ropeadope nears its 25th anniversary. What are some of your favorite moments from the label’s history? 

Yes, not just because it’s our 25th year, but today’s music business (and world) demands that we carefully reflect and consider a clear path for the future. There are so many highlights, and every album and musician is important – but for me, I’d single out: 

The Philadelphia Experiment

The amazingly productive years from 2004 – 2008 for the clothing lines. Designs that still look fresh today.

Our work with Snarky Puppy, the launch of GroundUP, and, of course, the Grammy win

The greats that joined our community from 2012 – 2020 – Col Bruce Hampton, Shaun Martin, Eddie Palmer, and so many more.

Ropeadope TV: Fabian and I took it straight to the audience from 2016 to 2022. That was fun.

The arc of Chief Adjuah, a true artist in every sense.

In the beginning, Ropeadope quickly ventured into both music and clothes. Was it always the vision to have Ropeadope as an umbrella for smaller companies and projects under it? How has your vision for the label changed since you started in 1999? 

Clothing was always a part of Ropeadope; it connects us with people. The vision has changed as the business has changed, but really, we’re still just a wild teenager pushing back on industry and social norms. In the future, our model will move to patronage and curation of culturally relevant projects.

What sort of nuances define the Philly Jazz sound? How has the city’s art scene evolved since Ropeadope got involved? 

There are many more qualified to answer this than I am. For me, it’s not so much the sound but the attitude and the on-the-street reality that make Philly music special. There’s plenty of polish, with just the right amount of dirt.

What initially drew you into Jazz, and why did it feel right for Ropeadope to start in this genre? 

Personally, Miles Davis drew me to Jazz. Professionally, Ropeadope exists in a jazz-adjacent world because there are so many innovative jazz players who embody its true spirit – that is, experimentation and improvisation. There is no box big enough to hold them.

What are some essential Ropeadope releases you would recommend to a new fan? 

Ahh, that’s tough. There really isn’t anything that isn’t enjoyable on one level or another. Sample the candy store, pick a favorite, and see where it leads. 

I do find that there are some key tracks that I return to again and again—“The Yellowjacket” by Shaun Martin, “Funky Southern” by The Funk Ark, “Willow Weep For Me” by Tin Hat Trio, “Truth” by The Heartstrings Project, etc. It’s very personal, and it changes with my mood. 

Ropeadope began to venture outside of jazz in the early 2000s with The Detroit Experiment. What inspired this move, and have you always been fascinated with regional sounds like this? 

We ventured outside of Jazz with our first record (DJ Logic) and again with Tin Hat Trio (featuring Willie Nelson no less), Bullfrog, Scratch, etc. So we really never were in Jazz, or at least we didn’t see it that way. Regional sounds came about because musicians travel and network, each bringing an unshakeable flavor from their home city. We ARE fascinated by that because it exposes a network of individuals, a family if you will, that exists outside the typical social parameters. They come together with the language and love of music; we just follow and release the music. 

You guys have seen the ups and downs of physical media in music and even went with mostly digital releases for a short time. What drew Ropeadope back into the vinyl game, and do you see other mediums like cassette and CD making a comeback anytime soon? 

The simple question is, “What drew you away from vinyl in the first place?” The answer to that is simply cost vs sales potential. Once people realized that vinyl is forever, we began to press again. Cost still limits the number of releases that make it to vinyl. Comeback is a word that big businesses use; we see a certain number of people out there who aren’t swayed by the tech flavor of the day and value music enough to own it. 

I see you guys aren’t afraid to shift through some submissions. What do you look for in the artists you decide to work with? Is there any underlying connection you see in all of Ropeadope’s releases? 

Simple – it’s people first. If the artist is presenting their authentic self, we are in. 

Is there a difference between your personal taste and the musicians you work with? 

Yes – ropeadope is one part of my personal music discovery path. There is also a bit of an issue when you listen to music for ‘work’ and when you listen for personal enjoyment. It’s exciting for me that I enjoy all ropeadope music, but sometimes I have to leave it behind and take some personal exploration time. 

Twenty-five years under Ropeadope’s belt, you guys are still going strong. What do you credit your longevity to? What does Ropeadope have planned for 2025? 

Blind Love of music. The ability to buck convention and to scale up and down when the business gets nasty. This time in music is the most difficult we have ever seen for the type of artists we work with. The streaming ‘blender’ makes it difficult for an artist who releases an album every year or two who isn’t constantly touring and creating social media content. 2025 will be a light year by comparison – we have some powerful albums coming –  Paul Shaffer & Tisziji Munoz, with Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Will Calhoun—also albums from J3PO, Sonya Belaya, Bright Dog Red, Zela Margossian.

Most of my time in 2025 will be spent building a new organization – Third Way Cultural Alliance – with co-founders Fabian Brown and Joe Pignato – designed to bring a sleek and functional patronage model to contemporary music with cultural relevance. 

The post Ropeadope Looks Back On 25 Years Of Jazz Innovation (INTERVIEW) appeared first on Glide Magazine.

The description of their album that they posted on Bandcamp, referencing “bangers and lullabies,” is effective and accurate since Bound takes the audience down a path into the unknown, exploring heavier sonic territory as well as minimalist, almost ethereal explorations. That contrast, however, makes for an exhilarating journey, and one that suggests the energy of this new era of Luna Honey as well as the notable energy they bring to their live shows. I spoke with Maura Pond about the band’s working methods on Bound, their ideas behind track ordering, and where she feels inspiration comes from for an artist observing our multi-faceted world. 

I see that you used a lot of home studio space to make the album but also went into a studio for a few tracks. 

Yes, we were finding that there were some things that we really needed the space for. We were finding on the demos that we made of some of these, particularly songs like “Kerosene”, that they just didn’t have that oomph that they did when we played them live. So we went to our friend, Dan Angel’s studio, with a big, big space, and we were able to not just record ourselves playing together, but use the PA to pump out the electronic beats, so that the beats themselves have a touch of the organic to them. You can kind of hear what they sound like in a room. It adds a little extra texture in there.

I really like that song, “Kerosene,” a lot. It’s one of the heaviest on the album. I can see how, live, that would really get people’s attention. 

We’ve still got the quieter songs on there, too, that are maybe a little more minimal. We tried to keep from making noise just because we can, and let them be a little more vulnerable, able to stand on their own. 

I get the sense that there’s a lot of energy here behind the new creation of these songs. I don’t know if I’m reading that into the situation, but I read about how you all, geographically, came back together in Philadelphia. Are these songs a kind of outpouring of that reunion? Some of the variety here feels like that, inviting all the sounds to the party. 

I think, definitely, we’re all really grateful to still be working together. There’s just been a lot that’s happened since the band started. It has not been an easy time. A lot of the things that happened could have split us all apart. Then, being physically apart, we were trying to do various things. Ben and I were down in Richmond, and Levi was up in Philly for a while, and we were doing these long commutes to try to have band practice. It was no good. 

So it felt like a big weight off to finally be back in the same place, and having making music be fun again, rather than having so many logistics attached to it. We’d have to schedule a month ahead to go on a long trek and hope that the spark happened that day. But a lot of songwriting is more organic than that, and you can kind of pre-plan it, but you miss a lot in-between. I think we all have a sense of, “Thank goodness that we persevered through, what hopefully were the bad times, and now we’re in a different phase.” I think that comes through on the record. 

I think you can kind of scare off the naturalness of creative work. I’ve heard of bands building whole studios just to record an album, and it seems so extreme.

That’s totally a wild-eyed thing to do, though. I think most bands I know would love to go somewhere, lock themselves in, and record somewhere. Personally, because I’ve not really had a chance to do that, it still sounds awesome, but I can see how it would be less natural.

What sort of form are the germinal songs in when other members hear that work? Do you write separately, then share?

It depends. I do write all the lyrics, so that part is consistent. Other than that, we have practice once a week, and we’ll noodle on things at practice. We’ll try to record it, and some of those things we’ll turn into songs later. Sometimes, one of us will sit down, come up with something, and share it around. On a song like “Gravity”, Ben was making a lot of tape loops, and there was one loop where I said, “I think I hear something to that.” So he sent it to me. I don’t remember if I wrote the bass first, or vocals first. We do all kinds of trade-offs. 

“Vacuum Cleaner” is one that Ben and Levi did the music for a couple of years ago. We don’t usually do that. We usually just finish stuff up. But with that one, I had an idea in my mind that I wasn’t able to write the right words for. It took a couple of years of trying, and pulling it out. I’d say, “Nah, that’s not right”, and put it back again. That’s actually mostly improvised. I wrote the lyrics a day or two before we went into the studio for it. I like to have the lyrics done, but not necessarily have a firm sense of what the melody is going to be until we’re recording. Because sometimes, you get that first take, and it’s really, really good. There’s something about the looseness of figuring out what the melody is going to be that can do that. It doesn’t always happen, but when it does, I always try to capture it. That’s one of the last pieces, the melody. It’s sort of the surprise at the end.

That’s amazing. Most people want the melody very early on as a kind of security blanket to build the song. That’s very brave. 

[Laughs] It’s kind of scary. What you hear on the album for “Vacuum Cleaner” is the first take of that. That feels a little funny and self-conscious to let go and do in front of people. It can be very loud, and yet you don’t have a solid grip on what you’re doing. I think all of us are trained to pull from a very instinctual place, making sure that we capture the pieces of improvisation, and then, we can arrange them later.

That’s so interesting. On “Vacuum Cleaner,” the vocals really do feel like a reaction. It has an almost multi-media feeling to it, like a play or drama, in that way. It’s not that big a step to move into live songwriting from there.

We usually do it instrument-by-instrument, so there’s not as much of us all playing together. People will ask, “Who’s doing the Producing?” We are all kind of doing that, when we’re recording the individual tracks, or making decisions about layers. For that reason, the studio is really important for us in the songwriting process.

