How did you first get into Bob Dylan?

I was young and heavily into the British Invasion, but the babysitter had a boyfriend who was a folkie; he had Eric Anderson, Dave Van Ronk, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, and of course Dylan. I kinda dug it all. The first album, where he was more of an interpreter, with “Song to Woody” was just a glimmer of what what was to come.

By the second album it was brutally apparent he was going to outshine everybody. Then I kinda got into the whole “folk-rock” thing. It was all over the radio. Simon and Garfunkel, The Byrds, even Sonny and Cher. I still dig that stuff, especially when it got garage band sounding; The Seeds, The Leaves, The Beau Brummels...

How has he influenced your music?

He influenced everybody’s music. Especially those that have non-traditional voices and want to take it in a more “literary” direction.

How many times have you seen him play live? What were those shows like?

Five. Well, I love him live. I stopped going with other people because I didn't want to hear stupid comments about what they expected him to do. I enjoy him better alone. Never saw him with The Band, saw him with G.E. Smith a couple of times -- that was pretty uninspired but his phrasing was always masterful and inventive, very Miles Davis like. And his thing with Tom Petty was cool. But the current band with Charlie Sexton is awesome, particularly around the time of the movie Masked and Anonymous. (I'll go to my grave saying it's a great movie... check the dialog.)

Did it take you awhile to get into Bob Dylan, given his strange singing style?

No. I was too young. It just seemed like that's what artists did. I was lucky I guess nobody made a big deal out of it.

What’s the closest you’ve ever gotten to him?

I've never worked with him, and I feel bad for the guy that questions like this are asked. This is why the “hood is up.”

Is there a period of Dylan’s music you think is underrated or overrated?

He's writing some of his best stuff now.

What do you admire about Bob Dylan?

There are no apologies for genius.

Read more 30 Days of Dylan.

Visit Americansongwriter.com daily during our 30 Days Of Dylan countdown to read exclusive interviews with artists on Dylan, exclusive audio and video, and more.

On April 3, Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson will release Thick As A Brick 2, the followup to 1972's beloved prog opus Thick As A Brick (an album comprised of two long, interconnected songs). In this extensive interview, rock's most famous flautist talks to American Songwriter about the sequel's genesis, its parallels to the original, his distinctive vocal style, and whether or not he believes he can win another Grammy.

With the recent Aqualung reissue and now Thick As A Brick 2, this a pretty exciting time to be a Jethro Tull fan.

It’s a really exciting time for me too. Aqualung and Thick As A Brick are two of my favorite records for the simple reason that from an artistic and a personal songwriting point of view, they’re very different in terms of their musical and lyrical content. They both represent a period when I got brave enough to take a few risks with different topics, different subjects, and different ways of writing music.

So the two albums are very dear to me in sort of artistic sense. I have studiously avoided, over the years, to recreate Thick As A Brick, either in terms of playing it all on stage, or venturing down that slightly more prog-rock course of musical endeavor.

And I was pretty much maintaining that position until sometime late in 2010, when I met up with an old acquaintance by the name of Derek Shulman. He used to be the singer of the band Gentle Giant, a prog-rock band that had quite a bit of success in the late '70s. He then went on to be a successful record producer in the USA, signing bands like Nickelback and others.

When I met him, he strongly suggested his idea of doing a sequel to Thick As A Brick, which I reacted to with my usual disdain and negative thoughts, but we had another conversation probably later on that year. Somehow the idea just popped up in a conversation about, “I wonder what the eight-year-old Gerald Bostock [Thick As A Brick's fictional protagonist] would be doing today. Would the fabled newspaper [seen in the album art] still exist?

It was the thought of bringing that idea into the current context. First of all, how do our lives develop? What chance encounters, what interventions shape our lives? It’s what we go through from childhood onwards. That, in itself, began to pose some interesting parallels with my own thinking about my own background, my development in school, my early career, my choice of doing things along the way.

So it suddenly coalesced, in a period of hours rather than days, into a full-blown concept for writing a new album. Once I had that, the whole picture changed. I thought, “I think I can do this.” I just kept it in the back of my mind until the end of January last year and started to try to evolve it as more of a detailed picture – just laying out the bones of it on a piece of paper. Then I started writing some lyrics and I already had one or two pieces of music by then that I thought I could bring into play and so I just kind of got on with it. Within about two weeks, I had the album pretty much done in the sense of the lyrics and the music.

I went off to Munich and spent the day with my guitar player friend. We made some demos of the whole thing in a few hours. Then I came back and spent another day in the studio home of our keyboard player and we started to work on the scores of that. We put it all into the software program called Sibelius, created a huge musical score of the whole album which was given out to the other band members in March last year.

Then we went on the road for six months and didn’t give it too much thought, other than we played two or three of the songs live on stage to try them out. The lyrics were changed a little bit and titles and things to avoid giving the game away to the public. We then went back to it at the end of November. We finished the Scandinavian tour, came back, took a few days off, and then convened for rehearsals. We did about a week or so of rehearsal and ten days in the studio and then a few days of mixing.

We finished my part of it all right about the 3rd or 4th of December. Then we spent a few days working with Stephen Wilson, the man behind the band Porcupine Tree who remixed the Aqualung album last year and he remixed the Thick As A Brick album too, ready for release, or re-release later this year. It was all wrapped up and done well before Christmas. That’s the story.

How does that compare to the amount of time it took you to come up with the music and lyrics for the original album?

