It’s been one of those days. I’ve been looking forward to chatting with Drink the Sea ever since the band was first announced and now, with the interview at noon, I am sat huddled under a blanket, breaking out from my cocoon only to take gulps of eucalyptus-laden air from a steaming bowl of Olbas oil poured into boiling water. It’s ‘flu season folks, and it’s landed with a vengeance.
My woes notwithstanding, this is a more demanding interview than most, with the somewhat daunting prospect of the entire band turning up to chat with me from their rehearsal space. This means that, as the screen flickers into life, I immediately come face to face with Peter Buck and Barrett Martin, and, before I’ve even stammered out a greeting, they’re joined by Duke Garwood, Alain Johannes, Lisette Garcia, and Abbey Blackwell (the latter, somewhat embarrassingly, out of shot and, therefore, not greeted until well into the interview).
Incredibly friendly all, it’s notable that Barrett (much as he does musically) plays the role of facilitator, drawing my attention to different band members and jumping in if he feels they haven’t done themselves full justice with an answer. Peter sits and strums quietly, guitar in hand, and interjecting on rare occasions, while Duke and Alain typically take the lead. Lisette and Abbey are quieter, with the latter only having joined recently as a live member but greet me cheerily enough and jump in where they can.
And so, with my head full of cotton wool, and feeling somewhat like I’ve landed in front of a job interview panel, I launch into my first question.
The recording sessions, as I understand it, initially started from Duke and Barrett going out to Iceland and recording pieces there, and then Peter and Barrett touring in Brazil and capturing music there. is that where this project had its origins?
Alain: I think it had its origins in Barrett’s head – that’s where all this stuff comes from [laughs]
Peter: But yeah, he and Duke did that tour, and we met up in Brazil. I was just asked to throw in. I had no idea what we were doing. I think Barrett had an overall picture as more of it came to fruition. But yeah, you could ask Barrett how and why.
Barrett: I basically just called my best musical friends to have a recording party around the world and that’s what happened!
How much of it was rooted in the work that you did, Barrett, in The Singing Earth? Because the music on the album sits outside of any one cultural paradigm.
Barrett: It’s partly because of that series because we were… we had trips in Brazil and the Peruvian Amazon and Iceland that were a part of the series.
Barrett: So, I arranged for us to do recording session when people who were available in those places. So, Duke was with us in Iceland, obviously Peter and I did the Brazil tour and Duke came to be a part of that – not the tour, but just to hang with us and record. Then Alain and I had recorded in my studio in Olympia a few years ago, and we drew from some of those songs as well.
Barrett: I mean, really Alain and I started the original recordings that we then built on with these trips around the world.
Listening to the record, it feels very live and spontaneous, to understand that it was recorded to a large extent separately. To what extent was it a challenge to firstly gather the performances and then to bring them together in such a way that it sounds like you were all in a room together – because that’s how it sounds.
Duke: Well, we sort of were together in rooms. But just not all of us.
Alain: At least three of us…
Duke: At least three, so it is… you know what I mean?
So, the core was there?
Duke: Yeah, there wasn’t anything that was, like, sent through the post or anything like that.
Alain: It all happened with other people around. When we were in Rancho [De La Luna, a recording studio in Joshua Tree] tracking, we were all in the room together. And these guys were together in Brazil.
Duke: That’s why it feels the way it does. Guitar, bass, and drums at Rancho – that’s all live. So, it is essentially live. Overdubs always are, you know…
Alain: I mean some details, like harmony vocals, we did in Santiago, maybe. Maybe some synth that Barrett played. Things like that, the little kind of fairy dust on top. But the core elements always had three or four of us around.
So, in terms of bringing this together, you all have really significant careers with bands that are very established, but with this it feels very fresh and spontaneous. There are threads that connect – particularly through your shared experiences of working with Mark Lanegan – did you have any discussions about the direction the music would take, or was it more led by your travels and the nature of the sessions at any given time?
Duke: There’ a vibe between us. There’s an energy between everybody. We didn’t so much decide.
Alain: I think the parts came along from what was there. We resonated with what the song had and created our stuff alongside it.
Lisette: Right, so if the stuff that was recorded in Iceland, suddenly you had these Icelandic musicians bringing this, you know, amazing back up singing. It created a different song and a different vibe. And every place did that in some way.
Duke: Butterfly was born in the ground and Embers was born right in the studio.
