photo credit: Bob Adamek
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Since late 2006, Blake Christiana has led Yarn through a fertile soundscape that plowed through acoustic and electric roots-based music. Then about two years ago, to reboot his creative self, Christiana booked a weekend of shows that featured new material, songs never used by Yarn and onstage collaborations. It resulted in his first ever live recording, Live at the Down Home as well as a change in his entire perspective. He now wanted to write more, play more, and most importantly, collaborate more.
Unburdened by expectations, he entered the PineBox studio. Its owner, Damian Calcagne, also co-produced the sessions, played keyboards and dove into his address book to invite guests including Mike Robinson (Railroad Earth), Andy Falco (Infamous Stringdusters), Mike Sivilli (Dangermuffin), Heather Hannah, Elliott Peck (Midnight North) and Johnny Grubb to contribute to the proceedings.
Christiana eventually brought in drummer Robert Bonhomme and bassist Rick Bugel – aka Yarn’s rhythm section – and realized that a new approach that developed in the studio among musical friends reenergized his interest in the band.
And with that, the threesome brings listeners Born, Blessed, Grateful & Alive, an album that continues Yarn’s rootsy evolution. Lyrically, the 12 stories contained on the release face the dark times of our current existence but refuse to be broken by them. Instead, Yarn’s first studio album in eight years reminds us that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
JPG: The easiest description I have for the new album is it’s being positive in a negative, cynical, worrisome world.
BC: Man, you got it. You get it. [Laughs.]
JPG: Even on “Grieve On,” the final song on the album, the last line is “It’s gonna be alright.”
BC: That’s right.
JPG: Was this your desire during these times to bring some positivity or was it done for yourself that you needed to go in that direction and then spread it to listeners?
BC: It’s definitely for both. Being a songwriter for however many years I’ve been — 20, 30 years — I’m just taking it from the completely cynical and absurd and debauchery to…I guess an evolution. You change. Hopefully, people change and people need to feel together with somebody. I feel like a lot of these things are something people can relate to and not feel alone, and it seems like it’s working.
When I wrote this record, I didn’t know what I was really doing, if I was running away from Yarn or running further into it. So, everything kind of came out on the page. Most of it I can relate to my life on the road. Some of it, I can relate to my life. I don’t think there’s one song that’s just a fiction story, funny song. They all have a story and a few of them are about grief, a few of them about dying, the news…I’m just covering all aspects. I’m trying to educate the world just within themselves, like finding that little spot.
You go to holiday dinner with your family and one of your asshole family members is staring at Fox News or CNN. It’s like, “Turn that shit off. We’re having dinner. We’re being together. That’s a divisive thing you’re doing. Let’s enjoy life.”
The story about “Down at the Dancehall,” that’s about a fan from Syracuse that passed away and I got to go up and see him a day-and-a-half before he died. I went to his house. His sister was taking care of him for hospice. He had pancreatic cancer. He invited all his friends over and we sat there and sang for three hours. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever experienced. But I knew that I wanted to write a song that was upbeat because he was this partying, upbeat music-loving guy. And he gave everybody western shirts at the end of the day. It was so sweet. He gave me this gabardine pearl snap shirt — one of his favorites — so I incorporated that into the song.
The list goes on. Something’s got to change. My band was failing. I was failing. So, that song is about having to make a change. In that case it was the lineup change and let somebody go, which is impossible but sometimes necessary to finish out what you’re trying to do.
So, all these songs are speaking to the people about what I have to deal with, and everybody deals with the same shit. If you’re rich…it’s all relative. If you’re poor…Nobody knows what the hell we’re doing on this planet. We all start there. We’re all in this together but there’s all this righteousness, machoness and almost too much pride in the world. We’re all just figuring this shit out and guess what? We ain’t gonna really know what the hell happens until we’re dead. [Laughs.] I know that sounds horrible but while we’re here, be born blessed grateful and alive, you know?
JPG: I was listening to some of Yarn’s older albums and this one sounds more cohesive musically and thematically. It has such a flow to it that when “Grieve On” plays I’m like, “What? This is the end of the album? Okay, let’s start this again.”
