On August 31 My Morning Jacket guitarist Carl Broemel will release his official solo debut, All Birds Say (ATO Records). A set of serene, modern-folk songs with beautiful instrumentation, the album was a true Broemel family affair. Recorded and arranged with his classical musician father just as Broemel was about to become a dad himself, it’s a reflective piece of work that muses heavily on the bonds of blood and meaning of life.

In addition to Carl singing lead and playing various guitars, pedal steel, baritone sax, violin, and autoharp and his father Robert contributing bassoon, clarinet, and sax, the album also features MMJ’s Bo Koster on keys, Richard Medek on drums, David Jacques from John Prine’s band on stand-up bass, and The Raconteurs’ Patrick Keeler on snare for one track. The record was co-produced by Carl and close friend Teddy Morgan.

Broemel, who joined MMJ in 2004 and was included in Rolling Stone’s 2007 list of “New Guitar Gods,” spoke from Essex Junction, VT a few hours before My Morning Jacket performed on the Champlain Valley Lawn. Over the course of an intimate 45-minute conversation, Broemel fills us in on All Birds Say, starting a family, working with Jim James, and he even opens up about recording the new Jacket album in a Louisville gymnasium.

What was the inspiration or starting point for your new solo album?

It kind of started when I lived in Los Angeles, even before I met these guys in My Morning Jacket. I was writing and playing some shows here and there, but mainly just playing guitar in bands. So I’ve just slowly been working on it piecemeal over the last four years. I moved to Nashville and met a couple of new friends, Teddy [Morgan – producer] and Richard [Medek – drummer]. I played a solo show at the bar down the street from where I lived and met those guys; like the first two people I met when I moved to town. And we started hanging out and working on songs and I showed them the songs [on the album] and they got really excited and wanted to work on it. So we just started recording in Teddy’s garage and it went from there. It wasn’t like, “I’m gonna go make a solo record now.” I just slowly put it together and then last year I put the finishing touches on it and started thinking about putting it out and started giving it to people.

So you started this loosely in L.A. and moved to Nashville where it really got off the ground, is that right?

Yeah, I’ve always dabbled in songwriting but never had a complete record to put out, so I don’t know, it’s kind of an experiment for me. I think one of the most important things about the record for me is that I got to work on it with my dad. He’s a bassoon player; he played in the Indianapolis Symphony for 30 years. So we got to collaborate on a lot of the instrumentation of the record. He played clarinet, bassoon, and baritone sax. There’s a song on there I wrote about him and my mom called “Retired.” Just looking at my parents inspired the record. And my wife and I just had a baby so we were expecting, and just the whole perspective of waiting for a baby to come not only gave me a deadline – I figured if I was gonna do a record I should probably get it finished before he comes – but also it’s kind of in the subject matter, too. Like the song “Life Leftover,” just knowing that a baby was coming was pretty intense.

It sounds like there’s a real family thread that ties this album together, between working with your dad and now you becoming one; is that one of the defining themes on this?

I think so, definitely. Watching your parents get older, they’re retired, just like the next step of life. And then at the same time, becoming a parent is intense. Especially for someone who lives a life like I do where it’s like a permanent adolescence. You’re allowed to live that way if you so desire, but I don’t wanna do that. So yeah, just growing up, even though I’m 36 [laughter], just being really conscious of growing up in that way. And a lot of the songs were inspired just by my wife and love songs and just songs about my friends and all that, it’s not all family songs. Like “Carried Away” I wrote right after I joined this band [My Morning Jacket], so that’s a pretty old song.

How much songwriting do you get to do with My Morning Jacket?

Jim [James] writes the songs. Sometimes he’ll come with a really fleshed out idea and we take his demo and make it into a band version of that. But sometimes he comes in where it’s very nebulous and he’s just got ideas and he walks us through what he wants. So our part in the creation of the music is more arranging and writing guitar parts. Which I actually love doing. I feel like I’m really good at helping like that and being in that role in a band. I feel like I’m at home in that space. Being a songwriter is a little bit more of an experiment and a little more frightening and scary.

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