Eleventh Dream Day co-founders Rick Rizzo and Janet Beveridge Bean tell virtually all on the band’s superb new double-sized album
It feels like an upside-down twist on “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” when it comes to this writer’s repeated celebrations of the still ongoing life and times of Eleventh Dream Day. Since discovering the group somewhat belatedly via 2000’s gripping gateway Stalled Parade LP, it’s been hard not to enthuse about such a richly-seamed body of work. Although not absolutely everything put out by the Chicago-based band – which formed the best part of forty years ago – has been exceptional, quality control levels have remained remarkably high throughout EDD’s on/off/on career to date.
Moreover, as an inspiring embodiment of exploratory eclecticism – which has seen a journey through wild prairie ploughing Paisley Undergroundisms, Television-meets-Crazy Horse jams, dreamy yet driving college-radio-friendly melodicism, celestial post-rock, motorik garage-pop, VU-infused art-chugging, gnarly agit-punk and rambunctious rock ‘n’ soul across both indie and major labels – the EDD story is still an undertold tale of finding creative triumph against the backdrop of adversity.
Therefore, when it comes to the ensemble’s sublime Since Grazed album (just out digitally on Comedy Minus One, with the vinyl edition to follow later this year), it’s hard to truly exalt upon the world just how good it is. “Well, you would say that wouldn’t you, as someone who probably wants to be buried pharaoh-like with a full collection of Eleventh Dream Day records?” is the amalgamated rhetorical poser from someone who knows this fan/scribe well, combined with their own inner bias-checking monologue.
To paraphrase from EDD’s own “Go Tell It” (from 2015’s still-wonderfully diverse Works for Tomorrow long player) it probably requires climbing to the top of a mountain to properly proclaim how transcendental the double-length Since Grazed really is. In the absence, however, of such a landscape feature nearby and a suitably-sized broadcasting interface – not to mention individual inhibitions on exhibitionism – mere words and keyboard skills will have to do the heavy lifting.
‘Heavy lifting’ is perhaps also a term that the best sums up the new extended collection’s essence. Primarily built-up around the core songcraft of Rick Rizzo (vocals/guitar) and kaleidoscopically fleshed-out with many rewarding musical details by the full latter-day line-up of Janet Beveridge Bean (vocals/drums), Doug McCombs (bass), Mark Greenberg (piano/organ/synths/vocals/production) and James Elkington (guitars/piano/synths), Since Grazed visits some very deep personal places whilst simultaneously unfurling as a graceful and stirring suite of soaring elevations. Focusing eloquently on loss, love, camaraderie and redemption, with virtually no note or word feeling out of place, the intuition, integrity and invention of the ever-evolving EDD family unit only feels refortified by age.
Whilst reconnecting with some of the aforementioned stylistic strands of their own illustrious past, Since Grazed finds EDD forging a refreshed amorphous Americana-hued sound for the most part; that is expansive yet intimate, earthy yet lush and bucolic yet metropolitan. Along the way it reconfirms communalist strengths (notably Bean’s vocal dexterity, which reaches an astonishing apex with her lead role on the Marianna Faithful-meets-Mimi Parker magnificence of “Matter”) and as well as bringing Mark Greenberg closer to the front-line (whose own previously unheard balmy tones are adroitly added into the alchemical mix amongst his increased application of studio sophistication), on top of some the most devastatingly powerful lyrics ever penned by Rizzo.
With such a stunning studio statement on the table, the ever-thoughtful Rick Rizzo and the force of nature that is Janet Bean generously explained at length – over email – the extended backstory behind Since Grazed.
How has life since Works for Tomorrow been treating you – particularly in the last year of pandemical and political churn – and how relieved are you to bring another Eleventh Dream Day record into this mixed-up world?
Rick Rizzo: The five years that have passed since Works for Tomorrow have been rough ones for me. I’ve lost friends and family, had severe back issues (miraculously better now-long story!), and struggled to get my kids through adolescence. The pandemic served to bring my family closer together in a lot of beautiful ways, and since Janet and I have a son together, my family expanded to include Janet and her husband in our bubble, and we occasionally hung out. My kids and wife were home all the time though, which meant that I had no space to create music. Fortunately, in the cycle of getting records made, I was more in the post-production phase of things. The political churn, on the hand, took up way too much of my attention. I think now, with a sane president in office, there is a great relief in the relative silence.