So, when it came to sequencing that music, was there – I think I’ve discussed this with you before, Barrett, the idea of the album as a journey – did the cultural and geographical thrust of the recordings inform the sequencing of the music?
Barrett: Well, it’s funny that you would ask that, because I was tasked with sequencing the album. I mean everybody approved it, but it’s kind of a hard thing to do. Especially with a double album.
Barrett: But I have to give some credit to that process because Mark Lanegan and I would sequence the Screaming Trees albums and Mark had a very specific methodology to that and I have tried to do the same thing whenever I sequence an album.
Barrett: But it was Alain who noticed that there were songs that had sisters. You know, like similar instrumentation and vibes, and we wanted to separate those so that they weren’t on the same album. So that the albums were balanced and… well, Alain, you can speak about that.
Alain: Yeah, I mean, once we had everything in front of us, because we went to Spain and mixed like the whole lot in a week – it was a great, great session there. And I think this is when Barrett started to notice that there are these kind of twins. And really, they also had a connection between them, and they would make for the architecture of each volume, so that the whole thing becomes one cohesive thing. It’s a double album, but it’s a work, you know?
Alain: That’s how we did it. It was kind of… that part was obviously Barrett, who has an amazing ability to figure out what the sequence should be. I don’t think we even tweaked it because [turns to Barrett] you just proposed it and that was that. And we were like “yeah, this is great!”
One song that particularly stands out for me is Sacred Tree, which I think is on the second volume, and it was really interesting to try to identify the various instruments that are on that (and I think there’re a lot). Could you talk me through that song a little bit?
Duke: That’s a tricky question because it started in a fever dream [laughs]
Barrett: The working title of that song was like Venezuela 75. We tracked it in Joshua Tree, at that Rancho studio, and Dave Catching was the engineer and sometimes, you know, he was a guest musician as well. We just were getting this really great vibe of how we were all playing together and it literally just magically appeared like that. The backing vocals appeared like… I think that was one of the first overdubs we did. We could hear the backing vocals before we could hear lead vocals.
Duke: Was that in Chile?
Barrett: Well, no, Alain and I went out of the room, and we did it right there.
Alain: Yeah, we did them right there and then. That was one of the first vocals we had.
Barrett: Oh, lead vocals? The singing? That came later, yeah.
Alain: Yeah, because we had the melodic idea and we tracked the bass, drums, and guitar. Then I added the cigar box – which is kind of like this thing that sounds like a Charango or a Portuguese guitar, the kind of arpeggiating acoustic thing – that’s a cigar box guitar. Yeah, because that percolating rhythm, we had a cool set up at Rancho. It basically all came from that beat [sings the beat]. You know, then Peter added an amazing, awesome arpeggiating guitar. Yeah, it’s one of my favourites.
It’s very interesting that the core of the album is still rooted in rock ‘n’ roll, but every song takes you off on a slightly different journey with different instruments and percussive devices – and that was always stuff I enjoyed in bands like Mad Season – when you were developing the songs. Do you sort of hear those ideas in your mind before you play them, or were you more loosely jamming and seeing what fitted?
Barrett: I think the records where I’ve been either a principal member of the band or maybe the producer, I tend to bring in certain instrumentation. There’re certain instruments that I play, like the vibraphone or keyboards – things like that. Al is an incredible multi-instrumentalist. He does the same thing on records he produces, so I think it was a convergence of all of that.
Barrett: I’ve heard people say “oooh, that song sounds like Mad Season,” or Tuatara – which was the band Peter and I formed in the 1990s – especially with Dave playing the saxophone solos, like he did on these Drink the Sea albums. It all springs from that same pantheon of instrumentation.
Barrett: [Breaking off and looking around the room] You know, Phil, I wanted to say that we have two ladies in the band, which is a really cool addition to the band. One is Lisette right here, who plays percussion and vibes and then, over here [at this point, and to my surprise, a hand appears in the corner of the screen] – back here, this is Abbey Blackwell. Abbey is kind of a legendary Seattle bass player who leads incredible jazz ensembles and plays electric and upright bass. So, if you have questions for them, this is a good opportunity.
[Somewhat embarrassed] Firstly, please let me apologise, Abbey, I had no idea you were sat there. I could see Lisette, obviously, but I had no idea you were here too and I was not ignoring you intentionally. How involved were you in the recording of the album?
