Photo by Dean Budnick
After Bay Area singer Nicki Bluhm released her first solo album Toby’s Song, the tall, beautiful singer/songwriter decided to put together a band for the album’s release party. She drew from her inner circle—husband and Mother Hips frontman Tim Bluhm, lifelong friend Daren Ney, members of ALO and other San Francisco favorites—and put together Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers. As her band’s name suggests, the group’s sound mixes the structured sing-along Americana of Levon Helm’s historic Rambles with the loose, funky grooves of an all-night improv-rock jam session. Nicki Bluhm’s 2011 follow-up, Driftwood, established her as a singer/songwriter in her own right and the Gramblers’ exhausting tour schedule proved to fans that they were more than a side project. Thanks to a series of unique YouTube clips recorded in their touring van and prime placement in a recent Gap ad, Bluhm has also started to move outside the indie-jam-Americana scene into a more mainstream space, too. Nicki and Tim Bluhm recently discussed their musical relationship, the Gramblers’ next studio project and what to expect from the Mother Hips in 2013.
Let’s start by talking about how the Gramblers came together. During the past year or so it really seems to have become a primary focus for the both of you. At what point did you decide to go from simply being married to bandmates?
Nicki: It started because Tim kind of pushed me to start playing music in front of people, which I had never done before. So I started as a solo artist and then I quickly realized [that] I needed some accompaniment, so I enlisted my good friend Daren Ney, who still plays guitar with us now in the band. We’ve been friends since elementary school. We made our first record, Toby’s Song, and for the record release party, we realized that we wanted the show to reflect the album, so we put a band together and then it just stuck ever since.
Tim: We worked well that night, so we realized we had to figure out how to make it work. It’s a pain in the neck having a band, especially a big band. It’s expensive, and no one makes money but it’s worth it. It’s more important that you have the tools that you need to make music sound the way you want it to because the music [is the reason] why we’re doing it.
Nicki: And the camaraderie, too, is really fun with a big group.
Tim: Yeah, they’re a good group of guys.
For a while all sorts of musicians were subbing in and out of the group but the Gramblers’ lineup seems pretty set at this point. When you started writing for your new album, did you write for specific players or did it become more of a collaborative, group effort?
Tim: It did. This new record that we’re going to release—hopefully pretty soon, it is done—is the first record that is actually by Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers because we felt like it was time to just to call it that at all times [as opposed to Nicki and a group of backing players]. That’s a reflection of the camaraderie and the bond that we’ve built with these guys. We’re all in it together, we’ve all sacrificed the same amount and we’ve all worked really hard. Some of those guys wrote some of the songs, so we all kind of contributed a little bit to the songwriting and it’s definitely a real band.
Speaking of the new album, I know it’s been in limbo for a while and when it’s going to be released is still in the air, but can you talk about the recording of it and a little about some of the vibes that you were going for? Tim, I assume it was recorded in your studio?
Tim: Yeah, it was recorded at Mission Bells and like I was saying before, it was the first time that the Gramblers played exclusively on the record and that felt good. It was nice to know that the people playing on the record were the people who were going to be playing these songs on the tours that we’re going to do. This will be the fourth record–
Nicki: If you count Duets [Tim and Nicki’s collaborative album].
Tim: Ok, so this will be the third record and, on each record that’s happened, we’ve sort of been able to be less eclectic and sort of zero in on what the sound of the band really is. That’s really pleasing to kind of identify what we’re good at and what works with Nicki’s voice and the players that we have. Each record gets a little more specific, I think.
In terms of the band’s name, did that grow out of The Grambles that you guys used to be involved with in San Francisco?
Tim: Yeah, that was all the same thing. My partner in the Mother Hips, Greg Loiacono, kind of coined that word. I don’t really know how it came about.
Nicki: It was from a Mother Hips’ fan.
Tim: Some Mother Hips’ fan said it one night and Greg heard it and was like, “What does grambling mean?” So we never knew what it meant, we just thought it was a funny word that is sort of suggestive of a lot of different things, I suppose.
Nicki: Then we had to put a name on the bill. We were playing at the album release party, so we had to come up with a band name that day, so it was not thought out at all. It was just The Gramblers. When it stuck, then it was used in all sorts of ways: Gramblers, Grambling, Gramble.
I remember seeing one of the final Grambles at 12 Galaxies in San Francisco before it closed in 2008. It felt somewhere between a Levon Helm Ramble and the old, Wetlands-style power jam.
Nicki: Oh yeah, it was a super hot, sweaty night.
It was one of the last shows, if not the last.