For this new album, does it feel strange to be moving over to Comedy Minus One – who previously released your archival New Moodio LP – away from your long-time home at Thrill Jockey?
Rick: Bettina at Thrill Jockey is one of our oldest friends, and that won’t change, but Thrill Jockey’s release schedule meant that we would wait far too long to put this record out. No hard feelings, and CMO showed us with New Moodio that they do things the right way too.
Janet Bean: Rick and I felt strongly about getting the record out as fast as possible. For Rick there were reasons around what the songs represented to him personally. I hope he allows me to speak for him here. He felt he could not move forward with new work till the record was out in the world. He had demos for a majority of these songs for several years. We just didn’t want to wait any longer. Also, for me the record has this sombre quality that feels deeply sad, but at the same time it feels like there’s light coming through. My favourite records are those that feel bound by loss, but the loss is conveyed with such beauty that you find yourself uplifted by the time you flip the record over. This record felt like this to me. If there ever was a good time for such a thing it’s now.
It’s been said already that Since Grazed begun life as a Rick Rizzo solo record – due to conflicting group work commitments elsewhere – but it became another EDD album as things evolved. Were you ultimately glad it proceeded that way, even if it took longer than expected?
Rick: I’m elated that it worked out the way it did. I vowed after Works for Tomorrow that it wouldn’t be another five years between records. I was writing at a pretty good pace, and had an LP’s worth of tunes ready a few years ago, which I called the Laid Off Sessions, but our band is uniquely incapable of doing things quickly because every member has so many other projects going on. The songs I was writing also didn’t all fit what I thought was a Dream Day sound. I even presented some to Janet, and nothing really clicked. I continued to play them at solo shows, and waffled about what to do — put out Laid Off myself or continue to wait for the right time with the band.
Ultimately, I felt the songs were incomplete without percussion, and they were really glorified demos. I asked Mark Greenberg to record me with just voice and acoustic guitar with some great mics with a plan to formally make a solo record with bandmates and other friends contributing. I had added more songs and had more to choose from, and I had Janet there to counsel. After several tracks, Janet and Mark had me convinced that even though it was different, it was still ‘us’. I tracked twelve songs that day. After everybody added their parts in subsequent sessions it was more than evident that there is something special to the sound of this line-up.
I believe that you recorded the bulk of Since Grazed shortly before Covid struck the world, finishing it off late last year, is that chronology correct? If so, did the split sessions affect its overall construction and leave a lot of helpful reflection time for adding the finishing touches?
Rick: When Covid locked us down, we were a few overdubs away from mixing. It added a full year to the process. We did tinker a bit, all to the benefit of the final product.
Did having most of the tracks seemingly built up around a sturdy voice and acoustic guitar core actually free things up for the whole band to then layer things up, in many interesting and often lushly-textured ways? Did it feel like you were breaking plenty of past EDD moulds in the process?
Rick: Since our first EP came out in 1987, our recordings have tried to capture the energy of our live shows, and we generally rehearse in advance of the studio so that we can go in and record mostly live with few overdubs. This method has served us pretty well. This record does break the mould with the bottom-up, rather than top-down approach. The foundation in place with my acoustic and vocals left everybody to construct their parts, and I did not share the demos I had made or offer much in the way of suggestion.
Jim Elkington has a home studio and added all kinds of instrumentation that was unexpected and brilliant. He has an incredible sense of melody and interpreted the songs in his unique way. Doug hadn’t heard these songs at all before playing bass on them and came up with amazing parts. Janet might have been affected the most because of the alignment, playing sparser drum arrangements and experimenting with vocals that added so much to the landscape. And Mark Greenberg, was the wizard, a true star, playing everything but guitar, and singing for the first time. He is the secret weapon on this record, but frankly, these are all pro’s pros who can do just about anything. Bottom line, working this way was a necessity, but the sound is richer, albeit different than what you’re used to.
