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Dave Caruso: “Today we
talk with Nashville-based songwriter, producer, arranger and studio
musician,
Brad Jones.”
[MEDLEY]
- Miss July
- Count On Me
- The Blunderbuss
DC: “I asked Brad to
share some insight into his own music, along with that ‘something
extra’ that he brings to the stage and the studio.
Brad Jones, welcome to Songwriter Stories! How're you doin’?”
Brad Jones: “Not too bad. How’s it goin’ with you?”
DC: “‘Goin’ great!”
BJ: “Pleasure to meet your acquaintance.”
DC: “Same here. Alright, ‘we’re rollin’,’ just like studio owners used
to say.”
BJ: “I mean, I just record on digital all day long and I *still* say
‘we’re rollin’.’ I just can’t help myself. It’s how we learned.”
DC: “Y’know, when I went to AllMusic and when I went to Discogs,
and I went to Wikipedia, everything is so spotty these days in terms
of credits. It’s a pain in the ass. I can’t tell anything.”
BJ: “Yeah. I hate it. I mean, there’s so many records I do now that
nobody has any idea who produced it if they don’t hold the physical
product. It sucks.”
DC: “I’d like the listeners who have not heard of you to get a quick
introduction to your Nashville recording studio, ‘Alex the Great,’ and
your partner, Robin Eaton.”
BJ: “We confederated twenty five years ago.”DC: “Wow!”
BJ: “And we’ve been going strong ever since. Our accountant tells us
that it’s unheard of for a partnership to last that long without tears
and recrimination. But it’s lasted that long and by our studio being
the last man standing, in a lotta ways, we’ve kind of become kind of a
quiet, home little institution in Nashville.”
DC: “So fisticuffs aren’t a regular thing there, then?”
BJ: “Yeah, but like a lot of marriages, that’s how we express
ourselves and it works for us.”
DC: “Exactly. If we walk into a session and you have a black eye, it’s
*fine*.”
BJ: “Yeah. It’s been known to happen.”
DC: [Laughing] “Okay.”
BJ: “The thing about our studio is there’s sort of an extended-family
vibe about it. Because anyone that’s ever made a record there, whether
they’re from in town or from New Zealand or wherever they’re from,
they come back ten years later and they always walk in and they go,
‘Ah,,, back home again.’ ‘Cause it’s a homey studio. It’s not one of
those sterile kind of big production studios. It’s a more homey one.
And it’s got living quarters built into it and lots of weird artwork
and cool vintage instruments. It’s just sorta like a lot of people’s
second home. That’s what we tried to create. That atmosphere. I work
other places too, but I probably do the majority of ‘em at Alex.”
DC: “Where do your artist-clients come from?”
BJ: “I don’t really hang out my shingle. I just sort of sit in one
place and wait and see who comes to me. And they just come from all
over and they talk to each other. They hear a record that their friend
did and they like it so they call me. Ya know?”
DC: “Do you have any
relationships with record companies that you *have* to do something?”
BJ: “No. I used to. I mean, back in the record label era, I did have
relationships with labels and A&R men. But right now, I could only
think of a very small handful of record people that I’ve kinda kept in
contact with. And had, ya know, that they send you work. It doesn’t
really happen much anymore.”
DC: “And that’s when they say, ‘would you,’ and you say, ‘yes’ or
‘no,’ right — not like you must.”
BJ: “Yeah. No, I’ve never been on the payroll of a label or like a
house producer or anything like that.”
DC: “And do artists sometimes pitch you to produce or mix their albums
remotely? Do they get in touch with you and say, ‘Hey, I got this
thing and I’d like your help?’”
BJ: “It’s usually the artist or his manager that contacts me. I’d say
that like 25% of the time, it’s just a label. 75%’s the artist or
their manager.”
DC: “Well, speaking of artists, we’re gonna start out with your solo
career, which — was relatively short!”
BJ: [Laughs] Yeah, I got into some other stuff!”
DC: “Well, it’s not like you’re not busy!”
BJ: “Yeah.”
DC: “But in 1995 you had an album called ‘Gilt-Flake’ — am I
pronouncing that correctly?”
BJ: “That’s right, yeah.”DC: “Where does that title come from?”
BJ: “Well, a gilt-flake is a kind of a thin, gold-based paint that
they used to paint frames of a painting or paint the dome of a capitol
building. And so that was a very fine, expensive kind of gilded paint.
You know, paint that was gold-based.
And at the time, I was wrestling with all different kinds of issues. I
was flaking out, personally, on some people that I knew and loved, and
I had some guilt about it. And so it was kind of a little bit of
wordplay.
And also, kind of like the name of our studio, ‘Alex the Great,’ I did
want to invent a couple of words that people weren’t exactly sure what
it meant. But at least it kinda burned a visual. You know, you
remembered it. I mean, there’s too many records that have names like,
you know, ‘Forgetting Yesterday,’ or ‘Until the Next Thing Comes.’ You
know, all these vague kind of things. I wanted to put some ‘stuff’ in
the title, you know?”
DC: “I like that you’re not afraid of big words and you’re not afraid
of odd words or just words that come out of nowhere. Like ‘The
Blunderbuss.’
BJ: “Yeah.”
DC: “I had to look it up. I didn’t know what it was.”
BJ: “Yeah, ‘The Blunderbuss’ has a real odd pattern, it’s not
precision-firing, it just kind of mows down everything in its path
without discrimination.”
DC: “Yeah. I had to find the lyric on a forum — some stray forum
called ‘Octopus Overlords dot com,’ which probably means nothing One
person was talking with another person about music and they said, ‘Is
there an f-bomb in The Blunderbuss?’ This is something that really
happened. I thought you’d find it interesting, that’s why I’m sharing
it.”
BJ: “Oh.”
DC: “And the guy says, ‘No, I don’t *think* so,’ and this is what he
said about you: ‘Brad Jones is a Nashville-based session musician /
producer, worked with both country and rock stuff. If anybody
remembers
Foster & Lloyd, or is a fan of — is it ‘Rad Foster?’’”
BJ: “Radney.”
DC: “Okay.
Radney‘Foster or Bill Lloyd’s solo career, Brad Jones
is a big part of their music-making process.’ And he says, ‘I never
heard an f-bomb in there, but after re-listening again, you have to be
hearing the words wrong, although the lyrics are *loopy*.”
BJ: [LAUGHS] “Yeah, they *are* loopy! That song is almost like kind of
a hallucination. An American historical hallucination is kind of what
that song is.
[AUDIO CLIP: The Blunderbuss]
DC: “It’s got Hiawatha, Custer, Miles Standish, a vaudeville teepee
show...”
