Good vibrations cover
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Why This Viral Beach Boys Cover, Meant To Heal A Grieving World, Almost Didn’t Happen

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Last summer, almost 30 musicians banded together from home to record a cover of the Beach Boys' 1967 classic, "Good Vibrations." After widespread COVID-related deaths and global protests hit, the group wondered if it would ever see the light of day
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
Feb 5, 2021 - 7:33 am

The saxophonist, flutist, and keyboardist Sarah Johnson Melkeraaen's father was her number-one fan. A lover of soul artists like George Clinton, Lou Rawls and The Temptations, Julius Johnson danced at any opportunity—at the supermarket, after bowling a strike, or in response to good news of any type. Sometimes, his dancing made his daughter feel shy, but today, she misses it more than anything. Granted, Johnson wasn't particularly a Beach Boys fan. But when Melkeraaen—who records and performs as Lady Albatross—took part in a massive cover of America’s Band, it ended up a testament to his goofy, music-loving spirit.

In a YouTube cover of the exuberant "Good Vibrations” recorded last June, created to give a world in lockdown a much-needed lift, she played flute alongside almost 30 other musicians in virtual collaboration. Released this year after a months-long delay, the cover grew so popular that it caught the attention of Brian Wilson himself.

But because Johnson died of COVID-19 the month of its making, he's not around to cut a rug in response.

"In my mind, I'm picturing being able to tell him, and he definitely would have had an ear-to-ear, massive grin," Lady Albatross, who came onto the project by word-of-mouth, tells GRAMMY.com from her home in Odda, Norway. “He would have given me a really big hug and told me how proud he was."

Making The Cover

"Good Vibrations," which a 24-year-old Wilson concocted as the centerpiece to 1967's aborted Beach Boys album Smile, is only the latest tune that organizers Doc Crotzer and Matthew Smith have tackled. In the confusing, suffocating early weeks of lockdown, they cast out a net to record a quarantine-friendly cover of Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'." "We thought maybe a few other people might be interested in doing it with us but didn't expect too many people," Smith tells GRAMMY.com. 

Through a network of friends recommending friends, like in Lady Albatross's and Jones' case, they followed up the Petty tune with a pitch-perfect rendition of Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run."

"By then," Crotzer says, "more people had seen the video and reached out to us, so we were able to grow our Social Distance Session Band, which added to the fun and challenge. 'Good Vibrations' came out of trying to answer 'How do we top "Born to Run'" with our group?'"

To help manifest their sun-kissed dream, Crotzer and Smith contacted Anders Fehon and Edwin Herder of Beach Boys musical replicators The Fendertones. Then, they recorded a scratch track for the instrumentalists, and Crotzer sang rough takes of each vocal part to place the singers properly in the harmony stack.

Sarah Johnson Melkeraaen and Julius Johnson

Sarah Johnson Melkeraaen and her father, Julius Johnson.

Two of those singers were MInhee Jones, a London-based alternative pop artist, and her friend, Celeigh Chapman, a country singer originally from Bakersfield, California. The recording process helped Chapman exhume the song from TV ads and oldies stations and examine it anew.

"For us, it was cool to pull apart the layers because [most of us] appreciate it in a passing way or understand that it's revolutionary for the time," she tells GRAMMY.com. "But then, to pull it apart and learn a specific part and see all those parts stack up, I think, gave us a whole other level of appreciation for them doing that at that time, considering where the technology is now and where it was then. When you look underneath the hood, there's a whole other level of, "Oh, this is actually why this is so omnipresent in our culture and has been able to sustain generations of fans and musicians."

Stitching together nearly 30 socially-distanced takes wasn't easy, but Crotzer and Smith found ways to circumvent potential hiccups. "For the instrumental part of the track, we let people do their own thing a bit more," Smith says, "but everyone was still playing to a guide track so that everything would stay in sync when we got the tracks back."

Near the end, the number of tracks so overwhelmed his laptop that he had to buy a better computer. "Fortunately, we had an awesome editor named Chase Johnson cutting it," Crotzer says. "He made it look easy and seamless."

Hitting A Roadblock 

The month they recorded the cover, the George Floyd protests hit. "Good Vibrations" wouldn't come out in June as planned. 

While the musicians never explicitly mentioned current events over the email chain, Chapman says there was an unspoken agreement that the timing wasn't right. In the midst of global racial upheaval, releasing a happy-go-lucky cover may have come across as blithe or tone-deaf. The following months brought mostly silence. "I remember sending an email asking, 'When is this coming out?''" Lady Albatross remembers. 

In the months leading to his death, Lady Albatross's father became inward and uncommunicative; she's not certain he even knew about the "Good Vibrations" cover. Lady Albatross was already saddened her father would never hear it, but after a while, it seemed like nobody would. As the months stretched out between George Floyd's killing and the fractious 2020 election, the "blossom world" Wilson sang of seemed more out-of-reach than ever.

Jones felt wary of a world seemingly drained of the Beach Boys' promise. "I was pretty down around that time because it was so polarized," she tells GRAMMY.com. "You saw some disappointing ideals coming out of people. Just a lot of ignorance, I guess. It didn't seem like the right time to put out anything too light." 

Going Viral

On the heels of the inauguration and with vaccinations starting to roll out, it finally felt right to drop "Good Vibrations" on YouTube in the spirit of healing and brighter days ahead.

"I remember when I got the email from Doc and Matt saying, 'It's up! It's finally here! It's done!'" Jones says with a grin over Zoom. "It was right after the inauguration. I think they posted it on Facebook just like that: 'This could not have come at a better time. So many good vibrations. A weight has been lifted.' I thought the inauguration was amazing. We were all watching it around the world. I was over here with my glass of champagne in London. I thought the timing of that was spot-on." 