Abbey: I am a late add. I’m just here in this mix for the live stuff. I think all of the upright bass stuff was Barrett and then, I guess it was split with you guys for the electric.
Alain: Barrett played some bass and I don’t know who…
Duke: I didn’t play any bass.
Alain: Barrett played the upright bass, but Abbey’s an amazing upright bass player, so we have the live possibilities – they’re pretty amazing and sounding really great and we’re really excited.
Barrett: What’s cool about having people come in after we’ve done the initial recording is that they reinterpret the music anyway. Abbey’s already a far better bassist than the three of us combined, so she’s already made it have this other quality. And, like I said, Lisette played percussion on the album, so she’s already on it. But it does give this other element – a very cool feel to the music.
As I understand it, some of the pieces were quite improvisational anyway, so was there an aspect of all of you having to go back and reinterpret what you did at the time?
Duke: To an extent, some of them were made out of solid structures that have to be that way to be recognisable. The improvisational aspect really comes in conjuring up something fresh for ourselves in case we get stuck. And yeah, when you’re overdubbing, really you are improvising, but it’s a different kind of improvisation – it’s a free improvisation where it’s free every time but you do have to stay in some kind of lane. You can veer around and you can keep it free within the sound it has. The essence has to be in place first, otherwise it would be a different tune – which is a good thing also, there’s nothing wrong with that.
When it comes to the live performance is there anyone who takes an overall responsibility – bands like the Swans which have a quite an open structure, you can see Michael Gira at the front bringing people in at various points almost like a conductor – is that an approach that you take, or do you have fairly strict overall structures for the songs?
Duke: In terms of length, perhaps. We are working with the sound man and films, so lengthwise it’s the only sense where the term “strict” might be appropriate. But we’re more telepathic than that, I hope, between us [laughs]. We’re working on that.
Lisette, could you tell me a little more about the percussive elements that you bring, because in the liner notes, you’re credited with a huge array of different instruments. For you, how do you determine what to play – soes the music speak to you in a way that encourages you to bring a specific element to it?
Lisette: That’s Barrett. He really does have – he’s the percussion master who can imagine… he’s the one who has those sounds in his head as they’re creating. I really just kind of am the live person here.
Barrett: Well, you played on the record! You’ve got to take credit for that. I would suggest things like, “try this… try these different things,” and then she would play them. I’ve been teaching her for years, and she did the recording itself.
Lisette: It’s true, it’s true. And it’s really fun to do it live because it does have to be reinterpreted for what it is and vibraphones – it’s my first time playing vibraphones – and it’s so beautiful. It really does bring the magic into the room.
That’s really interesting because one of the most exciting things for me in music in general is when you’re trying to do something new – you have the sound in your head and it requires you to do something a little outside of your comfort zone, perhaps with an instrument where you don’t have that experience. Did this band sort of encourage you – and I know you’re all multi-instrumentalists – but did this push the boundaries of what you’re able to do a little further?
Lisette: I think we all felt like that!
Alain: We’re, you know… just the approach to the songs and what the songs demand is unique to the band. So, we bring a little experience from before, but I’ve definitely been pushed in terms of certain things. You know, how to follow well and make it fit with everything. The way we played certain things, we’d play them one time and then the way the vocal was created on top, and we found out a little too late that it was almost impossible to sing and play. So, I’m struggling and I hope I get it together by the time you see us live [laughs].
Alain: It’s one of these things where like, the amount of listening… when I go on stage and do a singer / songwriter thing, I just have to just interpret the song. Here it’s so much about listening to each other and reacting to what’s happening and, you know, obviously there’s a framework which is the song, but at the same time we’re going to be taking it places, reacting to the room and to ourselves, so that’s the exciting part for me. Everyone has giant Dumbo ears as we’re performing… internally, not literally [laughs]
Barrett: I know Peter would say this, but I’m prompting him. He’s always asking me, “let’s do projects that are quite challenging and take us around the world”, so I was like…
Peter: [laughing] “well, here it is!”
Barrett: You asked for it, buddy!
Peter: Thanks man. Yeah, there’s a bunch of songs where I couldn’t even tell you what the time signature is, but you had the plan, man!
One of the things that makes this a really special release is the artwork, which was from you, I think, Duke.
Duke: Yep!
So, when you created the art, was this something that you did while listening to the music – was it something the music drew out of you – or did you create it separately?