Janet: Everything that Rick said. Mark really was the genie on this one. I think his presence as the engineer over our last few records has grown and on this record as Rick said his playing and singing is all over it. Prior to Mark there was not much of a thought about my vocals creating these full harmonic layers. Mark works with a lot of women vocalists that I love and there’s a reason for that. I think he loves big lush pads of womanly voices and that is an exciting thing to feel when you’re singing. He never doesn’t say, what about another, and another, and another… He just wants you to keep going and it makes me, out there in the recording room, feel excited, confident and freed up from worry a bit. I love tracking vocals with Mark. I can email him and say I don’t want to sing in a pretty voice on this, I want to sound like a giant beast and he’ll work through that process with me with endless patience.
Was recording in Wilco’s The Loft studio in Chicago handy in giving you access to an Aladdin’s cave of kit to expand your sounds?
Rick: Mark works at The Loft, managing the affairs there, and is behind the scenes in Wilco world, and we benefitted incredibly from him being able to use the studio. We weren’t there much at all, ourselves – I tracked my parts in one session – but he had the flexibility to work on the record when he was able. I feel very reverent when making music at The Loft, and I soak in the beautiful vibes of the place, but I’m scared to touch anything.
Once you’d set the tone and feel of the record, were you consciously relaxed about letting things stretch out, with several six or so minute songs necessitating a double-vinyl release?
Rick: I never thought about the length of these songs, they just seemed to work out that way. The tone of the record became apparent as I continued to write, and pared things off from the Laid Off material. Themes made themselves apparent. One thing about Eleventh Dream Day is that on any given record there are several kinds of sounds kicking around. This one is the most cohesive and thematic, and musically there are threads that weave the songs together.
Janet: We were working out how to get all these songs on one record. This meant fading out ends far earlier than we had been hearing them. When we started going down that route, as well as the route to figure out which tracks to cut, I just felt it was wrong. I remember listening to “Just Got Home” and thinking not a note of those guitars at the end can we spare. So, I chatted with Mark about it and we both agreed that to truncate all the really moving guitar interplay between Jim and Rick would be wrong. I went to Rick and said what about a double album? I think he liked the idea from the start, but he is a bit more reticent to ask for things than I am. I then went to Jon Solomon, the guy behind Comedy Minus One, and pleaded our case. He came back the next day and said we’re on! I was crazy excited and also a little terrified if it was the right decision. I think it was.
Turning to the tracks in turn, the slowing-burning title-cut opener sets things up beautifully with lots of electro-acoustic tiering and some really balmy backing vocals. In the latter respect, did you deliberately seek newer ways to intertwine the singing voices, with Mark notably appearing to be more part of the mix, both here and elsewhere on the album?
Rick: The first song, “Since Grazed”, is also the most recent. It represented thematic elements of the record, particularly the idea of resilience despite loss, while recognizing the beauty of friendship, past and present. This was also the most difficult song to finalise, and we experimented with the mixes quite a bit to get the right feel. Early on, Janet and I, separately, yet concurrently, were struck by the feel of the song, and each lived with it on hikes and bike rides in our own worlds, finding that it provided us a kind of lift. Mark worked on it quite a bit to give it the room to do that. The vocal sections he constructed capture the beauty and cohesion, while letting my flawed singing represent a particularly vulnerable and human quality.
Janet: Rick summed this up pretty well. I will add that, historically, we go in bash things out and don’t question things too much. I think mainly that has a lot to do with us generally having so little time to make a record. This song was maybe the first song ever that I felt had to be a certain way. We had it, then it took a turn. We were very close to letting it make that turn. I kept listening hoping I would re-hear the song and I would see its new path, but I couldn’t get there. I called Rick up and confessed that the new direction had, for me, removed the light. We are both a bit too reluctant to ask for changes sometimes, but I am happy we did this time.
Lyrically, the song also seems to channel ruminations on a lifetime’s worth of camaraderie and closeness, shot through an autumn years lens, that appears to spreads across the rest of the record. Is there such an interconnective thread throughout the record?
Rick: I suppose I just answered that in my last reply.
Janet: I wrote no songs on this record and only contributed words to one track, so I cannot speak to what the lyrical intent is, but as a listener who’s been along for the ride for nearly forty years, I do feel deeply the thematic connection of camaraderie, reflection, and the arc of long enduring relationships. This record, to me, speaks a lot to family, and the ever-evolving complexities of pain and beauty that they provide.