How important is sequencing to you? When do you start thinking about that?

I’ll listen to a demo, and drive around to it, and once it has lyrics, it moves into a category of, “Here are our songs that will become final.” I do pretty much immediately start sorting that into an album order, and we’ll have a discussion if we’re missing anything. The album order and track order does play into the songwriting. Maybe because there might feel like there’s a hole somewhere, and that can be almost a writing prompt. We’ll go through things we’ve been working on, and track down that beat. Order and finalizing what’s going to be on the album is a part of the process.

That’s becoming less common to think of album construction so intensely in Pop and Rock, but it’s more common in ambient music, instrumental music, and other kinds of music. You all are so experimental that I was guessing that you see the album as one whole experience for the audience.

Yes. Without over-intellectualizing it too much, Ben and I like a lot of longer-form pieces. When we worked on Branches, that’s a four-part album. I think of that in the way that classical music would be arranged, with movements. That’s intended to be a whole. That did change, I think, my way of thinking about pacing. I like long things! It gives you terrain to walk through. 

Bound was a little bit of a struggle because there were a lot of songs where we wondered if we were taking things too far by adding a lot of minimalist songs to the second half of the album right alongside so many “hot” ones in the beginning. After sitting with the album, listening to it a couple times, for me it seemed to click. It feels like you’re going on a kind of path. So we decided to stick with that.

I think it’s wonderful that you treated the album as its own creature. Can you tell me more about deciding to put the heavier songs first and the more minimal songs following? 

The big question was whether to put the challenging, abrasive songs in the middle. “Kerosene,” when we all listened back to it, felt like the beginning, though. It was like the action movie that had something intense happening immediately. That kicks things off. With “Vacuum Cleaner” right after that, it’s really intense, but it’s also placed there so that you really don’t know what you’re going to be listening to. 

“Kerosene” is more of a familiar Rock song and “Vacuum Cleaner” is more out there. I think it’s fun to do that. Then, to cool it off, we have “Barbie Cake” which a kind of fun-sounding song, and that keeps you on your toes. It challenges assumptions that you might have coming into it about what you might be listening to, and then, easing into it, you have the gentler songs.

Do you have a philosophy or idea of where you think your writing comes from or what the subconscious is? Maybe the bigger question is about what it means to you.

I think the answer as to whether I have a philosophy is “Yes,” but I’m not quite sure I’ve nailed the right way to describe it, other than that things originate in the gut. I think you go out there, and you accumulate your experiences, and maybe you read something interesting, like a news article. Then you’ve got all this fodder flying around in your brain. Then, if you reflect on how you’re feeling, and what you’re seeing in the world, and try to match things up. 

I don’t want to say that it’s “divine inspiration”, because that sounds super-lofty, but I do think there’s some kind of universal feeling of inspiration and creativity that artists tap into when they are trying to be open. That’s definitely part of it, trying to keep that open and see what parts of the brain bits flying around nestle into the right spots.

That suggests a degree of having to pay attention, to the world, and to what’s happening inside yourself. 

I think that’s the other reason that there’s so much of a shift in what the music sounds like on this album. To me, we don’t live in a world that sounds one way. It doesn’t feel one way. We live in a pretty ambiguous world that has a lot of facets to it. If you’re thinking and reflecting on those things, those are going to end up sounding different ways. Maybe there are going to be different sounds that resonate, and feel like different truths for you, personally, at that moment in time. Those don’t necessarily come with a nice bow on top and the certainty that they are all going to go together automatically, but I think that contrast contains a kind of truth, as well. That’s why I think we opted to feel free to include songs no matter where they ended up, to let them be what they are, because there’s something magical about that. 

The post Luna Honey’s Maura Pond Explores The Adventurous Mood of ‘Bound’ (INTERVIEW) appeared first on Glide Magazine.

For Kevin Shields, who returned from a whirlwind tour of the country as a young person in the Coast Guard to found the band and is currently the main band member left to carry its legacy, holding the physical release of the music in his hands has been very emotional. It reminds him of a time of fomenting creativity when he and his bandmates brought all their crazy ideas to their songs and their live shows and were met with a lot of support from the zeitgeist. I spoke with Kevin Shields about his formative experiences and his reflections on the making of this music as part of a diverse national scene. 

Does this release feel like a consolidation of the band’s legacy for you, preserving its history?

Well, I’m literally the last man standing here, because my brother, the singer, passed in 2021. Leukemia got him. Our guitar player bought the farm last year due to untreated alcoholism, basically. My younger brother, the drummer, is basically on disability. The original guitarist, Rodney, is not someone I’ve spoken to in 30 years. I don’t play music anymore, though I enjoy listening to it, and will go to live music occasionally. 

I’m so sorry to hear that. That makes this release even more poignant and, I think, significant. 

It’s amazing to get this thing in my hands. I had to work with James Reynolds, from Left for Dead, to send him information, which was eventually put on the album sleeve, and stuff like that. It’s had a long gestation period. This thing finally saw the light of day around Halloween, and I received a clear copy, a black vinyl copy, and a CD in the mail. It was really like my birthday, without the candles. I have the CD in my car, and I listen to it occasionally. Sometimes, I listen to it just to hear my brother’s voice, quite honestly. Sometimes, I can’t listen to it for the same reason, and I have to let it go a couple of days. James did a great job with it all around. It sounds good, and it’s a great package. Whatever the audience may be, I hope that record collectors want it. I’m hoping that, generally, that people who have heard of us want it. It’ll also be interesting to see what new people come aboard.

There is a strata of people who like to study and try to understand the development and history of certain types of music. They want to know what was going on in different places at different times, and this fills a gap that people have in their knowledge.

Right. This is a total snapshot. I mean that nearly literally. It’s a snapshot of its time and its place. We were a central Jersey group. The single itself, [“Dead Rock ‘N Rollers”] is now now 41 years old. The album cuts are from approximately 1984. The most recent stuff on that release is from 1986. If all these knuckleheads who were bashing into each other while we were playing at our gigs went home and listened to Benny Goodman or Glen Miller, that would be the equivalent of listening to something that’s 40 years old! 

I’m amazed that it’s been so long since the 80s because it feels like they are still with us, but I’ve also seen how our understanding of that period has taken shape in the years since then. I want to ask you about this major event that happened to you when you went into the Coast Guard at 17. It seems like that must have been the thing that opened your whole world up.

Yes, that’s a factual statement. I was looking around at my prospects, and I was at an age where I had to start looking at my prospects. High school was going away soon. I’d look at the classified ads, and I didn’t see any positions for long-haired, trumpet-playing pot dealers! [Laughs] I had to see what was behind curtain number two. My oldest brother was a sailor. My father was a sailor in wartime. 

My oldest brother seemed like he had a pretty good gig going on. I decided not to go to the local community college and study music. I just bailed. When I was 17, my mom drove me to Red Bank in Monmouth County, and I signed up at the recruitment office for delayed enlistment. I had to come back in one year, with a high school diploma. Four days after graduation, I was down in basic training in Cape May. 

I’ve lived a long time in New Jersey, so I’m familiar with all these locations. For those who might now know, Red Bank is the home of the Count Basie Theater, and Cape May is near Wildwood. 

I summered there, it was great! I really did a change-up, in a new place where everybody had the same haircut, the same clothes. But if I’d stayed where I was, we wouldn’t be talking about this right now. I was thrown out there in the world and got to do some traveling. I was out on my own, and had to start thinking on my own. I started to read and listen to new music. I had always been a music guy. But I started to see mentions of new bands, and I went over to an Eckerd’s in Brunswick, Georgia, where they still had a record section circa 1977. I purchased Rocket To Russia and Never Mind The Bollocks. I was in Southern Georgia, talk about culture shock! That stuff was right next to the Village People. That year it was Best of the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac.

That was a big year for music.

I was looking for something else, and that travel was crucial, because later, I went to New York City, and eventually, went to California. When I was in New York, I was on Governor’s Island, and it was a quick ferry ride to Manhattan. It was nutty. I began to go see these groups I’d been reading about in The Village Voice and elsewhere. I was a young guy, but the drinking age was 18 back then, so I was able to get into these places. 

Then I got stationed on a cutter, which was in a yard in Maryland getting overhauled, and it was being re-home-ported from Boston to Alameda [California], so I got to take the whole trip around, through the Panama Canal. What an opportunity! Then I was in Alameda, right across the way from Oakland, and right across the way from San Francisco. I went berserk!

Was going to live events something that gave you such a positive experience that it became like a hobby to go to these shows? I imagine it was more deeply felt than that, but I’m wondering how you viewed it at the time.

I was pretty obsessive about it, I’ll say that much. I certainly wasn’t against blowing the foam off a couple, or smoking a joint, but I’ve always been into live music. Now I had all these choices. That they didn’t make me walk the plank is unbelievable because I was going to clubs three nights a week! 

[Laughs] You must have been exhausted. Mornings are very important in the military.

At eight o’clock in the morning, I was out on the flight deck. It bordered on obsession. It was a deep hobby, sure, but it was exciting times. When I was stationed in Alameda, there were a lot of groups I didn’t see, and I was kicking myself about it later, but there were a lot of groups that I did see. The first night we tied up in Alameda, I saw Mary Monday, The Tattooed Vegetables, and The Bags from LA. 

By this point, people were using the word “Punk,” right? How were these shows classified? How did you know that you were finding the right kind of shows for you?

I wasn’t that particular, but if you were around enough, like I was, you get to know who’s who. If I saw something that was like The Wounds, The Victims, or The Dead Kennedys, I knew it was going to be loud, hard, and fast. But whoever was playing, was playing. I wasn’t that particular. 

Did all of this make you more politically and socially aware? I see that in your lyrics, like in the song “El Salvador.” Once you got back to New Jersey and started this band, was that a motivating factor?

