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‘Not done with this yet’ – A new interview with Sam Parton Part II

Doug Heselgrave Posted On July 6, 2011

‘Not done with this yet’ – A new interview with Sam Parton Part II

By Douglas Heselgrave

Since the first part of this interview was published, Sam Parton, Frazey Ford and Trish Klein – the core members of the turn of the millennium alt. country/folk/blues outfit ‘The Be Good Tanyas’ – got together to rehearse for their appearance at Vancouver’s 125^th birthday concert on July 8^th. After that, the group will head to the Winnipeg Folk Festival before playing a few select shows in the States.

As you’ll read here, Sam was really nervous about getting together with her old bandmates to see if the old magic could be rekindled. I got home the other day and found a Facebook message that read ‘First band rehearsal in 3 years. 16 songs. Everyone in high spirits, love in the air. Nice.’ Sometimes, it is worth lifting the lid to see what’s inside, and maybe that old saying isn’t true and you can go back home again.

Here are some more excerpts from our conversation.

DH: Hi Sam. Are you ready to keep on down memory lane? I think we left off somewhere between 2003 and 2007.

SP – Oh, the lost years!

DH – I think a lot of people were surprised when your third album ‘Hello Love’ came out. It seemed to come out of the blue. After the years of acrimony you described, and all of you doing your different things, I never thought it would happen. And, when I did read about it, I thought Nettwerk – your record label – had just compiled some outtakes or live tracks or something to cash in on your popularity. But, then I heard it and it’s a real record.

SP – I think a lot of people were just as surprised as you were. Me, too.

DH – You told me that you’d been listening to your music to get ready for the upcoming tour. So, how does ‘Hello Love’ stand up in your estimation? What do you hear and remember when you listen to it?

SP – We had a different rhythm section than on the other records. We had John Raham on the drums. And we had Mark Beaty on bass – who’s not only dreamy, but is classically trained – so that kind of deepened the sound. So there was a huge difference in the presence of the bass on that record. He plays cello on one track, and bowed bass. And we were working separately a lot, because we hadn’t been hanging out together or touring that much. We were all kind of doing our own thing.

DH – Yeah, at that time the joke was that you were doing a Crosby, Stills and Nash and travelling on separate buses – or Lear Jets – and only getting together on stage.

SP – Ha Ha! Not quite…

DH – I’m just being a shithead.

SP – You are just being a shithead! But it does kind of get to that point. We did do one tour where Frazey had her own RV – she had her son with her on that tour. But yeah, it was hard. I’m surprised we made that album. I’m surprised we did it.

DH – It doesn’t sound like you were phoning in performances from separate ends of the country or anything like that –

SP – No, we weren’t. When we’re in the studio together, not as much of that interpersonal stuff comes into play. The priority is always getting the song right. We might fight like hell in the studio, but it’s all about the song and making things sound right.

DH – So, is that where you meet as people? Serving the music….

SP – Uhhh…..Yeah, I’d say in a very big way that cuts through everything. We’re all very obsessive – like most musicians. We all have our own things we pay attention to and hear, and we all hear different things in the studio- so that can be difficult. I’d say ‘No, don’t you hear that! It’s so important that it’s not like that…” and someone else would say, “ I don’t hear that at all. Let’s do this.” But, what brings us together is that we all really care a lot. Caring. Caring. Caring…. oh, I’m excited for these shows coming up. But, bring me back on track.

DH – So, yeah, there’s ‘Hello Love’ and another song on a dog movie….Oh, what’s its name?

SP – ‘Because of Winn Dixie.’ That was so much fun! That was the first and only time we were ever commissioned to do something or write something for a film.

DH – Dave Matthews is in that movie as a singing pet store employee or something…my kids watched it and I heard your music on it…

SP – Yeah, it was really fun. Our music was featured in the opening scene of the movie.

DH – And, at that point, you hadn’t been playing much. Did you record that after ‘Hello Love’?

SP – No, that came out between ‘Chinatown’ and ‘Hello Love.’ It was really interesting. It was a whole other way of thinking about music. I remember flying to LA to talk to the music director. She showed me the scene, talked about what they liked about our music, and sent me off with a VHS tape of the clip.

DH – So, did you watch the video and time the melodies and rhythms to the movement on the screen?

SP – Yeah, that was really the best part. It’s so interesting to think about tempo in visual terms. I loved that. The main character was riding her bike in the scene that they assigned us, so I counted off the pedaling and that gave us the tempo. We took this old blues song and rewrote it. It was a lot of fun. I wish we could do more of that. That’s one of my favourite things I’ve ever done musically – to sit there in front of a TV with no sound, with a guitar in hand, making music to a scene. It felt really great. It’s a totally different way of making music.

DH – Watching the scene over and over. That must be where your obsessive nature comes in handy.

SP – Ha. For sure. For sure.

DH – So, we’re going all over the place. Let’s get back to ‘Hello Love.’ You toured on that record just like for the other two. And, from an outsider’s perspective, it looked like things were going better than ever. You did very well in the UK and played at the Royal Albert Hall.

SP: We played the Royal Albert Hall!

