Interviewing any musician is a process of frustrating repetition. The writer asks stock questions and the musician gives stock answers. Like any good pop song, the orchestration is designed for mass appeal. Add a dash of humor for personality, a humble line of self-depreciation or moment of vulnerability for character dimension and relatability, plug the product, and then tie it all back together at the end for continuity. Voila! Put a bow on it in the form of a picture and then move on to the next subject. To varying degrees, every writer and every musician complete the same steps in this meta-media dance.
Certain events blow the lid off this whole dynamic, though. For instance perhaps the band, in this case the Spirit Family Reunion, are young and full of life and not yet more concerned with the politics of the music business rather than the actual music they make. Perhaps the writer strikes that golden balance in questioning that turns the interview into an actual conversation. Or perhaps a terrorist kills nine people in Charleston and the banal quid pro quo of rock and roll journalism as usual becomes transparently trivial.
For whatever reason, my interviews with Spirit Family Reunion have covered the Olympics, the importance of the Newport Folk Festival, Kanye West, the Yankees World Series prospects, The Pixies’ ‘Surfer Rosa,’ Ike and Tina, kombucha, and a host of many other things that have absolutely nothing to do with the band or their music.
But then again, Spirit Family Reunion has always been a band apart. The Brooklyn five piece is a true touring group. Their small but growing, devoted fan base wasn’t courted through publicity campaigns, high resolution glamor shots, or industry buzz. The following was attracted through old fashioned harmonies, a road-dog work ethic and an always reliable return to best-kept-secret-club stages in college towns and blue collar pit stops, fly speck cities from upper New York to the Gulf, all the way west to California. And oh yeah, the biggest draw and that thing we never got around to talking about: their music.
Though geographically and chronologically far removed from the Appalachia of unspoilt pine, Depression-era train lines, or sharecropper tent gospels, Spirit Family Reunion has managed in this digital age to retain some spark of that pre-war spirit. Their second release, the widely popular No Separation, didn’t strike the audience as a recording from this decade. Far from it. Rather like a dustbowl reel to reel masterpiece surfacing after the better part of a century. The album was arresting for its simplicity. Across stripped-down gems like “Green Rocky Road” or “To All My Friends and Relations,” there sprawled a timeless sense of connection between people. The subjects of the songs, of course, but especially between band members whose voices rise together in swelling crescendo, burst with joy, fall and break from despair. A listen to late album standout “On My Mind” displays that amongst our youth, a generation so often accused of callous self-absorption, there are yet examples of community, even solidarity for this shared burden we all endure.
A little bit of that magic has been recaptured on their latest offering, Hands Together. As opposed to the screaming match that has become popular music, Spirit Family Reunion issues the audience a gentle whisper in the ear with this newest effort. Increased production value? Nope. Clever lyrical banter? Again, no. Dumb haircuts and a market agenda? Thank God, no! In place of these absent elements we find instead articulate musicianship, immersive songwriting, and a slice-of-life Americana more truthful than trivial.
In celebration of the group’s ongoing success with Hands Together, I had a chat with co-frontman Nick Panken about the designs and aspirations for the recent release.
“Instead of rushing to release another album after we put out No Separation, we spent a bunch of time on the road,” he explains, “seeing the country in ways we’d never seen it before, and working on other less conventional stuff like a new songbook and home recordings. We thought the best thing for ourselves would be to take our time making another record. If some people forgot about us or never found out about us because we didn’t release a new record soon enough, that’s unfortunate, but it’s most important to work and live at our own pace.”
The focus shows. While the same style of spirit-laden folk from past albums is evident on Hands Together, there is also a sense of expansion on a method that has worked quite well for the group so far.
“It’s important to try new things,” Panken says, “and spreading the singing around in the studio was one way to do that. A big part of playing together for us has always been singing together. We’ve got one mic on stage and it’s always been open to everybody. Going into the studio and recording can be such a formal thing, it’s nice to shake it up and try to bend that formality back a little bit.
“There are some songs and sounds on this new record that we never would have made before,” he continues. “‘Wait for Me,’ is an example of taking big risks in the studio, and coming out with something new that we’re proud of. We also wrestled for a while with how to approach ‘How I Long to Take that Ride,’ and we wound up with a really raw recording that we didn’t expect and we’re also quite proud of. Most of all we tried to stay true to ourselves and our past, without trying to replicate anything that we’ve done previously, and we are proud of the results.”
Dark days come upon us as the tragedies multiply. Our sensibilities are assaulted by the condemnations from the court of public opinion on the nightly news programs. Without reflection, every lay lawyer, bar stool politico, and armchair activist voices their instantaneous opinion instantaneously via social media. Even person-to-person, a colloquial despair flits through the language of our interactions. One wonders where it all comes from? Without too much reverence for the golden rule, we boil under the question “Why?” as if there’s ever been a good reason for any of it: all the fear in this empire of frivolous wealth, all the violence, the symbolic arrogance paraded from every state capitol flag post, that endless repetition of birth, conflict and death coming down through the generations.
It might just be the summertime.
History takes on all the properties of a song. It’s a sad one, to be sure, but it contains moments that shine with glorious joy, movements and passages that are magical, crescendos of hope flaring before the collective audience falls inevitably back into a sobering chorus. The wisest ones sing along until their voice is utterly shot, they drink and dance holes in their boots, beat their chest at every glorious high, tear out hair and openly weep at every bone crushing low. They realize, for good or ill, Americana is our story. The song will go on forever.
I ask that ol’ boy Nick about it. The future, the past, Spirit Family Reunion and the path for America(na).
His response: “Let’s keep trying.”
