Iron & Wine
Wine & Women
photo by piper ferguson
Despite a hectic domestic life as a husband and father of five daughters, American songwriter-poet Sam Beam still finds the time and energy to sustain a successful music career under his nom de plume Iron & Wine. While some may have wilted under the pressing weight of family commitments, the bushy-bearded 36-year-old has thrived. Sam Beam spoke to Steve Tauschke about the release, this month, of his fourth indie-folk album Kiss Each Other Clean.
WITH SPECIAL GUEST JOELISTICS THE HERD RETURN FROM AN EXTENDED HIATUS FOR THEIR FIRST NEWCASTLE SHOW IN ALMOST TWO YEARS TO LAUNCH THEIR NEW SINGLE “THE SUM OF IT ALL” AS WELL AS MARKING THEIR 10TH YEAR OF EXISTENCE IN STYLE
THURSDAY 31 MARCH CAMBRIDGE HOTEL
“It’s definitely more of an effort to scrape out your time,” Beam says of his work-family balance. “You have to put the wall around that few hours of the day and say ‘I have to work here’, because there’s always something going on at home. But I treat it like a job and apply a certain amount of discipline to it.” Beam says Iron & Wine’s leap last year from underground darling at Sub Pop to Warner Bros signee has done little to alter his approach to songwriting. Right now he’s just elated to have his tunes circulating out there in the musical ether. “It means you can move on and not dwell on those (older) songs anymore.” “The next song is always the best song — the one you haven’t written is the one you’re most excited about.” Although Kiss Each Other Clean was recorded in Chicago w¡ith trusted producer Brian Deck (Gomez), much of the album was penned on the porch of the isolated homestead on the outskirts of Austin, Texas, where Beam and his wife are raising their brood. After much “fooling around with guitars and pianos and whatever”, Beam conjures melodies before wrapping lyrics around them. “I have trouble going the opposite way, starting with lyrics, because I figure if you’re just going to write words then you should write a poem,” he explains. “Songwriting is hard work but I enjoy it. You put as much work into it as you’re willing to and I’m willing to do a lot because I enjoy it. It’s like exercise, the harder you work the more rewarding it is.” Slow-burning opening track ‘Walking Far From Home’ was written on Iron & Wine’s previous Australian tour. “Lyrically it’s easy to start something when you’re so far from home,” says Beam. “But I would say most of the lyrics, by the time I was finished with them, were far removed from my personal experience.” “That’s how it works, it’s more about realising and shaping and editing than it is about your base inspiration.” With 2007’s The Shepherd’s Dog swayed by the stylistic melting pot of Tom Waits’ classic 1983 album Swordfishtrombones, described by Beam as a “fearless record”, the new album’s full band sound follows the lead of what he describes as 1960s and 70s “R&B signifiers”. “The R&B element gave it a focused pop feel. It’s more of an upbeat danceable thing with vocal arrangements rather than straight vocal harmonies.” “There are more horn sections in there and it’s slightly slicker and that structure includes a lot of economy. It has a lot of weird things going on like the last record but it’s definitely hemmed in a bit more.” Kiss Each Other Clean is out now on 4AD/ Remote Control.
18 reverb
mag azine issue #056 — March 2011
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