It’s all identical. I think the only difference is that with Thick As A Brick 2, I wrote it all and then there was a period of six months before we recorded it. With Thick As A Brick 1, I was kind of writing it and rehearsing it pretty much on the same day. I would write the music in the morning, go to the rehearsal room in the afternoon, work with the guys into the evening, and then we did that every day for about ten days. Then we went and recorded it in Morgan Studios in London in a period of about ten days. We spent a few days mixing it and that was done. It was pretty much the same amount of intense work that’s involved in this one.

So yeah, remarkable similarities really, in terms of the band being in the studio working together playing it together almost like a live experience. It was extensively all-together, not fragmented because it’s a big piece of music with a lot of joins, sections, reiterations, developments, and utilizing themes that crop up a few times in different ways on the album. It was the kind of work that, as musicians, you can get your teeth into. You can sort of tackle it in a bigger way. You’re not just learning a four-minute song. It’s 50 odd minutes of music.

It was quite an intense time for all the musicians just as it was back in 1972. Just like in 1972, I think a lot more time was spent doing the artwork, marketing, and promotional blends. The newspaper is now online. It’s a community Internet magazine really for the imaginary small town communities.

So are all the songs connected? Are there breaks in between on the new record?

Well, there are ID points. I wrote the music very much for the idea that there could be ID points where you were able to listen to it in separate pieces, so in this day in age of iTunes and digital retailers, you can find it. So there are ID points. I don’t really like to call them songs or tracks but I decided I would treat it kind of like songs.

But in reality, things repeat and develop so it’s not really a collection of songs. It is more of a continuous flow piece of music. One thing leads to another. But you can group areas into certain subjects and topics, where two or three pieces kind of hold together on the same idea for a while. I don’t really like to talk about them being songs or tracks, but I recognize the fact that other people do. I kind of constructed it in order to put these ID points on so when you hit the forward button on your player or computer or CD player or iPod, you can at least go forward or backward to the section that you want to hear. Of course, you can buy them on iTunes as separate pieces – you don’t have to buy the whole album.

That would be kind of ridiculous though.

Tell that to Pink Floyd. They somewhat famously recently refused to let Dark Side Of The Moon be unbundled for iTunes and said it could only be sold as a full piece. You have to buy the whole album or nothing at all. It seems to me not realistic. I think if you go and look at the majority of great classical works, you’ll find them unbundled in one form or another on iTunes or another provider. So I don’t see why we shouldn’t be doing that now with contemporary pop music, even if it is a bigger work. I think you’ve got to make it accessible, practically speaking, to people who listen to it in terms of today’s equipment.

I mean anything is better than the awful noisy empty grooves between tracks - lifting the needle and trying to find the track again, only to hear those awful noises and realize you’ve just taken another 20 plays off the life of your vinyl record by dropping the needle in the wrong place, or too clumsily. So we should be grateful for the digital age.

The original Thick As A Brick was meant as a parody of prog-rock, right?

It remains as a parody of the concept prog-rock album of its day. Because at that point, there were several bands producing rather elaborate and sometimes pompous, overblown productions of music, which were sometimes a mixture of great ideas and too much showing off. Those were bands like Yes and King Crimson and the early Genesis. it wasn’t my favorite kind of music, but I enjoyed quite a lot of it. They were great musicians and did some great stuff, but it just seemed a convenient time to create a bit of a spoof of that grandiose concept album.

So I wrote something that was designed to be just that, from the starting premise of an 8-year-old boy writing this piece of rather impenetrable and surreal poetry. I mean if you buy into that, then you buy into the whole thing. I thought the joke was kind of obvious, but I guess for a lot of people it wasn’t so obvious. If it was, they didn’t really care. They just liked the idea of it anyways. So it didn’t really have to be explained unduly and in some countries, I suppose people still think of Thick As A Brick as being literally what it says on the packaging. But that was always going to happen to some little degree.

I would imagine most people understand that it is a spoof. It’s a fabricated and observed notion. But the follow up album is based on an extrapolation of that idea, not just Gerald Bostock but anyone – you know, what happens to you in life. It’s perhaps a rather more somber and serious, sometimes more dark, follow up to the original Thick As A Brick. It is what you expect 40 years down the line. It’s a grown-up piece of work. It has some dark and unhappy moments in there. It’s not all fun and games.

Online at StCleve.com, it's more lighthearted and definitely the spoof every bit as it was back then of parochial country life. In fact, I will be inviting our fans to participate in a couple weeks time of writing their own stories for StCleve.com as correspondents We’re going to let some people appear online and they can write their own stories. We’ll pick a few of those each week and put them on our website to join in the fantasy of parochial country life in England. We’ll have to edit out the bad words and inappropriate photographs. We have to remember our responsibilities and we won’t let it overstep the mark of tastefulness.

]]> http://www.americansongwriter.com/2012/02/jethro-tulls-ian-anderson-on-thick-as-a-brick-2-the-grammys-and-more/feed/ 2 http://www.americansongwriter.com/2012/02/a-qa-with-the-frays-isaac-slade/ http://www.americansongwriter.com/2012/02/a-qa-with-the-frays-isaac-slade/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:31:10 +0000 Evan Schlansky http://www.americansongwriter.com/?p=77156
For their third album, Scars & Stories, "How To Save A Life" hitmakers The Fray turned to super-producer Brendan O'Brien (Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam) to give them a boost in the studio. We talked to Fray frontman Isaac Slade about his formative days studying songwriting at the University of Colorado, the inspiration behind the band's [...]]]>

For their third album, Scars & Stories, "How To Save A Life" hitmakers The Fray turned to super-producer Brendan O'Brien (Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam) to give them a boost in the studio. We talked to Fray frontman Isaac Slade about his formative days studying songwriting at the University of Colorado, the inspiration behind the band's latest single, and dealing with the critics.

Did you approach the songwriting on Scars & Stories differently than you have in the past?

