The new il Sogno del Marinaio
record, “Canto Secondo”, is really beautiful.
How did you get hooked up with (guitarist) Stefano Pilia and (drummer)
Andrea Belfi?
Stefano I know from the 2nd opera tour of Europe.
I went over there in 2005 to do “The Secondman’s Middle Stand” and 6 of the
gigs were in Italy. Claudio, the
promoter man, stuck this young man in the boat with us…it was Stefano
Pilia. Four years later I got an email
from him…he told me he was a musician and he was invited to play this festival
and he had a drummer buddy, Andrea, and he wanted to know if I would come and
do this festival. It was out of nowhere
and I said sure. I said, maybe we should
do more than one gig if I’m gonna come all the way out there. So he put together six gigs. I’m 56 now, and I have this thing, “If you
gotta chance, record”, so I said if we’re gonna work up this shit for the gigs,
why don’t we fucking record it then! So
in the middle of the gigs, we recorded this album, “La Busta Gialla”. We didn't put it out for a while, right – we put
it together in December of 2009 but we were so busy, both me and them as
musicians, different projects. We had to
coordinate a time when we could play this for people too, not just put it out. When we had a chance last year to do a Europe
tour, that’s when we put it out. I think
it’s really a happening record, but it was three years later, right. What happened was I got invited to the last
All Tomorrow’s Parties in England – Barry Hogan, great festival. I said, “Would you guys play with me here and
from there I will go to Italy with you and we will make a second record.” There’s a lot of guests on that first record,
and this one is all us – “Canto Secondo” means “the second song” – this might
be a different perspective of the band and I think it’s legitimate. The gig was on the 1st of December
and I went over to Bologna where Stefano lives in his farmhouse and next door
is a barn where the studio is, and 8 days we laid it down. We only had two days to make the first one –
we overdubbed stuff later, of course, and the way you make records now you don’t
have to be in the same room. There’s not
as much on this one. We didn't do any of
the spiel (vocals) in December – the spiel comes later. Andrea’s from Verona, but he’s moved in the last
couple of years to Berlin with his wife, so we’re all in different towns. It’s something that is important because
everyone thinks it’s a bad new day, but there are things you can do today that
you couldn’t do in the old days. So
there are some interesting things that the old days didn't have at all.
You can connect
electronically with those guys.
Yeah, you can trade files. You couldn't do that in the old
days so easy. You had to fly tapes
around. Oh my god. I never even hardly tried it. It was either you play with the guys you are
with or there ain’t any recording getting done (laughs). I hear a lot of bad about the modern days,
but I think every contemporary time had people who said the old days were
better. Sometimes technology can help
with ways of connecting – it doesn't solve any creativity problems. The whole il Sogno del Marinaio thing is kind
of a manifestation of these kind of things, where you can operate in a way you couldn’t
operate before. I can’t reinvent my past
with D. Boon (deceased Minuteman singer/guitarist)…actually nobody can. They can try, I guess, but it’s only
tries. The past is the past.
You’re only chasing
something then.
I’ll tell you something what’s similar between Minutemen
days and il Sogno del Marinaio: it is me going back to collaboration. You look at “Secondman” (2004’s “The
Secondman’s Middle Stand”), you look at The Missingmen, these are bands I put
together to take my direction and to help me realize a proj, same with Nels
Cline and the first opera. These were all bands I put together. Kinda like how I fit in with the Stooges,
like “Here, Watt, will you do this for us?”
Stefano and Andrea, it’s a little different – they’re both
composers. If you look at the total amount of compositions, I’m in
the minority. It’s more collaboration.
So, in some ways I went back to the old days, but not the old ways of
doing things. I didn’t have to grow up
with these guys, they’re 21 years younger. They come from the avant garde –
they went to music school and stuff. They’re from another land, not just
another state or another town. It’s very
interesting for me, but still a lot of common ground. Still a trio, just guitar, bass and drums. It
just shows you how much you can do with that.
It doesn’t have be just one kind of sound. I thought in the old days it all had to sound
like Cream. It doesn’t have to be like
the Police either (laughs). A lot of my bands are trios, but they don’t sound
the same. I do that on purpose. Even
though we’re from different backgrounds and generations, I still feel in a
trippy way like it’s a kind of classroom where I get to learn stuff. What I’ve
tried to do more and more, coming into middle years, is to put myself and my
bass in situations where people have stuff they can teach me. That’s really important. Just because you’ve been around a little bit
doesn’t mean you know everything. It’s one
of the reasons I keep busy with different kinds of projects. To your question, this band came together by
accident, but once it came together, why not fucking rally around it?
So what are you
continuing to learn about yourself?
That I don’t even need to move to the 5-string bass to learn
more shit. The bass is really about who
you are playing with. I don’t know how
much sense it makes on its own. Dos (his
band with bassist Kira Roessler) kinda gets into that, but a lot of my bass has
relevance depending upon the people I’m with.
It’s part of the politics of that machine, you know. I really respect
and owe a lot to James Jamerson, who is on all of those Motown records. He
never made a solo bass thing, but he very much has an identity, established by
him playing with other people. He and
John Coltrane are really role models.
Coltrane wasn’t a bass player, but from what I understand felt that all
musicians were in search of some kind of truth.
So I like that idea, mixed with James Jamerson’s idea of serving the
tune and serving the people you are playing with. But I still have an
identity. What middle years has done has
made that more clear. In the old days, when I thought about music, it was just
about D. Boon. That’s why I was playing.