Duke: Well actually, Peter’s daughter, Zoe, came out with the idea of a kind of face of a woman drinking the ocean. And I tried to do that about a hundred times [laughs] I came up with one and it’s just a black and white ink piece and that’s how that came about. I was trying to do something where, you know, someone had conjured up an image in my head, and then I tried to do that in the way that I can paint, and it came off. I wouldn’t be able to do it again [laughs].
It feels like, as a group of musicians, you’ve produced so much over the years, and it feels like you’re constantly creating. Was there more written for the record than eventually came out, or was this everything?
Barrett: There are a few extra songs!
Duke: There are a couple. There’s always more. It seems like everything we made, there weren’t really any duffs.
Alain: Pretty much everything that was recorded was finished.
Duke: Yeah, everything we did was strong. Nothing ended up where we thought it wasn’t so great. It’s rather beautifully.
That’s pretty unusual, I have a folder marked “what were you thinking?” permanently on my desktop…
Duke: [laughs] yeah, we’ve all got those! Sitting somewhere in the depths.
The record has come out through your label, Barrett, so you’re almost outside of what the music industry has become, and you have complete control over the timing of the release and the live shows…
Barrett: Yeah, I’m still under contract to Sony and I have been since 1992. So, they gave me a global digital distribution deal. And I also have little indie deals to do the vinyl and stuff like that. It’s kind of good, so we can say when we want a record to come out and that’s when it comes out. We’re in complete control, as you say, and that’s the good thing about being independent.
And it feels like you haven’t – for a group of musicians who come from such significant backgrounds, it feels like you’ve been able to create something that has its own unique sphere. It’s very difficult, particularly in the internet era, to avoid people dredging up the history of your various bands, but somehow, you’ve managed to negotiate that, which is a measure, perhaps, of the unique nature of the music?
[This is followed by some awkward shifting and laughter]
Alain: It’s our nature
Duke: Yeah, it’s in our nature
Alain: We’re all of us very much music serving.
Duke: We serve music.
Alain: We don’t have big old egos and shit. I mean, it helps a little bit to put yourself out there [Laughs]
Duke: We serve the muse and the muse has to keep moving forward. The muse doesn’t give a shit about the past, and the music is pure and clean. And it stays young and beautiful… like all of us [laughs]
Alain: And we’re drawing from our internal strengths as opposed to the things we’ve been a part of you know.
Duke: Yeah.
Alain: I think there’s a feeling that, we’ve all worked with Mark Lanegan, and the reason his spirit is in there is because of how committed he was to music and how knowledgeable and passionate and in the moment he was. And we all got to help him and experience that with him and helped him in his career, being there with him, sharing stages and recordings and being in bands. So, I think that what I’m really excited about, since this whole thing stated, is (at my age) being part of something that is new and fresh and not connected to anything else. Particularly the direction – not like a “post grunge” or “pre that” [laughs]. It just is, you know.
Speaking as someone who’s been a fan of all your bands, what drew me into that sort of music in the first place was it never felt aligned to any one genre, and I guess that’s what has enabled you to release albums that came under the same name without necessarily having to sound the same. It was a coherent work, but the music was always progressing.
Barrett: It’s like Alain said – we’re all older. We’re all in our early 60s, except of course Duke and the ladies…
Duke: Yeah, I’m 37 [laughs].
Barrett: Who are like twenty years behind us. The point is that we’ve been doing this for a long time. We’re kind of the original punk rock generation, so we’ve found out how to do what we wanted to do with the means that are available to us. And sometimes it was a tiny little label that had no budget, and sometimes it was a major label that had a lot of money, or this is a kind of a hybrid thing where we have a bit of major label support, but it’s kind of a self-financed and independent project. But we are able to do the songs that we want to do, write them in a way that satisfies us and makes us happy to be creative at this age and to be a part of something that, apparently people all over the world are really excited about. That’s what I think is the most important thing. It has universal appeal.
Thank you so much for your time and patience. You’re going out on tour, do you think you might consider recording some of the shows, because I imagine they will be quite different to how the record was.
Duke: We were talking about that just last night. Yeah, I think so. When we can. When it’s a nice sound, or maybe every night…
Lisette: Until we get it right! [Laughs]
Barrett: We have an exceptional front of house sound man. He’s young and very bright and he hasn’t destroyed his years.
Duke: They work, don’t they? [laughs]
Barrett: So, we’re going to leave it in his hands.
Cool! Thank you once again.
