BR: Scott Solter co-produced Candidate Waltz with Matt. Had you guys worked with him before?
WJ: No, we had not. We’ve wanted to for a number of years, but we couldn’t make our schedules really align. I’ve done solo tours with Scott several times, but the band hasn’t worked with him until this record. We got to be friends back in 2004 – I worked with him for three or four days’ worth of recording one time in San Francisco when I sang and did some backing instrumentation on his wife Wendy’s record. Matt was a real big fan of Scott’s, too – it just seemed like the time was right to involve him and I’m extremely glad we did. He’s great, great, great to work with.
BR: Cool. Well, if you’re up for it, I’ll just start ticking down through specific songs and we’ll talk about things as we go.
WJ: Sure – I’ll give you the best I can. God knows I can’t remember it all, but … (laughter)
BR: Fair enough. “Against The Line” kicks the album off with those stark, stark guitar chords against that percolating sort of … it almost sounds like a synthesized didgeridoo or something …
WJ: That Pink Floyd-sounding thing at the beginning? (laughs)
BR: Yeah!
WJ: That’s a Moog pedal. We got that synched up with a click track and then Matt and I cut our parts live. I was playing the Moog pedal through the guitar – just by fingering the root notes – and Matt was on the drums. I had a scratch vocal going just to give him a little bit of a reference point, and we laid our parts down at the same time to kind of create the spinal column of the song, so to speak.
BR: Now that you’ve told me about writing on the bass, it makes sense. It was hard to imagine a song like that in its birthing stage on an acoustic guitar, you know?
WJ: Yeah, that was one of the ones that developed from a bass line – and then I got that little guitar riff that you hear at the beginning. The rhythms kind of started to dictate the form of the song, as opposed to an overwhelming, obvious vocal melody … that came a little bit later.
BR: Is there a usual formula for you – riffs first or lyrics first? How does it usually happen?
WJ: They usually happen at the same time, actually. That’s one of the rare occurrences where it didn’t, but it usually all has to come together at once. I don’t do the best job at writing a riff or a chord progression and then coming back to it. I kind of like to make the cake once, you know? (laughs) I don’t often let it simmer and then come back to it – the meaning may diminish as time goes or I’ll just get preoccupied with other ideas or other songs and move forward. It all has to kind of come together at once.
BR: “All The Talkers” is like a little mini-opera; it’s like a tale of musical victory. I guess that comes from having been there on your part, right?
WJ: I think so – from both respects; both as performer and as music fan. I’ve seen it from both sides. It’s always fun when you can feel the room kind of turn and get with the band after mostly ignoring them (laughs) for the first part of the set. I think we’ve all kind of experienced that: where we go down to the club on a Tuesday night just for a beer or whatever and you happen to run into a band that knocks your socks off. You remember that moment even years later. You don’t always remember the band’s name, but you always remember the moment when the room kind of solidifies and it becomes a shared experience between band and crowd.
That’s one thing that doesn’t quite go out of style as much as things change in the music world. The communication of humans to humans through music is pretty electrifying and can always be a surprising and wonderful thing … and that’s what that song is about.
BR: I’ve been in positions playing music live where you have to say, “Let’s just play for ourselves here.” And usually when you do that, it takes some sort of load off or restriction off of you. I feel like we’ve always played better by doing that.
WJ: Sure. I know a lot of bands have played their best shows when they were tired or even pissed off at each other. (laughs) And sometimes that can turn into a really productive and beautiful thing. (laughter)
BR: Love the fade at the end – it sounds like Mark Hedman is gently nudging the bass notes out of an old upright.
WJ: Doesn’t it? I think Mark was palm-muting to get that tone.
BR: My first-blush listening note on “Iso-Residue” was simply “Jay Bennett.”
WJ: Oh … wow.
BR: It struck me on the initial listening like one of Jay’s great power pop pieces – the way the keys chase the vocal; and then there’ll be a little blast of guitar that comes and goes … it made me think of him.
WJ: I’m flattered that you put it that way. Jay was a good friend and one of the most consistent pop songwriters I’ve ever known. He might’ve even distantly influenced “Iso-Residue” – it was written right after he passed. There’s a good chance I had him on my mind when I wrote that song.
Other than that, I don’t have a whole lot to tell about it … it’s just a simple pop song, really. I was excited that it said what it had to say in about two minutes and fifteen seconds. (laughs) The chorus was the first piece of any substance that arrived and I kind of rounded it out from there.
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