Appropriately named "Use Your Voice," singer/songwriter Mason Jennings' latest work is what one might consider a throwback to a simpler time when musicians used to record albums in a matter of days or weeks without the use of computers or overdubs.
Just in the same tone and spirit caught on Van Morrison's stunning and timeless record "Astral Weeks" or Bob Dylan's heartwrenching and confessional recording "Blood on the Tracks," Jennings puts together a series of 10 acoustic guitar-driven songs.
The pieces range in lyrical content from the experience of becoming a parent, the issue of breaking up with the end of a once-strong love, and the tragic death of Sen. Paul Wellstone and Wellstone's wife, Sheila.
Jennings played all of the tracks live in the studio accompanied by bassist Chris Morrissey and drummer Brian McLeod with a total of three overdubs throughout the entire record, which is somewhat of a rarity these days.
The 28-year-old married man who is now a father wanted to record a raw and intimate experience for the listener. The work was partially inspired from his love for Morrison and Dylan's aforementioned masterpieces, along with another favorite by famed jazz singer Nina Simone recorded in 1969 called "Nina Simone and Piano!"
The Beach Reporter sat down with Jennings, who first picked up a guitar 14 years ago, this week to talk about his new work, the stories that inspired it, and his own voice that varies from song to song and has an intonation that sometimes resembles Dylan while other times is reminiscent of someone as contrasting as Jack Johnson.
You make reference to the city Minneapolis several times on your new album. Are you from there originally?
No, I grew up in Pittsburgh, but I've lived in Minneapolis for the last 10 years.
What prompted your move there?
I did a little traveling around the country after high school and I really loved it, and a couple of my favorite bands - The Replacements and Jayhawks - are from there. I went to visit and thought to myself, 'Man, this is a great city.' So I decided to stay.
Is there a thriving music scene there?
Yeah, and there are a lot of bars where you can play original music, which is great.
I had a chance to read the album's liner notes written by Jim Walsh, which I actually found really inspiring. How do you know this person?
He's a music writer for a paper called City Pages in Minneapolis and he's done a lot of national work, too. He's a friend of mine.
In the liner notes it mentions you have a son and the song 'Southern Cross' seems to be a tune about the way your priorities have shifted a bit since becoming a parent. How do you think being a parent has affected your attitude toward touring and making music?
I think with music it's been a really positive thing because I feel like it just expands your horizons so much more as far as what love can mean which helps me as a songwriter, I think. As far as touring, I can still do it but I think I'll go out for shorter runs at a time. I used to go out for two months at a time whereas now I'll go out for 2-1/2 weeks, take a break and then go out for 2-1/2 weeks again. It will be the same amount of time but it will just be broken up a little more.
You make reference to Bondi Beach in 'Southern Cross,' which is in Australia. I assume you spent time there?
Yeah, I spent the month of May. We toured over there this year, last year and we were over there in Tasmania over New Year's. We try to go back there at least once or twice a year.
Do you surf while you're over there?
I try, but I can't surf that well.
What was the hanging-out-in-Australia experience like?
It's just great. Australia is neat because they are so appreciative of acoustic guitar music and there is a really good radio format there where there is a lot of underground stuff on the stations, so they're really receptive to my music.
The second song on the record, 'The Light (Part II),' does feel like a second part of another song and maybe it's because I think you begin with the conjunction 'And.' Where is the first part of this song?
Part I is the last song on my second record called "Birds Flying Away." It was two parts where the first part is about the beginning of a relationship and the second part on this record is about the end of a relationship.
Did you write it all at once?
Yeah, pretty much over a period of a couple of months. For me, I just felt like the idea wasn't finished so I kept writing.
This song, 'Crown" and 'Fourteen Pictures' remind me of Bob Dylan's 'Blood on the Tracks.' Knowing what he went through while making that record with the divorce of his longtime wife, he wrote a series of bittersweet songs about love gone wrong. You do the same with these three tunes. In your opinion, do you think you have to experience a certain piece of life whether good or bad to actually write about it?
That's cool since it's one of my favorite records. I think so. I think it's definitely the kind of thing that's like a hole in your spirit. If you feel something really deeply then I think there is a deeper hole to fill up with really powerful stuff in the form of songs. But I also think there are other ways to feel it. I think you can be really moved by a song, book or movie. I think it's just about being really open and receptive to emotions.
So being that 'Blood on the Tracks' is one of your favorite records, were these songs kind of inspired from this work?
When I wrote these songs on this record I wasn't really thinking about anything except my own life but then when I listen to "Blood on the Tracks" it's definitely something I aspire to as far as craftwork. I think it's some of the best writing ever.
Is the song 'Lemon Grove Avenue' a first take? It just has that feeling of being one.
Yeah, my band was a little nervous about that song because it's really raw and feels really loose. I really like the feel of it because it is a first take. There are more lyrics to it, but when I first did the take I flushed out the second verse so it has all of the same lyrics all the way through the whole song. I ended up keeping it anyway because the feel of it was what I was looking for.
Are a lot of these songs first takes?
About half of them. The songs were all done live in the studio so there are about three overdubs on the whole record. Sometimes with records you piecemeal it all together and fix it with computers, but I just left everything on there. The goal was to get a good feel rather than perfection, so to speak.
The lyrics and meter of 'Lemon Grove Avenue' has a very simple tone to it like something you'd read in a Robert Frost poem. I think of simple rural living when I hear that song. Is that street in the country somewhere?
It's actually in San Diego. I was driving past the street and thought to myself, 'This is so great here.' I played the song in the city live and people told me it's like the worst street in the whole city.
The song sounds like a homecoming of sorts?
Yeah, I guess you could say my songs are fictional to some extent. I try to become a different character in my songs and write them in first person, and with that, I definitely bend the facts, so to speak.
How did you hook up with bassist Chris Morrissey and drummer Brian McLeod?
This is their first record with me. I found them through auditions I did over the last year and we've been playing together exactly one year this week. It's been awesome and they've been really great. I was really looking for a person who could play upright bass really well, along with electric bass, so that was my first priority. I also wanted someone who could sing backup and Chris can also do that. Brian, I first heard about him while living in Pittsburgh. We went to the same high school.
The song 'Ballad of Paul and Sheila,' you don't know it's about someone who's died until you pause and then say the word 'lived.' This song is about Sen. Paul Wellstone who died in a plane crash with his wife, Sheila. What about this incident struck you enough where you wanted to write a story about it?
Well, I just felt his life was so inspiring. He was a college professor at a small college outside Minneapolis called Carleton College and he just decided he was going to get more involved with the things he believed in so he decided to go into politics. He stayed true to himself and fought for the things he believed in, and I just thought that was so amazing and so rare. With the way I've sort of structured my music career, and the way I've tried to stay independent and just develop as an artist, I thought of him as a kindred spirit. I just felt it was a big loss when he and his wife died. He's a really big figure in Minneapolis.
'Drinking as Religion' is a song about how things can get better out of something bad just in the same way things can get worse out of something good. What inspired this concept?
It's that idea of after a breakup when you look around and everything is moving forward and people are continuing with their lives but you. You've just gone through a horrible thing and you expect there to be thunderclouds or something. So I wanted to write a song with this kind of juxtaposition and if things are all happening at once then light can come from darkness and darkness can come from light.
You make reference to the novel 'Ulysses' written by James Joyce in the song 'Ulysses.' Have you read the book?
I'm trying right now, but it's a hard one. I'm 350 pages deep into it, and I don't think I've absorbed any of it.
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