I think Paul was an excellent lyricist. Keep in mind that we were the sons of an English teacher, who was always a speech therapist, and at one point was the coach of a nationally-ranked debate team. If you were around the Shields’ dinner table and had a point of view, you might want to be prepared to prop it up and justify it. Or at least make an argument. We were encouraged to think for ourselves. But the stuff that I contributed, like “Bad Dreams” and “Anti A,” are things I am proud of. Not only were we music guys, we were word guys. If something had a political bent, like “Holiday in Cambodia,” it was usually about something horrid but was also funny as hell. Can you have the two things? I think so. That’s what we were shooting for.

That’s a big debate, still, these days. What is okay to make fun of? What’s going too far?

Right, because some people push it. You can vote with your feet, or change the channel. People have choices. Even with the groups that were a little more heavy-handed and totally anti-authoritarian, I would listen to what they had to say, to their point of view. As far as I’m concerned, whether it was humorous or not, Detention’s music had a point of view, even if that point of view was goofy.

You all recorded this material without a lot of preparation, but I think one of the reasons that it worked so well was that you already knew who you were. Some young bands go into the studio and don’t have an identity yet, so the result is unfocused. Maybe it’s that you knew each other so well, too.

That’s interesting. Yes, we were called “Detention” because it was a lot catchier than “The Shields Brothers and a Drunken Polack.” [Laughs]. But to play with them was fabulous, because we had a similar upbringing and outlook. Now, don’t think we didn’t argue!

Family groups argue the most, I’m sure.

We could be shitty to each other, that’s for sure. If you look at a bottle of Jack Daniels, nowhere does it say, “Clear thinking potion.” [Laughs] We’d bitch at each other, but we tried to get with the creative process and do what we could with what we had. Even the backing vocals were great. We weren’t The Everly Brothers, but we’d do the idiotic shouting.

Let’s talk about the song “Dead Rock ‘N Rollers” for a minute. I’ve heard that some people who listened to it at the time thought it was really mean-spirited. When I hear it, I think it’s about Rock ‘n Roll. I think it’s about pain, and about anger, and also the question, “We love Rock ‘n Roll, so why does this have to be our tradition? Why does it have to be like this?”

I’m in agreement with that. I’d like to point out that all the artists listed are ones whom I admired. I listened to their music. I have two Jimi Hendrix CDs and three Led Zeppelin CDs. Some of these groups, when they were firing on all cylinders, were just fabulous. I did hate The Blues Brothers, but that’s just me. Like Jim Caroll, the guy was a brilliant writer. I didn’t addict him to heroine, but that’s the way life is sometimes. But you are correct in that I love Rock music, and these artists are great, but they made horrible decisions. They had serious lifestyle issues that were never resolved, and it killed them. What’s the difference between Jim Morrison and Elvis Presley? Well, Elvis made it to 42. How’s that for a booby prize? 

I’d also like to point out that were probably together for four years, and whenever we performed that song, Paul could insert anybody in there that he wished. Because he had an unending, indefatigable list of people who were keeling over during that four years. Nobody was safe. Dennis Wilson got it. Instead of John Lennon, or something, he’d be singing “Don’t Go Near The Water” by The Beach Boys. He’d mention Richard Manuel from The Band and sing “Up on Cripple Creek.” There were no sacred cows.

This was a huge epitaph for Rock music. Too much material.

We had an endless trove of material, too much material. It goes on until today, even. Look at these guys. Rock is not a business for everybody. It’s a potentially dangerous business.

The post Kevin Shields From 80s Punk Band Detention Reflects On Humor & Emotion Behind ‘Dead Rock ‘N Rollers’ (INTERVIEW) appeared first on Glide Magazine.

And grow it did. In 1994, the Allstars released their debut LP, West Coast Boogaloo, featuring the legendary Fred Wesley of James Brown and P-Funk fame. They found early success and a dedicated global fanbase for soul-jazz and groove music. “It had a palpable chemistry right from the first rehearsal,” says Walter. “I’m always amazed by everyone’s skills and creativity.” Park credits the band’s diverse musical backgrounds as contributing to their success, citing an early European tour as a sign that they were onto something. “We were getting opportunities that I think would have been difficult to get were we a pop group,” says Park. 

In parallel, as the Allstars project has grown, so have the band members’ careers outside the group. For his part, Denson went on to form and lead his own groups, including Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe and the Karl Denson Trio, and has toured with The Rolling Stones since 2014 following the death of saxophonist Bobby Keys. Walter leads his own band, Robert Walter’s 20th Congress, and has played with Phish’s Mike Gordon since 2015 and Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters since 2022. Park’s career has taken him to film scoring and soundtrack work, including Gary Jules’ indelible and definitive cover of Tears for Fears’ “Mad World” for the Donnie Darko soundtrack, and more recently working on the Pharrell Williams Legobiographical Piece by Piece. Stillwell and Redfield are busy session musicians, performing on recordings by Elton John, CeeLo Green, Sia, and Charli XCX, among others. “It’s tricky to find time to get together as much as we’d like,” says Walter, “but that prevents us from burning out. It’s always a treat when we can do it.” Park echoes Walter’s sentiments: “These are all big opportunities, and we all love to play, so it’s a lot to balance.”

Case in point: as the Allstars were recording a new album, Walter and Denson were called to work with Waters and the Stones, respectively, so the band pressed pause. Fortunately, they’d been sitting on a treasure trove of unreleased recordings, some of which are of tunes that have become live show staples over the years, and decided to release nine of them last week on Grab Bag: 2007-2023. “We knew we had these tunes in the vault that we loved and have always wanted to release and this seemed to be the perfect time,” says Park. The release functions as both a “gift” to longtime fans and as a way to clear the decks for the band to focus on new material ahead of their 2025 tour. “I love touring with this band,” says Walter. “We really start to develop and deconstruct the tunes, and the gigs get telepathic.” 

Their focus on touring has helped keep them resilient in the face of an ever-changing music industry, and this informs their advice to today’s up-and-coming bands. “Get in a van and start touring,” says Walter. “Even if you make no money at first. It’s a great adventure and will bond the band and turn on fans. Sometimes, even if nobody gets you in your hometown, there is a place somewhere where your music will make sense to the audience, and you can build out from there.” Park also recommends an organic approach to growth by touring on releases in a world of YouTube shredders and bedroom composers. “I would advise people just to play together. You can’t fast forward this kind of thing, even with personal musical achievement.”

The Greyboy Allstars’ story is one of longevity (albeit unexpected), artistic growth, and adaptability. They have carved out a space in a rapidly changing industry by prioritizing relationships and collaboration, valuing their shared history, and staying true to their musical roots. Please do not sleep on their next tour!

The post The Greyboy Allstars: Three Decades of West Coast Boogaloo (FEATURE) appeared first on Glide Magazine.

Ok, well, maybe there’s just one: Cracker. 

Fronted by singer/songwriter David Lowery—also of Camper Van Beethoven—Cracker has had a lengthy, decades-long career, even if some listeners only associate them with early ‘90s hits like “Low” and “Teen Angst (What the World Needs Now).” 

Lowery and Company set out to change that perception and highlight the wealth of music they’ve created throughout the years. The result is Alternative History: A Cracker Retrospective, which recently dropped via Cooking Vinyl as a double CD and triple vinyl package. 

The band throws everything from roots to punk into a catchy catalog based on strong songcraft. Not surprisingly, the set includes re-recorded material, demos, outtakes, and live tracks and has something for fans who have followed the band for years, as well as something for the aforementioned fans who may know a track for two.

We talked to Lowery—a senior lecturer at Terry College—via Zoom about the collection and his career.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Many people might be surprised to learn you have a doctorate in higher education. How did you choose that path? 

I had been guest lecturing and teaching at the University of Georgia and then got a more permanent gig. The hardest thing about a doctorate is writing the dissertation, and I had the dissertation in my head. I knew what I wanted it to be about, and I sort of needed a place to fit it, and it fit really well with higher education. It was actually about public policy and copyright but in particular, this thing to do with the Higher Education Act. So, I took the classes I needed to take, and turned in my dissertation. It was actually a great experience because the former head of the university, Charles Knapp, had sort of come back to fill a temporary position at Terry College and he was kind of the one who talked me into doing it. He ended up being my major professor.

Being in academia, I’m sure you know the phrase “publish or perish.” Do you get some credit for putting out albums, or are you expected to publish academic papers?

I’m in the business college. Our music program is a business program. We don’t deal with any of the creative stuff, which makes it a whole bunch easier. So, there’s a lot of people who are professionally qualified. I do publish things every once in a while. Actually, I wrote a piece for a Stanford conference on AI that was sort of commissioned by the Justice Department Antitrust Division. So, I do write real papers, but most of the time I’m professionally qualified. That is, I’m in the business. I manage a large catalog of songs and recordings.

What made you decide to put out the new Cracker anthology? I know something about the genesis of it, which is the majors own the original recordings, and it would be a lot to license them. But it probably costs you more money to put it out than you’re going to make back from it, or at least conceivably. What was the motivation to re-record and re-release the material? 

Well, it’s not all re-recorded. We had re-recorded things over the years for when we had commercial licenses and stuff like that, or film licenses. We had sort of methodically re-recorded a bunch of our stuff. It sounds really good. And then that allowed us to sort of have one of the greatest hits (packages) that came out in, like, 2004. It allowed us to keep a lot of royalties. So, what this really is, is there’s about two or three songs that we re-recorded for this. 

I thought it was more than that. 

Well, there are re-records, but we had done them for other reasons, right? And then specifically for this project, there were three that we did re-record, and they’re re-recorded in a very kind of stripped-down way. That’s “Merry Christmas Emily.” Well, sort of stripped down, like not necessarily in a studio. It’s using our home gear and stuff like that. It’s “King of Bakersfield,” and it’s the version of “Almond Grove,” which I had basically had redone by John Keene, who did a bunch of R.E.M. stuff, and is my neighbor, lives just down the street. And John’s kind of notorious. If you give him something to work on, he just replays a bunch of the instruments because he can play everything, and it’s fantastic. But it’s cool. I mean, he’s a good player, right? (Laughs). So that was “Almond Grove.”