BJ: “Yeah...”
DC: “And Pampers.”
BJ: [Laughs] “There’s ‘*Pampers*’ in there?”
DC: “That’s what it said.”
BJ: “*Pamphlets.”
DC: “OK, good.
BJ: “Pamphlets.
DC: “Thank you!”
BJ: “That’s even better though. So then... in *that guy’s* telling,
the American CIA is dropping *Pampers* from a helicopter.
”DC: “Yes.”
BJ: “That’s even better than dropping pamphlets.”
DC: “Well, it’s weirder and loopier.”
BJ: “Yeah, I’m goin’ with the Pampers from here on out.”
DC: “That’s hilarious. Thank you for correcting that. The ‘supreme
Anglo intuition’...”
BJ: [Laughs]
DC: “...reminded me of a
Graham Parker song.”
BJ: “Yeah?”
DC: “It’s called ‘Break Them Down.’ Have you ever heard of it?”
BJ: “No. I know Graham Parker, just never heard that song.”
DC: “He
talks about, basically, forcing Western ways on and religion on
Venezuelan savages. So yours doesn’t get into any of that of course,
but it’s this whole mixing of, you know, westerns and Western-ism,
right?”
BJ: “Yeah, yeah. It sounds like it’s kind of a companion piece to what
I was doing. Mine was about taking land from other people. It’s about
Manifest Destiny. Maybe there’s a little bit of American guilt on that
song. I’m this guy that’s enjoyed all the fruits of us taking this
great land from the indians. So I’ve got a little bit of guilt about
it, ya know?”
DC: “The person that wrote the lyrics down, didn’t notice
that each chorus ends with subtle variation. That’s one of the terms I
use when I teach songwriting. You say ‘no buffalo escapes the
blunderbuss,’ then you say ‘no animal...’ then you say ‘no living
thing.’”
BJ: “I never thought about that but but you’re right. And if you do
those things, you do try to make it escalate. You try to make each
variation kinda twist the knife a little harder than the variation
before. So you gotta put ‘em in the right order.”
DC: “Do you want to talk about how that song came about? What made you
think of it? Did you write the music first, the lyric first?”
BJ: “I wrote the... music first, with another guy. A guy named Sam
Baylor. And we were just sort of jamming the music. And we really
liked it. We liked the music, and so then I went to my room a couple
days later and just cooked up this lyric.
I don’t really know why that lyric went to that music. But I had
obviously been reading a lot American history and some of the
injustices of our history, you know, not just the glory part, but the
sort of embarrassing part. And I just had a lot of imagery cooking up
in my brain and I thought it was just kind of interesting and fun to
just sort of get it out. And I was trying to make a song that was kind
of unlike some of the other songs that were going around. You know? I
was trying to do something different. And so it was fun. It was kind
of an experiment.
I haven’t really... that style of writing... I never really went back
to it much, because shortly after that I came to realize that you can
write one or two songs per album that are like that, but if you write
a whole album that is that kind of historical thing, kinda like the
way The
Decemberists
do, that ultimately, I don’t think it’s as lasting music, ‘cause the most lasting music has men and women in
it. And The Blunderbuss is just a bunch o’ dudes.”
DC: [Laughs]
BJ: “Y’know what I mean? There’s no women in there.”
DC: “‘Cept for Hiawatha’s in it.”
BJ: “Well, yeah, but I even got
Hiawatha wrong, ‘cause — this is
embarrassing — y’know, I studied Spanish, so I figured anything that
ends with an “a” has to be the feminine. Hiawatha must be the indian
princess. To my embarrassment, later I found out that Hiawatha was a
dude.”
DC: “No way.”
BJ: “Yeah. So even that I got wrong. But at least the poetry of it’s
right. The intention of it. You get the intention that *she* sells her
charms.
DC: “Well, you’re in good company on the mistakes, because
Chris Difford [of
Squeeze] in ‘Pulling Mussels
(From the Shell),’ he says ‘I
feel like William Tell,
Maid Marian on her tiptoed feet.’ And Maid
Marian’s not from
William Tell. So y’know... it happens.”
BJ: “Well, we poets, we’re allowed to conflate things. I don’t think
that’s against the rules. In fact, when you write music, especially
when you write lyrics, I think you’re *supposed* to be in kind of a
disoriented dream state. That’s really how you get the best stuff.”
DC:
“I love that.”
BJ: “And then later, on a different day, you can be more clear-eyed
and edit it the way you see fit. But really, the creation is supposed
to happen in a slightly confused and delirious state. That’s when the
best stuff comes out, y’know?”
DC: “Well, and you said something really interesting when you were
talking about recording, on
Recording Studio Rockstars, on an
interview — and you talked about how mistakes are important, if you
can recognize when they work.”
BJ: “Oh, yeah. Very true. Also, if you work fast and recklessly, which
I think is the best way to work, then mistakes are gonna happen, but
if you work slow and cautiously — at the first stage, anyway, of your
creation — you might end up with a more sterile creation. I think it’s
almost better to work fast and reckless, early. And then later you can
get all reasoned and bring out your red pen.”
DC: “Good stuff.”
[AUDIO CLIP: ‘I Tried’]
DC: “[On] the song ‘I Tried,’ you have a lot of vocal harmony on the
intro, and layering and feedback. Talk about intentional or
unintentional mistakes, in the middle there’s a breakdown where
there’s a little bit of space and there’s feedback. And at the end,
there’s what sounds like more intentional feedback.”
BJ: “I actually don’t remember the feedback. I haven’t listened to
that song in a long time, but I want to now ‘cause I always really
liked the lyric and the melody of that song. It came from a pretty
heartfelt place. And I did have a kind of a breakup of sorts in
Minnesota. So that song is close to my heart.
[NOTE: Turns out it’s not feedback, it’s just harmonics.]
All I remember about the song is that I was trying to have a really
fresh melody. And my idea with melody — and I try to impart this on
other people — is some of the best melodies use a lot of upstrokes.
They’re not just showing the downbeat, but they’re showing the ‘one
and,’ the ‘two-and,’ the ‘three-and’ — lots of upstrokes. Y’know what
I’m talkin’ about?”
DC: “The rhythm of the melody, is what you’re saying.”
BJ: “The rhythm of the melody. The pulse in the rhythm of the melody
isn’t just... like a quarter-note melody that you’ll just bore people
to tears goes like this... [Sings every syllable on a down beat]:
‘Here I am in north Da-ko-ta.’
But if you go [sings some syllables on the off beats]: Here I am in
north Da-ko-ta.’ Do you see what I did?”
DC: “Totally.”