“Cracks in My Smile” sounds like a like a distant cousin of “Angels Spread Your Wings” from Lived to Tell married into the art-rock chug of Ursa Major and Eighth. Would you recognise that or did it come from somewhere else entirely? I love the way the drums and acoustic guitar sync up in particular…
Rick: This was one of my first songs from the Laid Off recordings. I started playing the chords where they go round and round without ending. I don’t necessarily hear what you are referencing, but does that really matter? Songs, and what they mean, or how to reference them belong to everybody once they are public. Your take is every bit as meaningful as mine because I am rarely conscious of what I am doing anyway. The drums and acoustic do have this beautifully locked in movement, propelled by the bass line I think.
“Just Got Home (in Time to Say Goodbye)” appears very much imbued by the sublime second side of Neil Young’s On the Beach, both in terms of stylings and sentiment. Would you concur?
Rick: Eleventh Dream Day played a show a couple years ago where we did the entire Zuma record. Then Janet, Mark, Doug, Azita Youssefi, and I did a version of the song “On the Beach” for a book release event (John Corbett’s Pick Up the Pieces: Excursions in Seventies Music). On any given day, the On the Beach record is my favourite Neil LP. Granted, that is a sad kind of day, but when I listen to that record, I wallow so deeply that I emerge elated. Same thing with “Just Got Home”. It is a sad song, deeply sad, about sad and personal things, but it is absolutely the song that lifts me the most and gives me hope. I wrote it on a long drive, and put it to paper and wrote chords when I got home. Mark’s Wurlitzer part, when I first heard it, was instantly recognizable to me as an On the Beach sound, and it hit the spot. There is a bit of CSNY feeling I get too. When we played that Zuma show, Mark sang with Janet and I for the first time, and I realised we had a new tool in the toolbox.
Janet: This is one of my favourite songs on the record! Prior to deciding this would be an EDD endeavour Rick had come over a few times and played me the songs and asked if I was willing to help him with ideas. I was very honoured and said yes. I remember him playing this and I just felt the song was calling out for a different rhythm. That chunky acoustic guitar on the downbeat thing is something I am always drawn to and asked him to try it. We both thought it worked, giving the song a harder pulling gravity and the perfect bed for Rick and Jim to have this long languorous guitar interplay at the end. And yes, on the new tool in the tool box with Mark’s vocals! How did it take us so long?
“Yves Klein Blues” is a great namecheck list song, with a VU-meets-Violent Femmes pulse and shuffle to underpin it, what fed into things there?
Rick: I wrote this on a walk-through Miller Woods in the Indiana Dunes. The melody and words came into my head and I sang it into my iPhone, bridge and all. I’ve always had a tough time expressing love, musically or otherwise, and I was happy to write a love song. When EDD toured Europe on Riot Now! we were fortunate enough to have a day in Vienna, and saw an Yves Klein show and witnessed the version of blue that he is known for. I’m sorry for the pun (no I’m not). Nabokov is a personal hero who never shied from them. I had to name check him in his honour. The original version of the song was a sparse ballad, but I like how it transformed. It sits well within the longer tracks.
“Tyrian Purple” taps in a totally uncharacteristic orchestrally-leaning place. What do you think steered you there?
Rick: I was literally going for majesty. This was the first song of the Laid Off sequence (I wrote a song a day after getting laid off from my job). Everything on my mind that day seeped into the lyrics. I had been watching the HBO show Young Pope, Prince had died, and I had just listened to a podcast that described predatory sea snails and their production of the pigment that made up Tyrian purple, used by popes and kings. Images of the pope on his balcony and Prince on stage at the Super Bowl in the rain gave me a longing for that kind of feeling, because I was at the lowest of lows myself with a bad back and no job. Listening to the song, wherever I am, I always feel empowered by the chorus. I was happy to write a song with the kind of chorus you can sing over and over again—we don’t have many like that. I find it weird now that I sang about pandemics several years before that which shall not be named.
Janet: The only thing I can add is that I have a deep love of Amber Webber, from Black Mountain’s vocals. At the end of the tune I just tried to do my best version of that.
