The Barr Brothers had a long journey across the pond. Brothers Brad and Andrew Barr, who play guitar and drums respectively, have performed together since they were children in Rhode Island. In high school, they both joined The Slip—at the time a classic rock cover group performing on the New England prep school circuit—and, especially after enrolling at the Berklee College of Music, they started to steer the group into the open waters of improvisation and the avant-garde. Along with bassist Marc Friedman, the Barrs used The Slip to explore a number of sounds and styles from the mid-1990s to 2011, dipping their toes into jazz, rock, folk, world music, jam, blues, indie, Americana and all the many crevices between those styles.
The Slip slowed down in 2007, shortly after the release of their indie-leaning 2006 album Eisenhower, and have been largely dormant since 2012. In that time, both Andrew and Brad have explored a myriad of projects and truly immersed themselves in the local music scene surrounding their current hometown of Montreal. Brad also started writing more songwriting-driven solo material, partially inspired by the sounds he heard from his neighbor through the wall, harpist Sarah Page. Those initial solo sketches gradually evolved into The Barr Brothers, a partnership between Brad, Andrew, Page and multi-instrumentalist Andres Vial. The group released their full-length, self-titled debut in 2011 and broke through to a new, international music community of open-earned listeners. In 2012, the band started working on their sophomore album, Sleeping Operator, which interjects The Barr Brothers’ acoustic-drive sound with the electric, eclectic energy The Slip were known for throughout their career (the record was released this fall on Secret City records). The album’s success introduced The Barr Brothers to a new audience of NPR listeners and helped them fulfill a dream of touring heavily in Europe.
Shortly after the album’s release, Andrew Barr took a break from his band’s European tour to discuss his latest recordings, roots in improvisation and how he almost played drums for the pop band fun.
While Sleeping Operator came out this fall, you have actually been working on the album for a number of years during a number of sessions. In fact, you started with about 40 songs and slowly chopped that number down to the 12 on this record. Can you start by giving us a little background on when you and Brad started working on this batch of material and how the initial sessions took shape?
It was a long timeline. Actually, around this time two years ago we were playing over in Iceland, and I had heard this record by Mikkil Muli that was recorded over in Iceland by a guy named Thouvier Siggerson. On a whim, I called him up and said, “We have a couple days off and we’re in Reykjavic. Is there any chance you could come into the studio and record?” He was totally open to it. So we went in there just for a day and ended up recording three songs.
Only one of the songs from that session, “How The Heroine Dies,” actually made it on the record but that session was pretty inspiring. I think we realized we were ready to just start kind of throwing paint at the wall ‘cause we didn’t really know what we were going to record when we went to work with him. But we came up with this process of recording a skeleton of a song and then going and in and layering another layer over it. So that was really the first session for Sleeping Operator and we kept continuing to tour working on some of the songs that we were hoping to record. Then, in April of last year, we went into a studio for two weeks with Ryan Freeland whose name I had seen on a Ray LaMontagne record, actually. I loved the drum sound he captured and being a drummer your ears really perk up when you hear something so unique and well recorded. I heard him engineering this Ray LaMontagne record with a guy named Jay Bellerose playing drums and I brought him to the band and everybody thought he was perfect for us. So we brought him to Montreal and recorded for two weeks with him at a studio call MixArt which is just this big, gigantic 1970s recording studio that really hasn’t changed much during the years. All of the mirrors and carpets make it pretty different from the boiler room studio that we made the first record in.
We did two weeks with him in April and then, Brad and I brought the sessions back to our old ratty studio and did a mix—just worked out some of the kinks and probably went way too far and overdubbed a bunch of stuff that we ended up getting rid of. When we pulled it all back about a year later it was actually pretty close to the way it had been when we left the studio—the tracks were pretty raw still but what were left were these kind of ghosty sound that we played with and layered in and turned into other things. When we finally finished we had recorded about 40 songs, and we ended up mixing about 17 songs with Ryan at his home studio is Los Angeles.
What was the process like of narrowing down the 40 songs to the tunes that appear on the record? Were you looking to capture a specific style or sound or just represent the strongest material?
It’s a little hard to say. We were looking definitely for what kind of told a story as a record, and we were looking for what kind of mood to kind of represent. Ultimately, we ended up with a wide range of moods and the songs we chose were ones that where we captured the most authentic performances—we didn’t really have to do much to them after they were recorded, didn’t have to fix them up or anything. They were just live off the floor performances. Brad was singing all live off the floor, which is something that we actually hadn’t done that much of in the past. We kept a lot of what we just thought really were the best takes.
Though Sleeping Operator feels spiritually connected to your first album as The Barr Brothers, it definitely also has a more, rock-oriented feel. Do you feel that was an intentional choice?