BJ: “I put a bunch of the notes on the pushed beats instead of the
straight beats.
And also, the other thing that I was trying to do with ‘I Tried’ —
‘cause I was already pretty conscious of melody writing and how to do
it — is I was trying to put broad intervals. A lot of people do lazy
melody writing where one note just leads to the next note, which
happens to be the note right next to it on the scale. But I’m trying
to make a few broader jumps. You know, jump up a third or jump up a
sixth or whatever. And so I was trying to make a fresh melody with
colorful lyrics with lots of ‘furniture’ in it. You know, I had
‘disconnected phone’ in there and I had an actual state that I named,
I named ‘Minnesota.’ And other stuff in there that I was trying to get
in there to make what I considered a good melody and a good lyric. “
DC: “I wrote down that I liked your melodic vocal leaps. And that you
sound like you’re having a good time singing.”
BJ: “Yeah, I’m trying to make it sound joyful. I ‘m also trying to
make my *bass line* sound joyful. I was really into a thing at that
time where — like, my bass parts, I still play bass on a lot of my
productions. My bass parts right now are a lot more supportive and a
little more serious. But at that time in my life, I was really into
sort of joyous, almost funny bass playing. You know, that was my
thing.”
DC: “I think people dig that. I certainly do. When I listen to...”
BJ: “Yeah, me too.”
DC: “Power pop isn’t my only staple, I don’t like to listen to it all
day long, because it’s too narrow, but melodic pop, let’s say, bass
should be... a singer of its own, in a way.”
BJ: “Yeah. It can be. Exactly. And the beautiful thing about bass is
it’s perfect at taking the back seat for a few bars and then right
when the time is right, it can leap out and take a little liberty. And
that’s when the joy and the expression can come.”
[AUDIO CLIP: ‘Mary’s
Moving Day.’]
DC: “I love, in ‘Mary’s Moving Day,’ the way the buildup to the final
chorus runs long. And you keep doing the cycle over and over instead
of just once, and you change the words every cycle. And then at the
end of the cycle, you do a tag ending where, instead of ad libs, you
keep changing the rhyme, changing the line to match what you were
saying in earlier choruses but works really, really well.”
[AUDIO CLIP: ‘Mary’s Moving Day’ buildup section.]
BJ: “Well thanks. I didn’t realize that ‘Mary’s Moving Day’ did that
but looking back on it I applaud myself for doing that ‘cause it’s
something I do preach to people now. I’m always looking for what... I
don’t really like lists, but I *do* like list *codas.* I like a
coda that builds. And I do try to encourage people to rearrange their
arrangements once in awhile where they do a little escalating list
like that.right before their closing.
And really, if you really wanna see what the ‘err’ list song is, it’s
‘A Hard Rain’s
a-Gonna Fall.’ Have you ever noticed that one does it?
Each time he does his little list, it takes him longer to get through
it. Until later in the song, it’s like, you gotta get through like
eight or nine of ‘em finally, to get to the end of his list. And
*man,* the sweat really builds when you do it like that. That guy,
man, he was... that song was the king of all list songs.”
DC: “When the lyricist does that or when the singer does that, it
gives the musicians something to do over each of those repetitions
too...”
BJ: “Oh, yeah.”
DC: “Because they know
they have to vary it somewhat and...”
BJ: “Oh, exactly. It’s a great opportunity for the band, you know? An
opportunity for the drummer to go to quarter-note feel, an opportunity
for the bass player to go up an octave. Yeah, it’s great. It’s the
kind of arrangement framework that musicians love to hang their stuff
onto.”
DC: “So this was a one-off album — you never made another one by
yourself, of a whole album?”
BJ: “No, I never did, although I did recordings after that. But I did
do an entire album about five or six years ago, with a pal named Hans
Rotenberry.”
DC: “Next on my list. ‘Mountain Jack,’ 2010.”
BJ: “Yeah, so I mean, I kinda consider ‘Mountain Jack’ my other solo
record, even though it’s a buddy record, it’s Hans and I together. But
I did write... I wrote a lot of the lyrics on that album and a lot of
the melody and I just feel like I’m very invested in it. I like
‘Mountain Jack’ better, really. I just think it just adds up better.
But it might not have that youthful effervescence that ‘Gilt-Flake’
had, that people liked. I just always wanted people to hear ‘Mountain
Jack.’ I just love it. And I like hearing my melodies sung by a better
singer than me. I *love* hearing Hans Rotenberry on these melodies.”
DC: “Froggy Mountain Shakedown,’ when I put that on, first of all the
lyric blew my mind, I love it so much.”
[AUDIO CLIP: ‘Froggy Mountain Shakedown.’]
DC: “Froggy did exclaim: ‘If there’s a lady here who’ll let me near,
I’m game.’”
BJ: “Yep.”
DC: “So awesome. Is that you?”
BJ: “Thank you. Yeah, I wrote most of that lyric. Hans wrote the thing
about the... ‘True love blossomed at the wave pool ground.”
DC: [Laughs]
BJ: “And Hans wrote, ‘He turned up that woofer and the tweeters came
around.’”
DC: “So nice.”
BJ: “He wrote a bunch of the key, kind of interesting little,
idiomatic little, sorta like, the little snippets that are idiomatic.
Those are Hans’. But it was kinda my story. It was my idea to make it
be about like borrowing too much money and getting in a hole — which
America was doing at the time. You know, at the time, America was
digging itself into an economic hole. Everyone was running up credit
card debt, you know? And so there was sort of a timeliness to it. But
the music and the guitar riff is Hans’ — I think Hans wrote pretty
much all the music.”
DC: “So does that mean he wrote some of the melody, too, or does that
mean you took [utilized] his melody?”
BJ: “I wrote some of the melody. I think Hans probably had most of the
melody.”
DC: “Well there’s a lot of whimsical lyrics, especailly on that one.”
BJ: “Thanks. I think it’s the best song that I’ve ever written. I’ve
thought this many times. And the reason I think that is I think it
just has a beginning, middle and end. And I think it has a really good
ending. When he runs back up the mountain to see if his dad’ll bail
him out. I just love the whole thing. You could almost *hear* him
runnin’ up that hill. Y’know, sweatin’. He’s in trouble. And I just...
I love everything about it. I just think it turned out so good. It’s
probably my favorite thing that I’ve ever had a hand in.
DC: “Getting back to ‘The Blunderbuss,’ you said you can’t write one
of those on every album, but this is like you one-upped yourself on
that. Because you took something...”
BJ: [Laughing] “Oh, thanks!”