So, what the record is alternate takes that were things that were never released. They might have been done for some reason but never came out. Demos, live tracks, rare things, things that might have only been released, like physically on a B-side and went away. Probably about half is rare and completely unheard stuff, right? Then, the rest is our other alternate takes that people might know, like the stuff we did with Leftover Salmon. We took three of those. And there were a lot of things like that that we did. And so, this is a compilation of a lot of the great songs from Cracker and fan favorites, as well as hits and stuff like that. But a lot of these are versions that people are not aware of. 

You had a ton of material to choose from. Why this and not that? How did you narrow it down?

Well, in a way, we had a lot of material. But when you start sort of building the disc, you might say, “There’s this fantastic live version of ‘I Ride My Bike’ from, you know, WWAV in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1996.” And then you go, “well, that’s a great version.” And then you put it in the context of everything else. You’re like, “huh, it just kind of just sounds too different.” Or it isn’t really as hi-fi as I thought it was when I compare it to these other ones. And it’s just kind of really hard to find a spot now for this, you know, because it sonically sounds so different. So just because you have a lot of material, I mean, it sorts itself out, especially if you spend a lot of time trying to sequence it.

At first, I thought, oh, we’ll do this chronologically. And then I’m like, wait a minute, that’s the stupidest idea in the world, because you’re going to cram all the radio hits up front. And no, no, no, no, no. You want to kind of really kind of tell a different story and make it into a record that has its highs and lows and its quiet spots and loud spots. And that sorts itself out as you’re building the flow of the record.

A wide variety of sounds here might surprise people who only know the radio songs. It’s not on this anthology, but you released a cover of  “Loser” from the Grateful Dead on Kerosene Hat. At that time in the early 90s, the Dead were kind of aversion to the like alt-rock scene. I mean, Kurt Cobain had a t-shirt that said kill The Grateful Dead. Were you not a part of the alt rock movement in the same sense as Nirvana? 

No, we did not consider ourselves necessarily a part of the alt-rock movement. We thought we had some songs that fit into that scene. And, we definitely, you know, played into that scene at certain times and stuff like that. But when I delivered our album to Virgin Records, we had a really great A&R guy named Mark Williams. He signed a ton of bands that you’ve heard of. He’s like the most unknown legendary A&R person in the music business. He signed Smashing Pumpkins, Lenny Kravitz, just on and on and on. He doesn’t self-promote. He loved our band. He loved Camper Van Beethoven. But I brought him this record. He’s like, “hey, I really like this record. But I got to tell you this. You know, essentially, you’re giving me a country rock, southern rock album, when like Pearl Jam and Nirvana, this is the biggest stuff in like the rock world, right now. So, if you’re happy selling like, you know, 60,000, 70,000 albums, I’m happy to put it out.”

I mean, I’m really paraphrasing and shorting the whole thing. But we were lucky. “Teen Angst,” the first song on the first album, was immediately picked up by MTV, rock radio, and alternative rock radio. It was rock enough that it fit. If you listen to those first two albums, they are more jammy, southern rock, and country than they are alternative. And the songs are long. They’re all over the place. There’s lots and lots of guitar hero solo moments in those records. I’d always avoided the Grateful Dead because I went to school at Santa Cruz, and that wasn’t my scene. But towards the end of Camper Van Beethoven, I discovered the Jerry Garcia album that “Loser” is from, right? And I was like, I really like this record. I just listened to it all the time. With “Loser,” I was just showing that to the guys in the band who sort of knew it, but not really in the studio. And that’s just direct to two track. We weren’t even really recording the record yet. You can hear me in the background talking to the band and telling them what changes to go through.

You’ve said that in other interviews that a lot of artists mellow as they age and that you haven’t. So what’s your artistic trajectory? 

Well, I enjoy like getting on stage and playing probably a little too loud and stomping around kind of in the Neil Young and Crazy Horse vein. His songwriting does not super influence me, but just his persona and how to age in a certain way. Like Neil Young’s the shit to me.

The post David Lowery Talks New Anthology ‘Alternative History: A Cracker Retrospective’ & Keeping His Alt Rock Edge (INTERVIEW) appeared first on Glide Magazine.

One thing that certainly hasn’t waned is their music. Older songs are still sparking up a fireworks show while a new album, Smoke & Fiction, which debuted on four Top 10 Billboard charts, is nothing short of killer. Every song has that X edge, even when reflecting on the past. “Memories are gettin’ late, not erased like tape, not replaced with fake, drivin’ state to altered state, holdin’ foldin’ maps, on another pay phone break, A big black X on a white marquee,” they sing on “Big Black X.” If they are slowly going out, they are going out with a prolonged BOOM!

If you’re a fan of X, you already know the story of their humble beginnings. If you’re only now discovering them, then you’ve got a lot of catching up, albeit fun catching up, to do. This band of misfits who met up in the seedy Los Angeles music epicenter, where Doe and Cervenka both loved the words of the streetwise poets, X kickstarted a punk movement that never really burned out; it just sort of changed into something else. “The most defining element of the early LA punk rock scene was the community and the collaboration,” Doe told me during a 2017 interview for Glide. “I think we wanted the simplicity and the speed and we didn’t want the seriousness; we wanted a little more melody and more fun and freedom.”

With album #9, there is no loss of momentum in any way, shape or form. The lyrics are still spot on while the musicianship is stellar without being overprocessed. “Ruby Church,” “Winding Up The Time” and “The Way It Is” are good examples of X in the 2020’s. With their seminal album, Los Angeles, now forty-four years down the road, you’d maybe thought a mellowing of sonics might have taken place – but you’d be wrong. Zoom and Bonebrake would never let that happen.

A few weeks ago I spoke with Doe about the new album, the new phase they are entering, the evolution of the punk scene and with him being a voracious reader, what books he has sitting on his nightstand.

You’re about to do a show tonight, how are you feeling?

Let’s see, a little wiggy, I don’t mind saying (laughs). We’ve done legs of this tour, but it was two weeks ago, and this is the hometown show for me, and it’s like, God, I hope we remember this shit (laughs). We should, but you know it takes a show or two.

For the last, let’s see, twenty-some years since Billy came back to the band, and even before that, we would do, I don’t know, sixty or seventy shows a year, so maybe away from home maybe a hundred and some days a year. As you get less young, it becomes a little bit harder. Going in and out of hotels and getting in and out of the van, three, four, five, six times a day, it’s like, aye yai yai. But our plan is to do bigger shows and fewer of them. 

Will there ever be a total end of X?

Yeah, possibly. This is part of avoiding the wheels falling off tour (laughs). I don’t want to be part of THAT tour. But yeah, we still deliver and I’m proud of that. Nobody in the band wants to disrespect the legacy that we have and that’s why we made this record. Well, I think we made Alphabetland thinking, well, this will be interesting and we’ll see what happens. Then COVID happened, and we ran out of excuses because we had a producer and a record label. We did a session with Rob Schnapf, our producer, and it sounded like us and that was satisfying. So, alright, Exene and I got to work and we thought, well, we’ll see; this will probably be the last record. Then covid happened and we didn’t get a chance to really experience it touring and so forth. Alphabetland was good. I mean, there was a little bit of padding because we had some old songs that we never really gave them their due like “Cyrano DeBerger’s Back” and “Delta 88 Nightmare.” This one was more deliberate.

So you knew this going in, writing the lyrics, cause there is a lot of reflection in these songs, that you’re winding down?

I think we definitely didn’t go into this thinking, this is the last record we’ll ever do. We just started making a record and as it came together we realized that reflective quality and each one of our talents, playing and songwriting and singing, etc etc, were very well and whatever we can do we should feature it. The “Big Black X” song is kind of like what I think of as Bob Dylan’s last record, it’s past-present-future all happening at the same time, because it has all these images from the past and it talks about having an idea of what the future might be, at that time. We didn’t know the future but it turned out we had an idea what the future could be as far as music and our experience, other people’s experiences in music and things.

I’ve read where you said it was kind of difficult to make this record. In what ways?

Well, we were touring as we wrote and rehearsing, learning songs, changing songs, and maybe we’re not quite as agile as musicians, I mean as far as learning songs. But on the other hand, I’m more than willing to change the music and lyrics and melody to a song if it’s not working. Like “Big Black X,” it was pretty much written in the studio. Exene had a piece of prose and I thought it was really meaningful. How can we put this into a poetic form? Then there was a certain music that I had put to it which the chords were changing too fast and Exene said, “What if we just doubled the length each chord was played.” And there was music to the chorus and the chorus was, “We knew the future and also the gutter.” Well, that’s a little strident, to say, “We knew the future!” Fuck you, we don’t know the future (laughs). But then you switch it around cause you did know the gutter, we did know what it’s like, life on the street, and it turned out that we knew the future. So that music was also changed. Then we had to kind of piece all that together. All we kept were the drums and then we built the rest of the track around it. We’re the kind of band that has about 80% of what we’re going to put on a record rehearsed and prepared. I think it’s important to leave about 20-25% open to inspiration and the way you tell the story and the way you deliver it.

With “Winding Up The Time,” was there any major changes going on from the original version?

Those are Exene’s lyrics and sometimes it’ll just be a lot of wordplay and there is some linear part to it, but it’s mysterious. I think “Winding Up The Time” is, and we haven’t played that one very much, but that one was of the first ones that we wrote and were rehearsing. The beginning of the song is both The Plugz and The Germs at the same time. It’s a lick that reminds me of The Plugz on bass and also the Germs towards the end of that phrase. Once you look at the wordplay, you have to make something of a story about it. I think it’s just like getting in the car and going fast, is what that song is kind of about. It’s seeing things flash by really quickly and with a lot of force.