Yeah, we abandoned self-doubt on this one, which could be a bad thing. [Laughs.] Time will tell if that was a bad idea, but our producer and our A&R guy both worked to push us out to sea a little bit. If the shore is conscious self-questioning created out of constant self-doubt, we are a couple miles off the shore from that on this record.

It must be hard to make a third record without repeating yourself but still capitalizing on what was successful on previous albums. Did you find that to be a challenge?

Yeah, but it’s the same challenge of taking a girl out on a third date. You don’t want to use the same lines as you did before, because hopefully they aren’t from a script, but they’re coming from a place of who you are. You can’t just wait ‘til the scary part of the movie and slowly put your arm around her too many times before she notices that’s how you always do it.

We tried to just keep that real sense of relationship that we have with our fans. And if the first record was a handshake, “Hi, how are ya,” the second record was probably coffee, and the third record was dinner and a movie. So we’ll see how it goes.

Was working with producer Brendan O’Brien a big confidence boost?

It is, man. He has a funny way of distracting you enough. By forcing the momentum to stay up, you don’t have time to question whether its good or not, you just swing for the ball as hard as you can and hope it hits the back wall.

Did he tell you stories about working with Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam?

Yeah, every couple days we would ask him what the hell it was like to make Blood Sugar Sex Magik, or working with Stone Temple Pilots, or what Eddie Vedder is really like. He’s a walking encyclopedia.

So what inspired the album’s first single, “Heartbeat?”

We were in Rwanda, standing around in a circle, just thinking and somebody was talking about watching this country come back to life. And [as I was holding hands with a refugee woman,] I felt her heartbeat. I couldn’t figure out if it was hers or mine, it was just an epic moment of realizing that the country was coming back to life in spite of every effort to kill it.

I met some incredible people there. I met the president, a girl behind the counter at the genocide museum, everybody in between, imagining the stories they all had. I had a thousand questions I wanted to ask them, but I wrote the song instead.

Do you usually write on piano?

It’s half and half probably. That song I started on guitar, and then I came back and wrote the rest of it on piano. I usually start the song staring at something, humming into my iPhone, and then I flesh it out on an instrument.

Does the band ever give you feedback on lyrics?

Absolutely. Typically Joe King and I write the lion’s share of the chords, melody, and lyrics, but nothing you’ve ever heard has gone through the Fray factory without every single person touching it.

Something Ben [our drummer] does a lot is we’ll be stuck without the chorus, and he listens through our demos like a historian. The guy’s amazing. We have all these crappy little voice recordings and Ben knows them better than we do. He’ll say, “I think we should try this one obscure verse idea that I found from 1992 for the chorus.”

That’s how "You Found Me" happened, actually. We were sitting around as songwriters, and Ben came in said, “I like that old piece about being lost or insecure or something. We should check that out.” And I didn’t think it would work ‘cause it felt non-engaging and vulnerable, and I wanted a big, epic chorus. But it ended up being perfect for it, this very inclusive concept of “we’re all in this together.”

A while back you decided to write non-religious lyrics, despite your strong ties to your faith. Do you still think that was the right move for your band?

Yes, sir, one-hundred percent. I’ve actually had the honor of meeting some of my old school heroes from the only songs I was allowed to listen to growing up. They’re amazing people and they write amazing songs for a very specific audience. But I always wanted us to be more like Spielberg or Norman Rockwell, just having enough of a sense of America that I can convey something in a universal enough way that a nine-year-old kid and a 63-year-old dad can understand together. And when you limit it to just one aspect of who you are, it can limit the mainstream appeal. So I’m really glad we got out of it.

“How To Save A Life” was a giant hit for you guys. Looking back on it now, do you think that was because it was so memorably catchy, or because of the lyrical content?

I think there are two ways to look at it. In college they always talked about the two ways to write a song: like Neil Young or like Paul Simon. Simon writes intensely crafted, labored songs, and they’re flawless. And then, on the opposite extreme you have Neil Young who goes out in the lightning storm with a big antenna and it just strikes him. He tries to capture it without getting killed.

Personally, I’m a combination. Like for “Heartbeat” I started with an experience in Rwanda. That was the initial lightning spark. Then I came back and crafted a song with Joe. It was the same way for “How to Save a Life.” You never know why certain songs get big and certain songs don’t, but “How to Save a Life” was definitely one of the most personally relevant songs that I’ve ever written. I’ve sung it thousands of times and it’s still fresh almost every day.

You studied songwriting in college?

Yeah, I went to University of Colorado at the Denver campus. It’s more of an industry-based music program, and I took a combination degree of studio producing, music business, and performance. You just don’t know what’s normal or extraordinary until you learn about the whole picture, from Elvis to The Cure and beyond. I had some of the most incredible professors. They were all lawyers and producers and publishers, so we heard the war stories. And I also learned that content is key, but you need to network. You need to know who’s making the decisions and if you like them enough to be friends with them in an authentic way. Breaking into that world is all about relationships, so I learned a lot from that experience. Four years I’ll never forget.

Despite your popularity, critics have been sometimes hard on your band. How does that affect you?

I have always thought of it as a good thing. You’re nobody until somebody hates you. I’ve also been a lot more concerned about fans than critics. To some extent I put my fans in the top spot, even above myself. Nothing against critics; I read magazines and I read blogs and listen to all kinds of critics to figure out what kind of music is out there that’s good, and what I want to listen to. I respect a lot of people who have never really gotten what we do. And maybe someday they will. That’ll be a bonus. But as long as our fans keep coming out to our shows and buying our record, I know we’re on the right track.

