For Spafford keyboardist Andrew “Red” Johnson the band’s fall outing was all about balancing their live favorites with a slate of new originals. “I could play ‘Electric Taco Stand’ or ‘All In’ or ‘Beautiful Day’ twice every night and I would never get bored of playing them because of the way that we do it,” he explains, phoning in from a Midwestern stop on tour. “They’re always different; they’re never going to be the same two nights in a row. However, it’s fun to keep it fresh.”
Indeed, Spafford kept their setlists fresh alltour long, dropping a new EP (The GaffTapes), debuting an additional half dozen or so new tunes and even jammingthrough an entire show just for the hell of it.
Below, Johnson chats about the state of theSpafford union, his love for Brent Mydland, the potential for a new Spaffordstudio project and more.
How doyou feel about this Fall Tour?
It’s been great. It’s been a lot of fun. Wemade the decision in Louisville that we were gonna come out swingin’. Eversince, we’ve done our best to just keep our foot on the gas pedal and reallyattack the tour, and we’ve been having a lot of fun. It seems like we alwayshave a lot of fun and it’s always a really good time out on the road. But thishas been a really fun tour. It’s [drummer] Nick [Tkachyk’s] first full tour outon the bus and not to sound too cheesy or cliche, but he’s really falling intoplace.
Thestate of the Spafford union is strong.
Absolutely. It was really interesting and funto watch Nick shake some of the cobwebs off prior to that summer Vacation run.He really started coming into his own and he’s just an incredible talent. It’sawesome playing with him because we did these improv sessions and songs andthen every once in a while, like when we were in Bloomington, Ind., we decided“Heck with it, let’s just go improv the whole night.” He always keeps it sofresh; you never know what’s gonna happen on stage left. He’s up there creatingwith us and he’s absolutely on fire right now. On fire! Killing it.
Youmentioned the Indiana show, and obviously I want to ask about that. How did youguys decide to just do two sets of jamming?
[Bassist] Jordan [Fairless] always says that we’vegot this algorithm about how we pick setlists. We always have a giant list oftunes that we have to play and we take into consideration the last time we wereat that venue or the last time we were in that town, and then we take intoconsideration the last three nights of what we’ve played and then we make thisgiant list of songs and we start piecing together the setlist. I think it mighthave been Jordan who sent out this big list of tunes that we had to play andthen at the bottom of it, it said, “Jam.” And then kind of sarcastically, allof us said, “Well let’s play that on!.” We were like, “Why not? It’sBloomington, Ind. on a Tuesday, let’s make something up.” So we literallydidn’t even put together a setlist, we just said, “Heck with it, let’s go outthere and jam. Maybe at the second set we’ll play some songs.” And we got offthe stage after the first set and we were all kind of giddy and were like,“That was really fun. Heck with it, let’s do it again.” I’ve listened to bothsets now, and I think it came off pretty well.
Whenyou’re jamming for that long are you conscious of every note or do you loseyourself in the music?
It’s kind of somewhere in between. It’sinteresting: there’s times where we’ll do some improv stuff and I look down atthe clock and it’s like, “Oh, okay we’re about halfway through. Let’s keep onpushing and get creative.” And then other times, it’s like somebody snappedtheir fingers and it’s like, “Oh crap we played for 70 minutes already.” I feellike when it’s really good and we’re really in the zone, I feel like it does goby like a flash. That’s, for me, partially like the Litmus test; “Is it movingby really quickly?” At Bloomington, I definitely remember the second set goingby like an absolute flash. I don’t want to be too out of it and just leteverything pass me by, I want to stay conscious of what I’m contributing. Butthen there’s other times where I’m not lucid at all, I’m just in the moment,free-form. When I say it out loud it sounds kind of weird; it sounds veryhippy-dippy, like, “Ah far out. We’re just in the moment, man.” But it reallyis.
Youguys have debuted a ton of new tunes lately, in addition to the band’s new EP The Gaff Tapes. Of the new songs, arethere any personal favorites?
Yeah, we’ve put a lot of time and a lot ofeffort into The Gaff Tapes. That wasall us. We recorded it all at our studio in Phoenix and tracked all of itthere. Jordan mixed and mastered it and I think he did an amazing job. Heabsolutely crushed it. He spent days and days and days and weeks putting allthat together; I think the mix sounds great.