Almost immediately, the video was met with global excitations—and Brian Wilson's. "Watch this amazing video from Social Distance Settings of 'Good Vibrations' featuring Minhee Jones and Jesse Hernandez, and musicians around the world," he tweeted. "Their goal for this performance is to make everyone SMiLE." At press time, the video was on the cusp of 50,000 views.

Overall, the response has bowled over Crotzer and Smith, who had merely organized the video for the fun, fun, fun of it.

"I couldn't believe it when Brian Wilson shared our cover on his social media," Crotzer tells GRAMMY.com. "The first rock 'n' roll music I heard as a kid was written by him and got me into music in the first place. Waking up to see that Brian liked it was an incredible way to start a day. Just absolutely surreal.”

A No. 1 hit in its day, "Good Vibrations" was sparked by Wilson's curiosity about the human emotions that dogs pick up on. Had the crew had released their cover back in June, it might have clashed with the will of the universe. But because they released it in a long-awaited moment of political optimism, "Good Vibrations" acted as a beacon of light through the gloom—and elicited a hard-won smile from thousands of viewers. 

And Lady Albatross, who sticks out in the virtual crowd in her hand-crocheted octopus hat, says her old man would be right there with them.

"He would have given me a really big hug and a kiss on the forehead," she says, envisioning his response to the Brian Wilson-approved video. And, of course, "He would have done a little happy dance."

Dave Mason On Recording With Rock Royalty & Why He Reimagined His Debut Solo Album, 'Alone Together

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Nancy Wilson

Nancy Wilson

Photo: Jeremy Danger

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Nancy Wilson On Her New Album, 'You & Me,' Missing The "Angels" Of Rock & The Future Of Heart

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Nancy Wilson's upcoming album 'You & Me' is partly a reflection on her personal relationships—both with the living and those who have passed. Its single "The Inbetween," premiering exclusively via GRAMMY.com, is all about the liminal spaces of existence
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
Apr 28, 2021 - 7:20 am

Nancy Wilson was thumbing through some notes when she found a poem written by her son, Curtis. Perceptive and probing, it seemed to sum up our politically malignant era—and what was spiritually absent at the core of it.

"[He] wrote this poem for a class assignment," the Heart co-founder tells GRAMMY.com over the phone from her Sonoma County home. "I thought it was really clever. The words were so clever and so whimsical. He was like, 'Black and white, wrong and right.'" Feeling the words reflected tribalism and partisanship, Wilson flipped those dualities into a song, "The Inbetween." But instead of being portentous or doomy, the track is radiant and rocking.

"Putting it in a context of something more fun—a funny take on it all—takes it away from being so heavy and dark," Wilson adds. "It kind of sheds new light on a situation. It's a contrast from the heavy times we've had to live through and puts it in a different tonality."

"The Inbetween," which exclusively premieres above via GRAMMY.com, is the latest single from Wilson's upcoming album, You & Me, which drops May 7 via Carry On Music. Really, Wilson is preoccupied with in-betweens throughout the album—the spaces between life and death, dreams and memories, good relationships and poisonous ones. It's also her first solo album ever, despite making music with her sister, Ann Wilson, in Heart for nearly a half-century.

The sisters have had an up-and-down relationship over the last few years, and the pandemic gave Wilson space to define herself both within and without "the vortex that’s Heart." And while the door is open for the band to go out again in 2022, Wilson is cherishing the time to reflect and recalibrate—and You & Me is the heartfelt product of this period of self-examination.

GRAMMY.com gave Nancy Wilson a ring to discuss You & Me track by track, why it took her five decades to make a solo album and the future of Heart.

This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.

Over the decades, what was the biggest obstacle to putting out a solo album, whether internal or external?

Well, I think I would call it the vortex that's Heart. There's a vortex of the work ethic of Heart for the last almost 50 years, just to be honest. I hate to even date it. But it's been a mind-bending job to do every year for the touring of it and the album after album—mainly, the touring of it all. You know, everywhere with electricity, we've played there.

It's an interesting dichotomy with the pandemic stopping the hurtling, you know. Heart's been hurtling through space for nearly 50 years. It's an interesting contrast to that to have to be shut in and be at home and stop the momentum and reconvene with your personal soul and self, in order to be able to know what to do musically and creatively with that time I had in my hands like everybody has had.

It's really a blessing, you know? It's been a blessing outside of the larger curse of it all to be able to reconvene with your communication with your own self.

Who were you thinking of when you came up with the album title—and first track—You & Me?

That's dedicated to my mom, who left us quite a while ago now. She's still in my skin, in my DNA. So it's kind of a gravity-free zone where I can talk to her in that song. I think the word "gravity," in and of itself, kind of keeps the song from walking that too-precious kind of a line. [laughs]

I think the personal, confessional kind of thing about this album—it's almost too sweet. It walks a line that's almost too sweet, but I think in another way, you could say that it's more of a revolutionary act to be that open and that honest. Walking the line of sweetness can be more of a rock attitude than hiding out behind your feelings. I'm sort of burying a lot of my feelings in this album.

And, you know, tongue-in-cheek stuff too, but the honesty of it is kind of a rebellious act on a certain level.

It seems like you're preoccupied with that line where sweetness could tip over into treacle. You're consciously trying to stay on the right side of that.

Yeah, exactly. It's almost, like, not supposed to happen. You're not supposed to do that. It's against the rules to be that honest, to bare your soul like that. I guess if that's an issue, then I don't know what is. [chuckles]

Tell me about your relationship with your mom.

She was a steel magnolia. I got a lot of her strength along the way. A military family, right? Marine corps, all those travels we had growing up were a strengthening kind of thing. We became really tight-knit as a family because we were always moving. Early touring experience, actually! [laughs]

She was the mom and my dad because our dad was off fighting wars. It's a total tribute to that strength of her character and her nurturing, strong, amazing … She was an amazing woman. When I sometimes dream of her, I feel like I got to see her again and I get to talk to her again. It's a zero-gravity space, and that's what the song is all about.