The Fray is streaming Scars & Stories on iTunes now, and will release the album February 7. It’s also available for presale now in a regular edition, and a deluxe edition including five cover songs. The band will also get to kick off Super Bowl XLVI with Lenny Kravitz at Lucas Oil Stadium, before embarking on a U.S. tour.

The Fray Tour Dates (Tickets on sale Feb. 3)
2/16 San Diego, CA @ House of Blues
2/18 Reno, NV @ Silvery Legacy Resort Casino
2/20 Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater
2/21 Redding, CA @ The Cascade Theatre
2/22 Portland, CA @ Crystal Ballroom
2/24 Boise, ID @ Knitting Factory Concert House
2/25 Spokane, WA @ Knitting Factory Concert House
2/26 Vancouver, BC @ Orpheum
2/28 Seattle, WA @ Paramount Theatre
4/11 Providence, RI @ Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel
4/12 New York, NY @ Radio City Music Hall
4/14 Mashantucket, CT @ MGM Grand Theater at Foxwoods
4/17 Chicago, IL @ Riviera Theatre
4/22 Asheville, NC @ Thomas Wolfe Auditorium
4/24 Louisville, KY @ Palace Theatre
4/25 Atlanta, GA @ Tabernacle
4/27 Monroe, LA @ Monroe Civic Center – Univ. of LA
4/28 Dallas, TX @ Palidium Ballroom
4/29 Austin, TX @ Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheatre
4/30 Houston, TX @ House of Blues
5/1 New Orleans, LA @ Tippitinas Uptown
5/3 Orlando, FL @ Hard Rock Live
5/4 St. Augustine, FL @ St. Augustine Amphitheater
5/8 St. Louis, MO @ The Pageant
5/11 Denver, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre

How did you first get into Bob Dylan?

My aunt Peg in North Carolina had a Martin nylon-string guitar and would sing "Blowing in the Wind" to me sometimes. She was a really fine fingerpicker and I remember being mesmerized by how her right hand moved. So my first exposure to Bob Dylan was also my first exposure to live music up close.

She had Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits and I eventually bought a copy for myself. I loved it, but for whatever reason, I didn't explore any further. When I was a little older, I had a van and while parking it one night, "Desolation Row" came on the radio. I stayed, transfixed, until it was over. I couldn't believe how long it was and how many ideas it had in it. I bought Highway 61 Revisited the next day and have been hooked ever since.

How has he influenced your music?

I’m not sure he's been a specific influence other than as an unattainable one, but I was very inspired by the idea of what a song can do and how adventurous words and melodies can be. If he'd never been born, I probably wouldn't have thrown as many songs away or left so many unfinished.

How many times have you seen him play live? What were those shows like?

I've seen Dylan three times – at Madison Square Garden when he played with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in the '80s, at the Beacon Theater sometime in the '90s, and with Tom Petty again in New Jersey a few years after that, though he had his own band that time and was just touring with Tom.

He seemed the least present at the Beacon, letting the crowd do a lot of singing for him. In all cases, I couldn't hear the vocals clearly, but I suppose it didn't matter. Just seeing those songs performed by the man who wrote them was enough of a thrill.

Does it bother you that he borrows so much in his music?

It  doesn't bother me at all. He has created so much art that’s purely his own, he has license to do whatever he wants. Generally speaking though, I’m not really bothered by anyone borrowing anything from anyone. I think art has a way of foiling pretenders. Borrowing something from a great song won't necessarily make your song great and it might not even make it decent - you still have to create something.

Did it take you awhile to get into Bob Dylan, given his strange singing style?

His singing appealed to me right away. I'm fond of the story that Woody Guthrie thought he was a great singer but only a middling songwriter - the reverse classic take. I think his singing is extraordinary - arresting, strong, wild, adventurous, confident, sometimes playful, sometimes direct. Incredible phrasing and timing. I don't see how it could be any better.

What’s the closest you’ve ever gotten to him?

The closest I’ve gotten is working with Chris Shaw, who worked with him on Love and Theft and Modern Times, as well as "Things Have Changed" from The Wonder Boys soundtrack. I heard a few great stories that have made me even more of a fan.

Do you have a favorite Bob Dylan quote or lyric?

I have many favorites - here's one from "Visions of Johanna": "Lights flicker from the opposite loft / in this room the heat pipes just cough / the country music station plays soft / but there's nothing really nothing to turn off.”

I can't remember where I heard this and don't know if it's true, but there's a story that Peter Grant came up to him backstage, introduced himself as Led Zeppelin's manager and Dylan said "Hey man, I don't come to you with my problems."

What are some of your favorite songs or albums, and why?

Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde On Blonde, Blood On The Tracks, Desire, Good As I've Been To You and Time Out Of Mind are my favorites. I don't want to say that they're the most this or the most that because I don't have nearly a thorough enough knowledge of his work to be able to. Those are simply the records I've dug into the most. The degree to which those albums keep revealing hidden depths makes me suspect that if I gave any of his other records enough attention they could become favorites as well.

Is there a period of Dylan’s music you think is underrated or overrated?

Again, I'm not enough of a completist and don't have enough of an overview to be able to say what's underrated. I have a friend who swears by his Christian period for example, but I’m not really familiar with it, though I love "Gotta Serve Somebody." As to what period might be overrated, I don't know - I kind of doubt there is one honestly. He's one of the rare cases where all the hyperbole feels pretty accurate.

What do you admire about Bob Dylan?

What to say? If I really had to answer that question, I'd say intelligence, curiosity and energy.

Read more 30 Days of Dylan.

Visit Americansongwriter.com daily during our 30 Days Of Dylan countdown to read exclusive interviews with artists on Dylan, exclusive audio and video, and more.

How did you first get into Bob Dylan?

