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The thing that's really neat – and I'm sure Mikey's smiling about it – is Jimmy listens so carefully. He's visited albums that I haven't listened to in a decade. He's sitting there being so passionate, like in a discovery mode where he's taken by a wild tone or a melodic idea. -John Bell |
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Photo of Widespread Panic by Eden Batki
Creative people are drawn to other creative people. When you feel like other people are engaging with the world and trying to transmute it artistically you want to be around them.
I make it a point to stay apolitical, especially now that we're in the thick of it with the primaries and stuff. But, you're just sitting there, wanting someone to tell you something and to know that it's real. Being able to deliver a message with as little of a hidden agenda as possible, that's what I'm drawn to when I go to see bands. You get somebody like Bruce Hampton where he's just playing because he wants to or he has to, but there's nothing else beyond what he's doing musically. He's performing. In my world, he's so genuine. He's this crazy bluesman, but it comes through in this slightly weird way.
He spits wisdom quite casually, too. I got to know him a bit through The Codetalkers, and many musicians they've picked up crucial tools from him. I'd listen to him thinking, "You just know shit, don't you?"
[Laughs]. We got to work with him early on. We weren't really on a road but there are many roads to travel and he was a great example of keeping ego out of it. That's one of the heaviest tools we got from watching early Bruce Hampton and the Aquarium Rescue Unit.
And you've got one of the graduates of Hampton's boot camp in your band now. Widespread Panic has a good nose for collaborators in general, like Vic Chesnutt and Jerry Joseph.
I'd add Daniel Hutchens and Eric Carter from Bloodkin as another great pair. It's kind of like you've got your own world and the filters you see it through – your own reality and your own collection of illusions – which can be very interesting and unique to you. Then you cross paths with somebody who's put together this whole other collection. Say you run into a Vic Chesnutt or Jerry Joseph or Bloodkin, and you say, "What an interesting world!" Again, there's an absence of ego and creative voyeurism where you just want to be pals. It's like being a kid in the neighborhood when you're seven-years-old, and some kid from Santa Fe moves in. Suddenly there's a whole different set of rules and ways of looking at things, and his parents are freaky, but there's a vibe going on where you appreciate the uniqueness of this person. That opens up other worlds to you. That's why I'm very grateful to being exposed to those guys and their songwriting abilities.
You get to inhabit their worlds for a little while when you take on their songs. There's something exciting about crawling inside an interesting person's mind for a few minutes.
 Dave Schools by Michael Saba |
It's the same thing with a lot of the covers we do, like the Talking Heads, except we don't know them personally. You get to go play with somebody else's toys. It's really a gas. Beyond just listening to the music, you get to experience it kind of from the inside.
I don't think you guys play any Steely Dan but there's a great late '70s pop-jazz vibe that's reminiscent of them on Free Somehow, especially "Angels On High."
Todd was probably most affected by Steely Dan but there ain't a naysayer in the house. Crap, the '70s would have really sucked without them. They've got a lot of good angles.
I want to go back to what you were saying about studio stuff affecting live stuff, and vice versa. How has that back-and-forth gone with Free Somehow?
As a whole, because of where we are in the now, it's the most important album we've done [laughs]. It was really important to have the studio experience with Jimmy because that's such a huge part of it. Not just playing live, not just regurgitating old tunes, but getting in and writing tunes together and having fun in the studio format. That's where this album fits in as a band in our evolutionary process.
There's a different vibe to some of the material on the new album, almost as if you're throwing light out into the world because there is so much darkness.
God, I hope we were doing that already [laughs]. We don't mind getting bluesy and dark either. We definitely don't want to pretend we're in denial or pretend we're not wrestling with our own demons on a day-to-day basis. Every album tends to be kind of a snapshot of where you are collectively as a band in your co-creative consciousness at that time. Personally, it's my same subconscious that's bubbling through as I'm putting the final touches on all the songs. That's gonna create a common thread. Musically and mood-wise, everyone's in a consistent mode, at least during the recording of a record, which is unique to that point in time. So, it'll be different than the album before just based on that. It's not like with our albums we say, "We gotta create a country album," in order to achieve a whole different feel. If there's a different kind of feel that comes out it's inherent to where we are as a band at that time. Hopefully, there's always a little glimmer of hope in there.
The way Free Somehow roars out of the gate suggests an extra portion of positivity running through this record.
That's hip. A song like "Walk On The Flood" is a little more to the point, specific and not leaning on metaphor as much. It's not as soft an approach, but if you're saying it sounds more positive then I'm all for it!
You still sound tough as hell. It's something more intangible I'm picking up on.
We've got Terry to thank a lot for that. We've been doing this a while but I think we're probably still just honing our abilities to get to the point where we can put a song together.
It's called craftsmanship.
Yeah, I reckon [laughs].
 JB by Michael Saba |
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