Can you describe the last dream where she showed up?

Yeah, sure. She took a lot of Super 8 home movies, and that's incorporated into the video [for "You & Me"] quite a bit. I took a lot of them too. She taught how to edit film and stuff, with the little editing machine. We used to make films in our family.

So, I used a lot of that footage in the actual video for the song and she appears in the video for the song. When I dreamt of her last, it was just her wonderful face. Her spirit. I felt like I had a conversation with her and the words were not even clear. It was just being together and the aspect of her spirit being there.

My collaborator, Sue Ennis, who's worked with us for years and years for Heart songs, had a song for her mom called "Follow Me." And I'd written a song for my mom called "You and Me and Gravity." I loved this music that Sue had. We both kind of have a mom thing. We've talked about our parents and we grew up together, so we had all those connective tissue things in our hearts about our moms.

So, we kind of collaborated on the ultimate mom song to try to reach into the ether and touch base with that. We morphed two songs into one. It's a hybrid mom song [laughs].

Tell me about "The Rising."

Well, luckily enough, a few years ago, we got to go to New York, when we used to be able to go anywhere, and we got to see "Springsteen on Broadway" live.

When I saw that show, it completely blew my mind. It changed my world around because I've always loved Springsteen and his amazing writing. Growing up with Springsteen on the radio, for instance, he'd be sort of behind this big wall of sound with this rock and roll accent where you could hardly understand the lyrics. 

Then, seeing him live, completely by himself, stripped-down, those songs and those lyrics—it completely altered my perception of Bruce Springsteen. He's an insanely great writer. Those words are so depth-y. Later, after having seen that, I watched it a million times on the show you can watch on television. Then he did Western Stars, his other album that got me through the whole last Heart tour. It was life-saving stuff for me.

So then, when I started to do this album, I was like, "I should do this because of the pandemic. I should do 'The Rising' because it was written initially for 9/11." Now, we're having 9/11 every day, so that's why I thought it would be aspirational and helpful for people to have an inspired message like that to help them through this insane ordeal we're living through.

Do you know Bruce? Did you say hi to him after the show?

I didn't say hi that night, but I do know him. His people told our people that he really liked my version of 'The Rising'! That made my day—my whole year, actually—to know that he thought it was cool.

Tell me about "I'll Find You."

Sue had actually started that song with Ben Smith, the drummer. My Seattle folks. They had this song that is, like, a "friend who's going to be there for you" kind of song. The support system that you've always dreamed of having. That's what the song talks about.

I've always been that person where I'm there for my people, you know? I show up. It's a really simple way of saying that you're going to be there for somebody that needs you. And that's a big deal! I mean, that's a huge thing to be able to do for anyone.

Can you describe a recent situation in which you were able to be that for somebody?

[laughs] Well, if you live long enough, that happens frequently. If you are that person for your other people, it's not an easy role to play to show up for somebody that needs help. A lot of people don't have that skill, you know? A lot of people are not equipped with the emotional wherewithal to be there for anybody else but themselves. So, that's what that song is all about.

How about "Daughter"?

"Daughter" is a Pearl Jam song. I had actually recorded it earlier before I got into doing the album. I'd done that in Austin with an amazing producer, David Rice, for a film, actually, which was made in South Africa. It's a true story about human trafficking in South Africa.

This guy, Simon Swart, who made the film—it's about to come out, actually—he wanted to see if there was a song I could do for the film. And so I decided that "Daughter" would be a really cool idea, because there's a lyric in the song that says, "She holds the hand that holds her down." That was really telling about what it is to be a girl. The movie's called I Am All Girls and it's about to come out.

Anyway, that's the backstory on that thing. And for [Simon & Garfunkel's] "The Boxer," that's something I've been singing with Heart for the last tour. I've been singing that song all my life, basically. It's a really amazing song. Somebody told me that the chorus part—the "Lie-la-lie"—was initially a placeholder, but he kept it in the song like that because the verses are so wordy. It sort of opens up and he kept it that way from the initial demo of it.

I got Sammy Hagar to sing with me on that because he's a buddy. He's a rock god. He's funny as hell and he's a really good guy. I said, "Why don't you do something with me on my album here? I want to bring in some people that I love!" He said, "Yeah, OK! What have you got?" So, I said I've got this big rock song called "Get Ready to Rock," which is not on the album, actually. It's elsewhere now.

Anyway, long story short, he said, "Nah, that's too predictable. I don't want to be so predictable, to be the Red Rocker on a song about rock." So I said, "What about 'The Boxer'?" He said, "I love that song! I used to be a boxer!" So having him on that song was really special for me, because he brings such an attitude with him. There's only one of him in the world. That's him.

And then the Cranberries cover ["Dreams"]—me and Jeff, my hubby, were just driving around in Sonoma County. We heard it on the radio and he said, "You've got to get Liv Warfield to sing this with you!" She was my singer in my other band right before this, Roadcase Royale. I said, "OK! Let's just do that! I think that can be done easily enough!" And so we did that, and it turned out really fun and cool. Easy.

Nancy Wilson

Photo: Jeremy Danger

How about "Party at the Angel Ballroom"?

I kind of heard myself saying something one night. I was like, "Wow, we've lost another angel of rock and roll." One of the angels that passed away recently, like Chris Cornell, Tom Petty, and now, Eddie Van Halen. It's kind of like, "Well, they're going to be having some big party up there at the angel ballroom." And it's like, "Hey, that's a good idea for a song!"