I wasn’t really a musician, it was just a way that I could be with him. He
passed almost 30 years ago now. I don’t have that paradigm anymore, and try not
to be too sentimental anymore. Where I
am really relevant is what I do with the bass in my middle years. And maybe I
can look good helping other people look good (laughs).
That’s a very humble
way to approach it.
Well, that’s what I learned from Coltrane. That motherfucker could play, well, like a
motherfucker! (laughs) His last tour, he was going to play with a bunch of
other people. A bunch of different teachers, you know.
On the American il
Sogno tour, you are doing 51 dates in 51 days…how do you maintain that level of
enthusiasm and endurance in your “middle years”?
I did the math wrong…it’s actually 53 gigs in 53 days.
Stefano and Andrea also played in David Grubbs’ band, so they played a couple
of the big cities like New York and Chicago, but they’ve never done a big tour like
this. So that is something I can do for
them. If you’re going to go out and do,
fucking DO IT! You know I’m a from a tradition of doing big tours anyway, so
this isn’t really new for me. But it’s
new from them, and I get to give audiences a whole different side of me they haven’t
seen.
Us Minutemen learned it from the Black Flag guys, Hüsker Dü
was doing four month tours. How do we
prepare? I’m having these guys from
three days early to Pedro – I have the same prac pad for 29 years, and for a
few days we are just going to practice the shit out of the set. It is kinda trippy…it isn’t like with D.
Boon, where we from the same town or Ed Fromohio (fIREHOSE singer/guitarist),
who moved to my town. These guys have to
come and visit – kinda like what I had to do when I visited Europe. First gig
is in San Diego, September 10th. First gigs are kinda pants-shitters (laughter). You gotta throw this together, and people
have worked all week, you can’t play lame.
You have to give them all. The later gigs will probably be tighter…part
of the knowin’ is in the doin’! And even when there are clams, there is
something about the human spirits coming together to make something. There’s worth in that. And with Stefano and Andrea it’s not just parts,
it’s about playing together. When one
cat is out in this other land, the other two can throw him a rope.
A lot of life is about stuff that is hard to do, and I don’t
see why touring should be exempt from that.
It can be scary as well, but my pop was a sailor in the Navy and that’s
how he got to see a lot of the world, so there is a lot of adventure as
well. I see a parallel for me with that
as well. Most people take vacations – this is my vacation (laughs).
Via email from Italy, guitarist Stefano Pilia was also kind enough to
talk a bit about how he and drummer Andrea Belfi got involved with Watt and the
collaborative nature of il Sogno del Marinaio.
How did you both come to collaborate with Watt?
I met Mike in 2005. He was touring his
second opera with Raul Morales and Paul Roessler. I helped them with the roads
directions for the five Italian gigs they had. A nice time. We kept in touch. In 2009 a festival in Italy
asked me to propose and present a
collaboration project. So I asked Mike and Andrea to do a
collaboration together. They did not know each other.
I met Andrea years before and we have
been playing together in many several occasions since then and -we also play in
a trio with D. Grubbs. With both of them I immediately felt a strong sense of
familiarity even if we are all very different and come from different places
and time.
Mike then proposed to make a mini tour and
recordings in Italy and to call the project " Il Sogno Del Marinaio".That is how started. Every one of us came with a couple of ideas
each to be worked together and to have pieces for the band and the gigs. In the beginning we were also playing some Minutemen and other Mike
songs cause we did not had enough material for a gig! It has
been all done in 10 days! Rehearsing, tour and recordings. It is all written in
Mike’s hootpage (http://www.hootpage.com/
) Never done something so quick! I was scared but excited and I
learned
The group’s name translates to “The Sailor’s Dream”.
Musically, the new album sounds a lot like sailing (very placid
expanses punctuated by choppy waters) - how did this theme influence your
writing and the way the songs came out? In what ways did you approach
the material differently than on your debut?
There is a sense of adventure and of
fairytale in the name of the band which I really like and that I find reflected
in the different music scenarios that are part of il Sogno del Marinaio records
as well. The sailor's dream meaning in my mind is more of a metaphor about
adventure and discovery - a way which is narrative and figurative in a
traditional sense but not necessarily linear and coherent ...exactly more like
a dream where stuff happens in a more surprising and crazy way.
How collaborative was the songwriting process for the album?
Certain songs on the album seem very structured while others feel more
improvised (particularly the guitar).
Like we did for the first record, everyone
brought ideas or pieces to be worked together. But compared to the first record, the sense of the
band is more solid and strong in this second one. More developed and coherent
of what we are together and how we can play together. Our first European and
real tour in 2013 has been a great experience and a great step for the project because we
finally got the opportunities to really play and live together. We cannot meet
often unfortunately. Also in this case we composed and record the album in 8
days ...not much but certainly we arrived in the studio with a stronger consciousness.
The pieces are all very structured.
There is some space here and there for guitar improvised solos, yes, but not so
much actually. There are also some drums improvised - part “Us In Their Land”
for example has a pyrotechnic Mitchell drumming part from Andrea .A beautifull
bass improvised solo at the end of “Skinny Cat” by Mike. “Stucazz?!!”, for
example, has a lot of improvised windows for drums and guitar which take place
on the solid Mike bass riff-parts. But the measures and ideas for the windows
are all very structured. It is a funny and ironic piece.
What can we expect from the fall tour? What’s next for the
two of you after this?
I will be recording and touring with Rokia
Traore', a Malian artist and I will continue
with my other projects in Zaire, cagna chiumante, massimo volume and my solo
stuff as well. And I hope we can make a European tour of “Canto Secondo”. And “Canto Terzo” as well!
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