BUILT TO SPILL VISCERAL RELEASE BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
The lineup of Built to Spill has never been fixed. Guitarist/vocalist Doug Martsch founded the band on the principle he’d be the leader and find the appropriate group of players for each album. As such, while they assumed a five-piece, three-guitar formation on 2006’s You In Reverse and 2009’s There Is No Enemy, Built to Spill stripped back to a three-piece for last year’s Untethered Moon, with Martsch joined by drummer Steve Gere and bassist Jason Albertini. Before returning to Australia this month, Beat speaks to Martsch about the current status of the band and the recording of Untethered Moon. “We just got back from a two-week tour down the west coast [of the USA] as a threepiece, but we’ll be coming over to Australia as a five-piece,” he says. “We’re going to do a bunch of stuff around the States as a threepiece for a while and then at some point be able to go back and forth. I think the fivepiece is great and those two guys [Brett Netson and Jim Roth] are amazing, so it’ll definitely happen. But we’re trying a threepiece out for a little bit as well.” The intricate layering of guitars forms a central part of the Built to Spill sound, so the three-piece incarnation puts additional pressure on Martsch’s playing. In the
context of Untethered Moon, however, it proved a fruitful alteration. “Making a record as a three-piece was a creative decision. Well, it was more a logistical thing. It just went a lot faster,” he says. “You get a lot more work done as a three-piece and I kind of knew what I wanted to do; I was pretty focused on what I wanted it to be like. And then that stirred up some feelings about playing as a three-piece and the kinds of music we could make.” On stage it’s been a somewhat different story: Martsch has been forced to work harder and in some cases completely rethink
LUCKY PETERSON
ONE DAY AT A TIME B Y J A M E S D I FA B R I Z I O
The blues have always been a part of Lucky Peterson’s life. Growing up, his father owned a nightclub in Buffalo that became a regular hotspot for touring bluesmen across the United States. The sounds of gospel, early R&B and gritty guitars surrounded him as a youngster, so it should come as no surprise that he cut his first album at just five years of age. Clearly, the iconic sounds he grew up with have never left him because Peterson continues to perform and write music today, maintaining a rigorous touring schedule across the globe. “I’ve been playing since I was three years old,” he laughs. “Now I’m 51, so I’ve been doing this all my life. Now I’m kind of elevated, so I’ll play blues, jazz, soul, gospel, funk – I think the key thing is to make the hair on your arms that you can’t see rise. You know what I’m saying? Give you those chillbumps.” Peterson is right. The blues and its many derivatives can be tabled any way you want, but at the heart of the genre is the same visceral effect that’s been there since the beginning. In his eyes, this is, and always will be, what gives meaning to the music he
makes. “First of all, you have to be able to feel it,” he says. “If you can’t feel it deep within – from your heart and from the depths of your soul – then it’s not worth doing. Everything I’ve done in my life, I’ve felt it. I’ve put myself through the test.” As a child Peterson appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show singing a cover of James Brown’s soul anthem Please, Please, Please. The music of Brown touched the young Peterson, and he cites the Godfather of Soul as the artist who awoke him to the power of music.
his approach to songs he’s been playing for years. “I practised a ton to get ready for this tour,” he says. “It was a challenge, but it was also fun and rewarding. You don’t really know, when you’re playing, what it sounds like out in the audience. But with three guitar players you have no idea what it sounds like out there – you have no idea when you’re playing a guitar solo if it can even be heard by half the people. So the three-piece is so much more focused where you feel like what you’re doing matters and is being heard. With the five-piece sometimes I would get lazy and let the other guys hold down the fort. I think the whole band was a little lazy. You guys will get pretty good shows, because me and the rhythm section have gotten a lot tighter playing as a three-piece.” Despite the diminutive setup, the guitar playing on Untethered Moon is still very playful. Each song contains a root riff or a chord progression with melodic lead parts or rushes of volume appearing throughout. That said, it’s all precisely managed, and never grows saturated. “The main thing with this record is we wanted to keep it stripped down as much as possible. We’ve actually had the intention of doing that for the last few records. Definitely the last two records we wanted to make pretty much live, and then over the course of things just end up overdubbing a lot of stuff. Sometimes because the stuff needs it, sometimes because of insecurity; thinking ‘Is that even good enough?’ or even trying to bury my voice under guitars. So this time I wasn’t going to let any insecurities lead me to make those sorts of decisions. “Sam Coomes [producer] was also helpful because he embraced the whole idea of keeping it simple. So he could keep us on task. We wanted it to be more visceral, more of an urgent sounding punkish record. I wanted it to sound like some kind of punk record from the ‘70s.” BUILT TO SPILL are playing at the Corner Hotel on Saturday March 12. They’re also playing at Golden Plains X at the Meredith Supernatural Amphitheatre from Saturday March 12 – Monday March 14. Untethered Moon is available now via Warner Music. “He was the first person I heard who gave me goosebumps,” says Peterson. “Make It Funky Now, all that type of stuff. Then when I saw him live that really lifted me up. The only part about that was I thought, ‘Well I know I can’t dance like him’, but boy I wish I could.” After diving into live music performance at such a young age, Peterson was taken under the wing of fellow bluesman Little Milton, playing guitar and keyboards in his band. “He was like a father to me,” he says. “I learned how to present yourself to an audience; how to feel the right way. That’s what I learned. I learned the right way how to play the blues and how to read the audience. And that’s the type of stuff I was happy to be around.” As well as being an accomplished frontman, Peterson developed his chops playing with