So I got Taylor Hawkins, who's another amazing friend, and Duff McKagan. I went and sang some stuff for Taylor for his last album, called Get the Money. Really good album. I said, "Well, I'm going to make a solo album now, so do you have any cool jams laying around, dude?" He's like [affects masculine voice] "Yeah, rad, man! I've got some cool jams kicking around, dude!"

He sent me this jam that they had. It was a completely long-winded jam that needed a lot of structuring. I structured it very differently from the original. And I had these words, so I put it together and it just became a fun sort of lark of a song. It's kind of a dark topic, but [you can] make it kind of a funny moment.

Sort of like the song "The Inbetween." That started with a poem that one of my boys wrote. I have two twin boys that are both 21 now. One boy, Curtis, wrote this poem for a class assignment—a poetry-writing assignment, I guess. I thought it was really clever. The words were so clever and so whimsical. He was like, "Black and white, wrong and right." 

Now, after this horrendous political era we just tried to live through with all the bully-pulpit stuff we've had to deal with, I was scrolling through my notes and I found that again. I thought, "This is really relevant for our times that we're living through politically." But putting it in the context of something more fun—a funny take on it all—takes it away from being so heavy and dark.

It kind of sheds new light on a situation. It's a contrast from the heavy times we've had to live through and puts it in a different tonality.

Sounds like Curtis is pretty wise and perceptive. What do you learn from your boys?

You learn everything from your kids. Everything. Being a parent is not an easy thing to do. It's one of the bigger challenges you could ever face. Because when you love somebody that much and you're trying to help them survive through their own childhood. Because you care. Because you love somebody even more than your own life, your own self.

It's bigger than you are and you're responsible for it. The best thing you could ever possibly try to do is keep them alive long enough to figure it out for themselves.

How about "Walk Away"?

That's a story about a toxic relationship that you have to get out of. You have to face the truth of how you've enabled yourself to be hurt and you've enabled the relationship to go bad. It's kind of self-examination of "OK, I have to be brave enough to get this out of my life and take responsibility for what my part in it was." 

It's kind of complex, but it's definitely a truth that we've all had to face at some point in our own relationship lives. There are some unhealthy things sometimes that leave behind.

Were you thinking of any particular relationship or was it a composite of relationships throughout your life?

[Laughs] Well, I'm not going to admit exactly what that's all about. There's been more than one! So, it's a conglomerate of various situations I've found myself in that I had to get out of and get over.

Nancy Wilson

Photo: Jeremy Danger

How about "The Dragon"?

"The Dragon" is something I wrote back in the '90s. After the '80s, we went home to Seattle. That was a time when all the Seattle bands were exploding. I thought, "Oh, no! They're going to hate us because we're '80s dinosaurs!" But they were really sweet on us and we got pretty close with those guys.

At the time, our friends from Alice in Chains … Layne Staley was still walking around and talking. But he was definitely on a course that everyone could see. It was going to go badly. He was going to self-destruct. We all saw that coming. He was a sweet soul, you know? It was hard to see that inevitable demise. He was letting himself go down that dark ladder.

So, that's when I wrote that song. He was still alive, but everyone could see that. That's what that song was about. It's sort of a cautionary tale, but it's also a very heavy message because I don't think he had a chance against that dragon. It was just a sad story in advance of the sadder story.

That's been around for a long time. It never was destined to be a Heart song, although we tried to do that song a few times, in a few ways. It was on the Roadcase Royale album, which is called First Things First. That was a nice version of it. Somebody from the record company—my main guy, Tom Lipsky, from Carry On Music—said, "You've gotta do 'The Dragon' on your album!"

So, it was back by popular demand. I think this is the best version of that song yet. So far.

That's cool you knew Layne. I personally declare Dirt to be the most powerful album ever written about addiction.

Oh, for sure. Right? I love that band. I was so close with Jerry [Cantrell], Mike [Starr] and Sean [Kinney]—and William [DuVall], now. Mike Inez was actually in Heart for a while after Layne disappeared. He was our bass player for five years, I think. Michael Inez is one of the funniest humans on the planet, for Christ's sake. A seriously funny person. Maybe the funniest person I've ever met in my life.

How about "We Meet Again"?

That's kind of a take-off on Paul Simon. I cut my teeth on Paul Simon's stuff when I was nine, 10, 11 and 12. Early on in my playing life, as an acoustic guitar player. I'm actually glad I didn't get sued by Paul Simon because that basic guitar part in the song was a cue in Jerry Maguire, which was based on a Paul Simon-type fingerstyle part.

I kind of took that and ran with it and put lyrics to it, because I already had written it. I had already put that part together for the movie. If there's anyone to plagiarize besides Paul Simon, I suppose I could plagiarize myself [laughs]. That's the first thing I wrote for this album and I was just trying to touch base with my earlier self—my college-girl self with the poetry that I used to explore before I was in Heart.

Is Paul Simon the greatest living songwriter?

He's definitely in the top three, in my estimation. There's Joni Mitchell, there's Paul Simon, and of course, you have to include Bob Dylan in there. Maybe the Beatles. Those are the four pillars of greatness, I think, in music.

What about the last tune, "4 Edward"?

I wanted a tribute to Eddie [Van Halen]. When he passed away, I was really sad, of course. I was very moved to try to pay tribute to him in some way. 

When we used to be in the same place together in the '80s—we did some shows with those guys—he told me he thought I was a really great guitar player on the acoustic. I was like, "How can you say that? You're the best guitar player on the planet! Why don't you play more acoustic yourself?" He said, "Well, I don't really have an acoustic guitar." Then, I promptly gave him one: "OK, you have one now."

The next morning, at the crack of dawn, he called my hotel room and played me this amazing instrumental on the acoustic I gave him. It was just one of the most beautiful things I'd ever heard. Just an exciting, inspirational moment, although he'd probably been up all night partying. So I thought I would return the favor and make him a piece of instrumental music on the acoustic guitar.

