Has being a bassist with Real Estate influenced your guitar playing with The Freaks?

I think so. I switched to bass for Real Estate. I feel like a lot of bass players get there that way; it’s sort of out of convenience. Martin was writing the songs for Real Estate—he was a bass player but he said it was hard to sing and play bass at the same time for him—and I said, “Well, I play guitar, I know where the notes are, I’ll play bass.” I think after about a year of playing bass in a band I said, “Wow I really feel like a bass player now.” You recognize what the differences are with the instrument and how to use the instrument differently. For example in the Freaks when we go into improvisational passages and I want to make space for different sounds, sometimes I will play the guitar how I would play the bass.

Do you prefer one to the other?

No, I’d say it has been really satisfying to become a bass player and it’s made me better at the guitar. They sort of inform one another, I don’t think I have a preference.

There is certainly a big community of musicians where you live in Marin. What have you taken away from your time there?

There is a history there, what appeals to me is that I am living in this small little country town. It’s super beautiful but there is also a really solid creative community with a history of music and artists and poets who live there and have lived there, so it is like a perfect combination for me. I wanted to get out of the city and live some place with a little bit more space. When we were recording the record out there I said, “This is it.” I just fell in love. It is that perfect storm because it is close to San Francisco and so the city’s influence is there and that’s why it works. It makes sense.

You and two other members of Real Estate issued solo albums recently. What was the mindset with these as opposed to creating another Real Estate record?

Martin just released a solo album and Matt put out a Ducktails album [in September]. Honestly, the idea is we need to be pursuing our own specific interests as well as the collective Real Estate interests to make sure we don’t kill each other. [Laughter.] It really makes sense that now we have had this time away, and can collaborate with different people, we are excited to collaborate with each other again. As opposed to burning out the flame—we are all really close friends—but you get sick of each other having to spend that much time together.

It sounds like a family.

It’s very much like a family. It just makes sense because, not only are we passionate about making other types of music, but also, in a way, we are building a collective repertoire. I think it’s kind of cool for Real Estate fans to say, “Oh, they are doing other things!” and you can check it out and figure out what your flavor is, you know? And so that’s a cool byproduct. We are really excited to make another Real Estate record. People ask, “Are you breaking up”? And we say “No, this is just how we are doing it”.

What did you learn from your first two records that helped shape this record?

The first one I made in a day. I had the songs, and I was really into Neil Young at the time and I was reading the Neil Young autobiography. He said in his book, “Just get it on the tape, don’t be too precious about it,” and I said, “That’s what we are going to do. We are making this record right now in this basement.” We did it and I was really proud of making it that way. The second one was the complete opposite. It took way too long it wasn’t that much time of concerted effort and I was touring with Real Estate and whoever could play played and there wasn’t a whole band together on it. It was too drawn out, I lost myself on it, and it sounded like too many different things. So this last one is a combination of those two records. It’s a lot more cohesive. We recorded it over the course of a week, also another huge difference is the band that is in place is an actual full-time band and it is a lot more collaborative than the last two records were.

The members of Mountain Man have appeared on the past two records. How did they enter your world?

I actually went to college with them [Bennington]. We were friends before we were even in bands and stuff. I love them a lot; I think they have amazing and beautiful voices so I have them sing whenever they can.

Who would you say is one of your unrecognized influences in the music world?

A big influence on this record was a guy named Bobby Charles; he is a Louisiana folky guy. I would say some people know who he is, but the rest of the world overlooks him. We really fell in love with his self-titled album and we were listening to it a lot when we were thinking about how we wanted this record to sound.

Is there anything you want to say to your fans as you and the band enters this new phase?

We are going to take with us that jamband tradition of making every show different, changing songs as they go, and finding improvisational passages. So if you like the record, come see us live, let’s have some fun.

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