the likes of Etta James and Bobby “Blue” Bland. Arguably, it was his years as a hardworking sideman that allowed him to develop his guitar skills to near virtuosic levels. Peterson has never needed to rely on flurries of fast-paced notes. Instead, he developed a type of musical intuition; the ability to move with the music before the band had even gone there. “I let my spirit do that,” he says. “My spirit will put me there. I work with the spirit and the people and it will take me where I need to go at the time I need to get there. I don’t force anything; I let everything come naturally. I rely on the audience participation to make me feel good, and when the audience makes me feel good, I want to give back to the audience. That’s what I do.” After spending a hefty chunk of his life onstage, performance has become second nature to Peterson. In his opinion, he never feels more at home than he’s when armed with a guitar and presiding over a crowd. “I feel wonderful. I feel great when I make that connection,” he says. “I have no problems, and I don’t want any problems, unless a piece of blues decides that it wants to come over my way.” LUCKY PETERSON is playing at Northcote Social Club on Monday March 21. He’s also playing at Bluesfest, which runs from Thursday March 24 – Monday March 28 at the Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm, NSW. W W W. B E AT.C O M . A U
JEFF BUCKLEY: YOU AND I
AN INTERVIEW WITH STEVE BERKOWITZ
BY LIZA DEZFOULI
David Bowie once told Pulse! magazine that if he were to be stranded on a desert island, he’d take Jeff Buckley’s Grace with him. Buckley’s demise by accidental drowning in May 1997 was a tragedy. The folk rock singer was only 30 and full of incandescent talent. Grace, his only completed album, has since appeared on countless top-albums-of-all-time lists. Beat talks to Steve Berkowitz, the Columbia Records A&R man who signed Buckley in the early 1990s. Berkowitz is in Melbourne talking up You and I, an about-to-be-released compilation of early Buckley recordings, many of which have lain in the vaults for over 20 years.
Berkowitz first heard Buckley sing in New York at a tribute concert for his folk-singing father, the late Tim Buckley. He knew right away he was listening to something extraordinary. “Jeff was a lyre bird who goes his own way,” Berkowitz says. “He could imitate anybody but he chose not to. Musically he had no limitations. He took influences from Count Basie to Debussy; he could do anything. He could have been a jazz great. The hardest thing for Jeff was that going one way musically meant not going other ways. He played good and he played better than good. He always played real music with real commitment.” Jeff Buckley only met his father briefly when he was eight, but his step father and mother were both musical. Buckley took up the guitar at the age of five and was blessed with a multi-octave voice. However, Jeff wasn’t trying to sound like his famous and accomplished father. “There were hints and motifs and he alluded to him, but his work was not an homage to him,” Berkowitz says. “There were little visitations of the original.” Jeff Buckley is most famous for his cover of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. Like every other cover he performed or recorded, he made it entirely his own. “Leonard’s version of Hallelujah is anthemic, biblical, sonorous,” says Berkowitz. “Jeff ’s version is more intimate. It’s the one people in New York wanted to listen to after 9/11. It offered solace.” In some ways You and I is the result of an informal recording session for the young singer. The choice of songs – including covers of Bob Dylan, Sly & the Family Stone, Led Zeppelin and The Smiths – was to some degree spontaneous. “The most important thing was to have Jeff record,” Berkowitz says of the original intention behind the session. “We wanted him to create a table of contents so we could pick one or two to begin that journey towards making an album. The second reason was to get him to feel as comfortable in a recording studio as he was in lounge rooms and small clubs; so that his playing was as natural and organic as it was in those environments. “Jeff being comfortable meant he could branch out, burst out of his own mindset around the process of recording for a big studio. He himself was left of the underground, he was alternative and independent – working with a studio
like CBS for him was like selling out to The Man. He thought of it as ‘the big red machine.’ CBS had Michael Jackson, Barbra Streisand and Billy Joel signed to them.” In contrast to other artists on the Columbia roster, Buckley and his manager signed a contract where they maintained artistic control. “This wasn’t an everyday occurrence,” says Berkowitz. “When studios invested in recordings, they wanted to know what they were getting for their investment. With Jeff they didn’t know what he was going to do. There was no formula for Jeff; he was a loaded gun that could just go off. No-one could dictate what he could or couldn’t do. He had to do his own thing. “The reality of what I heard in him was there, that talent, to begin with. The pathway needed to be made open so it would let him come to fruition. It was clear to me, and it was agreed to by the powers that be, that everybody needed to support him in this. We knew to leave him alone. That flower needed to bloom in its own time. Even my boss at the time, Don Inner – a super powerful promotions guy who worked the machine like a fighter pilot – was so supportive of Buckley doing it his own way.” As far as Berkowitz is concerned, You and I marks chapter one in the Jeff Buckley story. “You’ve already got chapters two, three and four. Now we’ve got chapter one.” Along with several unforgettable covers, You and I comprises two Buckley originals: the first-ever studio recording of his signature song, Grace (co-written with Gary Lucas), and the unreleased Dream of You And I, which includes an interlude of him talking about the song. Despite nearly two decades having passed since Buckley’s death, Berkowitz still feels a closeness. “I’m happy to talk about him, happy to share his music with people. There are still some days when I wake up and have to remind myself, ‘Fuck, Jeff ’s not here.’ I’d much rather this was album number 12 I’m talking about. People talk about Jeff Buckley as having a voice like an angel. It’s not a just a coy little quip. And he looked like that.” You and I by JEFF BUCKLEY is out on Friday March 11 via Sony Music Australia. BEAT MAGAZINE PAGE 29