I used to hear him in early concerts with Joan Baez in L.A., and then at the Santa Monica Civic in the early '60s. I bought his second record.

How has he influenced your music?

I don't think Dylan has influenced the way I write so much as he's inspired me to start and continue my journey as a songwriter. I don't think anyone writes like Dylan. He's a unique and powerful voice with an unmatchable catalog. I think the shadow of Dylan intimidates young writers these days because no one is measuring up. Dylan never went away. It's a mighty long shadow.

How many times have you seen him play live? What were those shows like?

I've seen him live maybe ten times. From those early shows to shows in the 1990s, to a recent show in El Paso. All shows were different... like watching a jazz or blues cat constantly reinterpret the music.

Did it take you awhile to get into Bob Dylan, given his strange singing style?

I was instantly into it. I heard him on the radio in 1962, at the same time I first heard Buck Owens, and I thought they were both "hillbilly rock cats," until I learned where they both came from. I think Dylan's a great singer. It's like watching Picasso paint... it comes out in different fragmented, soulful lines that are always changing... it alters the way you hear the song.

What’s the closest you’ve ever gotten to him?

I got to talk to him, briefly, behind the Santa Monica Civic in 1963, I believe. A bunch of us kids brought harmonica boxes for him to sign. He rolled down the window of his station wagon. He asked me: "Hey, kid, where's the nearest liquor store?" We followed his car for a few blocks, and they stopped, and Dylan got out and danced around our car, like a circus performer, and then he got back in his station wagon and they raced off. Into history. It's like a dream now. The next time I saw him, I was backstage at the Hollywood Bowl, and he'd just debuted "Desolation Row." Unreal. I was standing back there next to Johnny Cash. The world turned upside down for me at that moment. I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I sort of allude to that in the new song "Mesabi" on the new album.

Do you have a favorite Bob Dylan quote or lyric?

"I consider myself a poet. I'll live like a poet, and I'll die like a poet."

What are some of your favorite songs or albums, and why?

Highway 61 Revisited is the bottom line for me. Or those three records: Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61, and Blonde on Blonde. He recorded them all within 18 months. It's unimaginable now. Maybe 50 songs and outtakes that are part of history. It's like Van Gogh painting 300 paintings in one year (which Van Gogh did.) Within these three records Dylan changed the history and direction of modern song. They still sound fresh.

Is there a period of Dylan’s music you think is underrated or overrated?

I think the Christian period is underrated, and some of those mid-career records which were overlooked, turned out to be great when your revisit them.

What do you admire about Bob Dylan?

He's an artist. We have precious few. He's kept going, in spite of the constant booing and critical distractions along the way. He shattered our idea of poetry and song. He virtually altered our notion of folk music. He built his own church on the old concepts, and created a new vision. He gave me religion.

Read more 30 Days of Dylan.

Visit Americansongwriter.com daily during our 30 Days Of Dylan countdown to read exclusive interviews with artists on Dylan, exclusive audio and video, and more.

How did you first get into Bob Dylan?

I bought The Times They Are A Changing in high school. It just seemed like a good place to start because I was more interested in starting to write my own songs and I wanted some kind of platform that made sense. I plowed through everything he made in about a year because it was so enthralling. I didn't feel 40 years old.

How has he influenced your music?

Although I don't believe many people can do it well, his lyrical imagery and seeming theory to find emotional content merely in the sounds of words blew me away. I clung to that, and not always with success, put it into practice.

How many times have you seen him play live?

Four times. Dating from 2006 to 2010.

What were those shows like?

Spectacular and unexpected. The first one was great. I was already enjoying his later period albums as much as his early ones. It made perfect sense to me that he would sound the way he did with this band, but I didn't suspect his song choices.

Does it bother you that he borrows so much in his music?

Hell no.

What's your stance on that?

This is kind of a tired argument, but the linear evolution of country, blues, folk, rock, pop can't be discredited. You'll have a website like Pitchfork who will blast our band and our friends' bands for being derivative, and yet they'll champion older acts such as Bob Dylan or The Replacements because of their benefit of hindsight. Not only do I believe Bob Dylan has the right to continue the rich tradition of songwriting how he has, I believe everybody has that right. Without it, you'd just have a bunch of losers try to play music like they've never listened to it before. And that is exactly what they have, unfortunately.

Did it take you awhile to get into Bob Dylan, given his strange singing style?

No, by 2011, strange singers are more common than refined ones.

What's the closest you've ever gotten to him?

I've never had the opportunity to meet him. Though, I've heard wonderful stories from those who have.

Do you have a favorite Bob Dylan quote or lyric?

I don't think so. The one liners aren't as good without context. They can become slogans without his voice and the surrounding lyrics.

What are some of your favorite songs or albums, and why?

My favorite albums are John Wesley Harding and Time Out of Mind. They are both stark in their delivery and I like when Bob Dylan has an intimidating, almost frightening seriousness. Lyrically, they span both interesting ideas and emotions. I think the Basement Tapes also have a very similar feeling to them.

Is there a period of Dylan's music you think is underrated or overrated?

I'd say his mid-nineties acoustic albums are more exciting than people will admit.

What do you admire about Bob Dylan?

Songwriting.

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How did you first get into Bob Dylan?

I first learned about Bob Dylan when a guitar teacher taught me "Don't Think Twice It's Alright." A year later I actually listened to Bob when I found my mother's record collection in the basement. She had Nashville Skyline and Greatest Hits, Volume 1.

How has he influenced your music?