“Nothing’s Ever Lost” goes for a serene spacey-Americana duet setting, with some notably lovely vocal interchanges. How do you think that ‘Rick and Janet’ vocal discourse has evolved and sustained itself so well over the years?
Rick: Janet and I literally learned how to make music together as we were making it way back when. If we were oil and water we wouldn’t still be making music I guess.
Janet: It’s true that we started rock school at the same time and have yet to graduate. I have learned to sing, for better or for worse, publicly. I have reviews that said I couldn’t sing my way out of a paper bag. That may have been true, but eventually I figured out my own method for getting out of that paper bag. I always tell people that say they can’t wear a hat to just put the damn hat on and wear it and you’ll see that you become a hat wearer. I guess I feel the same way about singing or playing. You just have to keep doing it and you will come to a place that may not be for everyone, but it is yours, and you own it.
“Take Care” acts like a Television-infused tension-and-release affair that could have fitted somewhere on Stalled Parade, perhaps as an epilogue to that album’s eponymous prologue? What drove you through that one?
Rick: This song almost didn’t make it to the record. Its tension gave me, well, a bit of tension wondering how it fit with everything else. I wrote this one a few years ago, but didn’t have verses for it, but I liked the sound of it and the idea of taking care of each other, and looking for some empathy in the world. It has an ominous sound to it, and where it fits in the sequence of songs adds some conflict to the overall narrative.
Janet: I said the same thing to Rick about this tune. As a listener who’s going to create my own narrative around the lyrics it seems like a response to Stalled Parade’s title track. The refrain in that song is “Save yourself and you might save me” and in “Take Care” it’s “Take care of me and I’ll take care of you.” They seem very connected to me with the latter being a resolve maybe. I doubt though Rick had any thought of this when writing it. These are just fun mysteries we get to unravel and decide as listeners
I was initially a tad anxious that there wouldn’t be enough ‘Janet-led’ songs on the record, particularly compared to Works for Tomorrow, until I reached “Matter”, which is jaw-dropping and goose-bump-inducing in equally weighty measures. What were you going for here in terms of the vocal and instrumentation configurations?
Rick: Janet’s singing is otherworldly, and her performance is truly special. Not many singers can do what she is doing on this song. When we knew this would be a band record, I urged Janet to take the lead vocal. I too wanted more of her front and centre. On Works for Tomorrow, she sang that Judy Henske song, and when she did it live it was powerful. She has steadily grown as a singer over the years, but I think she took a leap recently. She recorded and performed with a band called Mind Over Mirrors, and she really pushed her limits stylistically and technically. On “Matter” and “Tyrian Purple” she pushed it too, but in a way that fits the songs perfectly.
Janet: Thank you for that concern! As I said in [response to] an earlier question, I have learned my version of singing over the years. It has definitely been a process. That process was in hyperdrive working with Jaime Fennelly of Mind Over Mirrors. He had been working with Haley Fohr and she has a beyond human voice. It is in Diamanda Galás territory. To follow that was daunting at best and at other moments felt utterly pointless, but Jaime was super supportive and those two things, me trying to be better because of what came before, and his confidence in me over the two records I was lucky enough to make with him, really gave me the freedom and support I needed to be all of me, not just the sort of soprano sweet singing I was comfortable with. “Matter” is a culmination of these things I have learned by trial and error. I tried a couple different approaches, some much more intense sonically, but Rick asked me to try it another way and he was right.
“Matter” is one of a handful of EDD songs where the ‘who writes the words sings them’ rule is broken. Why do you think it worked so well here? Is there a radically different ‘Rick version’ on the cutting room floor?
Rick: There is a different version with me singing, but I thought Janet could take it other places, which she did. We never cared much over the years about who wrote and sang. On early records, Janet wrote a lot more, and we wrote more together. Sometimes I don’t remember who did what. I sang on “Coercion”, “Sweet Smell”, and “Albert C Sampson”, songs she wrote on Prairie School Freakout. In the mid-nineties, as Freakwater got busy, Janet put her songwriting more toward those records. She still had a song or two on EDD records, but over the years, I took over more of the songwriting. Same phenomenon with Doug, who got busier with Tortoise and Brokeback.
