As far as arranging some of the DMB songs go—I’ve heard you play prevalent horn and violin lines in the past. Is that a calculated effort on your part?
Yeah. I mean, tune by tune, that just kind of comes out naturally I guess because we’ve been playing them so long. But yeah, we try to keep that for sure.
How do you feel some of the newer DMB songs have lent themselves to this format considering that Dave begins writing predominately on the acoustic guitar?
It’s his natural thing that he writes on—acoustic. With most of the tunes, it’s already there, just by him doing it on acoustic. I mean, not all the songs, because some are built more in production with other instruments, but a lot of them start with [acoustic guitar], so it’s easy to transfer that to the acoustic note and work with it from there.
As someone who has seen DMB evolve since the ’90s—what do you attribute to the group’s longevity?
Well, my time with them has really been touring consistently, only for the last 8 or 9 years, so what I can say about that time is that everybody gets along really well for such a long marriage, as it were, between those guys. I was a part of it at the beginning, but I never toured because at the time I was doing a lot of stuff around town; I didn’t really want to spend my life on the road then. I mean, I spend a lot of it on the road now.
But, I just think they have something in the songwriting of Dave, which is always fresh–he’s always writing stuff; he just keeps writing stuff. He writes so much that you can find great stuff in all of it. And it keeps coming, so he’s got that. And the fact that everyone gets along and is patient with everybody else, and everybody appreciates how that works into longevity.
It’s like that with all bands: when people can get along, it’s a good thing. That’s what I see, anyway, from when I’ve done it. I’ve toured one year for a couple months in ’98, just briefly, and it was a different experience. It was a whirlwind for me. I was coming out of not doing anything like that, other than on a very small scale. I mean, we did those acoustic tours early on with Dave. We only did a solid tour a couple times. So, I’m really looking forward to this one with new ears and eyes, as it were.
Aside from the dates with Dave, what else do you have planned this year?
I’m going to get married in August. I’ll probably chill a little bit, but I want to get back out with TR3 and do some more gigs. I’m trying to do an acoustic tour of my own sometime later in the year in Europe, and then I also want to get TR3 back to Brazil, because we had a really great time. And also just play, and try to conceptualize some more recordings.
Since I just put one out, I’m not feeling rushed to do that, but I’m trying to develop. I’ve never done this before, but I want to write a whole record for TR3 from beginning to end, and not necessarily go in and demand that this is how it’s going to be, but play with the idea. I’m just kind of fucking around with it; I’m drawing on material.
Also, whenever I have time, I’m ready to make another acoustic record. I keep writing shit for that, I just have to take time off to put it together, and then practice it. Sometimes, the new songs on acoustic require some kind of not super technical new thing, but I’ll come up with some lick on top with a bassline. I can’t do it yet, so I have to see if I can play it like I think it, or simplify it so I can play it, or vice versa. Some of the stuff on the new album, it’s still a stretch for me, but I manage to get through it alright. You know, there’s one part where you think about something, and then you try to play it and it’s really weird. I really have to remember that, or else I’ll forget to go there.
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