Tim: Yeah, that was in the formative months of the band.
Nicki, you mentioned that one of the reasons the band started was that Tim was encouraging you to get out in front of an audience. How did you guys first meet and form a musical relationship? Tim, I heard a story that you heard her sing once at a party and that is when you decided you needed to produce Nicki. Was that after you already met?
Nicki: That was after we met, so I started listening to the Mother Hips as a teenager and all my boyfriends loved Mother Hips. I was of course brought to the shows and saw Tim playing and was like, “Who is that tall, handsome singer and guitar player?” [Laughs.] So I had known Tim for many years, then we kind of became acquaintances through the years. Finally, the timing was right and we were at a party. I picked up a guitar–
Tim: I didn’t even know she sang. I thought she was just a pretty girl.
Nicki: He thought I was a groupie [Laughter].
Tim: You were not a groupie because that’s a different definition. You don’t fulfill that definition.
Nicki: I was more focused on the music.
Before you had met had you been writing songs on your own or was playing just a hobby?
Nicki: I hadn’t been writing. I got my first guitar when I was seventeen and [that’s when] I started playing, but I mostly played songs that I knew [that] other people had written. The first song I wrote was “Toby’s Song,” which was the title track to our first record. After that I sort of loved to write songs and would [do so] with Tim’s encouragement. I’ve kept writing and now it seems [like a] really therapeutic way to express your inner thoughts [and] feelings, so it’s really special to me.
As you said, your third album is not out yet, but it’s been circulating in certain circles for a while. Do you have a set plan to release it this spring or winter?
Tim: I would say the spring. We’re not really supposed to talk about it. Yeah, we have some situations that we’re trying to see how they play out.
Tim, can you talk about your role in the Gramblers versus the Mother Hips? I know it has been a busy time for you balancing gig offers, pulling double duty with both bands on some nights and jetting between shows. I remember when you played New York last year you had to fly back to California for a Hips date and then back to New York for a Gramblers show.
Tim: Yeah, for sure. Aside from the politics of trying to keep everybody from being mad at me, it’s been working out pretty well. At least from my perspective, but for me it’s fabulous because it’s fun not to have to be the front guy and I can play piano and organ. I can kind of be like the utility guy on stage and it’s really fun because there’s less pressure in a way. I sit down some of the show and a lot of it is my own music that I’ve written, arranged and produced, so it’s very gratifying to hear these guys play it so well, and in some ways I’m kind of the weak link as the keyboard player. I’m not really a keyboard player, so it’s a good challenge for me [because] it’s interesting and it keeps me on my toes.
I remember the first time I saw you with the Gramblers, I didn’t know you played organ professionally…
Tim: Well, I don’t [Laughter].
In the last year, two things have increased the band’s visibility. Nicki was featured in an international Gap ad that was plastered in magazines, on billboards and even in phone booths, and you released a series of YouTube videos. In those videos you covered all sorts of bands. Can you talk a bit about how you felt both of those campaigns helped increase your visibility? Have you found that it has helped increase your fanbase outside San Francisco and your other key touring markets?
Nicki: I don’t really know. I feel like some of our YouTube videos were a lot more effective in getting people’s attention. The Gap I felt was a little mysterious because you couldn’t really see my face.
Tim: The Gap thing was cool among people who knew Nicki, both friends and family [thought] it was very exciting. It was like, “Holy crap! There’s an 80-foot Nicki on the side of a building!” But I don’t think it really showed up on our publicity front.
Nicki: But I do love the Gap and it was cool for me to do that with a company that I’ve worked at since I was a little girl. We went to Paris and saw the billboards up and that was the first place that I saw them. The ad was written in French and we were like, “What?!” That was cool.
You mentioned a bit about the YouTube videos. Can you talk a little about some of the songs you played, where the initial concepts came from and how that went viral, so to speak?
Tim: Steve Adams, the bass player [who also co-founded ALO], it was his idea. I wasn’t even in the band when it first happened, but he suggested that they videotape the song.
Nicki: Well, he always brings a ukulele on road trips, so he and I were in the front seat [of the car], he was in the passenger seat, [and] we were trying to work out a song called “Tonight You Belong to Me.” It’s a classic ukulele-type song. Tim wasn’t with us and we decided to record to send to him. Then [Steve] was like, “Let’s put it on YouTube, then our family can see it.” So we did it. It made people feel good and they kind of passed it around. I don’t think people really understand a touring musician’s life very well because they just see the performance part but really the truth is you’re up like all day.
Tim: It’s mostly driving.