DC: “...whimsical and it has a story and a beginning and an end and it
works in a way that we don’t have to hear it and like... our minds are
being blown, for sure, because it’s odd when we first hear it. But we
*get* it right away. You don’t have to get into it heavily to go, ‘Oh,
I know what he means.’”
BJ: “Yeah. Yeah.”
DC: “That’s a real trick.”
BJ: “I’m just delighted that you singled that one out, as you can
tell. I’m really high on that song. There’s a lot of other songs that
I’ve done that I’m quite ashamed of and [laughing] never want to talk
about again. But that’s not one of ‘em.
Also, just as a side note, there is a wonderful video on YouTube of
Hans, singing that song in my studio, live.”
DC: “Oh, I’ll have to dig it up.”
BJ: “And he really tells the story. The camera’s right in his face and
it’s not lip-synched, it’s him, singing the track. So it’s him,
actually —probably five years after we cut the album — him singing the
song again. And it’s just great.”
DC: “One of the things I do is I have a Writers Room on the
[Songwriter Stories] website, so for each guest, we have a link to the
interview, a link to the Writers Room and a link to the website.”
BJ: “The website is just a billboard. What you wanna link ‘em to is
our YouTube channel. The YouTube channel is called ‘Alex the
Great Recording.’ And that’s got about fifteen different, black &
white, vocalist videos that we shot last year. We got fifteen of the
greatest vocalist that Rob and I have produced or worked with and we
had them come into the studio and do a black & white, closeup vocal
video, not lip-synched. There’s some good ones in there.”
DC: “A Likely Lad” is more of a smoothly melodic piece. Compared to
‘Froggy Mountain Shakedown.’”
[AUDIO CLIP — ‘A Likely Lad’]
DC: “The division of labor — you’re pretty much done explaining that.
What about music? Who played what?”
BJ: “Hans and I played everything and then our friend, Keith Rodman
played drums. And he played drums last.”
DC: “No way.”BJ: “Hans and I played the whole thing to a click track
and got everything how we liked it. And we might put a temporary or
dummy drum loop in or something on a couple of ‘em. And then Keith
came in an played drums. But all of the guitars are me and Hans,
sharing the guitars.
DC: “Now, you wouldn’t normally, with a band, suggest someone do that,
and yet it came out perfectly, like I can’t tell you did it, which is
the trick.”
BJ: “I *would* suggest it to a band. And also, I really like solo
records. I like hearing a record where a guy does all his own overdubs
— I think those are cool records. That first
Paul McCartney record is
*cool*! And it’s Paul playing everything, ‘cause he knew what every
song was — he knew the exact right next thing to put on. And the thing
that happens when a man overdubs to his own stuff is it amplifies his
particular thumbprint. Like, every artist or singer or songwriter or
has their own personal thumbprint. But if you get too big a crew on
there, sometimes that personalized gets kind of obscured. But if, with
each overdub you actually *amplify* your thumbprint, your choices,
your way of constructing a phrase, you get a real strong musical
statement.
And then the other thing is — don’t get me wrong — I love ensemble
tracking. In fact, I do more ensemble band tracking now than I ever
have. But I do do it in a kind of a special way.
So I was just proselytizing about the virtues of a guy doing his own
overdubs and my example was that
Paul McCartney first album.”
DC: “Sure.”
BJ: “It’s cool. But then some people get too much up into their own
self and they need to have a roomful of guys that they can bounce
ideas off and hear the song in a whole new way that they weren’t
imagining. And in that case, band tracking is the way to go and I do a
lot of it now.
And my whole thing about band tracking is to put an artist who has
written his song in with a bunch of guys that he might not have even
met before. He might not have even played with them before. One of the
guys that I pick might even be kind of an outlier. The reason he’s
there might not even be clear right away. ‘What? He brought in an
*accordion* player on *this*?’ Y’know.
But I put him in the room and then I don’t do any pre-production. The
only pre-production I do is with the artist, about what the song
means. Once he and I know what the song means, and what the
arrangement should be, then I put him into the studio with the band
and I have ‘em figure out the song right there with the mics already
up. And I try to capture everybody in the room’s first response to the
song.
So a lot of the records of mine that you hear that are finished, mixed
records, you’re hearing the sound of a drummer, or a bass player or a
keyboard guy that has only known the song for maybe 45 minutes or an
hour. The song is totally new to him and that’s what is on the record.
You’re hearing the guy’s knee-jerk response to the artist’s song.
You’re hearing his first reaction.
If the first reactions aren’t right, or the guys in the band are
fighting themselves, that’s when I step in as the air traffic control
guy. I go kneel next to the drummer and I whisper something in his ear
that might unlock it, or I whisper something to the bass player. But
I’m just there to quietly whisper things that will eventually make
this thing unlock and unlock quick. And hopefully to the delight and
the inspiration of the artist.”
DC: “That sounds very much like a movie
director that understands how to work with actors. You don’t tell an
actor how to act, because that’s counter-productive and it pisses them
off.”
BJ: “And you know, it’s interesting that you say that. It’s really
interesting you say that, because when I was coming up and I’m trying
to learn all the tricks of the trade. of *course* I read
George
Martin’s biography and of *course* I read about
Phil Spector and his
technique. But I kind of got to the end of that saying I didn’t
really... there wasn’t that much more to learn from reading those
books of the great producers.
And I found myself getting *way* into the memoirs of film directors.
By reading
Bergman’s memoir I learned *way* more about record making
then I did from reading some interview with
Butch Vig. The
Kurusawa
memoir — I learned a *whole* bunch about making a team and making your
team work and what actors’ motivations were and *also*, telling a
story.
That’s why I was talking about ‘Froggy Mountain Shakedown.’ In a way,
I was trying to make a little movie. And good movies have a good
beginning, a good middle and a good ending. And then, like you said,
when you’re at the studio, it is kinda like a movie shoot. You’ve got
a team and you’re trying to get this team to tell a great, colorful
story.”
DC: “Well, one of the things that songwriters run into is that there’s
a glut of music right now, so being heard is impossible. But if your
song reaches people on an emotional level, has a story, has some kind
of momentum, and interest — human interest — then it can rise obove
the pack. But if it doesn’t, it’s just the same as everything else.”
BJ: “So true.”
DC: “I’m just gonna put my two cents in here that you and Hans need to
get together and tour these two albums.”
BJ: [Laughs]
DC: “Just, you know, revisit it, have some fun with it.”
BJ: “I like that idea. Touring both albums as a package. That’s a cool
concept.
DC: “Yeah, ‘cause you could go together and you could bring some more
musicians you like and pick the rooms you wanna do it in and I would
be there.”
BJ: “Oh yeah, that’s a
good idea. I like that.”
