How did the process of working on this album differ from the previous one?

We typically worked within our own confines and produced albums ourselves between the five of us. This time we had Steve Berlin, the horn player and saxophone player from Los Lobos, in the studio as a producer. So it was really interesting to have an outside perspective from him. That was helpful for us to have a different outlook on it. And he’s a great dude to have around and has a great musical mind. He shared a lot of ideas with us and worked with us really well. A lot of our opinions are pretty strong with what we think it should sound like and he was cool with that. He didn’t try to come in and reinvent the wheel but he certainly pushed us to explore other avenues. Which in my opinion is the role of a good producer. So it was really great to have him on board as well.

What’s one example of him pushing the band?

Coming from a background where he works with bands with drums and keyboards and more rock and roll type bands, he really spent a lot of time exploring layers that he could create with us over songs. Like “Room Without a Roof.” It was a really pretty song and could have been doing as a few acoustic instruments. And Steve really pushed us to keep adding layers. There’s extra electric mandolin and an electric guitar on there. They’re all buried in the mix. So it doesn’t sound contrived or out of nowhere. It’s all very subtle. But in the end, it creates these big sonic layers that we all really liked.

You’ve mentioned in the past that the dobro is a lyrical instrument that can really speak and add some musical emotion with the rest of the music. How do you think it applied to this album?

I find my role in the band is to be the other voice, the other lyrical voice behind the singers. There’s a lot of space on this album, which gave me room to do what I think I do best which is to be the instrumental lyrical voice on the songs. The call and response is sort of a musical phrase that could refer to what I’m talking about. But the dobro itself can push and pull a lyric or phrase a certain way. And that’s what I love about the instrument. By playing something after a line, I feel and hope that I can make it feel even stronger. A lyrical sentence is a really strong thing and that’s the most important thing. But if I can play a note that pulls it to be a little darker and I think that phrase is maybe dark, I think it’s an amazing thing that I get to do. On this album, there are a lot of spots where I helped the singers and whole band accentuate the feeling or mood of the song.

I imagine with each album you’ve learned more how to use the dobro in different ways.

Yeah, it’s like the give and take of life, as it should be. Playing music is a learning process and you should never stop learning. Sometimes there’s times that it’ll tell you things that surprise you and I’m always try to find a new way to approach the musical situation.

Last year the band performed a set of entirely Grateful Dead covers. Can you talk about what that was like?

That was a mean trick on our part. We were on the West coast and there were a bunch of people that decided to skip one show in Bend, Oregon. It was tiny little place so we figure ‘”Ah, fuck it. Let’s make them feel like they’ve missed something.” The idea stems from Phish. I listened to Phish a lot back in the day, in ’95 and ’96. [They have a philosophy of] “Don’t skip the small shows.” Like they played the entire Dark Side of the Moon one night in Salt Lake City. It was an in-between show. Nobody wanted to go to Utah. But I went to Utah and they ended up playing the entire Dark Side of the Moon album just as a hard lesson. Don’t skip shows, you never know what will happen. We’re lucky to have a lot of really hardcore fans and it’s fun to mess with them.

What Grateful Dead song is on constant rotation at the moment?

Oh, I don’t know. There’s so many good songs, it’s hard to say. I like the stuff some the early to mid ‘70s from the Grateful Dead so if I want to listen to them that’s what I listen to because they’re very interesting improvisational band during that period. They would go anywhere. They would follow each other over cliffs musically. And that’s what we like to do and what I like to do.

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