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It's a drive to do this and to pull everything I have within myself to try to share some emotion. To express joy and sadness or whatever but also to, I don't know, just try to stab people and make them feel emotion. -Ben Bridwell
Photo of Ben Bridwell at Echo Mountain Studios in North Carolina
By Andy Tennille |
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If I'm Lost, It's Only For a Little While
Cease To Begin has a different vibe than Everything All The Time. The massive amount of press that's been packing magazine pages and filling space online is quick to jump on the idea that this shift from bigger, indie guitars to a more laidback, countrified approach was inspired by a move from Seattle back home to South Carolina. While this may be partially true, Bridwell says, "There's that whole connotation, and I just don't know. At the same time, a lot of those songs [on Cease To Begin] were written while I was still living in Seattle and hadn't quite decided on moving. So, it's weird to think that it was so influenced by being in the South [and] that's why it's more country. That's just kind of what I was gearing towards writing these new songs. I had messed around with it in the past, and really just wanted to explore writing some American roots kind of jammers."
While there are clear differences between the albums, two constants remain: Phil Ek's (Built To Spill, Modest Mouse) masterful production and Bridwell's voice. Inside his unique, slight drawl you can feel his vulnerability but also his strength, like he knows what it means to hurt but is able to carry on, to shoulder the weight and take whatever the world might throw his way. This dichotomy is critical to Band of Horses, both in how Bridwell sings and what he sings about. "There's two sides to every story, at least. I think it's important to show the silver lining with the dark cloud and if anything, the songs are usually about little lessons I've learned," says Bridwell. "I try to at least show both sides of the emotion there. There's always something, like with 'Monsters' [from Everything], the [line], 'If I'm lost it's only for a little while.'"
 Ben Bridwell by Yang |
Bridwell has carried his simple yet deep songwriting from the debut into Cease. His songs are never crystal clear. They're shaded in reverb and left open to interpretation, capable of meaning all things to all men. Take "Ode to LRC," the second track on the album. "LRC" stands for "Little Red Caboose," a lodge of sorts that Bridwell stayed at by the beach in the middle of nowhere with no light, no cell reception and not much of anything. "I found these journal books that had documented people staying in there for maybe 20, 25 years or something like that of people coming to this caboose and going through personal hardships and why they came to the caboose. It's almost like a pilgrimage that some people took with this place. [Some] would come multiple times to just get out in nature or some of them had been going through hard times in their life, whether it was people with diseases who were dying or families breaking up and shit like that," says Bridwell. "I got a personal glimpse into what these people were going through while they stayed at this Little Red Caboose." What's so interesting is the refrain that Bridwell came up with for the song. Instead of dark sadness he sings, "The world is such a wonderful place," and the beauty is we believe him. And it's not in some hippie-dippie rainbow way. It's with the understanding that even with the pains and struggles and death we live with, they're all beautiful and it's all part of our shared experience as people right here, right now.
When pushed to describe inspiration for other songs Bridwell points to the anthemic rocker that kicks off the album, "Is There A Ghost," which repeats the title throughout. "I live in this big house by myself and my girlfriend was in Minneapolis. Creighton [Barrett - drums] and Rob [Hampton - bass], the two band members that had moved from Seattle with me, were living in a different house a couple miles away that we could practice in. So, I really just wanted to have this house to myself. I hadn't lived alone in so long that I just wanted to be able to write this record basically and be able to sing loud and know that no one's listening. Sometimes that was great, other times I would totally go into maybe like, I don't want to say drug-fueled paranoia bouts, but somewhere along those lines of being maybe way too paranoia-stoned and hearing like the icemaker drop a new tray of ice and being a scaredy cat," laughs Bridwell.
Continue reading for more on Band of Horses...
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