Nicki: And you’re just so bored out of your mind, so to show people how we use our time, [show them] that we’re not just messing around. I mean we are messing around in a productive musical way.
Tim: Just learning and trying to learn a song that already exists. I think one of the keys as to why those videos are as appealing as they are is that we focus on the key elements of the song. We learn them really faithfully, it’s not like an impressionistic version of the song, it’s totally more instrumentation than any of the real songs, but we learn actual parts and we’ll sit there for hours and just get the notes right and get the harmonies the way they actually are on the real recording. I mean it’s sort of the same thing in [our country cover band] Brokedown in Bakersfield. We’re not just doing it the way we’re remembering it, we’re like really studying it. It’s tedious but that’s what passes the time.
That’s actually one of the other things that I was going to ask you about. I know that [Brokedown in Bakersfield] formed at High Sierra as kind of a Playshop performance. Talk a little about it for people who haven’t heard of it, the concept and how it has kind of evolved since that Playshop?
Tim: Well Lebo [ALO guitarist Dan Lebowitz] is really involved at High Sierra, and he does a lot of different Playshops. So he sort of has to come up with these creative ideas to make them interesting. He had recently started playing pedal steel guitar and he wanted to be able to play it in the band. He knew that we were all collectively interested in the Bakersfield sound, California country music, so he suggested it and honestly when Nicki and I first heard [about] it, our initial reaction was, “Of course! We’d love to do it!” But we were right in the middle of a really busy time, so the last thing we need is another batch of songs that we have to learn how to sing well and practice. For whatever reason we loved everyone involved so much that we said, “We’re going to do it.” We knew most of the music already and after the first show, [when] we played at High Sierra, it was like three years ago, it was obvious that the reaction from the audience was way stronger than we could have ever anticipated, so we all kind of looked at each other and we loved it too.
It’s really fun to come to a place like Jam Cruise and be able to do Mickey Hart’s band, which is a different kind of music, and then we get to play country music, and then we get to sit in with funk musicians and do that. It’s really enjoyable to be able to hop around and get in on different people’s scenes.
Nicki: Scott Law co-wrote “Tellum Blues” with us.
Tim: He co-wrote “Tellum Blues,” and then the song “Loving You” that Steve Kimock sat in on [during Jam Cruise] was written by Stevie Wonder.
In the four years you’ve been in Jam Cruise, you’ve been in some of the more diverse projects from world music, rhythm projects, jam projects, Jackie Greene, singer/songwriter stuff.
Tim: Yeah, it’s true. To me that’s really satisfying. I’m proud of that.
Speaking of your other projects, can we expect a Mother Hips record in 2013?
Tim: Yeah, we have a new record. It’s called Behind Beyond and it’s totally done. We’re just figuring out how we’re going to release it, but it’s definitely coming out really soon. [We’re] super proud of it, and we’re going to tour and fit it in around the Gramblers’ schedule. The Hips still play 80 shows a year, so we’ve had to change the way we tour a little bit because of the Gramblers but it’s not really playing less. We’re just concentrating it more in the time that I have off from Nicki’s band.
Not only have you been playing shows, but you also performed the Hips’ first album Back to the Grotto in its entirety a few times in 2012 for the album’s 20th anniversary.
Tim: We’ve been doing that in different cities all over the country and it’s really fun. It’s fun to revisit yourself when you’re 19 years old. I wish I could still be 19, sometimes. [Laughter.]
Nicki: You wrote pretty well for a 19-year-old English student.
Tim: There’s some pretty embarrassing lyrics if you ask me, but–
Is there anything that you’ve re-noticed about the album after all this time, particularly your lyrics? Do you see it from a different perspective now?
Tim: Yeah, some of them I’m like, “Wow! This kid was thinking pretty well.” But then there are other ones that were just bad. [Laughter.] Don’t try to shock your parents with your lyrics, it’s just not a flattering look. But then the other part that’s really interesting is the choices that we made musically, [the] chord changes I wrote, the rhythms that are there are—I can’t say that they’re sophisticated because they’re not—but they were adventurous. I didn’t know enough about music to not do that stuff. It’s sort of like when you don’t know any of the rules you just stumble into some things that sound innovative and maybe they are innovative, I’m not sure. That’s really been sort of fun to listen to these inexperienced musicians, who [were] really exploring the limitations of form.
Right. And updating it a little live.
Tim: Yeah, now we can play it better, but some of the things you can only play well if you don’t know how to play very well. That’s my favorite kind of music.
Yeah, like punk rock stuff.
Tim: Right. [Laughter.]