DC: “Put it in the back of your mind.”
BJ: “I will.”
DC: “You were in a group called ‘The Long Players.’ Or you still are?”
BJ: “Yeah, there’s kind of a rotating cast. There’s different bass
players that do it, but in the last few years, I’ve been on like 80%.
80% of the time, it’s me on bass.”
DC: “Tell us how that feeds into your arranging and production skills
when you do things like that. How does learning about other music and
getting inside other changes feed into your other production work?”
BJ: “Well, the first thing it does it it makes you chart out the song.
And when you actually are forced to sit down and chart out the song,
whether you do it on paper or just mentally — sometimes the chart’s
just in your mind — but by charting it out, you realize: ‘You know
what’s weird about this song? They start with the chorus, and never
come back to it again.’ That’s weird. But somehow that works. I never
realized till now that that’s what it did.
Or there’s other songs, I’m trying to think of an example that... oh,
I can think of a good example. There was a big song called
‘Everlasting Love.’ Do you know ‘Everlasting Love?’”
DC: “Depends on which one. There’s two.”
BJ: “Written by
Mac Gayden and
Buzz [Cason]... Anyway, Mac & Buzz
wrote it, they’re national guys. So it was a big hit in the sixties
and even Pearl Jam did a cover — a lot of people covered it.
Everlasting Love. So I had to chart it out one time and only by
charting did I realize is that, wait a minute... This song starts out
with this really long verse, but I’ve heard this song a million times
and I *still* don’t really recognize this verse. It’s the most
inconsequential, invisible, nothing verse you’ve ever heard in your
life. And then they get to the chorus and it’s like, oh yeah, *this*
song. I’ve heard this song. This is a great song.
And by charting it, I realized the producer that day did a really
smart thing. The producer knew that the verse was shit and the chorus
was where the whole game was. And so, back in the sixties they acted
*super* recklessly about stuff like that. He just jettisoned the verse
after that first verse. They never even came back to it. They get
through that flogging, lousy first verse and then they get into the
chorus [laughing] and they just keep rockin’ the chorus the whole rest
of the song. And so by charting a song out, you realize those things.”
[SIDEBAR]
DC: “I think Mr. Jones’
comments about this song deserve a little sidebar analysis before we
get back to the interview. So here’s my take on what he just said.
Brad was referring to the original version of the song, as recorded in
1967 by
Robert Knight. Let’s listen to Knight’s version, and notice
that he sings the melody squarely on the beat:
[AUDIO CLIP: ‘Everlasting Love’ as sung by Robert Knight.]
Now let’s listen to
Carl Carleton’s dance remix from 1974, with agrees
with Brad’s earlier advice about pushing the melody to the off-beats:
[AUDIO CLIP: ‘Everlasting Love’ as sung by Carl Carleton.]
Now let’s hear the modulation and first chorus, and notice that
although the song returns to the intro, which has the same melody and
chords as the verse, it goes right back to the chorus after that, with
no further verse lyrics:
[AUDIO CLIP: ‘Everlasting Love’ as sung by Carl Carlton.]
Personally, I like the verse to ‘Everlasting Love,’ but that’s because
I was raised on the Carl Carleton version, which has a couple of
improvements over the original release.
[Keyboard demonstration begins]
The original starts on a I (one) chord, then it plays a IV chord with
a 1 in the base, and an added 6th (because that 6th is in the melody).
Then it goes to *another* IV chord, without the 6th and it’s still
over 1, and then it returns to the I (one) chord. So that third chord
isn’t as interesting as Carl Carleton’s version.
In Carl Carleton’s version, he does a I (one) chord, a IV chord over 1
with and added 6th (because it’s in the melody), and then he makes a
*minor* IV chord, and that minor creates tension and interest for the
ear. Then it returns to the I (one) chord. That, plus the pushed
eighth notes on the melody are big improvements on the intro and verse
of this version.
For a comparison of these versions, and other recorded versions, see
Wikipedia, under ‘Everlasting Love (song).’
Okay! Let’s get back to our interview with Brad Jones.”
[END OF SIDEBAR]
BJ: “So here’s what I do, because you know, my whole thing about
songwriting *now*, now that I don’t write much and I produce — but I
still consider myself a song activist — because the first thing I do
when an artist brings me their batch of songs is I look at each song
and I un-focus. Before I listen to the song, I try not to listen to any
of the details. I just unfocus and I listen to the whole thing go by,
and then I decide ‘what’s the strongest part of this song? Is it the
verse? Is it the bridge? Or is it the chorus?’
It’s the same kind of harsh yardstick that whoever that guy was that
produced ‘Everlasting Love’ — he did the same thing. And it’s triage.
You decide real early on, before you get any further, after the first
listen, and you decide: ‘what’s the motor of this song? What’s the
very strongest part of this song and how do I make that part of the
song happen more often?’ That’s my number one thing I do when I assess
a song and figure out how I can help the artist make it better.
And then sometimes I find surprising things. And the artist doesn’t
always like what I’m saying, but sometimes they come around to it and
you get a stronger song. Once in awhile, this happens: I find that the
bridge is actually stronger than the chorus. And I go back to the
artist and I say, ‘Look, you’re gonna hate me for this, but can we
just make the bridge happen three times?’ And make the chorus just
happen once? And in effect, we’ve made the chorus become the bridge
now.”
DC: ”That is awesome.”
BJ: “And it’s actually worked a few times and the artist has been open
to trying it. So that’s the kind of overview, big architecture,
first-listen kind of criteria that I have to bring to it when I assess
a song for the first time.”
DC: “So let’s take an
example of you playing bass and talk about what you gleaned from
learning to play songs just like the record. You were on a song that
was on the album in 2002, ‘This is Where I Belong: The Songs of Ray
Davies and The Kinks,’ and the song was called ‘Picture Book.’ You
were working with Bill Lloyd and
Tommy Womack and you played bass on
that and there’s a lot of theory, a lot of scales in there.”
BJ: “Yeah, I can’t remember much about the the bass part on ‘This is
Where I Belong,’ although I do love that song. I *do* remember
learning the bass line on ‘Picture Book.’ And that was great, ‘cause
it made me realize, ‘Wait a minute; a bass line can be involved with
little chromatic notes and it can be really its own little
architecture.’ Especially when you do what The Kinks did, which is
double it with a twelve-string guitar. And if you can get the guitar
player to double your bass part, man, suddenly just everybody sounds
better.”
[AUDIO CLIP: ‘Picture Book’ by Bill Lloyd & Tommy Womack]
DC: “Theory all over the place!”