I strongly believe that by listening to and learning songs by Bob at a young age I was subconsciously influenced to start writing songs. When I was 15 and 16 I started writing songs that were profoundly influenced by Bob. Many of them are on my latest record Fixin' to Die. I started playing the harp on the rack when I was 16. This was 1986 I think. Not to many people were doing this then. As I started performing at coffee shops and open mics I did notice many songwriters influenced by Bob and that's when I shifted my focus to learning the Delta blues and I was heavily influenced by Bob's best friend from the Greenwich Village days, John Hammond.

How many times have you seen him play live? What were those shows like?

I've probably seen Bob about 10 times. I always find his shows very inspirational. I think many would disagree with me but I love how Bob reworks his songs live. It's nearly impossible to tell what he is playing until he starts singing. I like that. He never panders or sells out.

Did it take you awhile to get into Bob Dylan, given his strange singing style?

I don't find anything "strange" about his singing style at all. I think he is a tremendous singer. Bob is always perfectly on pitch and a very expressive and captivating singer. I think he is one of the greatest singers of all time.

What’s the closest you’ve ever gotten to him?

One time we had a Friday night show sold out at the House of Blues in Dallas. Bob had played the Wednesday and Thursday. They approached us to see if they could do an early show before our show. Of course we said yes. I was bummed out though because I wanted Bob to sign my Gibson j45 but you couldn't get near the guy. Damn.

Do you have a favorite Bob Dylan quote or lyric?

"Everybody must get stoned."

What are some of your favorite songs or albums, and why?

Blood on the Tracks, Bob Dylan, Nashville Skyline, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan... shoot, I can't pick. The list is long. Just off the top of my head I love "Girl from the North Country" and "Idiot Wind." I think Freewheelin' is the perfect record. A perfect mix of love songs, poignant social and political songs, generational anthems, and laugh out loud comedic songs. It's very personal and profound. That record lets you know who Dylan is.

What do you admire about Bob Dylan?

I love Bob like a musical father. I honestly feel like no one has been inspired by him like I have. I guess I'm a psycho fan. He didn't die, he didn't sell out, he didn't pander, he has done it all right. He's never made a cheesy record. There's no artist that's had such a long prolific career and had such an impact on music and society as Bob Dylan. And at the same time, it's clear to see that from the start and to this very day it's always been about the music and only the music.

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How did you first get into Bob Dylan?

The first big Dylan album was Highway 61. I worked backwards from there and then eventually forwards. I thought that between the lyrics, the performances, and the tones of that record, I had never heard a clearer example of what rock and roll meant to me.

How has he influenced your music?

In a lot of ways, but more than anything else, his structure really shaped how I write. How he filters down to a title and how, in a song like "Tangled Up In Blue," he'll rhyme the end of each verse with "blue" to really set it up definitively. Devices like that have been something I've always wanted to get better at.

How many times have you seen him play live? What were those shows like?

I've never seen him play live.

Does it bother you that he borrows so much in his music?

I don't mind it at all. It's all applied very well, and no one could argue that he doesn't maintain a strong singular voice. As long as that's the case, then I don't think there's anything wrong with borrowing anything.

Did it take you awhile to get into Bob Dylan, given his strange singing style?

I grew up with more of a regard for conventionally "good" singing, but eventually with Bob Dylan I felt that his sharp voice and very annunciated words brought more focus to his performance. Sometimes when I hear great singers cover Bob Dylan songs, I lose sight of the words and the song itself and get more caught up in the performance, and, personally, I don't like that as much.

What's the closest you've ever gotten to him?

Never worked with him, but once Robbie Robertson told our band that Bob Dylan doesn't "make records" as much as "document his songs." I thought that was a real interesting take on it.

Do you have a favorite Bob Dylan quote or lyric?

"Inside the museum infinity goes up on trial / voices echo 'this is what salvation must be like after a while'"

What are some of your favorite songs or albums, and why?

Blood On The Tracks has an insistence that I've never heard on any record by anyone else. He makes you feel like he's writing it while he's singing it.

"My Back Pages" has always felt to me like the marker between the first Bob Dylan and the second. It seemed like he was starting to see through fierce conviction and pronouncing truths and lies and started to realize the world is a little more complicated than that. That the grey area was bigger than he initially thought. I feel like there were no more The Times They Are A-Changin' written once My Back Pages came along. I could be wrong, but it's fun to think about.

Is there a period of Dylan's music you think is underrated or overrated?

I've never spent time with a Dylan record that didn't eventually seem to really have a lot to offer. Some more than others obviously, but for anyone to say a guy like Bob Dylan has a "overrated period" is really missing out on some great stuff, in my opinion.

What do you admire about Bob Dylan?

Beyond the obvious things like the albums and the songs and live recordings and cultural relevance and all that, I admire that he's released 34 studio albums and 13 live albums. Those numbers are so far beyond songwriters that he is often compared to. I realize that quantity does not mean quality, but if nothing else, I feel like it's evidence of a man who has truly dedicated his entire life to songs.

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Los Campesinos! might be known for their lyrics fixated on death and romantic failures, but the Cardiff, Wales-based band’s outlook is decidedly not bleak. They released their third official full-length album, , in November 2011. With a new line-up featuring keyboardist/guitarist Rob, drummer Jason and keyboardist/vocalist Kim, the record delivers a sharper, more mature installment of the seven-piece group’s signature melodic sound, with lyrics still filled with vivid imagery. Featuring characteristic raw wit and diary entry honesty, the songs on Hello Sadness are as relatable as ever.

American Songwriter sat down for a cup of tea and cake in New York City with Rob, Neil (guitar), Ellen (bass), and later Gareth (vocals).

Congratulations on the new album. How was writing and recording it different from the previous ones?

R: This was the first album that I was in the band for.