For sure. The first record in a lot of ways grew out of Brad’s solo performances. When The Slip took a break, Brad and I didn’t really played together much for a couple of years. I was playing with various projects and was in a band called Land of Talk. So while I was doing stuff in Montreal, Brad really was writing a lot of these songs on the first record as solo pieces. We ended up recording them together and embellishing them, but a lot of them started out as real solo works that Brad could perform on his own. Then when the band started touring and playing together, I think we developed a bit of a larger sound. So live I think a lot of the songs on the first album sound bigger than they do on the record.
So we developed this bigger, wider sound. I’d say dynamically the zero is still about the same but the ten is quite a bit bigger than it was before and it also came from just playing in front of audiences and needing a release ‘cause there’s only so much quieter, restrained music you want to play over the course of a show before you really need to let it out. It’s a great feeling when you can play really quietly and use that kind of restraint and it’s a great feeling when you explode. It feels big, it really has an impact. We’re just exploring those dynamics a little more on this record and seeing what “bigger” sounds like for this band. We are still being somewhat limited by the fact that the harp is an instrument that has a certain cap on how loud you can really play with that onstage, though.
In my mind, the contrast between those those really, really quiet down to the floor harp noises and the bigger sounds on the record is what really defines this record and, in a sense, has been a thread tied through all your work with Brad over the years.
Yeah, definitely. We have actually expanded the live band, too. We’ve been a five and sometimes six-person band. We’ve added a bass player and sometimes we also add a pedal steel player which is really fun. So it’s growing, but as I said, the dynamic zero is still pretty quiet. It has been getting quiet in a big way though. You need to be able to fill the space with those sounds fortunately at a few really gigantic festivals. When our first record out, I remember there were a few times onstage where we felt like, “Oh my God, we’re so quiet I don’t even know if the audience can hear us.” We’re used to playing these thirty person venues where you can play acoustically. That was a bit of an inspiration too that our sound be warm and large even if it was quieter.
Have you been playing any songs that didn’t make the record live?
Yeah. We’ve been mostly playing the music from the new album and some of the older songs but at most shows we will fit one song that didn’t make it on the record in there, just to kind of keep things fresh for ourselves.
You touched on this before but the material from the first Barr Brothers record, which began as kind of Brad solo, has really taken on a life of its own with the band. Can you talk just a little bit about the transition, in your mind some of the transitions of those songs in particular some of the ones that were really early on and in your mind kind of how, where they are now in terms of material, have you felt that they’ve reached the definitive versions or are they still kind of evolving along with this new material?
That’s a good question. Brad and I both have a hard time ever saying anything is definitive. The the only way we can really continue to perform songs that are years old every night, so we’re always looking for new pockets in them and changing things up. That’s what I’ve seen Bob Dylan do and what he still does and that’s what I’ve seen Paul Simon do. I think that’s the way to keep things fresh, always, you know always keeping an element of surprise in the songs, and then though there’s no definitive versions although I sometimes think you know, that’s how the song should have been recorded. I thought that a lot of musicians would feel the same way about their songs. You finish a record you go on tour and that’s where you learn how to write songs, sometimes you wish it would work the other way around but sometimes the recorded version of the song is really just the seed.
Especially as you said, now that you have a bigger band, you must be finding new elements and new kind of like, nooks and crannies within these songs to explore. In terms of going forward I know you guys are still on the road but are you already kind of working on ideas for the next project or is it still kind of like focused on presenting these to new audiences and everything.
We’re kind of doing it all now. We’re touring we’re touring this record and it’s really nice and it’s gotten a warm reception. It’s only been out for like two and a half weeks now so it still feels fresh and exciting and I think we’ll probably continue to tour this music for the next year. But certainly every soundcheck we have we’re kind of starting to work on new material and you know Brad and I have always been a little bit guilty of waiting a long time between records so I’m hoping not to do that this time, I’m hoping to put something out pretty soon, like a year or so from now so.
Do you think you’ll be doing any Slip reunion shows or anything? Or just, pretty focused now with the new album and Barr Brothers stuff.
I hope so. There should be time now for it now that this alum is out. Last year we were still kind of preoccupied with making this record but I hope so I’d like to see it happen.We started working on some new songs a few years ago and did some recording before we [got preoccupied] with The Barr Brothers. We always have all these lines out and see what catches.
You are currently touring Europe. I know that for you and Brad, that has been a major goal for quite a while. Can you talk a bit about your time playing Europe and how those shows differ from your gigs in the US and Canada.
I am in Manchester, home of Manchester United, England. Looking out at the soccer stadium now. I am on the other side of the pond—across the pond it was a long swim, arms are tired but we’re recovering. Last night we had off, the night before we were in Paris and then we drove um yea we drove to Manchester yesterday, stopped at a Pub from the 1600’s and now we’re here playing here tonight and we’re over in the UK for another week doing some Ireland and Scotland shows.