That's what I did. I put a little piece of the song "Jump" in there. I tried to approximate what I vaguely remembered from what he played me that morning.

I know things have been kind of hot and cold with your main project over the last few years. How would you describe your personal and creative relationship with Ann today?

Well, that's a loaded question. I think we're fine. We both kind of welcomed the break from each other and from Heart in a certain way. 

I think there's a certain blessing inside the larger curse of the whole shutdown we've been living through. Personally, I feel like it's been a relief and a chance to reorganize who I am, thinking of who I am inside the larger picture of Heart and who I am outside of Heart altogether. 

There's a lesson in this shutdown for me, and part of it is to remember who I am without defining myself as somebody in Heart. Which is a beautiful reckoning, I think. 

There's an offer for Heart to go out in 2022. I think that would be awesome to do that. I would want to do that. But having been outside of the world of it and the pressure of it and the framework of it for this long now has been very freeing. I feel I've gained a lot of momentum as a person because of it.

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Brian Wilson

Brian Wilson

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Brian Wilson And The Zombies Announce "Something Great From '68" Joint Tour

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GRAMMY winner Wilson will primarily perform material from The Beach Boys' 1968 and 1971 albums, 'Friends' and 'Surf's Up,' while the British psych rockers will play their classic 1968 LP, 'Odessey and Oracle,' in full
Ana Monroy Yglesias
GRAMMYs
May 7, 2019 - 1:46 pm

GRAMMY winner Brian Wilson and British psych-rock group The Zombies have announced a joint tour aptly titled Something Great from '68. The 15-show U.S. trek kicks off in Las Vegas on Aug. 31 and wraps up on Sept. 26 in New York City.

Wilson will perform primarily Beach Boys material from their 1968 album Friends and 1971 LP Surf's Up. The albums were the pioneering surf-rock group's 14th and 17th studio albums, respectively. He'll be joined on stage by former bandmates Al Jardine and Blondie Chaplin for the full tour.

Related: Remembering The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds': For The Record

The Zombies, whose current touring lineup consists of founding members Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone, will open each show by playing their classic 1968 LP, Odessey and Oracle, in full. The British group's sophomore album includes songs like "Time Of The Season" and was recorded at two iconic London studios: Abbey Road and Olympic.

Beginning with the third show, in Pala, Calif. on Sept. 7, the pair will reunite with fellow co-founding band members Chris White and Hugh Grundy. The quartet will perform together for the remaining dates, which include stops at the historic Greek Theater in Los Angeles on Sept. 12, the intimate Fox Theatre in Oakland, Calif the following day, and a final tour stop at New York City's Beacon Theatre on Sept. 26.

"It's been quite a year and I'm ready to go out and tour some music that makes everyone have a feel good vibe. The Friends album has always been one of my favorites, and I love the music from that time in history," Wilson said in a statement on his website.

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Tickets go on sale this Friday, May 10, with the pre-sale beginning tomorrow May 8. More info can be found on both The Zombies' and Brian Wilson's websites.

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Pat Monahan

Pat Monahan in 2002

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Train's Pat Monahan Revisits Every Song On 'Drops Of Jupiter' 20 Years Later: "I'm A Lot Happier Than I Was Back Then"

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Pat Monahan wrote Train's most successful album, 2001's 'Drops of Jupiter,' in a whirlwind of sudden fame and destabilizing grief. Now, he looks back on it with two decades' worth of hindsight
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
Mar 26, 2021 - 6:34 am

What do the Rolling Stones' session pianist Chuck Leavell and Leonard Cohen's string orchestrator Paul Buckmaster have in common? They both appeared on Train's "Drops of Jupiter." 

While the song may conjure the Y2K adult-contemporary boom more than those vintage artists, the two studio veterans' presence speaks volumes. No matter which way your tastes flicker, "Drops of Jupiter" is a classy tune. Not that Train singer, Pat Monahan, was thinking about that at the time. A married father in his late twenties touring the world on their early hit "Meet Virginia," Monahan felt destabilized by sudden fame, struggling to square his his tour life with his home life.

Sure, he might have commanded a stage in front of adoring fans, but that didn't mean much while crying on a payphone near the venue afterward. Why? At the time, his mother was terminally ill—and her eventual passing is what inspired "Drops of Jupiter," released on their album of the same name 20 years ago on March 27, 2001. In the hit song, Monahan wonders where his mother might be: "But tell me, did you sail across the sun?/ Did you make it to the Milky Way/ To see the lights all faded/ And that heaven is overrated? " he asks.

"I wrote that song in 15 minutes," Monahan tells GRAMMY.com over Zoom. "I fell asleep and woke up and it was like my mom tapped on the shoulder, and she was like, 'Let's go. I've got it for you. Let's go write this.' And it was a story about her telling me what the afterlife was."

While Monahan admits the title track—which was nominated for Record Of The Year and Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal at the 2002 GRAMMY Awards show— "consumed" the album, other tunes like "I Wish You Would," "Hopeless" and "Something More" provide further breadcrumbs as to his state of mind.

As for the rest of the album? Monahan, now the only sole founding member in the band, mostly stands by it, even if he admits he was miserable at the time. GRAMMY.com spoke with Monahan about memories behind every song on Drops of Jupiter, how Leavell and Buckmaster got involved, and why he's happy never to return to this well of sorrow.

Does it feel like Drops of Jupiter came out two decades ago?

I never really think about that, but yeah. I suppose it does. A lot has happened in 20 years. I'm a lot happier than I was back then. I think that whole album is based on a lot of sadness and questions and really not having faith in the future, but now, it's a different life that I live. So, it's pretty cool to look back at that.