We’ve been piecing together a lot of stuff andputting it out. As far as a favorite, I think that “Doghouse” is a lot of funto play. It’s a rock tune. And then Jordan wrote this amazing composition forthe afterword, and we call that “Part Two” and that’s a lot of fun to play.It’s a very technical song. We were just talking about how in the jams sometimes I can get into thismeditative state and I don’t really have to focus, I can just let the musictalk through me. But “Part Two” is very different; I have to stay focused thewhole time because it moves around quite a bit. I really enjoy playing that,it’s a lot of fun. “Comfortable” is on TheGaff Tapes and that’s a new one for me. I wrote that with [band lyricist]Chuck Johnson and I think it’s a phenomenal song. Chuck and I have this greatrelationship where I’m always very tempted to ask him what his poem was aboutand I always end up stopping myself because I know what it means to me. I thinkthat maybe sometimes if I ask him what these poems were about, maybe it wouldlose its spark to me. I think that’s the sign of really good writing. Itdoesn’t necessarily matter what it means to the writer, it just matters what itmeans to the listener.
A lotof Grateful Dead lyrics are like that. No one really knows what “Dark Star”means, but it makes people cry at every show.
Absolutely. I’m a sucker for Grateful Deadballads. I don’t know how a human being can listen to songs like “Comes a Time”and not just feel like a broken human being. I don’t know how people listen to“Standing on the Moon” or “Black Muddy River.” I get choked up every time Ihear “Black Muddy River.” They’re just beautiful tunes. Rest in Peace, Robert.
Iactually just realized that I’m talking to you on Brent Mydland’s birthday.
I recognized that this morning shortly after Igot up. He was definitely a huge inspiration to me. I think that he’s fearless.People talk about how he was an amazing keyboard player, and yeah he’s great.He wasn’t the greatest keyboard player in the world, but I will say that he wasabsolutely fearless. He was one who was able to take his learning in music andthen take his life experience, and then take all of that, put it together, andlet the music speak through him rather than forcing out the learning.
He wassuch a performer. He left it all on the stage.
That’s a perfect way of putting it. You knewwhen the sets were done, when the show was over, he had nothing left to give.He was an amazing performer and a huge inspiration to me.
Withall these new tunes that you guys are pulling together, does that mean there’sanother full length album on the way? Or is touring the main priority?
We’ll always be out on the road. Sometimesit’s difficult to find that healthy balance of trying to set out time to recorda full-length album. I would love to get back in the studio. I’ll tell youthis: The Gaff Tapes, by a long shot,was by far the most fun experience I’ve ever had recording. I hope that whenwe’re ready to put out another full length album, we can record it in thatmanner because it was absolutely amazing. My other experiences in the studiowere kind of pressured, like, “You’ve got to nail this one in a couple takesbecause we’re running short on time.” They hit record and they’re like, “Thisis the one!” When we were doing it all ourselves, it was like, “That was areally good take, but might as well shoot for one or two more.” It’s not goingto cost us an extra thousand dollars if I spend another minute on it. We’realways working toward having new music and keeping it fresh. Not justspecifically for the fans and the audiences, we do that for us too. We’ve gotnew stuff that we haven’t even released yet, so hopefully we can get some ofthat and put it towards a full studio length album. Sometimes we get a littlegiddy on stage and we’re like, “Let’s just play it tonight instead of waitingfor the album to come out.” That’s a lot of fun.
Youguys chose three Arizona cities for your Halloween run. What is it abouthometown gigs and hometown crowds that get you guys so amped up?
What’s fun about it is that Phoenix has reallybecome this melting pot of people. Everybody is from everywhere else, so thatfan base is really what helped put us on the map. It’s not a huge group ofPhoenix jamband fans, but it’s really tight knit. What’s awesome about it isthat we play a show in Phoenix, and people go home and they want to tell theirfriends about it. It’s unfortunate when we’re out there hitting all these othermarkets and stuff the whole year and sometimes I think the Phoenix fans feel abit neglected. We’ll never forget where we came from. They’re the truedefinition of fan, they are fanatics and we love playing at home. I always feellike I’m looking at family, but it’s a sea of strangers. Plus, it’s really niceto be able to sleep in your own bed after a show.