N: It was all the same, apart from he was there. (laughs)

R: The approach was different, wasn’t it? It was a lot more measured and planned in advance, probably because I suppose you were originally going to record it in November of last year and then it ended up being pushed back for touring. So we rehearsed the songs as a band for quite a long time before we recorded them, and that allowed us to make decisions earlier on about things. We made a conscious decision to keep the arrangements as simple as possible and not have strenuous instrumentation. When you have the pressure of a short time in the studio, it’s a temptation to pile things on, whereas we had a little bit of time to take things out and arrange things. Tom is very hard-working, he made very extensive demos. The drums were something that were worked out to the nth degree.

N: There were things we had never done before, especially because Jason is such an intelligent drummer. We would work on drums in one song for an hour or so. That sounds really tedious and boring, but it was actually really fun to just be able to hone in on certain things.

Basically, we had a lot of time to really work on it. We knew what we were going to do, and we had a lot of time to get there, we just hadn’t had a chance to do that before. We were touring, kind of learning in soundchecks before recording.

R: (To Neil) You had longer in the studio, didn’t you? And I think that reflects a little on the album, because there’s some experimentation where we only had a month for this one. We had to be more organized with our schedule.

You recorded this album in Spain. How did that influence the feel in the studio?

E: I think it made us all feel very relaxed in terms of recording things. We all felt very refreshed. Also, there was the fact that we were isolated from everything. There wasn’t that much around, so we didn’t get distracted by anything. It was kind of us all together.

R: The producer, John Goodmanson, warned us beforehand that recording in a rural environment would actually make the songs slower. We recorded during the day as well, rather than at night, because we had to leave the studio around 12 every night because the owner had to come and lock up and go to bed. The poor guy was half asleep every night, he was quite old.

N: Looking back, the songs probably are slower than we realized at the time, especially comparing them to songs we previously recorded.

R: They’re awful measured, aren’t they? Ollie and Jason are very different drummers, just in their approach. Ollie was all about energy, whereas Jason is a real precision guy. He’s spent a long time perfecting his craft in higher education. He’s done a lot of session drumming before this.

What tends to come first, music or lyrics?

E: Music, I guess.

N: Yeah, most of the time. Gareth, he’s the wordsmith, he basically wrote everything while we were there in the studio.

E: He doesn’t like writing for the sake of writing, he only likes writing when he feels the lyrics coming to him.

R: He enjoys the pressure, it sort of gets him. Also, it’s very interesting from a content point of view, because he was in a relationship up until two weeks before we went away to record. He’s very sort of heart-on-sleeve, he does write a lot of himself into his lyrics. When we went out, he had this urgency, suddenly. I think he had tried to come up with stuff beforehand, but he struggled. From a personal point of view, having written lyrics, I always found it very hard to write lyrics when I’m happy, about positive things. It’s much more easy to be navel-gazing and get into a sort of creative vent when you have something really crystallized in your head. Happiness is so abstract, you’re just not as internalized.

E: The last thing you want to do is write about it when you’re really happy.

R: Yeah, you don’t want to analyze your happiness, do you? When you’re happy, you don’t need to analyze anything, whereas when you’re sad, everything sort of hits you.

Which songs on this album are you the most proud of?

N: I really like “By Your Hand.”

R: That one was interesting, wasn’t it? It became very different from the demo. It started off as being quite a dark, wintry sort of song and then, probably because that chorus is so triumphant, it became something else. We saw the album as being very sad and dark, and that was originally going to reflect in the cover art.

N: Do you mean in the demo phase or when we recorded it?

R: When we recorded it, even. A lot of people said, subsequently, how positive and uplifting it was, probably because of that opening. We’re really happy with them all.

N: We’d never written one like “Hello Sadness” before, just having more drumbeat, and it’s going all the way through with one marked climax toward the end. It’s kind of a song in two parts where it all really kicks off. We’ve never had a song like that.

E: We weren’t even sure if it was going to be on the record. It just seemed to evolve and evolve and evolve. That one came the furthest, I think, to where it is now.

R: Another one that seemed to have come from nowhere is “Light Leaves, Dark Sees Pt. II.”

E: It’s quite sparse.

R: We recorded that one right at the end, and we all did the vocals together in a big room in various distances away from the microphone. That was a really special thing to record, it was like a choir. It was also partly because we were about to leave Spain, from that point of view it was very spiritual. (exaggerated voice)

N: I always find it amazing that the songs on this album, we did longer rehearsals, and we had this idea--or at least I did--of what a song was like in my head. The lyrics brought all that to life, which is why I really like “By Your Hand,” I just didn’t know what to expect.

R: I thought “Every Defeat a Divorce” was going to be completely different. I had a vision of that as a completely different song to what it ended up being. I love what it’s become, but it’s kind of strange how everyone has different ideas of where they’re going to take it. It’s the really fascinating part of the process of recording with seven or eight other people, to see how everyone follows their instincts.

One of the songs that really stood out to me was “Baby I Got The Death Rattle.”

R: That was naturally the [album] closer before we recorded “Light Leaves,” because it has that resolution at the end.

E: That’s one of the funnest ones to play live as well, at the moment. It’s one of my favorite ones to listen to.

N: It’s one of my favorite songs as well. A lot of people I’ve spoken to really like it. It’s funny talking about it right now, because it was done in March, so long ago.

R: “Death Rattle” was one of the first ones we finished, with the lyrics on it. I suppose Gareth had just broken up, so his lyrics were maybe more dark in the beginning. And then they ended up being a bit more philosophical as he started getting away from it, being in Spain.

(Gareth arrives)

To me, “Death Rattle” seems kind of like the ultimate Los Campesinos! song in the way it combines the morbid aspect with the detached sexuality and romantic rejection.

