Josh Clark, Trevor Garrod, Scott Rager and Ben Chambers first came together as Tea Leaf Green in 1997. A decade into their career Chambers departed and the bassist was replaced by Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey’s Reed Mathis. The group’s new release Looking West harkens back to the early days of the group as it draws on material that has been in the TLG repertoire since Chambers tenure in the group. However, it also maintains the flavor of the current band, as Mathis not only plays on the album but he also produced the album along with keyboard player/vocalist Garrod. The band is currently making the rounds in support of Looking West, although it is doing so in a modified form as drummer Rager is being supplemented by Cochrane McMillan, after an ankle injury.
The following conversation with guitarist Josh Clark looks at the span of the group’s career, the current expanded line-up and what else is in the offing as well. Clark, incidentally, is also responsible for the cover art on Looking West (as he was for the band’s first three releases) and examples of his work, including his “Eternal Jamnation” cartoon can be found at Joshclarkart.com.
Let’s start with the latest health news. You’re now touring as a five piece because Scott Rager injured his ankle.
Yeah, the latest calamity in TLG land. I want to tell everybody that he was fighting a bear or something but he was really just doing yard work. He sort of jumped off a little ledge and he landed on it funny and tore a couple ligaments in his ankle. At first he thought it was a sprain and he thought he’d get someone to fill in just for the CD release party. So he called up our friend Cochrane McMillan who owns and runs the studio we recorded Looking West in. He’s also a drummer. He’s played with Apollo Sunshine and numerous different projects, so it made sense because he was sort of familiar with the music and it was the CD release party so we thought it would be cool to have him involved.
That went off without a hitch except I came down with this 24 hour stomach flu. So we’re backstage and Scotty’s got his leg up and in ice, I’ve got a bucket in front of me and it’s an hour before the show and I’m wondering if I’m going to go to the ER because it was particularly brutal. We were wondering if the show was even going to happen but we sucked it up and played and it was a fun show. Then Scotty had some x-rays and they told him it would be 6 weeks or whatever, so now we have Cochrane with us on the road for the whole tour, so we have two drummers. Scotty can’t play the kick but he’s got a tom and a bass drum and he sorts of conducts Cochrane from the side. They’re really communicating and Cochrane is sort of going with whatever Scotty’s feeding him and it’s definitely been a lot of fun how the music has filtered through it, how the tempos have changed. All the songs are completely different versions on this trip and every night has been radically different from the others and every night’s been tighter and tighter too. They’re really starting to lock in. So it’s been an unexpected surprise and it’s been a lot of fun.
Are there any songs in particular that jump out at as having been dramatically transformed, as you re-examine them from the inside out?
I think “Kali-Yuga” has taken on a different form, especially the chorus. It seems to hit a lot bigger than it has in years and that song is 8, 10 years old. So that definitely surprises and elates me. All of a sudden this whole thing has become real powerful- with two drummers everything does get more powerful. There are more fills going on and more creative details happening in the rhythm section. It’s really cool, I’ve been enjoying it. I almost want to keep him on full time, keep two drummers going.
The other recent news is that you opened for yourselves somewhat unexpectedly last week in Canada [as TLG’s acoustic alter egos, Coffee Bean Brown] when Cornmeal’s bus broke down.
Yeah, we had a soundcheck to work up some of the acoustic stuff with Cochrane and it was cool to have him get invoked with that also. Now he’s got the whole palette down. The songs are pretty straight up and they’re quiet and it also gave Scotty a chance to try out his ankle on the kick drum because they’re not raging rockers. So he didn’t reinjure itself and it was good for him to work it out a little a bit. It’s probably getting to the point where he needs to exercise it anyway. It was one of my favorite Coffee Bean Browns. I thought it sounded real good. That room in Toronto called the Great Hall really took to the acoustic sound a lot better than some other rooms we’ve done.
Your new studio album focuses on older material. Was that your intention from the start when you began working on the new disc or did things just evolve that way?