What was going on in your emotional life at the time?

Well, I was in a bad relationship, and I was traveling so much and I had children. It was after the first album that had "Meet Virginia" on it. It was still a time [when] there was no real money. We sold a million albums but it didn't mean that I was living in any type of luxury at all. The only thing I was able to do at that point was to pay off my credit card debt. 

We were traveling the U.S. and Canada. We may have even gone to Australia with it, but we never really went to Europe or anything. There wasn't a big push in Europe for "Meet Virginia," so writing the second record was, I would say, more pressure than I've ever felt in my life. 

We knew [we needed to write] some type of song that people would care about or the chances of making another record were going to be slim.

Tell me about "She's On Fire."

"She's On Fire" was a fantasy. There were moments on that first tour that I met a lot of people, and I was seeing so many beautiful faces and meeting boys and girls and everything you could think of. But I was married, so there was no anything I could do about any kind of attraction I might have had. So, I had to write songs instead. "She's On Fire," I think, was a fantasy of, like, "Man. This is the magic of what a relationship should feel like."

We thought that was an obvious first single. We just thought that was the coolest song ever. When we listen now, it's obvious that it's not. But nobody else thought it was a first single, and we were really surprised. So everything obvious in my career is never the single. I should never judge what a single sounds like because it's the weird ones that make it to the forefront of radio and peoples' brains.

What about it struck you guys as the obvious first single?

It had tempo. We thought [sings hook] "She's on fiiiiiire!" would appeal to whether you liked pop radio or country radio or whatever. That sat there in a great American way. Americana, I should say.

I'm looking at the chart position. It did respectably.

It did OK. Not like we imagined. And I think it came from the fact that "Drops of Jupiter" was so big that it still had some momentum, even though the second single was supposed to be a song called "Something More." But it got dumped because of 9/11. We shot a music video for it [where] I was climbing up a sky-rise building and 9/11 happened and everything changed.

So, we went to "She's On Fire," but it was years—It seemed like two years after "Drops of Jupiter." Sometimes, a song can be so big that it can consume the entire album, and that's kind of what happened.

Tell me about "I Wish You Would."

That was more about a fantasy of what I had always hoped to go home to. Being on the road for months and months and months and coming home, my fantasy was to come home to someone who was as excited to see me come home as I was excited to be home. That kind of thing. That's what that song's about.

That entire album is either me apologizing for shit or hoping for things, and it continued into the next album, with "Calling All Angels." That was the end of that period for me.

From what you've described regarding the first few tunes, it seems like there was a tension between home life and tour life.

Of course! I mean, I was 28, 29. My son was born when I was 23, and I was sober. I had been sober for a long time because I knew what it was going to take for a guy from Erie, Pennsylvania, to try to be successful to be in a potentially dangerous industry. Everyone around me was partying and having multiple fun relationships and I was just working.

Now, we get to the big one. Obviously, a product of grief. A really personal one and also the biggest hit.

Yep. You know, somebody asked me the other day about that, because I had lost my mother that year and we were writing and it was hard to be inspired by anything when a boy loses his mom. It was very tragic. 

But somebody asked me, "How do you feel that potentially the biggest song of your career means so much to you?" I was like, "Wow, I've never really thought about that." It wasn't a fluke. It wasn't like, "Oh yeah, we just came up with [mimics guitar riff] 'Doo-dow-now-now!' or whatever." It's a really heartfelt moment for me, so I guess I should be more appreciative. I've never really thought about that.

I wrote that song in 15 minutes, man. I fell asleep and woke up and it was like my mom tapped on the shoulder, and she was like, "Let's go. I've got it for you. Let's go write this." And it was a story about her telling me what the afterlife was. "I can swim through the planets if I want to. I can do whatever I want."

One thing about "Drops of Jupiter" that a lot of people don't talk about is that it had two veterans on it—Paul Buckmaster and Chuck Leavell.

Chuck Leavell, man. He made that song as magical as it could have been because he gave it that bounce. [mimics piano-and-drums groove] I think he played it three times and we were like, "That's good. You're good. Thank you!" He's that special?

Was that the label's push, to get a pro on there?

No, actually. That was Brendan O'Brien. We recorded that record in Atlanta, and we did not have "Drops of Jupiter." I wasn't a Pearl Jam fan, but there's a song called "Better Man" that was on the radio, so I asked if I could look into that producer, and it was Brendan O'Brien.

When I asked if I could get Brendan O'Brien, they laughed at me: "Dude, you're not a big enough band." He was about to record the Limp Bizkit album, and something happened where it was postponed or whatever and Fred Durst backed out, or something. So, Brendan, all of a sudden, was open and he took the project.

Chuck Leavell is also a Georgian, and he owns a tree farm in Georgia. He called Chuck because Chuck was an hour away and he came and did it, and it was that easy.

How about Paul Buckmaster? His string arrangement is gorgeous.

That was actually [music executive] Donnie Ienner's idea. When we didn't have a single, we also had an agreement in the band that we weren't to write outside the band. Which really put shackles on us, but we weren't aware of it at the time. You protect things that you end up breaking.

I was being asked to meet Donnie Ienner in New York, and he was about to say, "You have to write outside the band. It's time." Because we didn't have the hit he wanted. It was two days before that meeting when I dreamt "Drops of Jupiter."

So, I went to New York to have that meeting with him and I had a demo of it in my pocket. That's when I played it for him. At the time, Almost Famous was the biggest movie in the country and Elton John's songs were all over it. So as soon as Donnie heard the song, he was like, "Paul Buckmaster has to do the strings." He was so fired up about this whole thing.

Before I knew I would be doing this interview, I learned Leavell and Buckmaster were involved from a Rick Beato deconstruction on YouTube. Have you seen that?

Yeah, I have. It's pretty interesting!