BC: Nice. That’s the goal, right? That’s always a goal but this time I took it seriously and without taking it seriously. I hate people who take themselves too seriously, but this was me really plotting the record and my keyboard player, my co-producer Damian Calcagne being like, “Might be a JJ Cale-sounding tune.” And I was like, “Cool. Good idea. We need something to flow like that in the record.” So, I more consciously wrote for the record for the flow of the record unlike I’ve ever really done before; maybe a little bit on “This Is the Year.” It’s definitely more thought out in that respect.
First album, I had so much written, 30, 40 tunes for the band. We took the best ones or what we thought were the best ones. It kind of works that way often but I had also 25-30 songs for this record, but we purposefully chose…We have some really great songs that’ll wind up on another record that we’ll do the same with the same producer and build them as such and write more if we need something else. So, it was very much thought out. So glad you noticed it.
JPG: Going through the past albums, it’s not surprising that there’s been so many descriptions of what Yarn sounds like. Do you have a preference or your own description?
BC: I don’t even know. I don’t even remember. I’ve created some weird names before for the genre, but I just hate when they label us in bluegrass. I’m like, “Are you even listening to the catalog?” The first two records are acoustic but we have drums. I never meant for that to happen, but I did mean for us to record that first record acoustic. It was just what I had in mind. I was listening to the Garcia/Grisman record and I met this really good mandolin player. I wanted to do something like that, and I had a more rock and roll band at the time.
So, that record did well in the Americana charts. It got our name out there but then it also sent us down a hole that we’re still trying to climb out of because we never, as a live band, we always played with electric instruments, with drums, the tasteful jam here and there.
I don’t think we’re a jamband either but I love being a part of that world because I love that rabid fanbase. I think we fit there and we could be loved by bluegrass lovers as well, but I guess, in this time, and this era of music, Americana, I guess, is where we belong. But I’d like to think it’s accessible beyond that. That’s what I’m trying to do is make it accessible. (laughs) But if I don’t, God bless, I’ve been lucky and grateful for everything.
JPG: The storytelling aspect of the songs, was that influenced by specific musical artists or natural gift or even authors?
BC: I didn’t read a whole lot. The one author I read a bunch was Chuck Palahniuk, which is really dark and cynical and twisted. For musicians, when I started Yarn, I was listening to Graham Parsons. I was listening to Lou Reed, Tom Waits, and then the country classics like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson. As I get deeper into the music which is – Yarn is about 18 years old — I find myself not listening to a lot of music, which I should be.
When I was a kid, it was Simon & Garfunkel, Neil Young, Grateful Dead. The Who, The Beatles, even Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots. I went down that rabbit hole when I was a kid, too. And before that, the hair bands – Poison, Motley Crue and all that stuff that I don’t think ever creeped into my writing. But, who knows? I still love Guns N’ Roses.
That’s a brief version of what my life listening but then my father was a huge Ricky Nelson fan. So, before I could pick what we listened to on the radio, he would play Ricky Nelson, Elvis Presley, old rock and roll and then old country as well. All that seeped into me. I love Elvis. I love Ricky Nelson.
Fourteen years ago, I went in the studio with my father and my band Yarn up in New Jersey and we recorded 25 Ricky Nelson songs. It’s still being worked on to this day, but it’s pretty fucking awesome. Nobody knows that music, which makes it kind of even cooler. If I put that out and even later on down the road, it’d be even weirder. I actually hooked up with the Nelson twins. They reached out because they got a copy of it because I was trying to get them a copy of it just to get their blessing before I put it out. This was right before COVID. They got all excited. They’re like, “We’re doing this thing at Madison Square Garden. We’re recreating The Garden Party show and trying to get as many people that played that show on it and I was like, “Are you kidding me?” “We want you all to play it.”
I got so fired up. I sent my father an email. He’s like, “This is crazy.” Then COVID hit and it fell apart. I reached out to them a few times and we were in pretty good communication but it just fizzled out. So, that’s what happens in this business. Lots of things fizzle out. You just gotta hang on.
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