BJ: “Yeah, I would say that there’s a little sort of thing I say to
melody writers. And I would say it to The Kinks guy that cooked up the
bass part, too. It’s like, ‘Good job! Because, Dude, you cooked up a
bass line that I can draw on a chalkboard with chalk and the students
at the *very* back of the school room can very plainly see the shape
of that melody you’ve just written.’
Bad melodies are just like I was saying earlier — they’re just this
sort of vague line that goes across the middle of the chalkboard and
the guy at the back of the room can’t even really tell what that is.
But if you do a good, graphic melody or bass line that has that good
shape you can draw on a chalkboard, and you know that that’s what it
is, then you’ve got something. And that’s what that Kinks bass line
is. You could draw that stair-step and it’d be really visual.
Especially when it goes back down the three tseps at the end. That’s
the little hook at the end.”
DC: “Beautiful. Another way to record a cover is to not follow the
original recipe at all. That’s what you did with the 1996 album, ‘The
Raspberries Preserved — A Tribute.’ You had one song called ‘Let’s
Pretend.’ I bought that *long* before I knew who you were, ‘cause I’m
a Raspberries fan. I’ve had it for years. And when I was looking for
songs that were by you, this Brad Jones credit came up, so I said,
‘Okay, well he got a girl singer, that’s cool, whatever.’ And I
listened to it today...”
BJ: [Laughing]
DC: “I listened to it today... and for the first time, an hour before
this interview, and I’ve heard it a million times, I said ‘Oh... my
God, that’s Brad singing. It *is*, isn’t it?”
BJ: [More laughing.] “Not afraid to show my girlie falsetto.”
DC: “It’s... awesome! But I didn’t know. A lot of guys have to be
macho when they sing, you know what I mean? And you’re just like, ‘I’m
going where this song takes me.’ And it’s awesome.”
BJ: “Yeah, yeah. That’s what I was trying to do, yeah, trying to make
it beautiful and pretty.”
[AUDIO CLIP: ‘Let’s Pretend’ as recorded by Brad Jones]
DC: “Do you remember that far back, what made you go for this style of
arrangement with the song, ‘cause it’s not like the original.”
BJ: ”Yeah, I don’t remember why. I have no idea why but I do remember
I wanted the verse to be real kind of mystical and suspended and
mellow, so that when the chorus came in, you’d be surprised at its
grandeur. And it always did sound like a very grand, elegant chorus to
me. So that was just my way of emphasizing the grandness and the
elegance of the chorus. It’s this sort of white carriage with white
horses that has gold trim that just sort of appears on the screen,
just sort of rolls in you know? That’s how I wanted the chorus to
sound.”DC: “The original song is so amazing, because the verse, the
pre-chorus and the chorus are all individually amazing. [Demonstrates
each section.] It’s wonderful.”
BJ: “Yeah. It’s a great tune. I’m so glad they let me do that one.
I’m so glad they didn’t make me do ‘Go All the Way.’ Which, of course,
is their biggest hit. But think about it... Now that we’re all
grown-ups now, go look at that song again. The reason that song was a
hit and is beloved, is it has a kick-ass intro, and it has a kick-ass
outro. But listen to those verses — it’s corny! It’s 50s music. So it
just goes to show you that even a song like that, you can make people
love it if you make a kick-ass intro [laughing] and a kick-ass outro.”
DC: “I like it.”
BJ: “‘Cause that’s the motor of it, to me.”
DC: “Well, I don’t put
down music like
The Archies, so... ya know, I’m a weirdo.”
BJ: “Ha! [Laughs] Yeah, I *like* some of The Archies.”
DC: “Now I want to get into some more covers and then I want to get
into you as a producer. I wrote down that you played some bass on
‘Good Friend,’ which is alternate takes of
Matthew Sweet stuff, and it
was live, apparently, right?”
BJ: “Yeah. I was in his
band.”
DC: “You were in his
band?”
BJ: “At the time. I was in his band for maybe a year or a year and a
half.”
DC: “Was tt after [the album] ‘Girlfriend’ or before ‘Girlfriend?’
BJ: “It was after ‘Girlfriend.’ It was on the ‘Girlfriend’ tour. So
Matthew’s a great bass player. He played all his own bass parts on the
album. But my job was just to get in there and play his bass parts
live and sing some of the harmonies with him. I was trying (maybe I
failed) but I was really trying to just be a good employee and play
Matthew’s bass parts the way he had put ‘em on the album. I wasn’t
trying to reinvent them at all. But they were good bass parts. I
liked...
And Matthew influenced me. He said, ‘No, dude, use a pick. And don’t
be afraid just to do some plump eighth notes. You know he... everybody
I’ve ever worked with has influenced me, at least just a little bit. I
mean, if you’re not getting influenced by people, then you’re not
living life, and you’re dead, basically.”
DC: “I’m gonna talk about two more covers — artists that you basically
played bass on their music. So
Marshall Crenshaw is next. And you
toured with him in 1996 according to my records.”
BJ: “I also toured
with him in ‘91. I was in his band for about a year.”
DC: “Sweet.”
BJ: “So on the 1996 ‘Miracle of Science’ album, you mixed and
engineered, played cello, Rhodes, bass and vocal harmony.”
[AUDIO CLIP: ‘Starless Summer Sky’ by Marshall Crenshaw]
BJ: “I love Marshall. He’s been a real mentor to me and a real helper
to me. A great friend and an inspiration, too. It’s always just
wonderful to play with him. You know, he just cooks up the most
amazing chord progressions and melodies. It’s just fun for any
musician to play that stuff. And I just really enjoyed playing on that
album. I can’t remember much about it, but I just loved playing with
Marshall. He’s the best.”
DC: “Alright, let’s talk about
Ron Sexsmith, the album is ‘Other
Songs’ and the song is ‘Average Joe.’
[AUDIO CLIP: ‘Average Joe’ by Ron Sexsmith]
BJ: “That’s some bass playin’ that I’m really proud of.”
DC: “Oh my God. Blows my mind.”
BJ: “Thanks. Thanks, yeah, I love that one. That whole, that entire
album is just great. And I’m just real proud of that stuff. And Ron
was wonderful to work with. And [Producer] Mitchell [Froom] and [Mixer
/ Engineer / Producer] Tchad [Blake] were fantastic and they were
supportive of what we were doing and it was just great.”
DC: “Beautiful.”
BJ: “You know, I played that whole record, sitting in a folding chair,
directly across from Ron. Ron and I were in the same... drummer is in
a booth, Ron is on a folding chair about six feet away from me and I’m
sitting there, learning the song by watching his fingers. And he’s
singing the album. And that was kind of a thrill, ‘cause I’m hearing
his wonderful voice in my headphones, singing his album. ‘Cause he
didn’t go back and re-do the vocals. Those *were* the vocals. That
*is* the album.
