On TRI Studios.
Bob’s team did the whole competition themselves. Bob basically picked these folks, a great group of folks. Young, old, different backgrounds. You can tell there’s an eclectic group there. When I was meeting all these people I was like these were good people. These are a like salt of the earth type people coming from all different backgrounds. You could tell they had a lot of respect for the space, they had a lot of respect for the music.
Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows really pushed me during South by Southwest last year which was a huge boost. I’m really grateful for Bob Weir and his team, the guys reaching back and pulling up some of us new guys coming up, reaching back and doing that. It’s not something they have to do. They are not doing that as a pr move. They are doing it because they love music and they give back. Recording in that space was magical.
The way I came to do this, I tried to do anything else. This thing is really the only thing that I can do and be happy and do it well. I tried a day job and everything. I was on anxiety medicine. Even balancing my checkbook gives me the shakes. I know that there are things people can do and I am better off being a musician and serving the public in that way.
On musical influences.
[The Grateful Dead] have influenced just about everybody I’ve ever played with. I’ve definitely seen Phil Lesh playing. I’ve seen Phish. It’s not the style of music that I write but it all comes from the blues so we are all rooted.
The thing is jambands and music that especially inspired me and the musicians I play with, there is so much musicianship within the style of music. I think for most outside listeners they are like OK I hear rock and maybe I hear blues and jazz. But they don’t understand how in the complicated chord structures that there’s bluegrass and that there’s are all these different types of scales and everything that these musicians are versed in that might happen in one lick. And all of the musicians I play with are super versed in all the music.
Led Zeppelin is a big influence of mine. Roy Orbison is a big influence of mine because of his ability to sing. Finding a guy who can sing in my range … I actually got more influenced by Bonnie Raitt, female singers, and Fleetwood Mac because there weren’t so many guys who can sing up there. I got influenced by Freddie Mercury and Queen.
The songwriting craft.
It’s really hard for me to do surgery on a song. When an original idea presents itself I hate to cut anything out. Maybe it’s my job to write around that feeling. So the majority of these songs come out sometimes as these moments of inspiration but I don’t try to force them into anything. If they cross the finished line on their own with me just sort of doing my job to write as fast as I can to catch all this fire then great. Who am I try to shove something into a mold or try to hold it back either. Write a shitty song. Don’t be afraid to write a shitty song, so that’s like my motto. And a lot of times I don’t know which is which.
I would say my song writing is more influenced by different poetry. I used to read a lot of Beat poetry back in the day. A lot of times when we were reading this stuff in college we were getting really fucking high and reading and reading and doing tons of readings with each other.
It’s very abstract. Words start coming and words and music come from lots of different directions. I write every day, even if it is writing beats, rhythm, my phone is full of things.
My greatest accomplishment as an artist, and here it is, was learning to silence my critic. I used to put so much pressure on myself to write the great songs that I have heard and loved – to write Led Zeppelin’s first record – that every time I sat down I never got anything done, not until I started having fun with music and realizing even just a jam approach, letting things work out organically, jamming with my band, just letting things happen.
On live performance.
I learned early on that I needed to get lost in the performance. I’ve spent 90 percent of my time playing live as a musician. And very little in the studio.
When I’m playing, this is what I’m doing on stage: I am playing guitar, I am singing notes, remembering lyrics but I also got a visual dialogue going on where for me I see the arc of a song visually and a lot of times it’s the same images that were coming to me when I was writing it. But sometimes new images emerge based on where we take the song. I do a lot of things in moment when I am playing live and the band has learned to sort of follow that.
Dynamics to me are what’s missing in modern music. I think it’s one of the reasons why dance music has had a huge resurgence, dubstep and what have you, because it’s about these builds and break downs. For us, dynamics is huge. Taking apart songs and understanding melodic and harmonic movement within a song and how those can change and still be the same song.
Basically when I’m looking at the crowd I’m following and taking cues constantly. I am open to what’s happening out there. I can’t always see everybody but what I can see and what I can pick up from the energy. Between songs can be misleading to how things are happening. There are definitely magic moments when you can feel a crowd coming with you and rise and rise and rise. That happened at our last show in Sebastopol. By mid first song, they were dancing, just busting their asses.
On Roem’s catchy anti-consumerism song “I Don’t Wanna.”
It’s easy in this day and age to be very caught up in buying things to give us satisfaction and fulfillment as opposed to experiencing things. I am not anti-consumerism to the point where I’m saying people shouldn’t buy my music. But I tell people all the time let’s not a few dollars stand in the way of you taking home some music if you really want it. For me, a CD is way for me to share.