DH: That must have been pretty amazing.

SP: It was, and it was also totally nerve wracking. I was so nervous that I did something I totally regret – and I have very few regrets in life! Maybe I only have one, and it’s this – they had a grand piano on stage – and I’m not used to playing a grand piano. I felt intimidated by it, and I told the promoter ‘I don’t think I can do the grand piano at Royal Albert Hall. Can you get me a beat up old upright? That’s what I’m used to.’ He said, ‘absolutely.’ He made the calls immediately, and the next day, when it came time for the gig, I wondered what the hell I was thinking. We got to the venue and they’d packed up the grand piano. Instead they gave me this crappy little –

DH: Saloon piano?

SP: Not even. It was like a student piano from a music school. It was a shiny black upright…I suddenly had second thoughts. I called the promoter and said ‘Bring back the Steinway. Bring back the Steinway!’ And they told me it was too late. I still think about that, and wonder what I was thinking… So anyway…Royal Albert Hall. My mother came, my sister, my aunt – they all flew over. We had a bus for the first (and only) time…that was really interesting.

DH: That was near the time we usually talk about as being the end of the band – at least of that incarnation.

SP: Yeah. We didn’t do much after that. I mean, it was hard to tour, with Frazey raising her son – someone would have to come along as childcare – and I’m sure it was very hard for her to focus both on being a mom and on working.

DH: Hard to cut loose into the music –

SP: Yeah, there was a little bit of that. It was hard sometimes to balance everyone’s needs as it became a bigger operation. Though it wasn’t like we all wanted to party all night every night. None of us are really very big partiers…

DH: So, you’re going out on tour again in the next couple of weeks. Can you talk a bit about how this has come about?

SP: Well, I wouldn’t really call it a tour – we’re doing a few shows. We’re all very nervous and excited. We haven’t played a show together in three years.

DH: Have you gotten together to rehearse yet?

SP: We are getting together for the first time this week, and will definitely be putting some time into rehearsing. We haven’t played a lot of those songs in a long time. We want to play some songs from ‘Blue Horse’ that we never really did play live very much.

DH: Such as –

SP: ‘Broken Telephone’ maybe, ‘Only in the Past’ – we never really played those. I hope it will be fun. I’m looking forward to it.

DH: Are you working up full shows or opening length sets?

SP: Mostly full shows. We’re doing two shows opening for the Carolina Chocolate Drops – Seattle and Portland – I mean – we started talking about doing shows, because a year ago we decided to put ‘Blue Horse’ out on vinyl for its ten year anniversary. We thought that we had to do something special, maybe put together a little songbook, some extra artwork, try to make something beautiful. Then we thought, well, if we’re going to do that, we should maybe play some shows to support it, otherwise it’s just going to sit there. Then our wonderful manager, Mandy, got a call from the city of Vancouver to celebrate the city’s 125^th anniversary and we all said ‘yes’ and it went from there – then the Winnipeg Folk Fest came up…

DH: There’s some funny geography on this tour. I see you play Seattle, Denver, and then Portland in that order.

SP: I know. Well, for a short time out like this, it’s cheaper to fly – especially in the US. The Denver show just came up at the last minute. And we had the night off – and touring is expensive, so we thought – why have a night off and pay for a hotel and a rental van and everything that comes with that, when we can go and play a show somewhere. So, we went for it. It’ll help defray the costs of the tour – and it’s a great venue and a nice promoter, and we haven’t played much in Denver – it should all be really fun.

DH: Do you have any expectations about the tour? By that I mean are you all testing the waters with each other? Is there a feeling that everyone wants to make this work?

SP: Yeah, for sure. It would be great to go to the UK again. It would be wonderful to go to Europe, which is something we haven’t done very much. It’d be nice, but we’re very…. You know, we want to make sure that it’s cool.

DH: …and if you’re going to the UK, the next logical thing to do is have a new product and –

SP: …it snowballs from there. Well, I know. That’s what Nettwerk is already saying. The thing that we all have made a commitment to is that it has to be fun and we have to enjoy ourselves. We have to get along and connect with the music and the audience. It’s got to be fun for everybody. We’re not going to go out there and put on a half-assed show after this long.

DH: Any ideas about what else you’ll play? Are there some songs you don’t want to do or that you especially would like to play?

SP: We’ll probably work up a few new songs, but I don’t know yet if we’ll go into any of our solo or outside materials. We’ll probably keep that separate. Mostly, it just has to be fun, it has to be positive. I mean, it’s all about that, at this point. I think we’ve all really grown as people since we last played, too.

DH: I find it hard to approach situations openly if I have history with something – a person, a place. I know that with everything in life, you still bring some kind of expectations – both good and bad. It’s hard to truly approach anything with a blank slate.

SP: You’re right. You kind of carry this stuff in your bones, in your energy somewhere. The past…it’s hard to change the way we respond to situations. We’re all so easily triggered. But, I think we’re probably all doing a lot of thinking about it and are determined to do this with a little more intention than we’ve done in the past. I’m trying to do that in my whole life in general – be a little bit more deliberate.

DH: You’ve been very lucky.