It was kind of a thrill being right there. It might be part of why it
sorta forced me to find a better way to play each song. ‘Cause it just
seemed kind of important, sitting there, right next to him, you know?
It was great.”
DC: “Now we’re gonna do
a quote and a question. I do a quote from somebody you worked with,
and then I ask a question.
BJ: “OK.”
DC: “Alright. You
produced and recorded
David Mead’s album, ‘Tangerine’ in 2006 and his
album ‘Almost and Always’ in 2010. In a 2006 interview, on an official
David Mead fan site, about the Tangerine album, here’s what David had
to say about you: ‘Brad Jones can play every
Beatles song there’s ever
been on three different instruments, or he can play
Rachmaninoff on
the piano. Not only that, but he thinks orchestrally, and he
understands a ton of different instruments and what kind of timbre
they have, and where they would fit in well.’ David also said you
taught him a lot about arrangements. So that’s the quote. And here’s
my question: Using a song from either of those albums, could you share
a little bit about the decision-making process for choosing what kind
of arrangement would you write for a certain kind of song. And since
we’re talking about David Mead, please include in your answer, the
most important instrument in any pop song arrangement.”
BJ: “*Wow*! The most important instrument... in any... I guess it’d be
the voice. And maybe even the background vocals. And then I’ll have to
build from there. After you’ve got that figured out, then you know if
you’re gonna frame guitars or pianos or neither, you know? And then as
far as that particular album...
I don’t know, I just remember that album had a lot of wonderful
variety. I just know that I just love all those songs. I love
everything David does. I know that he and I just got right into it
together. I think every single step of the way making those records
with David was he and I, together, finding stuff. I don’t ever feel
like I was like, bossing around the arrangements. I just had ideas and
he had ideas and we just threw ‘em in there and we got ‘em goin’, you
know? I just know that I love that record and I love the flavors and
all the textures on that album, I love his songs on that album.
I love ‘Chatterbox,’ I think... to me, you hear the word ‘power pop’
get thrown around? I have a different interpretation of the word
‘power pop.’ To me, ‘Chatterbox’ is power pop.”
[AUDIO CLIP: ‘Chatterbox’ by David Mead]
BJ: “‘Cause it’s pop, and it’s *punchy* and powerful. But it doesn’t
sound like what classic power pop sounds like. It’s more gadgety than
that. But to me, that’s a super, super successful, high-energy, high
definition pop song. And that owes a lot to David.
I will tell you one thing about the album. The song, ‘Chatterbox’ is
mostly built on David’s demo. He had a *kick-ass* demo of
‘Chatterbox.’ And I believe that we actually pulled — not just played
elements, but *pulled* elements — from his demo, physically, we threw
‘em onto our grid, and built around ‘em. So hats off to good demos.
When I recognize a good demo, I never get threatened by it. I get
excited by it. And I wanna use as much of it as I can.”
DC: “They can be structurally... they can be the girders to your
piece.”
BJ: “Yeah, exactly.”
DC: “Alright, a second quote and question are about bass layering and
guitar layering. I just interviewed Bill DeMain, who, along with Molly
Felder, you recorded and produced 10 albums for their group ‘Swan
Dive.’ When Bill and I were talking about their song, ‘Better to Fly,’
he said you’re a fantastic bass player, but you’re also very creative
with sound. He says that on that ‘Mayfair’ album, you played a lot of
electric bass, but you sometimes would double your bass with a standup
bass or a Moog in different parts of the song. Do you happen to
remember how you recorded the bass parts, either on that album or on
that song, how you made your decisions about what to layer and what
order you did ‘em in?”
BJ: “I don’t remember the order, but I do like doubling bass stuff, it
becomes more like chamber music and more mysterious. I would probably
start with an electric bass. And if I knew ahead of time that I was
gonna double it with an upright bass, I might make that electric bass
be sort of muted with the butt of my hand, using a pick. And I know
that that works really well with upright bass. That’s a great doubling
sound. They used that sound on Music Row in the 50s & 60s in
Nashville. But you hear it on the L.A. stuff, too.
You know a pick, like, okay, we’ll use a pick And the picked electric
bass goes well with a fingered upright bass. That’s a good
combination. And then when you double something with a Moog bass... or
I like to double bass parts with 12-string guitar, too. That’s it’s
own unique sound, too. And you can also make it happen just for one
part of the song. And that way you’re defining different sections of
the song. And that’s good for scene shifts.”
DC: “When you’re playing electric bass and upright bass, where your
fingers are touching the stings, not like a
Moog, do you find yourself
trying to match the vibrato exactly or do you like it being slightly
different and that’s part of the appeal?”
BJ: “Yeah, I wouldn’t try to match... I don’t use much vibrato, but if
I did, I wouldn’t try to match it. It’s the same reason that when I
have people double-track their vocal, I don’t let then hear their
vocal their doubling to. I just make them sing the thing again. And
that way, they sing it their own way each time and it’s not sounding
too carbon-copy.”
DC: “Excellent. So my next quote is from *you.* In a 2016 interview
for ‘Recording Studio Rockstars,’ by Lij Shaw, you said, ‘Every record
is its own puzzle.’ I often use that same analogy myself in
songwriting classes. I talk about how writing a song is like building
a jigsaw puzzle, except the shapes of the pieces aren’t
pre-determined, and every new piece you build can influence and change
the shape and effect of all the pieces it touches. You change a word,
and it changes the connotation of a whole line or stanza. You change
one chord, and the line feels completely different. Would you care to
elaborate on your own comment, on how this whole thing works with
recording, instead of with writing? So when you’re recording, you’re
making a new recording, ever piece you change, affects the other
pieces.”
BJ: “Yeah, that’s true. And that’s why I like ensemble playing, with
people that have not over-thought the song. People that might have
heard the song just a half an hour ago. Because I’m always fascinated
by seeing what a guy will play. For instance, a guy listens to the
song... You say, ‘Hey, take these headphones. Go listen to the tune
that the guy wrote. We’re gonna track it in about a half an hour. Go
listen to it.’ So he comes back and he’s got his idea in his head,
what he’s gonna do. The minute he hears what the drummer’s doing, he
throws that out the window, instantly responding to the drummer’s
idea. And so, what you get is this sort of interaction of molecules,
or protons, that are jetting around in unpredictable fashion...”
DC: “Chemistry.”
