In addition to your tour with Grace Potter, your other major collaboration this year is with Natalie Merchant. Can you tell us a bit about that project?
I got to work with Natalie Merchant on a song called “Heaven.” It is from my album Hope from the Hopeless, and we re-recorded a radio version as a duet. For me it was really special because 10,000 Maniacs are one of the first bands that I really got into—along with R.E.M.—so you can imagine, as a songwriter, it was incredible hearing her sing my lyrics—hearing that incredible, unmistakable voice was a pretty trippy experience. It made me feel like the song wasn’t mine, like the song belonged to the world and it also made me feel like I was sort of a genuine, bona fide songwriter, you know? To have someone of that caliber and with a voice like that that’s so recognizable singing my song was really, really powerful-probably one of the best, I mean working with her and with Femi Kuti were easily the two best musical experiences of my life.
Did she record additional vocals over the track or did you re-record the entire song?
No, she and I just went up to a studio near where she lives in the Hudson River Valley. There’s this great studio up there and she was actually in the studio already working on her forthcoming album. I think it’s coming out next year, so we just hung out for a day, ate some country food, went to a berry stand on the side of the road and got some fruit, hung out in the studio all day and she sang the parts and I gave my comments—which were very few. We came up with different ideas and it didn’t really take all that long. I took the train up from New York and was back that night.
I think maybe the very first art tablature book I ever owned was 10,000 Maniacs’ Unplugged album.
The studio version of Hope for the Hopeless also includes a duet with Femi Kuti on “Crazy.” How did that collaboration come about?
Well, I met Femi because he was in the process of signing a U.S. record deal to my label, Downtown. So I asked if they could get in touch with him and if he wanted to sing on my song—which he did. I have been a fan of his for at least ten years, and I thought this might be his first chance really to be on the radio in America. I mean, I am sure he gets played on some stations, but in terms of singer/songwriters who get played on the radio regularly there is no format in America that really plays afro beat.
I think he does this stuff a lot—he has been on a lot of rap records…people like Jay-Z and Talib Kweli. So he just flew over from Legos, Nigaria to do the sessions with me. He flew something like 15 hours to New York to do the sessions with me, went back to his hotel and then flew 15 hours back.
Though not always apparent, your sound is informed by a lot of world music. Who are some of your biggest inspirations from around the globe?
My all time favorites are Fela Kuti, Femi’s father, and a musician from Brazil named Jorge Ben. They are my top two favorite world musicians. Jorge is best known for his mid-70s samba stuff and Fela Kuti is obviously the founder of afro beat.
In addition to some festival, you spent a portion of the summer touring with O.A.R. How has the experience playing arenas and amphitheatres with bands like O.A.R. and John Mayer in-between club gigs shaped your live show?
Yeah, it was really good. To me, the best thing to do in the summer is to mix your own shows with festivals and then try to get on a big, outdoor summer tour—and O.A.R. was a good one. I’ve done a couple different ones here and there—I did the John Mayer tour and Sheryl Crow and stuff like that. But this one was more of a laid back party atmosphere and that was pretty cool. I mean, the crowd is mostly college students and they’re really into partying, so it’s fun to just watch people have a really good time and it just really felt like summer, you know? I felt like I was at a barbecue every day and it was a lot of fun.
O.A.R, those guys are super, super nice and they really, really cared about me and they wanted me to have a really good time and they really wanted me to get along good with them and everybody in their band and crew. They really made an effort to make me feel at home and they really wanted me to reciprocate that and give back to them and embrace them into my world and my band and my fans. They’re really about building a community and I thought that was pretty cool. Most musicians I’ve opened for just kept to themselves and kept up their own thing and maybe at some point in the tour they realize you’re cool and you hang out with them a little bit but from the beginning O.A.R. was adamant about us trying to hang out. It was cool.
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