“The Way It Is” has a surreal feel to it.

I think it was the beginning of 2023 or 2022, we went on a cruise out of LA called for Outlaw Country, and God rest Jeremy Tepper and Mojo Nixon, who were a big, big part of that, but it featured all the bands from the West Coast – Social Distortion, Los Lobos, us, Lucinda Williams, of course Steve Earle and some other people, the Long Riders were part of it; people from that 80’s era. And it was a mortality check and also getting right with what you’ve done and what’s in the future. So that’s another kind of reflective thing but it’s past-present-future. Like, that’s the way it’s got to be, which is the past, and that’s the way it’s going to be, which is the future. Even though you might’ve said and done things that you’re not proud of, you have to accept that and you have to get right with it. If you don’t, then you’re regretting it and you’re going to kill yourself with regret. But I’d say it was one of those fortunate songs where everything came at the same time. And I wrote it on the boat.

I want to go back to Los Angeles, the first album. With your version of “Soul Kitchen,” what were you trying to exemplify or exert or change the meaning from what The Doors were putting out with their version? Cause there is a whole different mood thing between the two songs.

I don’t know. I think the core of it is the same. The meaning is that you’re going to stay in this place and you’re going to be a safe haven for people and yourself all night long. We just loved the song and didn’t really think one way or the other about how the meaning would be changed by being much faster. Nowadays we play this as the last song most nights, and very fitting. I guess it’s time to go, we close now, “Let me sleep all night in your soul kitchen.” We want to be part of an experience so I’m going to be with you and you’re going to be with me and we’re going to remember this, hopefully.

When did you notice that the punk scene in LA was starting to disintegrate? 

Oh, I don’t think it disintegrated at all. I just think it changed, it evolved. I first noticed people playing much faster than us probably in, I don’t know, 1979 or 1980. There was a band called The Middle Class and they were kind of in their look and their speed, they kind of predated Helmet. They were all these young, skinny kids with short hair and they just played incredibly fast. The Minutemen to a degree as well but The Minutemen had that kind of anything goes. It seemed as though it was haphazard but it was all very planned out with The Minutemen. 

But I would guess, probably Exene and I going to see the Circle Jerks and Fear and having some youngster who was five years younger than us and thought that we were quote rock stars and gave us a bunch of shit (laughs). We were going to see our friends, people that we’d known for a long time; but people giving you attitude and you realized, oh, this is actually not a very safe place for us. You’re going to keep pushing my button and I’m going to get in a fight; or they’re going to take advantage of Exene and that’s also going to be bad. But it’s evolution. It’s like, oh you’re bad? Well, I’m bad too; you play fast? I’m going to play faster. And it so happened that the testosterone from South Bay – like Black Flag and the people that came from down there – was real because they were surfers, but the actual surfers saw punk rockers and would chase them down and beat the crap out of them – like Jack Grisham talked about. They came up with a big chip on their shoulder and I imagine the Hollywood scene was sort of exclusive to them, maybe not everybody was so accepting or inclusive to them. We were all about art and expression and things like that and they were all about kicking ass (laughs). Yeah, that’s part of it but that’s not it.

Have you been to the Punk Rock Museum in Vegas?

No, I haven’t. I kind of have been there (laughs). I kind of have a punk rock museum in my head and in my archive. They did an exhibit up in Seattle, the EXP, which is now called something else, I can’t remember, it was referred to as the Jimi Hendrix Museum. But they had a big punk rock display and there was another one Exene and I lent some stuff to up in Cornell, I think. We did an exhibit at the Grammy Museum, an X exhibit, and that was very rewarding and validating.

Jack Casady once told me that he was forever chasing tone. What has John Doe been forever chasing?

Hmm, as a musician I think I’m forever chasing a unique way to get from the verse to the chorus. That’s one of the things I like most about Smoke & Fiction. There’s a couple of cool tricky ways that we got from one place to another.

Give us an example

“The Struggle Is Surreal,” which has a funny story because it came from a friend of ours saying that phrase, and she said it to me just off-handed, and then Exene sent me some lyrics with that phrase and I thought, Oh God, this is a phrase that is a popular phrase among the kids or it’s something that people say now and Exene has just kind of stolen it and oh God, how do I tell her that this is a popular phrase (laughs). And then I realized that she heard it from the same friend. Then she asked our friend if she could use this phrase that they’ve coined, the struggle is surreal. 

But the way that it goes from the verse to the chorus, it does a full step down and then another step down to establish the key to what the chorus is going to be in. The verse is in D and then the chorus is in F. I mean, this is pretty granular here (laughs) but it goes from a D to a C to a B flat. Then it does this little tricky thing going back to the D. As a musician, I’m always trying to find a different way to get around the fretboard. As a bass player, there are some pretty well-worn paths to go from one to the next, one board to another, and I’m always trying to find a new path. So in general, I’m always looking for something that’s different.

What did you love about your first bass?

Which I still have. I’m looking at it right now (laughs). I’m going to use it tonight. But everything: the sound, the neck, the fact that it’s from 1960 and that was the first year that they made Jazz basses. I bought it for $150 cause [a friend] bought it at a pawn shop for $150 in 1970 or 1971 or 1972. At that point it was only eight or nine years old. It wasn’t really an old instrument. I actually bought another one. What I didn’t like about it was that it had no paint on it so it looked like a hippie bass and I wasn’t going to play a hippie bass (laughs).

How have you liked the new age of digital recording, all these bings and whistles that really weren’t there at the beginning of X? 

I’m not a purist in any way. I think Pro Tools and digital recording is just fine. It just depends on the engineer, whether they keep the eye on the prize and the prize is a recording, to make the record what is happening, to make it sound real. If it sounds overly processed, then I’m usually not a fan. I want to hear the beginning and middle and end of the story. I want the music and the people to take me there, to quote Mavis Staples. But what I have done in my solo work, what we did with this X record, is record on tape, dump it down to Pro Tools, do overdubs and then put it back on to tape; well, I’m not sure about that for mastering. But it all depends on whether the person has good ears or not that’s doing it. This record is a little harsh for me.

You were a young man at the tail end of the Vietnam War. When America was pulling out, you were about twenty. How did you feel about that?

Oh I was in the draft. I was very lucky that I got a high number when they did a lottery for the draft. But yeah, I was sweating bullets, just like everybody else. But I was very lucky that I was able to avoid that. There was a time when people were getting deferments because they were going to college and I went to college but there was no deferment. That was when they had changed to the lottery.

What are you reading right now?

I have so many books that are by the side of my bed (laughs). I just finished a Charles Portis novel that a friend of mine gave me called Norwood. A friend of mine and I had talked about True Grit and that’s such a wonderful and hilarious kind of book. And Norwood is mystifying. The main character just goes through life with no consequences and does all kinds of insane things (laughs). This is an old book. Charles Portis, his most famous book is True Grit, and I love the version the Coen Brothers did of that. It was really true to the book. 

I discovered this guy, James Crumley, who is kind of a noir, more modern-day writer. A friend was giving away books, and he gave me one called The Last Good Kiss. It’s kind of like this insane poet who is very famous is trying to be tracked down by his wife, and they’re just tearing through Northern California/Wyoming, going from bar to bar; it’s just insane, but it’s all very noir. 

Then I also have a book on The Wild Bunch, the making of that movie. I was fortunate enough to work with someone who was the Assistant Director of The Wild Bunch, and he told me some stories about it, which were just as unhinged as you can imagine (laughs) with all that testosterone and male ego with Sam Peckinpah, Warren Oates, and William Holden. He said it was just ridiculous. It’s kind of amazing that people got away with that shit. And also they just went down to Mexico and kind of did whatever they wanted. It’s kind of awful, but at the same time, you are marveling at how awful it is, how insane it is (laughs). 

I’ll tell you another thing talking about, quote, character actors from that time. I re-watched Paris Texas. They did a restoration of that, and it’s been playing in theaters lately, and an incredible experience. Wim Wenders, at that point, it was a very different movie for him, and Harry Dean Stanton gives the performance that I would put up against any actor’s performance. It’s just stunning. If you have a chance to see it, even if it’s not on a movie screen, it’s an incredible movie. It’s so tender and so sad. I saw it when it came out. Harry Dean is just so vulnerable, and Natassja Kinski is so beautiful to look at, but she also gets pretty deep. But Harry Dean was a winner. He lived a long time and did exactly what the hell he wanted (laughs). 

Do you know Kristin Hersh? She was in Throwing Muses and she’s from Boston. She’s got a couple books out. One is called Rat Girl. I haven’t read that one but the one after that is called Seeing Sideways. I think she has four sons and she pretty much brought them up on the road with her husband. This is a biography of that, Seeing Sideways. It’s incredible because she uses different voices for different sections, which are about different sons and their growing up.

What do you have coming up for yourself after touring with X? Do you have any plans to do some solo records?

I don’t know. I’ll probably start writing some stuff. Next year I’ve got a couple of solo shows. I’m just going to let the field go fallow and see what grows. I need some time. I mean, these tours have been pretty easy in that we don’t play every night. We play two or three nights and then have a day off; or at least a travel day. When it’s like two weeks on, two weeks off, you don’t have enough time to really get adjusted at being at home. We’re grateful but it’s like, oh shit, I’ve got to start again. I don’t know, maybe I’ll take the time to get serious about writing a memoir. I keep saying that (laughs).

Under the Big Black Sun was really fascinating. It’s your book but you have other people telling stories and that’s really cool the way you did that.

That was just, I don’t know, my Tom Sawyer idea, that other people painted the fence and then I wouldn’t have to be the authority and you get a wider range of that time and experience. That was probably the one really good idea I had for that book: not to have to do it all myself (laughs).

That’s lazy John

(laughs) Yeah but smart. What’s the phrase, don’t work harder, work smarter. You got to use what you got.

You’re doing alright physically, right?

I’m incredibly grateful, yeah; knocking on wood.