SP: Yes, I have. I’ve been cultivating this really odd sense of gratitude for everything in my life these days. I haven’t always had that. I remember coming back to Vancouver after living in New York for two years, and feeling like I’d won the booby prize – but now I feel like I’m lucky to live in this most amazing place. And my family’s here – though they were a part of why I left – I needed to escape a lot of family drama that was happening – but now they’ve actually become a big part of the reason to stay.

DH: Isn’t it funny how that happens.

SP: So funny, and such a relief.

DH: So, just before you go, I’d like to go back to where we started so many hours ago at the beginning of this conversation. We were listening to Gillian Welch and talking about when you and the Tanyas started out. What do you think was going on in the culture that created such an audience for your type of music? It couldn’t have happened if you’d tried it in 1985. Not in the same way it has in any case.

SP: It wasn’t conscious. None of what we did was deliberate or planned. People always say it was the ‘Oh Brother, Where art Thou?’ thing, but that came out after we started. There was a real zeitgeist going on. For myself, that’s the type of music I’ve always been into. It’s not like all of a sudden..

DH: It’s like that old Neil Young quote, ‘if you get far enough behind, eventually you’ll be on the cutting edge’ –

SP: That’s exactly it! I wish I’d said that. Exactly. I missed the nineties musically. I never even heard Nirvana. I was listening to Big Bill Broonzy and Bessie Smith. I was really deep into the history of American roots music – Woody Guthrie and all that stuff.

DH: While other people scattered all over the place were doing that at the same time.

SP: I guess so. I didn’t even realize that. But, if anyone had recorded what Frazey and I were doing together in Nelson in the early nineties, it was the same sound. It was just really kind of weird timing that everything broke at the same time. Gillian Welch was just putting out her first record around then. And Iris Dement, Emmylou…Frazey and I were singing songs like ‘Don’t That Road Look Rough and Rocky’ years before it was the ‘thing’ to do.

DH: So, what do you think is the appeal of this music we’ve been talking about? You know, the Harry Smith Anthology of Folk Music dark stuff, the weird old America music?

SP: It’s just so deep. It has such history. Personally…I remember when I went to Kerrville, it became very clear to me, just being around so many songwriters, what my particular needs were musically. I knew what I needed to hear in a song for it to resonate with me. It needed to be grounded in history in some way. It didn’t have to be overt or obvious. It was the Boston or Austin thing. People from ‘Boston’ would play with two capos at once and go for some really weird tuning and slap their guitar for percussion. And people from Austin were all ‘three chords and the truth.’ That’s where my heart lay. I was with them. I felt there was blood and soil in that music, and coming out of treeplanting, it felt natural. I don’t know what it is in me and in Frazey and in Trish that needs the sense of continuity…it’s a feeling of belonging to a lineage of music and harmonies where you can hear what’s come before. For me, harmonies are the most important thing in music. And, where do you hear more beautiful harmonies than in roots music? It’s simple. There’s lots of room for it. I mean, I love all music – I love Bjork, and you hear all kinds of harmonies there, too – of course I tune in to harmonies in lots of different styles of music. But, it’s a different aesthetic.

DH: It is and the effect that is created is very different. It’s less about people sharing and more about creating an enveloping sound.

SP: Yeah. But as far as why everybody was suddenly playing ‘roots’ music, I used to have a theory that it was because there was a real change happening in the culture in general towards digital. The Internet was coming on, and the earth was shifting on its axis – a bit too quickly – and people were thinking ‘Wait! We’re not done with this stuff yet. We’ve got to carry it with us into the future.’ I think it’s very important to do that. And, I’m so grateful for people like Gillian Welch who do it so brilliantly.

DH: She does. I just love how she’ll take something from say a Dock Boggs song and use it to sing about something in her life. Other people do that, but she does it so so well.

SP: Lots of people do the old songs. They wear porkpie hats and they do it in a way that’s kind of hokey and turns the song into a museum piece. That I can’t stand. For me, the real folk process is where you incorporate it into now and feel totally present in the song. These stories are so now. You know, all those babies dying in those songs…

DH: Yeah, it always strikes me that we talk about how bad the world is today, but listen to Woody Guthrie or songs like Omie Wise and it doesn’t take long to realize there was a lot of horrible, dark shit that happened back then, too that the songs bear witness to.

SP: Look what’s happening where The Old Crows are writing songs about the meth epidemic. Songs like that report what’s happening in our lives, in our times. I like to find ways to tell these stories. I need substance to sustain me, and those old songs, the ones that have survived, have that substance. Yesterday, I was digging this massive blackberry bush from my garden. The roots went everywhere. When I finally got it out, I held up this mass of roots and thought – this blackberry probably covers the entire continent! It reminded me of how we’re all connected and how all the music we hear, if you go back far enough, is connected in the same way. Follow the tendrils, and you can find hip hop, country, jazz, or whatever. It’s all different, but all music is connected, and it all goes back to the same tap root, if you follow it far enough.

DH: What a perfect place to finish.

SP: Right where we were at the beginning. Thanks for this. It was lovely to talk to you.