A lot of the venues that are over here that we’ve gotten to play in are really old buildings, some great old churches that have been transformed. In Paris we played this old train station so right away there’s this kind of different ambiance in the venues and the audiences are really different from country to country over here. It’s all kind of the same in a lot of ways in that people kind of respond like loudly when you play loudly and quietly when you play quietly but the audience definitely seems like a little bit of a listening crowd over here, whereas when we play in the US I always feel like we can get people riled up you know and kind of rowdy, they’re not as rowdy over here.
That should go well, especially for some of the songs on the first Barr Brothers album. I feel like that would really translate well to that listening crowd where the harp could really light shine and everything.
It’s not really all that different to tell you the truth and it’s funny. Brad and I had wanted to come over here for years so it’s nice to finally get to tour around and it’s like equal parts you know just enjoying the towns and the people that you meet in these places that you’ve always heard of: Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris. It’s definitely a treat to get to see some new sights and new places.
As you said, The Barr Brothers really started as Brad’s solo project and an outlet for acoustic-oriented material. How much emphasis do you place on improvisation at this point?
There’s more improv now than there was before, I think we—Brad and I—are starting to cut loose a little bit more and I think after all the years of this stuff and all the freedom that we had in there, the Barr Brothers, it was intentionally a restraint and we intentionally gave ourselves real limitations. It was a really good exercise and it served the music really well but I think we’re starting to get into a bit more of a you know an ability to open the songs up the way that we always have been known to do throughout our lives.
You mentioned some of your journeyman years where I know you were playing for a lot of different bands and I actually heard a story that you were actually almost the drummer for the band fun. Is that true?
Yeah. Jack Antonoff who plays in that band, had a band called Steel Train and we crossed paths at different festivals and places. He was an old Slip fan and after fun. made their last record [the Some Nights ] they were looking for a drummer, and he called me up to see if I wanted to get together to play some shows with them but I was just starting out with the Barr Brothers. I was still playing with a few other projects so it didn’t work out but I’m so psyched to see those guys are doing so well.
The more we travel the more, the smaller the world lets. It is amazing. I was just at a venue the other day seeing this band called Hiss Golden Messenger. Backstage I bumped into these two dudes, Brad and Phil Cook, who play in Megafaun. They have been coming to The Slip shows since they were in high school. They would come with their friend Justin Vernon. [Laughs.] They played with our friends Akron/Family and now their drummer Dana is in Mexico. Then, the dude from Hiss Golden Messenger was in a band called The Court & Spark who we knew from San Francisco. It’s getting smaller and smaller the older I get. Like all these musicians out on the road we all are like just two degrees of Kevin Bacon.
In terms your drumming specifically last time we talked you were saying is that you’re always working in different elements and everything like that of different music and genres and stuff like that, you know African music and instrumentation was something that you were focusing on in the last couple years. Are there any styles that you’ve been focused on or incorporating into your sound and therefore into the Barr Brothers?
Not necessarily, I mean there’s always a quest for me to find some new ways of playing the same stuff I’ve been playing for years and, I think on this record there were a few moments we were able to touch upon some of the North African rhythms. I love exploring that kind of vibe in what we do, but for the most part the songs are still at the core and me and Brad just try to figure out how to best serve each song. But certainly—I know I’ve talked to you about it before—but having the harp there it inspired how Brad and I listen. There is music from Mali that we love and have loved for years, having to fit the harp into a rock band that plays Delta blues and folk music and this stuff it wasn’t very easy right away but it occurred to us that the kora which is a West African harp plays these heavy rhythmic ostinatos, these crazy solos and so getting into that has really been amazing for Sarah and Brad and I as far as finding a way to use the harp in a way that is more rhythmic and can really have a voice in that context. There’s a little bit of that on this record, we’re not, we try not to go too heavy in one direction, we’re not trying to be a band that plays West African Music but certainly it has influence on songs like “Half Crazy.” Even “Bring Me Your Love” has those rhythms I’m talking about. We’re exploring and we’re always looking for new ways to play the same old kind of songs
You and Brad truly have a lifelong musical collaboration and it’s kind of cool you can explore kind of go on this exploration together and try all these things.
Yeah, it’s fun. It’s fun to trust each other enough to say okay cool here’s a song that’s been written now how can we kind of fuck it up and how can we shift and save it, because I know with some people, when their song starts to get pushed and pulled, it can be a very delicate thing. But with Brad it’s nice he’s got a lot of trust and he’s just as excited as anybody is to see what the parameters are and how far we can go in different directions with songs, without them losing their integrity or their feel but with also getting more interesting and more unique and taking people into more of the imaginary world that the song kind of can exist in.