We recorded like 30 songs. Some were new, a lot were old and we decided to put the new ones on the side and focus on the old songs so we could get them out and move on because I feel like they all deserved the proper studio treatment. Our cycle of making records is one every couple of years or it used to be anyways, trying to find the funds, trying to find the time and when we kind of slowed down with the touring last year and it gave is a lot of time to focus on the recording art which we never have been able to do before. It had always been a pressurized thing with record labels money and interests. This was just us putting down our own money, taking our time and doing it all ourselves like we did with the first couple records.
We also felt with the new songs we needed a little more time to work out the arrangements. All these other songs have been road tested, we know people like them. So we wanted to give a gift to the longtime fans and the hardcores and also make something that we really liked. So we took a lot of liberties and experimented with sounds and effects which we never have before in the studio. Our records are usually pretty sparse, pretty raw almost, like a fancy live show.
This time we did a bunch of takes with different styles. One take we might be sort of quiet and then the next one would be with a completely different part on it. That way we could pick and choose. That also helped us to recreate our live energy because it’s so dynamic in the live show because you’re keying off the crowd or whatever’s going on in the environment. In the studio you’re sitting there in a really sterile environment. The sound is pumped right into your ear stripped down and raw. You don’t have the sound bouncing off walls to help your imagination, so we tried every song in different ways and then blended them
Was there a song that particularly surprised you as it evolved in this context?
I think that “Drink of Streams” is probably my favorite track on the whole thing because it’s a lot of sounds and different instruments that we can’t really get live when there’s only four of us. Trevor has got a bunch of banjos and all these different sounds going on and that’s cool to me. You listen to those Zeppelin records and Jimmy Page has like five guitars happening and they still rock it live. The two sort of exist in different worlds and you’re not trying to recreate either one. We know that we can play live and our live shows are compelling so at this point we’re not afraid to take chances in the studio.
I’d like to hear your takes on a few other tracks on Looking West. How about your song “Bouncing Betty?”
“Bouncing Betty” is a love song that’s an analogy to a land mine. When you set off a land mine it bounces up waist high and explodes and it typically destroys the troops behind the person who sets it off. I was interested in that idea of the leader destroying his troops and how that feels. So it’s love song and also a protest song. I wanted to draw that comparison with the Walter Cronkite overdub to lessons already learned that we seem to keep returning to.
I wanted to do something that made it clear what the song is about and I wanted to make it clear that’s it’s my anti-war song and the Cronkite thing came up when we were listening to it in the studio. And there’s some guitar on there where I’m trying to emulate the sound of helicopters and that came up in the moment.
You take a different approach on “Emma Lee.”
That’s been a fun one, Trevor’s ode to the festival. On that we were doing multiple takes and it was Reed’s idea for me to take an anti-solo. So the guitar solo on there is a big crunching one, almost like garbage trucks smashing into a wall. It was fun for me to get that out and throw paint at the wall and that for me is one of my favorite bits on the record.
How about the title track?
The song was interesting to record because it’s so free form. There are maybe two parts to it stretched over seven minutes. So there was a lot to sift through in the editing room on that one. “Looking West” is Trevor’s baby, he’s been playing it for years and we’ve been playing it at shows for years. I’ve never really had a part for that, it’s such an improvisational thing. Again we did a bunch of takes and hoped for the best. I think Trevor and Reed edited out a really great soundscape out of what they had to work with on it. There’s also a really cool moment on there where Reed doubles my guitar solo. He learned my guitar solo and played it on the organ. There are a couple moments like that throughout the record.
You mention Reed’s contribution. Looking back, what led you to ask him to join the band and what was that decision-making process like?
Ben left really abruptly. He talked about it and when he was supposed to leave was a few months later than when he actually did. One day he just said, “I can’t do it anymore.” So we basically had a month to get it together because you book tours months in advance, so we had a whole year pretty much scheduled.
The first phone call was to Reed. When I was thinking about bass players, I wanted to play with the best bass player I know so I can learn. I thought why not bring in somebody who’s really, really badass and the thinking was that it would elevate everybody else, challenge everybody and bring us to a different place. I also wanted somebody who was a really good improviser because that’s also a large part of what we do. I know it’s a lot different from the wildly experimental music that Reed was making with Jacob Fred but in spirit it’s the same sort of idea.