Did it teach you anything about your own song, in a way?

You know what it taught me? Humans will overthink anything! Why did he throw that ball that way? Well, I'll tell you why! Because in fifth grade, he met a girl called Sheila! Who knows what anything is, you know?

The next tune is "It's About You."

That was an attempt to write a hit song. This is what you get stuck doing sometimes. 

Let's say you're making a sad album. Today would be different than it was when I was trying to become something. Today, you could go make a sad album and then 15 minutes later go make a different album. And you have a computer, so you can make three albums in a week, or whatever.

But when you have one chance to make an album and it potentially costs a couple of hundred thousand dollars, you start to want to feed the machine that's going to feed you. That was a song that we thought, "Man, it's got tempo and this cool drum bit and whatever."

We played it for years live and people seemed to like it because we needed that type of song, but it didn't make a huge impression on people.

I'm a songwriter myself, and I think we all have material that feels like juvenilia. It's not us anymore. Can you still inhabit the self that made this album?

Of course. It's like looking at—I wouldn't say a lesser me, but a part of me that needed to do this to be better at certain things.

My manager and I talked the other day and he was like, "Man, we're listening to these songs you wrote that didn't make the album. There's a handful of them. Your melodies are so much more complex and thought-through and better." When I think of "It's About You," I just think of [mimics goofy cadence]. There's no melody there. It's just a guy trying to rap who can't.

It's funny in some regard, but in another way, I needed to be a young guy trying to figure stuff out.

How about "Hopeless"?

That was a pretty important song to me.

Tell me about it.

When I was [touring], "Hopeless" was, like, I was hopeless. I felt hopeless all the time. It's a wild trip. The importance of love in a human body, that need for love and affection and somebody to look at you with love, is so necessary. I was writing songs just like, "Man, I'm writing as a voyeur. I'm writing somebody else's life, but it's just like a reflection of my own."

How about "Respect"?

That was a very particular song about a guy that I went to grade school who I and my friends didn't treat properly. We're friends today and I love him a lot. He's a wonderful guy. But I have a lot of regret about a certain couple of years of my young childhood life.

Not beating people up or anything. It wasn't like that. But it was "bully" enough that it excluded him. And that exclusion made us, the others, feel closer. That's what happens when kids are not kind. I really regretted that and still do, and that's what that song is about. Everybody needs respect, and now I know that, so I'm sorry.

How did he react to the song?

You know, he's such the kind of fella—he's a bodybuilder and could beat me up 1,000 times a day if he wanted. 

His lesson during that wasn't to hold a grudge, thankfully. His lesson was "I've just got to get through this," and he did. And he became a big, tough, strong guy so he wouldn't have to deal with guys like me and other people anymore. We all learned what we were supposed to, I suppose.

"Let It Roll."

That was the biggest song about my mom. That was the heartbreaking "I'm lost now." I was on tour during the "Meet Virginia" days with no cellphone, no Internet, no connection to anybody. 

The way I found out my mother was terminally ill was [through] my sister. [She] said, "Hey, so-and-so's coming to your concert tonight." She came and left me a card and the card said, "Your mom's really sick. You need to call her." 

So after the show, I went outside the venue to a payphone and just cried on the phone with my mom for an hour, with her telling me that she was going to be sick for what we hoped was going to be a long time, but it wasn't. She was gone quickly, but that's what that song is about: "I don't know how to let this thing roll, but I've just got to remember you'll be in me forever."

That's so rough, dude.

It's so f**king hardcore, dude. You don't want to have that moment ever.

"Something More."

It wasn't the magic that "Drops of Jupiter" was, but we thought it at the time. That was my speaking out against the life I was living: "I'll get through this and I'll be something more." You think you're something more right now, that you're above this, but it's going to flip.

It was at a weird time because as I said before, we were trying to write only within the band. Our drummer at the time, his name is Scott. He wasn't writing anything, so I was like, "Dude, learn how to write. We all have to write within this project. Go do it." 

So he got the keyboard and wrote the [mimics vamp] because he was a novice writer. He was writing whatever he felt in those weird minor keys and stuff. Nobody else was really writing that, so it became a fun little project to jump-start somebody's writing style.

Before we hit the last three songs, tell me what it was like to be frightened and on tour and newly famous during that boom for the music industry. I guess it was a boom, right? In the early 2000s? That high of being on stage versus sobbing on the payphone with your mom, that's such a crash to Earth.

It never really felt like a boom. It just never did. Because there's a thing that happened where "Meet Virginia," it was an underground [success]. When people find a new band, it's like ownership. I found them, I turned you on to them, you like them because of me—it's ownership. A feeling of "I just found my jam."

"Drops of Jupiter" was so big on pop radio that we almost had to transition from real fans to now pop fans. And pop fans are fickle. They deteriorate. They move on to the next thing. So, it wasn't a boom. It was a transition, and we had to figure out how to get used to it. 

Like, did we just lose all the people we gained by touring for three years with a little old song that's like a cool car? And now we're in a Bentley and they're like, 'You've changed'? We had to figure out how to navigate that.

We've got four minutes left. "Whipping Boy."

Yeah, that was me just being me. We were listening to records that were, like, Sparklehorse. At the time, Whiskeytown, when Ryan Adams just started that project, and his guitar tone. We were trying to emulate some of those vibes. That was the darker side of what we loved musically.

How about "Getaway"? 

That was my jam at the time because I got to play the vibraphone on it. It just felt "jazz" to me, and I grew up listening to jazz. That was a song kind of about my parents' relationship.

Lastly, we've got "Mississippi."

That was the sleeper. That was everybody's favorite song on the album.

Whoa.