How is Billy?

He’s been cancer free for five plus years so yeah, he’s doing alright. We’re all really fortunate in that way. Every day is a good day that you’re above ground (laughs).

Portrait by Gilbert Trejo; live photograph by Leslie Michele Derrough

The post John Doe of X Talks Books, The Evolution of Punk & The Touring End Of His Iconic Band (INTEVIEW) appeared first on Glide Magazine.

What we find on Floating Gold are tracks themed toward calm and reflection, but also towards inspiration and adventure, with the titles giving a clue of the mood that inspired Cuneo, like “Smuggler’s Cove”, “Walk The Plank”, and “Drop Anchor”. Since Cuneo is a guitarist, it’s natural that these pieces are guitar-driven, but this new territory allowed him to discover very different ways of sculpting sound with this guitar and building electronically on organic processes. I spoke with Vince Cuneo about his discovery of Portraits of Pirates and what he’s searching for with Floating Gold. 

You are a very busy man. Not only do you have Movie Club, but you recently contributed to the album for the book Saint The Terrifying with Joshua Mohr, who I spoke with. And here comes a new project, Portraits of Pirates. 

Vince Cuneo: The album was super fun! Movie Club is super busy. We’re playing a show in Austin and New Orleans next month, right after I drop this Portraits of Pirates album. We’re trying to put out there as much as possible. With this project, it feels very natural, and I’ve just been making this music more and more. 

You already make instrumental Rock music, but this is something pretty different. Have you been interested in ambient music for a while?

It just started with me and a looper pedal. I got that pedal within the first year of me playing guitar, and I would just use it for practice. I started listening to a lot more Neo Classical. One of my big influences is Nils Frahm, and he performs this kind of music live with the piano. It’s this idea of live looping.  This music’s a lot more droney. I started playing this while winding down from a day when I want to practice but don’t want to play heavy Rock. It’s soothing, it’s a lot slower music. It was just for personal meditation. I didn’t think it would be a project. 

Then, I had a friend who was doing yoga events and asked if I wanted to play while she guided some people through slow yoga. Performing with her also changed it into something else. I was having more fun exploring with it, and people were receptive to it, so I thought I should put an album out there. I want to start playing more shows in LA with this project, so that seemed like a good idea. It seems like there’s kind of a scene right now for this music. There are all kinds of artists who are in various projects but also do this solo ambient stuff, and everyone does it differently. 

I realized that since I had a minimal studio with gear, I could track all of it myself, and that’s the beauty of it, that I don’t have to put aside a budget to put this out there. That was an exploration to see if it even worked to record. That process was super fun. When I track with other bands, I track separately and do overdubs, but when I started working on it, it was all about feeling and emotion. So I tracked most of this album live, where I’d create a loop, and then just play over top of that. Then I’d add some delays and reverbs. That felt more natural than writing a melody. When I play this music live, most of it is improv, so I just recorded that. I kept tracking songs, and then asked myself, “Which of these work?” That’s how I put together the ten songs.

It’s very self-contained, which is different from anything else you’ve done. Is that ever disconcerting, wondering what to do next?

It’s funny because it could be called a solo project, which feels a lot more pressurizing, but I feel like the more I continue to play music, the less precious I am about things. It did take a while, since I finished tracking it in March. But then I had to have pictures taken and do a music video. Stuff like that was the piece of the puzzle where I got a little hung up. I didn’t want it to be “The Vince Cuneo solo project.” This is just a facet of what I do.

We did a little more ambient stuff on our Movie Club album Great White because it is psychedelic, and we do a little of that in our performance. We kind of go off into a floaty sequence and Jessamyn will play the drums for transitions between heavier Rock songs. But this is a little different, and I get to have restraint with this. I don’t play super shredding guitar lines. I play less and let things breathe. That’s a fun part of this project, practicing restraint on the guitar. [Laughs] Most guitarists don’t think that way! In fact, doing this has been bleeding into all of my other projects. My guitar playing is growing because I’m playing much more of the time now. The other thing is that there are a few songs on the album that are more guitar songs than ambient songs, because that’s just who I am. 

Does this take some adjustment when playing live, or do you stay very stripped down?

For me, it’s supposed to be about the simplicity of it. So it’s just using my guitar, and some delay, and some effect pedals. Some people will hear me play and say, “Wow, I didn’t even realize that was guitar!” The second track on the record, “Davey Jones,” was one where the fact that I’d been listening to a lot of Tangerine Dream came out. That’s the cool thing, these influences just naturally come out. Someone thought that it had synthesizers, but that’s my guitar! It starts to become something else after so many loops. I can create a Punky noise. I can think of the guitar as more of a percussive instrument. 

It feels like the songs are more about the sounds that a guitar can make, rather than a guitar line or melody. 

Right! That’s the fun thing. I’ll do some harmonic stuff. I’ll slide my wedding ring on the strings, and it sounds like birds chirping. 

What about the whole pirates angle? Is this another oceanic connection, since I know you like those?

The name came up when we were at Disneyland, when we were waiting in line for “Pirates of the Caribbean”. We were looking at all these portraits of fictitious pirates as we were walking in. I really liked the ring of that, and I’m a freak for alliteration, so I wrote it down. Also, I’ve always been obsessed with pirates. I was a pirate multiple times for Halloween. Peter Pan was also huge in my household, so the idea of being a pirate, exploring, and finding treasure was always very romantic to me. With this project, there’s something that feels the same, like it’s an ever-growing thing. I’m already thinking about what I can do differently on the next record. I’m not forcing things. I’ll be filling in my free time with it when Movie Club isn’t too busy. We’re hoping to be on tour when Jessamyn’s next book comes out, around June 2025.

This album is also coming out on my birthday, which is exciting! I think it’s just more important than ever that artists keep cranking out art. One of my musician friends said, “Well, your music isn’t doing any good sitting on a hard drive!”

One of the things I was going to say about the different projects that you all have worked on is that it’s inspiring that you’re putting it out there so widely. It’s a lot of work, as we’ve been talking about. A lot of people want to finish projects, but they just sit. You are keeping pace with releasing the work that you’re creating.

Right. A lot of artists finally have everything in line and are getting ready to release stuff, then they get near the finish line, and they start to overthink everything. You’re hyper-focused on the artwork, or the font on your album. That’s part of modern times, but if you have a great album, just be excited. We all do wonder if people are going to like it, because we’re artists, but if you’ve created something, that’s exciting, whether it connects with a bunch of people, or one person. You’ve got to put your art out there. 

It’s funny, because I did a few of these live shows, and I was wondering how they would go. And you have to ask yourself, “Where am I at today? Do I feel good? Do I feel bad?” Because that really comes out in this project. The other thing is that since it’s just me, if there’s a wrong note played, it’s super magnified on me! But an audience might not even notice that, so you can’t be too precious about it. People need music. If they can go to a show or put on music at home, they can shut off the other stuff. Maybe they can listen to some ambient guitar music!

Music affects people strongly. We know that, but we don’t really think about how that affects our mood. Maybe we should be more intentional about that. Maybe we should put ourselves in situations that we know are good for us. 

I also just tell people, “Go see a band. Go see a style of music that you wouldn’t normally see!” I love it when I go to a show and experience a band where I haven’t listened to their album before. It revealed something inside me that I didn’t know that I was looking for. That’s always super exciting for me. 

I should also ask you about your video for “Blackbeard” since that’s really intriguing. I understand that you worked with Bobby Rivero again.

Yes, Bobby Rivero is our go-to guy who’s done photos for Movie Club and he did the press pics for this as well, but he’s a surf photographer and videographer. He took some promo video when we did the photo shoot and I thought it looked really cool. I’m from the generation that has music videos, that’s important to me. I wanted to get a music video together as the last piece of the puzzle. Obviously, I wanted to do something at the beach, with pirate-oriented things. With any music video, you have a concept, and I wanted to do a search for buried treasure, where the treasure ended up being my guitar! Then you get into these questions, like “How am I going to pull a guitar out of a treasure chest?” But it’s a psychedelic thing, and it just keeps morphing. 

The other thing is that I wanted something with me coming out of the ocean. So the idea is that I find this treasure chest, and then the treasure chest kind of shoots me through this portal into the ocean, and then I kind of come out in this new world where I’m in the same scene, but it’s different. It’s like a different planet. With all the videos that we’ve done with Movie Club, Jessamyn helped me storyboard it. And we shot the video in an hour! That included costume change, and jumping into the ocean. I got to edit it as well. The funniest part, when shooting it, was getting the action shot of me jumping out of the ocean. That took a long time. I was in the water at Venice Beach at 8AM so there weren’t any people around, and I was trying to get under the water with the treasure chest so it would look like I was coming out of the water with the treasure chest. We needed ten minutes of footage of me pretty much looking like I was drowning! I could see Bobby just laughing at me. I was in full jeans covered with sand and water. It was really funny, but we got most of the shots the first or second time.

The post Movie Club’s Vince Cuneo Pursues Ambient Psych with Portraits of Pirates Side Project and New Album ‘Floating Gold’ (INTERVIEW) appeared first on Glide Magazine.

Josh Ritter’s ‘high moments’ are exuded every time he performs on the stage. There is no energy shortage here. The artist in Ritter understands that while even the most beautiful experiences come and go, the more deeply he is into his art and the moment, the deeper the mutual encounter. 

“The stage is one of the few places for strangers to be together and have an experience together,” said Ritter. “That’s very rare today and it is super cool. You have to honor that and love the people that are in front of you.

“It’s an ongoing miracle that people still drag themselves out the door to a show and hang out with strangers to see and hear music. In this age, if people come, there is no reason not to be overcome with some joy that you’re playing as a part of someone’s life for an evening.”

