Widespread Producer: Dave Schools Talks New Andy Thomas Album ‘Highway Junkie’

Dave Schools is best known as the founding bassist of Widespread Panic. Over the past decade, however, Schools has built a solid list of producer credits including albums by Hard Working Americans, Steve Kimock and Jerry Joseph as well as co-producing a tribute album to his late friend (and Hard Working Americans bandmate) Neal Casal, Highway Butterfly: The Songs of Neal Casal.

He’s also produced singles by rising jam acts such as Andy Frasco & The U.N. and Kendall Street Company. His latest project is the excellent new album from guitarist and singer-songwriter Andy Thomas, Highway Junkie.

JamBase recently had a chance to speak with both Dave and Andy about the new record. The pair share the commonality of hailing from Richmond, Virginia. A meeting in Richmond prompted Schools to take on what would become Andy’s solo debut, Highway Junkie, an album which is a mix between barroom stomp and cowboy philosopher.

“Andy showed up here in Richmond, Virginia with a guitar and a notebook and about 25 songs in various stages of completion,” Schools said of the encounter that led to Highway Junkie. “He just played through all of them, and frankly I was amazed. Having worked with Andy before, with his brother John and their band out of Richmond at the time, I knew that he had specific ideas when he wrote and he heard things in his head.

“He just seemed so confident,” Schools continued, “and the songs were so good and wide ranging that really all I could tell him as far as pre-production was: ‘you’re gonna have to make some choices on this record because there’s a lot of various material. Do you want to establish yourself as a solo artist and make it easy for the listener, or do you want to give them more of a challenge and give them more of an eclectic selection?’ Because I think your cowboy philosopher description made pretty good sense.”

Thomas also detailed how he presented his vision for Highway Junkie to Schools.

“I’ll go ahead and say that I definitely had a vision for sound and vibe,” Thomas said. “But I was very open to where it could go, and I was very pleased where it ended up. I think it turned out better than I could have imagined. I think everything came together swimmingly and everything found its place. We were able to achieve this overall sound for the whole story. I definitely gave Dave some bullet points of where these songs are coming from and how I thought they should sound, a home we wanted them to live in, but I wasn’t married to anything too specific.”

“I would be in the control room, and I could help if there was a choice between take one or take two,” Schools added. “Most of these tracks they got within three takes and there’s very little editing between takes. When we mixed the record it was a pleasure because he knew what he was going for. I’m super proud of him and really pleased with the record.”

Schools’ approach to producing is one that, as a producer myself, I find works the best. The basic tenet is, it’s not what you put in, but what you leave — or more often than not — take out. It’s less about what you do, but what you don’t do. Schools went on to detail his production method.

“I mix by subtraction,” explained Schools. “A lot of artists, they can hear things. They always use the phrase, ‘I could really hear a Mellotron on this, or I could really hear a saxophone on this.’ And I’m like, ‘well, is there a saxophone player here tracking?’ I will usually let them put all that stuff on the track if it’s not derailing our time, but when it comes to mixing — and I know Andy can verify this — a lot of things clear up when you take some stuff away. The artist’s intent in that piece of music usually just swings right into focus. So it is about what I don’t do.”

“I heard Don Was saying something about working with The Rolling Stones,” Schools added, “and the interviewer asked him a question about ‘do you have a Don Was sound that is inherent in your productions?’, and he said ‘no, it’s really about the artist.’ And he said something that always stuck with me — he’s like, ‘you think I’m really gonna try to put my thumbprint on the forehead of Mick Jagger?'”

There’s a healthy dose of Jagger swagger in Thomas and Highway Junkie, making the Don Was/Stones quote applicable to the project. I also asked Andy to describe Dave’s production style, to which Dave replied, “I can’t wait to hear this.”

“I love working with Dave,” Thomas said. “He’s the vibe captain. Like he said, he was in the control room 98% of the time, just overseeing and keeping us on track. We didn’t get off on too many tangents, but he isn’t afraid to reel us back in unless it’s a healthy tangent, which can be good.

“Personally, working with Dave, he pulls things out of me that I don’t think I would have normally done or achieved or even seen. Dave is all about serving the song and can see the big picture. The fact that he lets the artist run with it just enough, while still having control over the vision, brings a lot to the table. And just the calmness and grounding feel of the whole session really makes things go smoothly. We had a really fantastic week.”

Highway Junkie arrives this Friday, March 27. So far, Andy’s previewed the album with the title track, “Dirty Work,” “Last One Standing,” “Nothing I Wouldn’t Do (For You)” and “Long Gone.” On the latter, along with additional Highway Junkie standout “Little Love Machine,” Thomas exhibited a touch of his own producer-style strategy with his band on the record.

“There were actually a couple of songs I didn’t send the band beforehand,” he said. “I sent out stripped-down acoustic versions of all the songs before the session, but I pulled a couple of wild cards in the studio and on the fly said, ‘I have these ideas, let’s build them up.’ So we did that in real time with two of the songs [and] they kicked ass.”

Andy Thomas is celebrating the release of Highway Junkie with a hometown concert in Richmond on April 3 at The Broadberry followed by additional tour dates supporting the record. Find his full routing and ticket info below.