While talking about jamming, you guys have kind of found a place in the jamband community, how do you think you fit into the jam world?
When I think of jambands I think of Yonder Mountain String Band, The String Cheese Incident, Phish and bands like that who get onstage and they just jam. All of our music is composed from beginning to end. There’s room for jamming but it’s very orchestrated and very arranged music. I don’t want to compare us to Chris Thile and the Punch Brothers because those guys are so absolutely amazing, but in the sense that all their music is arranged throughout. It does leave room for soloing and musical expression and all that but from beginning to end there’s a form to the whole deal. It’s sort of one of those staples of our band that we’ve always adhered to is that we just really don’t just want to be a jamband because there’s so many jambands that are just way better at that than we are [laughs]. So we have to stick with what we do just to have our own angle.
But you do get that spontaneity of Mumford and Sons hopping up at any given time in your set so you still get that unexpected live music experience.
Yeah, exactly. I think the biggest thing about that is just the sincerity of the music. If they’re hopping up for glitz and glam—and the same for us in their set—I mean, we love playing music together and can’t get enough of it. These boys are family to us now and I think they feel the same about us. So it’s really a very mutual place. It’s very genuine and it’s very sincere.
On this tour are you playing mostly material from the new album or sticking to the previous records?
Depends on the venue and depends on the crowd. Our earlier records are more bluegrassy. So you know, we’ll play more bluegrassy numbers so people can hold their beers up in the air and get their feet going. But mainly were playing material off the new record. We’re really proud of the album Letters in the Deep and getting to work with Dan Auerbach.
How did the collaboration with Dan Auerbach happen?
David Mayfield, our guitar player, his sister Jessica Mayfield, is a very respected songwriter who toured with Dan Auerbach. David and his family are from the Akron area and that’s where Dan Auerbach lives and so they knew each other and they got going and Dan grew up playing bluegrass music so David just approached him about producing our album and he couldn’t resist. He was like, “Yeah, I’ve got to do this. This sounds amazing and it sounds like so much fun I want to do it.” So he did it. And the whole album was recorded at his studio completely analog, completely live. I mean there was no isolation, no auto-tune, no nothing. Vintage. It was quite an experience. It was like we recorded the album sitting in our living room practicing together. It was the most natural way to do it and, yeah, we’re all really, really proud of it.
Is Auerbach’s influence on the new album clearly evident? Has your sound changed at all from the last record?
The music has definitely become more rock. We incorporated more electric instruments and drums and just more rock grooves. Dan was kind of very hands-off in the production of the album in the sense that we had the songs arranged and pretty much done, and when we got there we recorded it and if something wasn’t working he would come and change it or add to it to make it better. There were some tunes that we have that just weren’t working so we would focus and put a little bit more time into those. It was kind of exploratory.
Looking at your line-up, you guys all do a little bit of singing, a lot of you play guitar, there’s banjo, violin, mandolin. What is that like onstage? A lot of instrument switching going on?
There is a lot of instrument switching. For me I switch out fiddles a few times, mandolin, guitar. Dave Mayfield our guitar player plays drums, he hops on electric guitar, regular guitar, baritone guitar, plays bass once in a while. Our banjo player hops on keys and plays guitar, mandolin and Levi Lowrey, our new singer plays fiddle and guitar. We don’t even know what’s going to happen night to night. It’s a different experience and we really kind of feed off that different energy. I think it’s really exciting to change instruments and to see other bands do that, it just gives it an element of “What’s going to happen next?” We’re not doing it just to create excitement, we’re doing it because of the necessity of each song. Having banjos and fiddles in the band sort of give you this stereotype that you can’t jump around and have fun. We fully intend to shatter that because jumping around and having fun is completely what we do.
What plans are in store in the future for Cadillac Sky?
We have this tour with Mumford and Sons and then we’re going to take a break till the end of January just for the holidays. We’re in the middle of working and writing up and arranging material for a new album that we’re going to record next spring and we’re going to start touring hard again in February. The whole month is booked. It’s going to be a very busy year next year. We’re touring and recording a record and I’m really excited about some collaborations that are most definitely going to happen for next year that are getting put together right now. I think 2011 is going to be a very exciting year for Cadillac Sky.
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