Janet: Yeah, we never cared. It has resulted in me not remembering at all who wrote the song. Sometimes I have to call Rick and say “did I write that?” I kind of like the idea that it is truly just Eleventh Dream Day, not its parts.
“Look Out Below” shares the near-symphonic space of “Tyrian Purple” and the warming lightness of “Nothing’s Ever Lost” but appears to add in Crosby, Stills & Nash-like harmonies. What do you think went into the blending there?
Rick: This song was transformed by Jim’s synth parts and Mark’s backup vocals. Mark arranged the vocals, which I absolutely love. When I wrote it and played on my own, it wasn’t very developed. It grew up to be something much different and unique for us. Once again, urging Mark to sing more paid off.
“A Case to Carry On” feels like a necessary release of fuzz and feedback. Was it a challenge to communally focus on restraint over ferocity for the most of the record but which found an obvious outlet here?
Rick: This was another early song that I wasn’t sure would make it to the record. The original was far more acoustic and had lighter percussion but no drums. Janet threw a tabla sounding machine on it which was interesting, but the song didn’t feel finished. Ultimately, Mark worked on the drums and bass to make it move. He also took my guitar at the end and did some wizardry to make the song build to that crescendo. It turned out so well that we didn’t want to cut it. There was not a conscious effort on this record at all to show restraint, and really the song fits the flow and sounds good kicking off side four.
Janet: This was one of the songs you kind of have to wrangle. It wasn’t obvious what it wanted. I am very happy we kept at it because it really is part of the story for me.
“A Wish Too Far” is another stirring ‘Janet-led’ moment, with added flute to boot from a Rizzo family guest. What fed into this acid-folk detour, sonically and words-wise?
Rick: I had this as an instrumental, and it was sitting there while we were mixing and destined to be left off the record. Janet had threatened to write words, but dillied and dallied. The last possible night she asked me to bring my daughter to the studio to play flute, and she had words written. I had already named it “Wish Too Far”, and she created some great lyrics inspired by the title. I love the way this turned out. Peggy showed much poise in her first time in a studio. She’s never improvised either, and really found something she didn’t know she had.
Janet: It’s true, I kept saying I have something, I have something then I kept cancelling the session because I had nothing. I had one last session before I was going away for a few months so it was do or die. The concept came to me about two hours before I was in the studio which was to gather all these ways that cultures around the globe make wishes. I kept hearing this song as a United States of America tune. I wanted it to go really out there. I thought Peggy, who I knew to be studying flute, would be perfect on it. I was hearing Herbie Hancock’s “Watermelon Man” and hoping to make her flute sound like those beer bottles.
Despite its title, the loose country-folk ramble of “Every Time This Day It Rains” feels like a perfectly-sequenced moment of uplift and redemption. Was it important to wrap things up in this way?
Rick: This was one of the more recent songs that I was glad made it to the record. When I wrote it, I thought there was a “Beach Miner” (from Prairie School Freakout) vibe to it, but it lent itself to a dreamier kind of extended chorus section. I’d like to play this live someday and really explore it sonically at the end. In some ways the song is about depression, and how that dark cloud seems to arrive every day. The redemption (or healing, really) comes in the form of the sandhill cranes, who twice a year pass over my house on their migration. I’ve been fascinated by them for a long time after author Jim Harrison wrote about them. I have driven hours to see them, both in the sandhills of Nebraska, and closer by in Indiana where they land by the tens of thousands at dusk every day in late November. They are my spirit animals I guess, and just thinking about them gives me peace.
Although Since Grazed will more than sate the hunger of a long-running EDD follower, it stills leaves the lust for more. Were there any outtakes that might surface elsewhere or form the basis of another album, sooner rather than the usual later?
Rick: We struggled trying to figure out how to sequence the record with such long songs. Making the decision to make it a double record allowed us to honour the listening experience to make it more meaningful and sonically pleasing. So, we used everything. It all fits together and makes sense. There were more songs that I could have tracked for the record, but I think twelve was enough for that first day of recording! There are five or six others I have on demos, some of which would have fit thematically, some not so much.
How do you think that you will be able to render extracts from the record live, when you can finally return to the stage?
