A couple weeks ago the San Francisco Chronicle published an interview I did with writer Tony DuShane. Only some of my responses made it to print, here's the full text of the interview.
Was there a band you heard when you were young that inspired you to become a musician? a few are okay.
As a kid my mom always had the radio tuned to KOFY 1050, back when it was an oldies station. The Motown and Stax artists were always my favorite, Marvin Gaye and Smokey Robinson, Otis Redding singing about my home by the Bay. We'd listen to Buddy Holly and Everly Brothers greatest hits in my dad's pickup truck on the way to baseball practice. I memorized all of the songs on those tapes by the time I was twelve. I got deep into Bruce Springsteen as a teenager, especially Greetings From Asbury Park and the 1975-'85 box set. He told stories that didn't necessarily reflect my own experiences, but helped me figure out what it meant to be an American at the end of the twentieth century. I listened to all of Leo Kottke's records and hoped that his playing would infect my own acoustic guitar sound, same with Mark Knopfler on the electric guitar.
How would you describe your sound?
Our sound draws influence from a range of genres, from big rocking distorted electric guitars to knee bouncing syncopation and stripped soulful acoustic melodies. Our rock and roll can be heavy and dark like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's Howl, spacious and psychedelic with hints of Kid A and Beck's Sea Change. The reggae influence you hear at times on our record is more Manu Chao than Wailers, and the Frenchman's multi-lingual writing has certainly influenced my own exploration into writing in Spanish and Italian. Our calmer moments and stripped acoustic songs might call to mind Jeff Buckley, Wilco, and Ray LaMontagne with fingerstyle guitar intermingled with the lapsteel on our record and cello and organ live.
What is the main theme of your music?
I write about home a lot. I think about the people that make up my home, whether I'm right here in it or far away looking back at it. My family and community, the social conscience that goes hand in hand with growing up in Berkeley. Natural themes recur in my writing, ocean waves, avalanches, tectonic plates and fault and coast lines, urban and pastoral panoramas. Lately I've been writing a lot about my fifteen month old son, a theme that will definitely be apparent on the next record. I spent seven years away from the Bay living in Italy and New York, and many of the songs on our 2012 release Unfold come from imagining and then experiencing my transition back to the Bay Area. Living here I can't help but dwell a bit both on the area's geologic characteristics and on the significance of my family and community.
How does living in the Bay Area affect your music?
Many of the themes I describe above are tied directly to my Bay Area roots. I am constantly moved by the strong sense of community that exists among songwriters in San Francisco and the East Bay. The Open Mic is the foundation that the community has been been built on, places like the Hotel Utah and the Starry Plough where we go to bare our souls, confront our insecurities, practice performing, and ultimately collaborate, put bills together, and support each others shows.
What's the most important aspect to putting on a live show?
My favorite live shows are the ones where we roll out raw new material or experiment playing with different musicians. I think a band's energy is best when they are well-rehearsed but willing to step out on a limb and explore new sounds.
Which of your lyrics best defines your bands and why?
"I feel all your movements, only when I feel my own
When we follow our consciences we allow ourselves to grow"
- from Unfold, title track of the 2012 album
I think that in order to engage sincerely and meaningfully in a relationship, community, band, or family it is essential to have a clear sense for ones own strengths, weaknesses, desires and inhibitions.
If your band could collaborate on a song with any person, living or dead, who would that be?
Joel and Ethan Coen. No question. I'd love to sit in a room, on a set, and in the studio with them talking about their visual and literary ideas for the story they're telling and figure out how to create a musical backdrop to support their vision.
If a junior high school asked you to play a cover song at the next talent show, what song would you choose?
I would sing Adele's Rolling in the Deep. I am reassured knowing that kids these days appreciate pop music that is so well written and beautifully performed. She reminds me of a lot of the soul and Motown artists that I loved growing up, and knowing that she wrote the songs that she sings makes the passion in her voice come across as genuine and heartfelt. Crazy by Gnarls Barkley is along the same lines, I consider it the best pop song in a generation. But I guess that by now even that song is a bit dated for the seventh graders.
How did you come up with your band name and what does it mean to you?
I came up with the name Shady Maples not as a band name originally, but as the name of a video and music production that my friend and I started (and ended pretty quickly) back in 2002. We shot footage at the open mic at the Starry Plough in Berkeley and chronicled how artists began to collaborate musically and become involved in the anti-Iraq war demonstrations in SF. Two years ago we adopted the name for our band.
My grandfather grew up in Newark, NJ and his best friend from when he was a kid until his death was a farmer in the Catskills. They used to tap maple trees in the early spring and make syrup in his friend's sap house. I have memories of being very young and tasting the maple syrup in its various stages as they boiled it down, and not many other memories of my grandfather. The maple shade has a sort of ancestral comfort for me. On the other hand, the name also conjures the sense of mystery or a dark intrigue which comes across in our music.
What bands inspire you?
The Mother Hips are one of the hardest working bands I've come across. From touring to collaborating on side projects, they're a great bunch of guys blazing their path independently. Mos Def is one of the most talented artists of our generation with lyrics that tell his story and perspective with precise clarity and playful linguistic manipulation. Mark Knopfler has always been my favorite electric guitarist and one of the songwriters I admire most. His work has come in so many different forms- the traditional rock and roll years with Dire Straits, scoring films, solo projects, and collaborations with other exceptional artists. Xavier Rudd got me thinking that I could maybe play percussion to accompany myself and not always perform with a guitar in hand. Some of my new material involves a tambourine and egg shaker thanks in large part to his influence.
How did the band come together?
Our first incarnation was as a duo with me on acoustic guitar and my friend Greg Peters out of San Diego on lapsteel and lead guitars. In 2010 I hooked up with drummer Trent Boeschen and bassist Dennis Haneda through a mutual friend, local music promoter KC Turner. We started playing out in the Bay Area more frequently as a full band at places like Cafe Du Nord, Red Devil Lounge, Connecticut Yankee and the Starry Plough, and putting together regional tours along the California coast. When it came time to record, my good friend Kelly McFarling joined us in the studio as she had done many times on stage, as did mandolin and organ player Bill Bell who played in a band with me in New York.
For our show on Feb. 2 we're playing without Greg Peters' screaming lapsteel and electric lead and bringing in Shira Lee Katz on cello and Micah Dubreuil, from local funk sensation Con Brio, on organ and keys. We're rolling out a lot of new material and taking a new approach to the songs on the album. Kelly McFarling will join us to sing harmony as well.
your latest release or upcoming release?
Unfold, 2012. Written, arranged, road tested, produced and released independently. We recorded with funds we raised in a Kickstarter campaign and recorded at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, fulfilling a lifelong dream of mine since visiting the studio on a field trip as a kid. This spring I'm looking into recording a solo EP of new stripped acoustic songs.