The native Idahoan toured extensively this fall promoting “Heaven, or Someplace as Nice” his twelfth album. Ritter says that the album – another hard, offensive move on the musical chess board defining his career – came forcefully and naturally to him; he said he felt “connected” to both the music and the lyrics and that he was “blown away” by how jagged and abrupt and abnormally inborn it all felt. 

“Every single time I finished a thought or an idea, I thought I was on top of the world,” said Ritter, 48. “After twelve records, and as time has passed, I have a larger view of music and the world, and I feel like I can go further on a whim. I don’t want to end up a medley artist. I want to continue to do different things and go in strange directions, do more of the arranging and producing myself. I had some trepidations going in, but I was scared of pulling the reigns back.”

Ritter had many different voices and impulses coming at him, but he burned toward his fate with unflappable command and bold ingenuity.  Whether or not others find its content worthy of consideration or resonate is secondary; he has gained strength from it. 

“My relationship with the audience and listeners has always been based on trust,” said Ritter. “There is the trust that I’m going to go make the things I’m going to make and that I’m going to show a real effort and that it’s been presented and labored over with the precision I want. It may not be your favorite or you may be confused by it, but sometimes what becomes classic is what at the time was oddball or caused consternation, like Bob Dylan’s Self-Portrait.”

Ritter’s back catalog is unmistakably brined in Idaho. “There is a regional quality to my music still today, I’m sure,” said Ritter. “Regional is a way of behaving, considering, and expressing things. And the West just feels familiar – it feels like the right place. Idaho is expansive, big sky, windswept, and lonesome. You can shout as loud as you want in Idaho.”

In 1994, Ritter left his hometown of Moscow, Idaho, and headed to Oberlin College with the end of studying neuroscience, just like his parents (Bob and Sue Ritter, who are both neuroscience professors at the University of Washington). He’d learned to play guitar in high school and jotted down songs as a hobby. But at Oberlin, he made music and performed live at open mic nights. He quickly earned a following on campus. Ritter’s freshman roommate, Darius Zelkha, became his best friend and longtime manager. He met his Royal City Band bass player, Zack Hickman, at Oberlin, too – they’ve been playing together since.

Twelve albums and a vast array of memorable compositions later, Ritter’s music still defies simple categorization, and he adheres to the belief that his sound must constantly sprout, calculatingly.  “Styles are good as far as bringing you fresh ideas. But, if you try to play a certain style, you’re always contributing to a style, no matter if you pay homage or try to develop new material.”

The splendor of touring, of playing for the moment, dazzles him. It is very strong and almost palpable; others can feel it too. 

“Touring requires a certain constitution,” said Ritter, who stays healthy by running marathons. “Touring is like collecting pieces or scraps from all over the world, and you’re taking them home and putting them together. Touring just forces new ideas.”

Ritter’s star continues to rise, in large part because of his undiminished intensity and his willingness to heed what feels to him like a vortex of artistic energy. 

“I am drawn into following my art,” said Ritter. “Not much else matters nearly as much as just making a living and enjoying your life and writing. It’s not that I want a car or a new this or that, I just want to continue writing songs – and I want to do it the way I feel I need to do it.” 

Diverse cross-creativity represents the essence of his work. Several years ago, his first novel, Bright’s Passage, by the Random House imprint Dial Press, was met with critical acclaim.  O, the Oprah Magazine even selected the novel for its summer reading list. While the sacredness of songwriting and performing is “the true experience,” Ritter said that all the things that truly matter – creativity, joy, faith, beauty, inner peace – arise from what is beyond the horizon.   

“There is no failure in art,” said Ritter. “Art, to me, is setting realistic goals. It’s about being excited to see what comes next and the excitement for the future.”

Brian D’Ambrosio may be reached at dambrosiobrian@hotmail.com

The post Josh Ritter Explains How There Is Never Any Failure With Art (FEATURE) appeared first on Glide Magazine.

Over the years, this five-piece band has earned “hometown hero” status, playing shows all around the central Texas region. But it’s not just Austinities who flock to their gigs. Fans from across North America take road trips to see them in action. 

The band’s live performances feel less like concerts and more like hippie church services. Listeners sway and sing with arms outstretched, echoing James’ spiritual lyrics about love, acceptance, and peace. The outfit’s most recent album, 2023’s Garden of Eden, weaves religious metaphors with modern lyricism. Like the subject matter, the music sounds both old and new. 

James’ musical inspiration spawned at an early age, as a child singing in a choir in southeast Nigeria. His dad was the chief of the Igbo tribe, and as the chief’s oldest son, James was sent to the States to go to school, work, and send money home. It was in Austin that James formed “Kalu and the Electric Joint.” You can hear classic rock and blues float over intricate African rhythms, creating a sound that’s all their own. 

I recently sat down with Kalu James to learn how the band cultivates creativity and community.

What is the collaboration process like with every member of your band and how do you get to your unique sound?

I am constantly writing lyrics and melodies, and JT [Holt] is one of the most prolific musicians I know. He amplifies everything that I come up with, so it makes it really easy to present ideas. It goes from this really cool cowboy chord stuff to inversions and all the other beautiful things that come out of it. We’ve been writing together for 14 years now, and it’s just a blessing to have that amount of trust, not just in your life, but within a project that you’re working on.

How do you know when a song can stand on its own?

What I’m looking for to find out if a song can stand on its own is very much, does it move me? Like, I think at the end of the day, in so many ways, we are trying to do that for ourselves. The viewpoint of writing songs personally is for me to put out what I want to hear. Viewpoints and how I’m feeling about certain things. Knowing fully well that we are so well-connected humans, that it very much is a voice for someone else who potentially may not have the platform we do. 

So it’s, at the end of the day, can I do that either with a guitar or keys or a harmonica? It doesn’t matter. Like, can we bring it down to the basic bones and have the soul of that music move you in whichever way?

I love how expressive and smooth your voice is. What is your vocal training background?

I think I got a lot of my studies when I was still a kid. Born and raised in Nigeria, I grew up in the choir and got kicked out of the choir because I couldn’t […] stick to one voice. So, I feel like in so many ways you could still hear that in my singing where it’s like you can go from alto to soprano and drop down to tenor and then have the low baritone just because you can.

I’ve always had that range and I feel like I got all those trainings when I was quite little and didn’t know in so many ways what I was doing. And then it went from getting kicked out of the choir to creating my own a cappella group. So, the a cappella group is where the harmonies […] came in.

I love, love, love harmonies. I love layering. And I am blessed and thankful to be in a band, or to have created a band, where the people who are playing in the band equally have the voices to be able to do all the voices in my head that I could never possibly do at the same time while I’m performing.

I want to circle back to what you were saying with your choir days. And you grew up in Nigeria, right?

I did.

Have you gone back home and visited recently? How does that impact your creativity and your songwriting?

It sure does. I mean, I’m going home actually in December. It’s been my first time since 2019. I usually go home every three years. My mom still lives there. I have family there. But with COVID and everything, it kind of took a while. 

And yes, when I go back home, it’s just a different world, right? At the same time, a lot of things are still the same. Very similar. And then you catch different vibes. So it’s so cool to be able to, especially having grown up in the African choir, to be able to go back and tap into the motherland and touch the earth, take in the air and the African sun and everything else that is happening around.

It brings me back to purpose. It brings me back to gratitude. There is a lot that in our worst days in the United States is someone else’s best day. And it’s someone else’s day that they have dreamt of and have never gotten to. So it really does bring me back to, oh man, I am grateful, thankful and highly favored. And I feel like when you are rooted with that, regardless of what’s coming your way, just knowing that you woke up today and some other people didn’t, and it wasn’t on their choice or any doing, neither was it on yours, there’s a lot to throw your hands up to and say, I’m just going to be where my feet is at.

I’m just going to be here right now and interact with the people around and spread that love, spread that kindness, spread that tolerance and have a stance for the good in this world. I believe that that is our currency in the biggest way. People is our currency.

I moved here and really didn’t have a community here and I have gotten to where we currently are with a lot of grace and kindness [from] people. And I feel like at the end of the day, we’re all just kids in a sandbox trying to play. And it’s like, can we […] play nice, please?

Can we get off our high horses sometimes and just pay attention to what someone has to say? I think there’s just so much we can do together. And no one is coming to save us but ourselves.

Wow, that’s really beautiful. I was going to ask you about that because I feel like your music has a strong message, but it’s also really uplifting. How do you stay optimistic these days?

I stay optimistic by being careful of where I put my spotlight. Yes, there’s a lot of madness. The world goes up in so many ways. If I can wake up, and if you do get the luxury to wake up the next day and breathe this air, it’s like, where am I going to focus that on? In everybody’s house, no matter how clean your house is, there’s a corner that’s got some dirty shit. Period.

If your spotlight is on that, that’s what you’re going to think the house is. And we have to find and we have to shift our focus to the good that is happening all around us because it does exist. And most times, I believe it’s greater.

The world, like James Baldwin said, the world is held together by the love and the passion of very few people. I strive every day to be one of those people and I strive every day to create avenues where people can show up and do exactly that. We’re all signaling each other.

This […] is so cliche: Life is a highway. It really is and it’s like, use your blinkers. Please use your blinkers – else you’re going to get into accidents all the time.

Ask questions. Create spaces where we can actually ask questions with no agenda other than just to hear what the other person is saying. 

There are so many viewpoints that [are] quite different from you.

And yeah, that’s how I stay optimistic is there’s so much that I don’t know. There’s so much I would love to know. I can have my opinions but having your opinion is very different from voicing your opinion.

Having your opinion is very different from when you voice your opinion, if you’re asked to voice your opinion. I think most times there needs to be just a lot more listening. And we got to do better.

We got to do more of that. There’s just so much that binds us together than divides us. And you have to be able to separate politics from the human being, the person next to you. And transcend all the labels that we are trying. I personally feel labels in so many ways can also be lazy. You can use labels for [the] intangible. You can use labels for things that are not living. You have the closet or the drawer where you know that’s where all my socks are. You can’t use that for human beings.

