They have a habit of doing that to people.
I know (laughs)! Like, where have I been? There’s something cool about weaving that into heartbreak songs because they are really powerful and I don’t want to pussyfoot around it. I want to dig in like that. I loved doing that for this record.
A song like “Faster,” with the drums being such a strident part of that song, it’s almost like a White Stripes kind of jolt…
Totally. [I] really wanted to go full throttle, especially if I were even going to approach rock in this way. I didn’t want it to be a clean, shiny attempt at it; I wanted it to really hit you in a full-on way. Like, for “Faster,” we took a Dobro guitar and ran it through a harmonica mic to get that extra edge.
On “What If I Leave,” you have this soft vocal running against a tribal drum sound. That dichotomy creates a tension in the song that’s very interesting.
That song, we put it on its head. [On] some of the breaks where it’s just instrumental, there were actually lyrics that went along with it. It was a very live recording. We went in and I just started playing the guitar lick and the rhythm section, Jay Bellerose (drums) and Jim Conte (bass), had this vibe and this mood. We just played it so it was almost a trance. And there is something lulling and trance-like when you go to a tribal, rhythmic section. So it was very much in-the-studio live, everybody on the same vibe. The strings were played as we were playing. Everything was in the moment. So I think that’s part of why it works so well. I always loved the paradox of having something like a lullaby effect but with not an easy lyrical message. And that one came together like that in a really effective way.
It grabs you. It lures you in.
I love things that are kind of haunting. It seems like that one worked really well.
On the title track of Elephants, the parallel you strike, lyrically, is fascinating, comparing the instincts of wild animals to the instincts of humans in relationships.
I have to pat myself on the back for that because that was one of the ones where I really felt I had nothing to do with it. That was like the universe saying, “You gotta have a little push here, so we’re gonna give this to you”…That was a magical experience coming up with it. I was just running down a mountain in Woodstock and I was conflicted in that I was going through this emotional, tumultuous, whatever it was. So my insides were a bit wrecked. Yet I [was] in this beautiful nature setting of just woods and animals. And the lyrics just started coming. They just kept coming. Every time I’d get a line, I’d sing it over and I’d have this melody and I’d repeat it. By the time I’d gotten to the bottom of the mountain, the whole thing was done. And I just ran back up repeating every single line, singing it over and over again. [Then] I flew into my house and sang it into a tape recorder. It took me six months to come up with the music that would accompany it. I just had the melody and the lyrics. It wasn’t until I went back and really looked at the lyrics did I understand myself that they had all these layers to them, poetry that on my best day I couldn’t have come up with…
Article comments
1 - Glen Boyd
Nicely done Donald. I'll have to check this out.
-Glen
2 - Jordan Richardson
Happenstance was a great album. Certainly looking forward to the next one.
Cool interview, Donald.