So we called him. I didn’t really expect much but he answered the call and said he’d do it. I think Jacob Fred had scaled back a lot and was only doing 40 shows that year. So it was kind of a moment when he was looking for something too and it just worked out perfect. Synchronicity.
How would you describe the group’s evolution since that point?
I think we’re situated better than we’ve ever been. The band is tighter, more focused and bigger-sounding than we’ve ever been. It’s still celebration and still fun but I think it’s more meaningful. We take our time a little bit more with the jams and sort of cut off the fat- I’ve been trying to introduce more space into my playing. We’re also just gelling, everybody’s listening to each other. We’ve been living together and traveling together for about three years so you start to move together and really entwine instinctively and that stuff takes time. I think we sounded great immediately with Reed in the band but to really move together takes time. It takes a couple years and it takes patience and I think we’re starting to get there. The first version of Tea Leaf Green with Ben [Chambers] took five, six years until we started having anything resembling what we thought was our own unique voice.
I’ve noticed that Ben has sat in with you since his departure, so I imagine you’re in some form of communication with him. Is he making music these days?
Ben’s sat in a few times. When we play San Francisco he’ll pop over. He’s living in Oakland and has a family going and we still keep in touch and it’s fun to have him come out and hang and play. I think he’s just enjoying a nice quiet family life. I don’t know if he’s playing a lot right now.
You also mentioned that you all live together?
Trevor and Reed and I do. I’ve been living with Trevor for eight years which is intense. We all live in the house that’s been the band house forever. We even played in the living room back in the day. So we’re all in there except Scotty who’s in Oakland with his wife. Trevor’s got a piano in his room and you can hear that going every day, all day long pretty much. [Laughs]
Trevor seems like a prolific songwriter which certainly makes sense if he’s at it all day. In terms of Trevor or any of you bringing new material to Tea Leaf Green, are there some songs presented to the band that for one reason or another just don’t seem to fit, that might be more suitable for another setting and how does that typically shake out?
We’ll have rehearsal or sound check and he’ll say, “Check this out” and we’ll play along. More than not his songs click and it’s also a collective thing and everybody tries to honor everybody’s songs that they want to play. The band has never been about anything really other than everybody enabling each other. We’re enablers for each other’s creative spirit.
Can you talk a bit about how your songwriting has developed over the years
Initially I wrote more instrumentally and then I’d come up with a few taglines to sing. But when I first started writing stuff I was much more interested in writing instrumental pieces probably because I didn’t want to commit a bunch of words to memory (laughs). Now I try to write a little bit more autobiographically and I try to express whatever’s going on in my life. I feel that I can’t be the only one that’s experienced it.
In terms of songcraft, what influences jump out at you these days?
I’ve always been attracted to humor and satire in music, so Frank Zappa is a big influence in that arena because I think that’s important and serious. Satire is serious to me. I try to let everything influence me I don’t try to cut off anything that would potentially be inspiring.
On what instrument will you typically compose?
For me it all starts for me on the acoustic. I don’t write songs on the electric guitar. If it works as stripped down and bare a possible then you can have no problem building on it. A lot of the songs on Looking West were in the Coffee Bean Brown repertoire and graduated to the electric.
So some originals you’ll introduce to the acoustic side of the band?
Totally. A lot of stuff starts there and then at some point we might try them electric and they’ll get huge. “Drink of Streams,” “Jackson Hole” were Coffee Bean Brown debuts. I think a lot of songs on the record had their birth in Coffee Bean Brown.
Last question. You mentioned that you had recorded 30 songs, including some newer ones. Do you have any plans yet for the more recent material?
We’re working on the next record already. We started on it a couple months ago. The songs are all from the period with Reed in the band, so it really represents who we are now. It could potentially be two records, we have enough for two. I mean we have enough in the archives for four or five. Or we might just take the best of it. It would be fun to release a double record though, I think.