For me dancing is this liberating thing where we can forget ourselves. So that’s why the song is catchy. It reminded me of a lot of seventies rock and psychedelic pop. I love stupid little songs like the lime and the coconut song. It just feels good. When that came to me I just followed the muse to that space.
For me having the freedom to move is somewhat of a riot in and of itself. It’s a protest. Rather than to be boxed up and worried about people’s expectations of us or trying to look or fit into some kind of mold dancing is one of the most embarrassing and freeing things you can do and I think you should embarrass yourself in public. It’s a great feeling. It’s gratifying. The blood rushes to your face. You get these chills. You get a chance to say, “You know what I’m not held back by any of this.” When I wrote that song I was just really, really frustrated seeing friends of mine that I felt like had so much more to give and so much more joy to have and I felt like they were caught between a water ski and a Rolex. I’m not saying you shouldn’t go out on a boat. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be able to tell time. Look at me I got a fucking iPhone. It’s a tool. I get it. I’m on this device because a majority of my fans have this device. I’m not saying that you have to go live in a monastery but I think you should visit a monastery. I think you should definitely take some time to meditate. I think you should definitely take some time to get high and listen to records. I am all for balance.
On San Francisco’s soaring rents driven by the technology industry boom.
It’s fucking bullshit. I feel it. I got voted onto the [Recording Academy’s San Francisco Chapter] board of governors to represent working songwriters and I feel it. I got a ton of friends moving to Oakland. I got friends who are unemployed that are smart people with degrees and they are great musicians who can’t get jobs. I see the gentrification. Hayes Valley is right here, man. I like the fact that there’s a biergarten in my living room but do you think I go there on a Saturday? Fuck no! I was fine with the Marina when it was just in the Marina. I can let the frat boys and sorority girls party down. It’s totally fine by me. But not when they started taking over the Mission and pushing out all the artists. I am watching it very actively. I think there’s a problem when San Francisco as a creative city gives tax breaks to companies like Twitter who don’t reinvest in what makes San Francisco great. What makes San Francisco great is we have rich history of art here. It a beautiful place. And it’s becoming a giant fucking Silicon Valley suburb and it’s going to continue in that direction until something pops. People act like they fucking know it all because they are paying $2,400 a month for a studio in the city.
Do you know what I get people yelling at me? “What does the fox say?” It’s like this dance disco song. It’s a mock song. What’s the fox say? I’m like fuck you. I’ve never thought I’d see the day when I’d be grateful if somebody yelled “Freebird” at me.
I’m going to stay here as long as I can. I am inspired by the hustle that is here and now I feel like I have to hold my ground. It’s my job to create more opportunities. If I have to go knock on every fucking door of every business and tell them look you are a small enough space you can have a super cheap live music license let me help you get set up, let’s find a business plan where you can make money. San Francisco just passed a law where any café with a certain amount of size can have live music until 10 pm. Do most people know about that? No.
I make more money than when I was making waiting tables and playing music. I was able to dedicate more time to it. What I found was that there are some good folks here. Good small business owners like Social Kitchen and Brewery who hired me to come out and play on a Sunday when I’m not usually going to play anywhere and paid me a fair wage.
What’s next?
I just finished up a tour in December. Right now I am writing a new record. It’s a lot of music that I am really excited about. I think we are going to hit the studio in March. It will definitely be out this year.
*On Roem’s song “Fear of Waking.”
It’s a song about getting insomnia after sharing a bed with somebody that’s been gone. That actually happened to me. I woke up one morning, I had broken up with this girl weeks before this, but for whatever reason I woke up one morning half-awake, half-asleep, reached over and I was like she’s gone and that’s when it hit me, it jolted me. I reached over and I was like holy shit she’s been gone. And the next eight nights I could not sleep. I was so afraid to wake up again like that. It was crazy. So it wasn’t that I was having nightmares about her it’s that I couldn’t wake up realizing again that she was gone.
They are so emotionally driven, the way they come out in pictures and music is going to be all over the board. I’m influenced by so many different styles and I love so much good music that I hope to just create good music.
The dialogue that I have with myself and then eventually with the fans is something that is real. I always tell people to give the audience credit, that they know authenticity when they hear it. Nobody’s fooled anymore by bubble gum. Nobody’s fooled by formula. The only thing that’s real is authenticity.
I close my eyes
To see your ghost
But closing my eyes, doesn’t help me dream
It’s not the nightmare of sleep
It’s the fear of waking
Fear of Waking, Roem Baur
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