We are changing every single moment. And while it might be great to identify, we just need to make sure that we’re not also using that to imprison what we think people are. Because I can tell you, what I am today, what I’m like today might very well change tomorrow. And we have to be malleable enough to just listen to people.

You mentioned unity and how it took a minute to find community. I feel like your shows are its own kind of community.

Thank you for mentioning that […] And I do believe that, you know, there is so much going on in our world that we are seeking solace. We’re seeking companion[s]. We’re seeking someone to affirm that you’re not just crazy in what you’re thinking. And what you see is what’s happening and people have other viewpoints like that. That’s what music does for me. That’s what movies do for me. That’s what […] art does for me.

And there’s no better compliment than seeing that in other people. You know, as you’ve been to a lot of the shows, you’ve been to my shows and I’m very active when it comes to moving around on stage. And for me in so many ways, it’s just to signal that you can do that too.

Like […] if I can act a fool on stage, dancing and still connecting with you, then you can do your little dancey dance. Like no one is judging you, you know? And I think that that has always been, that’s all.

What’s your most memorable fan interaction?

It just blows my mind when people, you know, travel far to come see us perform. Like for me […] it affirms that we are connected and that’s such a powerful thing. That’s such a powerful thing.

Where’s the furthest that you’ve heard somebody has come to see you play?

I think Canada. […] They knew we were playing a show and they just routed their trip, you know, went and saw whole parts of America and had a great time.

I love that. Anything else you want to add?

Anything else I want to add is: just be curious. Follow your ear. If it smells good, eat it. If it sounds good, listen to it. Just follow your intuition.

The post Soul-psych Outfit Kalu and the Electric Joint on Cultivating Creativity and Community (INTERVIEW) appeared first on Glide Magazine.

The Best of hackedepicciotto (Live in Napoli) features music chosen specifically for its marked tendency to change over time through the course of their live performances, and the environment of the Auditorium Novecento, one of the oldest recording studios in Europe, with its acoustic properties also made the perfect location to capture something that hackedepicciotto has always found elusive and of-the-moment, the sound of their live shows. To mark this significant milestone, the album will be released on double vinyl, limited to 500 copies with exclusive signed print, and digitally via Mute.

I spoke with Danielle DePicciotto and Alexander Hacke about this much-needed live album project as they briefly paused their touring before starting again on a “Winter Tour” on November 1^st, including a celebratory launch show for the album in Berlin on December 18^th.  

I think this live album was recorded was recorded in the same location as your previous album, Keepsakes, in Naples, right? Was your first experience so good there that you decided to return?

Alexander Hacke: To create and reproduce for audiences the stuff that we had actually created in that room felt great.

Danielle DePicciotto: We didn’t only play those songs, though.

You played a lot of songs from throughout your releases, spanning 20 years. Was it difficult to choose which ones would work best in that space?

Danielle: Not really. We kind of chose the ones that had changed the most. We do play with backing, so some of the songs changed very little, but these were the songs that were most live, and the ones that changed the most. We thought it was interesting to show how songs change through performing them live.

That’s a great idea. I love that. How large was the audience able to be in this space?

Alexander: It’s a proper, huge, live room. You could probably record a symphony orchestra there. 

Danielle: Maybe 150 people.

Alexander: We had a little stage, with a little riser. 

Does that aspect of the studio make it a destination for live recording for other artists?

Alexander: It should!

Danielle: It does. They have all kinds of projects who come there.

Alexander: They have a lot of community projects there because it’s right next to the University of Naples, apart from it being historical. There’s a poem of gratitude from Enrico Caruso on the wall, who recorded there. While we were in Naples, someone came there and recorded with like 25 people for the weekend. The studio is so big, and studios usually aren’t that big. It’s affordable, too. They don’t do concerts very often, since it really is a recording studio, but they do four or five a year.

I felt like I could hear a sense of space on the recordings, that there was ambient space, but it wasn’t large enough to create too much of an echo. It seems like a special way of recording.

Alexander: It’s acoustically sculpted for that. The thing is, really, you hear the spirit of a space like that. Nowadays, traditional recording studios are sort of obsolete because everyone records at home with a laptop, but these places do have a certain spirit to them. Like Sun Studios in Memphis, or Hitsville in Detroit, these are just rooms, but if you walk in that room and do whatever, it will be great. It’s a ritualistic space, a magic circle. 

You mentioned that you chose these songs because they had changed through live performance over time, but I still feel like these are songs that need a lot of instrumentation, detail, and set up. Was that part of the planning, too?

Danielle: Oh, we switch all the time! I play the violin, put it down, pick up the hurdy gurdy. Within a song, I do it two or three times. Alex plays the drums, electronic things, the bass. We’re in constant motion. [Laughs]

Alexander: Logistics is part of our art. We’ve kind of perfected that, asking, “What can we bring, and what can we actually play within a six-minute piece of music? What can we not play? How can we represent that electronically?”

Danielle: But that space actually had the instruments that we had previously recorded on. The studio had a grand piano, tubular bells, and it had a little celeste. We actually had more instruments than we usually have! We’re known to be nuts!

Alexander: When we recorded there, we actually recorded electronic brass, then ran it through the PA in the room, so it sounded like it would be in the room. But then we played those same things live in that room again! A friend of ours went into Chernobyl and recorded the atmosphere in a deserted house, then played it in that house, and recorded it again. He played it back again until the whole room started singing! It was accumulating itself. To play these songs in that room felt a little bit like that! We were playing the room, in the room, in the room.

You were playing with your past selves! Now you’re part of the history of that place, too, having contributed to it.

Alexander: [Laughs] You leave your mark! It’s almost like quantum physics.

Was there a particular arc to the performance that you wanted to create for the audience in the individual concerts?

Danielle: It was basically two concerts, and we were presenting two different albums. For the first one, we were presenting The Silver Threshold, and for the second one, we were presenting Keepsakes. We always try to have a couple of songs from each album for each concert because of the different atmospheres that have for each album. Our albums are kind of the story of our last 14 years, basically, of becoming nomads, and the different stages we went through, like hope and despair. 

For us, it’s kind of like telling a story through those songs, and that’s why one has to be there from each album. That ended up having the effect, for this album, that we had a really good cross-representation of all of the albums, and therefore of our history for the past 14 years. That kind of happened by chance, since we chose the songs that had changed the most, but it turned out that it was two from each album, and four from the last album. In previous shows, we were thinking more about what is possible to play live, since some are really difficult. 

Alexander: It’s a matter of dynamics, also, to create a narrative. You make room with one piece to fill it with a heavy-duty narrative. There are strategies.

I love the way in which they are put together on this collection. I think they do relate to each other in that way. The sound is really wide-ranging, but the pacing is narrative. I can see why you opened with “Evermore”, which is a very spare duet, but would you like to comment on that?

Danielle: I love singing in harmony. It’s something that, no matter how I feel, I can start doing that. Sometimes throughout the pandemic, every day we’d sing all kinds of songs from our favorite artists, in harmony. We’d do that for an hour, and honestly, whatever has happened to you before, you’re happy afterwards. It’s the breathing and everything. It just makes you happy. It’s the best thing to counter depression that I’ve ever met. 

It’s interesting, because when we record these albums, we often sing in harmony, like with “Troubadour”, but then when we perform live, we’ve noticed it’s difficult to sing them together with the backing. You can’t necessarily hear each other if there’s a huge bass. So we’ve ended up singing a lot of these songs, basically a cappella. We’ve noticed that it really gives us a lot of energy and it really has an impact on the audience, too. This was a song that has really changed from the original, which had instrumentation, so we chose it, but we also thought it was a great way to start the concert.

Alexander: When we did The Silver Threshold, we would always start the concert with an a cappella thing. It is pretty interesting for the audience, because they see all the instruments on stage, and our reputation for that is there, but then we stand there and sing in harmony instead! It leaves them nicely confused!

I hadn’t thought of that. That’s perfect. I see a challenge coming, though, for you two to do a whole album that’s just voice, and that would really confuse people!

Alexander: We will present it with no instruments. 

I think the distance that you cover, sonically, on this album is great, since we’re talking about this a cappella track, but you also have “Third From The Sun”, which is very electronic. That one almost feels like science fiction. It made me think of looking at the history of the world, including modernity, from outside.

Danielle: I said to Alex, “Why don’t we do a song as if a UFO is flying in from outer space, and you hear the space sounds. What sounds would that UFO hear if it comes closer to Earth?” I love science fiction. I had this vision of the UFO flying close to earth, flying through the cities, then flying away.

Alexander: With the different cultures, too.

Danielle: That was exactly the idea. “Evermore” is so close to the heart, but then “Third From the Sun” zooms out into space. It goes to the eagles’ perspective.

Alexander: It ends with the morse code S.O.S., like “Help!”

I should have asked you this to begin with, but why is this your first live album? How did you decide to do this?

Alexander: It was the idea of playing the songs in the same environment in which they were created.

Danielle: We told Mute, “We were thinking of doing a live album…” And they reacted very strongly, so we thought, “Cool, we’ll do that.”

Alexander: A lot of what we do works because of the interaction between the two of us and the interaction with the audience. It’s an experience that’s very hard to capture and reproduce. We do our albums to capture this imagery, but when we play our music live, it’s more like a ritualistic thing where everyone in the room is having this experience together. To reproduce and capture that is really not a priority for us, but I’m really glad that we did it.

I can definitely understand that. Would you ever consider doing a video concert, capturing audio and video, so people could see how a live show would be?

Danielle: If we ever get good quality video. [Laughs] If somebody ever were to say, “Let’s film this,” that would be great, but we haven’t had that offer yet.

Alexander: I also really like the idea of augmenting reality in that way. I like Martin Scorsese’s documentary, Rolling Thunder Revue, where 80% of it is fictional. 

You could develop the mythology behind your history with that. We look forward to seeing that version of events. 

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