BJ: “And when things are going right, you get this alive thing, that
turns out not quite like what any of the people thought it was gonna
turn out like. It’s this instant and reactive hybrid, from people
reacting to other people. So that’s the part of the puzzle that I
like. There’a little bit of chaos theory involved. Not like in
methodical puzzle-solving. It’s more like, ‘let’s throw these
chemicals into this beaker and let’s shake it twice, and let’s make
sure the record light is on while we’re shaking, [laughs] and let’s
see what we get. And then we’ll listen to playback and we’ll decide
what failed about the experiment and we’ll go back and we’ll tweak
that. But we’ll find out what’s right about the experiment and amplify
that.”
DC: “I read in an interview that
Amy Rigby wrote a song about you
called, ‘Brad Jones,’ for your birthday.”
BJ: [Laughing] “Yeah, she performed it at my fortieth birthday, it was
a surprise birthday party. And man, that made my day. It was *funny*
too! It was really funny.”
DC: “I can’t find it on the Internet, I don’t think she’s recorded
it.”
BJ: “I don’t think she ever recorded it. But it went something like...
‘Who built the pyramids? [Singing] Brad Jones! Who cured cancer?
[Singing] Brad Jones! Brad Jones! Who invented the wheel?’ You know,
all this grand stuff, it was [Singing] ‘Brad Jones.’”
DC: “She’s funny.”
BJ: “She’s awesome. Yeah, I love her. She’s is a great writer.”
DC: “Well, through you
and my recent guests, I’m starting to listen to Amy Rigby and I’m
starting to listen to
Jill Sobule, and I really love what I’m
hearing.”
BJ: “Oh, Jill is a fantastic writer. And a lot of those great Jill
songs, she has co-written with Robin Eaton, my studio partner.”
DC: “Including ‘I Kissed a Girl.’”
BJ: “That’s right. They wrote that in about ten minutes. Yep, they
wrote it quick and we recorded it the next day. So there’s a case for
recording something while it’s fresh.”
DC: “I have a beauty pageant-style question for you. If you were a
Marvel superhero musician or producer, what would you say is one of
your main superpowers in the studio?”
BJ: “I really do think my superpower is assessing a song. I think I’m
really good at picking out what’s right and what’s broken about a
song. I really think that’s what it comes down to and everything I do
instrumentally or sound-wise just stems from what we found out in that
first inquiry about what’s making this song tick. What is the motor of
this song. What’s good about this song. How do we turn it up?
I think that’s kinda what I do all day long. I think that’s my main
job. I don’t know about ‘superpower.’ But I’d like to think that’s
sort of my main job. That’s what I do and hopefully it’s why people
come back and want to make a second record with me. ‘Cause I made them
sound better and I made the song sound better. I *hope* that’s what
it’s doing. I never feel like I get a gig because a guy felt like I
made his snare drum sound better. I always think it’s because I made
his vocal sound better or his song sound better.
And I guess vocals are the other part of it. I’m very much a vocal
producer. I think about the singer and the key he’s in and his
motivation and how loud or soft he’s singing and how he phrases — I
think about that the entire time. Everything stems from that.
That’s how I mix, too. I always start my mix starting with all the
vocals and then I start putting in the instruments.”
DC: “Tell us about a
recent accomplishment that you’re really proud of.”
BJ: “Well, I’m just like all artist people — they always think the
last thing I did is the greatest. So on my mind is the last record
that just came out which is a
Hayes Carll record. It’s called ‘What it
Is.” And it really is excellent and Hayes just really brought it and
everybody — the team was great. So that’s what’s on my mind today.”
DC: “What have you got going on, coming up?”
BJ: “There’s a few things coming up, but the thing I’m kind of excited
about is I’m doing something I’ve never done before. I’m creating
music for a TV show. And it’s giving me an opportunity to just
compose. Just to do instrumental music. That’s my instrumental
writing. And I really enjoyed that. And the show is going to be on
either Hulu or Netflix or something this summer. It’s called
‘Perpetual Grace, Ltd’ and it stars Ben Kingsley.
And they’ve got me doing some of the background music. And I also did
some of the sung music. The guy that created the show sort of does a
little songwriting himself and so he wrote songs that are actually
sung. Those songs, all I did with those was co-produce those. And
they’re also in the show.
But the show has a definite palette. There’s a certain sort of batch
of instruments, sounds that get used throughout the show and I’m sort
of writing to those sounds. And it was a real thrill for me to sort of
put that hat on for awhile. And I’m curious to see how they put it to
picture. I haven’t seen any of it yet. They only have rough cuts. And
I’m gonna work a little bit more on it this summer. There’s a little
more work to be done, still. So that’s kinda the thing I’m excited
about now.”
DC: “That sounds great. What about artists that are coming in? Do you
have people coming back that are repeat and you’ve got new people?”
BJ: “Yeah, I’ve got a repeat that’s coming back in May that I’m
thrilled to be working with again. She’s an artist that not many
people know about. Her name is Jenifer Jackson. That’s Jenifer with
one ‘n.’ But she was a New York singer-songwriter who I did a few
records with in the 90s and early aughts. And I always just loved her
ethos. Her music is very much like a beautiful haiku. Very thoughtful
melodies and chord progressions and very Zen-like, simple lyrics. And
she’s a beautiful singer and she has a fantastic harmonic sense. And
she just does the kind of music that’s really the kind of music that
always gets shoved aside because it’s too quiet and thoughtful. It’s
not loud or controversial enough for people to go viral about, you
know what I mean? And I’d like to believe that when all this is over
that for her sake, that she turned in an amazingly beautiful body of
work that’s very meaningful and very much her style. She doesn’t sound
like anybody else. But we’ll see if that happens. But I’m so delighted
to be working with her again. Jenifer Jackson.
I do records that are loud and flashy and artists that people have
heard of and then I do these other records that sort of... and I keep
coming back to some of these artists, I keep working with them even
they’re never breaking through to a bigger audience. I just like being
involved in their oeuvre. And would like to believe that merit will
win out in the end. She’s definitely one of those.”
DC: “Beautiful. I’ll have to look for her.”
BJ: “Yeah, you should.”
DC: “Well, I really enjoyed talking with you today and learned a lot,
and I think that you’re gonna add a lot to the conversation.”
BJ: “Well good, thanks. You’ve been wonderful to be interviewed by.
You are obviously very skilled at this. Thank you so much for doing
this and for choosing me to do it. I really appreciate it.”
DC: “My pleasure. Well, I love your work and...”BJ: “Yeah, that’s the
other thing. Thank you for listening. You actually took the time to
listen. Thank you so much.”
DC: “Thanks. Take care, Brad!”BJ: “Okay, man. See ya.”
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