Rick: I am really hoping we get a chance to do just that. This line-up with Jim works so well together, I think it would be amazing. We would probably need to expand the band to make it like the record. Nick Macri plays bowed-bass on several songs, and I’ve already asked him to be involved with live shows. I’m kind of torn. I’d like to stick to acoustic guitar, myself, but I also enjoy the electric interplay that Jim and I have going—on songs like “Just Got Home” and “Every Time…”. Jim and Mark will be moving around a lot if we play this live, but they’re both excellent on drums, keyboards and vocals, so we have flexibility.
Janet: [Live] I started singing up front on a song or two and Mark took over the drums after the last record. I think we will do more of that and I’ll either sing, play acoustic, or maybe the keyboard. We’ve got some very versatile and very talented players. I am versatile, but only in the very most rudimentary of ways. I do though love getting out from behind the drums and singing. I am used to being up front with Freakwater, but singing “Snowblind” and we added a few covers, one being “Cruiser’s Creek”, with EDD is just the most fun ever. I have some sort of inner Iggy Pop in me!
Did you ever envisage that EDD would last this long and in such good creative shape? Have the latter-day large gaps between albums been a key part of the sustainability formula? Do you approach each album as if it could be the last, since you stopped being a full-time operation?
Rick: I think the gaps make it more challenging in a way. It’s very difficult to align the stars to do anything. We have at least one big event each year, such as the Zuma show, or the birthday party we organized, where I asked friends of mine who all had 60th birthdays to play with their bands. Ira Kaplan (Yo La Tengo played as the Condo Fucks), Jon Langford, Tara Key and Antietam, and Rick Brown (75 Dollar Bill) all played. I don’t ever think about where it’s all headed, I just know that writing and playing is something I can’t live without.
When Janet suggested we make Since Grazed a double album with a gatefold, she mentioned, “You never know, this might be the last one.” At our pace, I thought she may be right, who knows. I certainly don’t plan on it being the last one. We are in uncharted territory. The classic rockers and old punks are carrying on into their seventies. It’s time for the indie rockers to play into the sunset. I think of all the great young artists out there, and it is certainly somebody else’s turn to shine, but as long as the songs pop into my head, I have the impulse to play shows and make records.
Janet: I think the opposite of Rick in that the time between records is what has allowed us to continue. Look, we can’t tour in any sort of proper way because of various family commitments. I think this may also be what keeps us going. If we were a traditionally active band I think we might have burned out by now, or some of us may have said “no” one too many times and then there’s friction. I believe we haven’t kept going despite our situations, we have kept going because of them. I think Rick is correct about the next record. I have no idea if the five of us will still be playing together if we wait five more years, but I know if Rick asked me to, wherever I was, whatever I was doing I would say “I’ll be there.”
Do you collectively have any other works and projects beyond Since Grazed in the pipeline? Is there a recorded-in-near-parallel Freakwater LP in the offing, another Rick Rizzo and Tara Key collaboration or a remotely-assembled Tortoise return being germinated for instance?
Rick: Freakwater had some plans I think, and Tortoise has an album in the works. Doug is still very active with Brokeback too. Jim is part of that band. I’d love to make more music with Tara. We make records every ten years, so I better give her a call—we’re due.
Janet: Yes, Freakwater and The Mekons began a project a few years ago that will finally see the light of release soon through Fluff and Gravy records. We’re called The Freakons. The record is all songs about coal mining. With Jon Langford’s roots in Newport Wales and Freakwater’s in Kentucky there seemed to be a very thick seam between us which needed mining! I am really excited to see it come out. It will also be a gatefold sleeve with seriously brilliant artwork by Jo Clauweart of Belgium. We are donating part of the proceeds to a Kentucky org called Kentuckians for the Commonwealth. They do good work in KY’s Appalachian region. I am also off to Spain when the restrictions are lifted to make a record with Robert Lloyd of The Nightingales. Have you seen the doc on him King Rocker? It’s just so good! I don’t know what’s in store for Freakwater, but that is not unusual. I am always simultaneously on the verge of quitting all music and signing on to three more projects.
Picture credits: Eleventh Dream Day
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- Not Turning Off: Volume 51 - February 5, 2024