G: (laughs) Yeah, exactly. That was a genuine attempt to write a song, but I think because of the way the song was laid out, it didn’t have to rely on going from a verse to a chorus, so it made sense for it to just be a narrative that continued. It was just an attempt to tell a story, and an inevitably sort of woe-is-me, self-deprecating story as they usually are. With the way the song was laid out, with the second section, where it sort of springs back into life, that’s sort of the defiant denouement of the song.

R: I really like the palmistry theme as well.

G: I don’t know where that came from.

R: Yeah, I didn’t realize what the girdle of Venus was for ages. (Holding out hand) That’s the girdle of Venus there, right? It’s like the life line?

G: The girdle of Venus is the line that’s to do with romance, sort of your susceptibility to it. So the girdle of Venus having one down on their knees makes sense.

R: That was one of the first ones you recorded your vocals for at the beginning, so your state of mind was probably different at that point to how it would have been had you finished it later in the recording. So maybe you have sort of the superstitious imagery, that clutching at straws, “This was destined to be!” cycle. It doesn’t really fall like that though, does it?

G: I think the album generally sort of goes between “Oh, this is really terrible, the world is ending” to taking a step back and looking at myself, rather than looking outwards at everything that’s supposed to be terrible. It’s sort of turning the magnifying glass on myself, I suppose.

R: I love that in the ending with “Light Leaves,” you have a crystallized microcosm of a biographical moment, where it’s almost in the cold light of day. And that’s a great resolution, because that seems like you’re a bit more balanced about the whole thing.

G: Totally. I think “Light Leaves” is very much a resolution, and although perhaps the wounds haven’t healed, it’s an attempt to get in somewhere where at least you know how things are and how they’re going to be.

Gareth, Rob was explaining that this is about as much of a breakup album as it possibly can be?

G: I guess so. Lyrically, it was all done very rapidly after a breakup. Labeling it a breakup album always seems a little bit trite because most music is about a breakup or love or the related themes. It seems a bit grand as well to be like, “This, everybody, is a breakup album.”

R: But you ended your relationship specifically for the album. (laughs)

G: Well, there was sort of a bittersweet moment where after I’d done a vocal take, which I assumed was a good one, and our producer said to me, “Well, Gareth, I’ve got to say, I was a bit worried when Tom told me that you had a girlfriend, so I was kind of relieved when I heard that you’d broken up with her.” So lyrically, it made the album a lot easier to write, and I think those sort of feelings are easier to tap into than happy or nothing feelings.

What would you say are the major themes explored on this album? In the “Hello Sadness” video, you see a sense of not being in control of your own destiny.

G: To be honest, reading anything into the videos is unnecessary because that’s the one area of the band that we’ve not fully brought under our control.

N: I think we really could, because Ellen had a big work in the “The Sea Is a Good Place To Think of the Future” video, and I think that’s the best video we’ve got.

G: I have a really weird relationship with videos because I almost find them either a little patronizing or offensive. I feel like when the lyrics are there, the songs are given a narrative, and that’s what the song’s about. Then when you have somebody come in to make a video, they interpret it in their own way. When I see this come together, I’m like, “This is our work.” Does that make sense? With the “Hello Sadness” video, which I like in ways and dislike in ways, it’s applying meaning to lyrics that I’ve written, but that song doesn’t mean that. It’s weird. And I can appreciate why that wouldn’t bother a lot of people, but I think as a songwriter, it does leave me a little bit cold.

N: I think it works both ways. Often you’ve got to have a music video--why? Because you just have to have a music video. If it was a case where there’s someone we know who makes really good music videos and we’d really like for them to interpret our work, that’s different. But I think a lot of the time we just have to have a music video.

G: Which is a rather defeatist. I’d just rather not have my face filmed, amongst other things.

Did you have any new musical influences on this album?

R: I’d say there are a few reference points that we were looking at. A lot of it comes from what Tom has been into, and then we sort of add a layer of our own influence. New Order was something we were interested in, and I think “Hello Sadness” has some of the hallmarks of that.

G: Rather than any specific influences from bands or songs, it was just a way of approaching writing the music. We wanted to show a lot more restraint in our writing, and a lot more patience. In the past, we approached songwriting very much like a battering ram, sort of head down, charging into it, and this time we wanted to step back and think, “What directions should these songs go in? How is the best way to achieve that?”

N: There were probably more influences in terms of production and arrangement.

R: It’s interesting, for instance, now having Jason, who comes from a slightly different background.

N: Blink-182 is the greatest influence on the new album. (laughs)

Hello Sadness is out now on Arts & Crafts.

Los Campesinos! will be touring North America with Parenthetical Girls in January and February. Dates are as follows:

01/19 Boston, MA @ Paradise
01/20 Montreal, QC @ La Sala Rosa
01/21 Toronto, ON @ Lee’s Palace
01/22 Toronto, ON @ Lee’s Palace
01/23 London, ON @ London Music Hall
01/24 Cleveland, OH @ Beachland Ballroom
01/25 Columbus, OH @ Outland Live
01/26 Bloomington, IN @ Bluebird
01/27 Chicago, IL @ Metro
01/28 Madison, QI @ The Sett at Union South
01/29 Minneapolis, MN @ Varsity Theater
01/31 Denver, CO @ Bluebird Theater
02/01 Salt Lake City, UT @ Club Sound
02/03 Vancouver, BC @ Electric Owl
02/04 Seattle, WA @ Neptune
02/07 Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge
02/08 Portland, OR @ Doug Fir Lounge
02/10 San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall
02/11 Los Angeles, CA @ Echoplex
02/12 San Diego, CA @ Casbah