It was "vibe." You know, nowadays—and I think it's really cool; I like where music's at—we listen to vibes. Instead of "Hey, check out this album," it's more of a playlist of things that have whatever in common. That was our vibe song. I'd like to make a record of vibe songs like "Mississippi" someday.

I've got one last question. Where did the muse—or whatever you want to call it—lead you from Drops of Jupiter?

Well, it went from "Somebody please come and help me" to finding real love. True love from somebody I'm supposed to be with. 

So then, when I wrote "Hey, Soul Sister" and "If It's Love" and the happier songs, this was also a transition because people were like, "Well, that's not the same sad guy that I remember, so I'm not sure if this is for me." And I'm like, "Well, that's good because I'm going to stay here. I don't want to go back to that other thing! Your joy is coming from real misery from me, and I've got to move on, too."

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Daniel Lanois

Daniel Lanois

Photo: Ward Robinson

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Daniel Lanois On Why A 1,000-Year-Old Tree Informed His New Album, 'Heavy Sun' & Working With Bob Dylan, U2

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Daniel Lanois has produced everyone from U2 to Bob Dylan to Neil Young. But as his ascendant new album 'Heavy Sun' demonstrates, his artistry begins with his musicianship
Morgan Enos
GRAMMYs
Mar 24, 2021 - 3:59 pm

Some people think of a producer as someone who stays behind the board and doesn't join the band, but that's not what the seven-time GRAMMY winner Daniel Lanois is about—and it never has been.

On a bunch of records—even the ones the non-music fan in your life probably owns—Lanois has not only produced but sang, played and consulted. He added spindrifts of pedal steel to Brian Eno's Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks, belted along with U2 on "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and played guitar all over Bob Dylan's devastating Time Out of Mind. And on Neil Young's craggy, cavernous 2010 album Le Noise—an album cheekily named after Lanois—he even vetted Young's lyrics and made suggestions for improvement.

That said, even his work with those musical titans doesn't encompass his self-expression as a music-maker. Since the late 1980s, Lanois has also released his own records, including one with his Black Dub project and another with the electronic artist Venetian Snares. His latest, Heavy Sun, which arrived March 19, is a nod to the organ players Lanois grew up listening to, like Jimmy Smith. The tunes therein, including "Tree of Tule," "Tumbling Stone" and "Angels Watching," hinge on naturalistic, archetypal images.

"I think there's just something very human about it," Lanois says about the feeling of small-room organ music. "It has neighborhood; it has congregation."

This is why he sang Heavy Sun in tandem right at the console with his collaborations: "When we harmonize together, we're not thinking about standing out. We're thinking about blending," he explains. "So we all have to blend as singers, but I think the congregation has [that] blend in it. You leave your troubles on the street and you come to the place of worship."

Turn up the joyful Heavy Sun, and you might feel your troubles lift. GRAMMY.com gave Lanois a ring about the process that informed the new album, why a millennium-old tree inspired a song, and the stories behind the classics he made with U2, Dylan and Eno.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Gospel and organ music are big influences on you. Which artists from those spheres are foundational for you?

On the road, I visited a few nightclubs. This was back in the day, in the '80s, in the south. There was a promoter that was dragging us to a few stops, and we ended up in a couple of late-night spots. I don't even know who was at the organ, but they were local heroes. I remember being in these greasy little spots and hearing a kind of nighttime organ playing. I went, "Oh my goodness." It felt really fabulous and it was welcoming and dangerous at the same time.

I grew up listening to Booker T. and Jimmy Smith. And then, more recently, I bumped into Cory Henry. Do I have that right? I believe so, yeah. He's a contemporary organist. I was introduced to him by Brian Eno. [We] were at a festival in New York and Cory was playing. I was really touched by his playing. And, of course, our great Johnny Shepherd [who] is in the band. He's a master church organist.

I just love organ records. I think they're a pure form and the bass is always in tune. [chuckles]

Heavy Sun gives me that sense of uplift I feel from Bob Marley or The Impressions. Or, as per those organ records, Jimmy Smith. How would you describe that ineffable something that lifts these gospel-inspired records?

Well, that's a lovely compliment to have any kind of association with the masters you mentioned. We've got a line in one of the songs, "Under the Heavy Sun," that says, "An imaginary nightclub that you go to, somewhere in outer space/ Where you get to leave your ego hanging at the door." 

There's just something very welcoming about the sound of organ music and a sense of joy that rises up from that. Maybe it's because we're accustomed to associating the Hammond organ as a sound that comes from the smaller churches—the Baptist churches, the ones that couldn't afford the gilded ceilings and pipe organs.

There's something a little bit "street" and "neighborhood" about that sound. Even the little pump organs in the smaller chapels where I grew up, some of them didn't even have electricity—that's how far back it goes.

Tree of Tule

A massive burl in the Tree of Tule.

I noticed some archetypal images in the lyrics—stones, trees and angels. Were you reaching for something encompassing and timeless?

Well, angels never go out of fashion! Even an atheist likes an angel. Maybe it's the tap on the shoulder or that inner voice that allows you to make a good decision at a certain bend in the road.

But, you know, we've got a thousand-year-old Tree of Tule, so that's a good one. Tule is a little village I visited when I was driving through Mexico sometime back. I drove from Mexico City to Oaxaca and came upon Tule, and they had a thousand-year-old tree. It was in parquet and people were praying under the tree. They were not praying to the tree. The tree was a place of congregation.

So, there's something timeless about something that's lived for a thousand years, that came up out of the ground in the absence of technology. I guess those kinds of tonalities on the record remind us that [while] we are living in fast, high-tech times, some of the things we like and respond to have always been there.

What's your favorite tune of the bunch, if you have one?

I like "Way Down." We listened to "Way Down" last night and I realized it's a little jewel of sorts because it talks about an imaginary place that we might get to, geographically or otherwise. 

There's a term [from] when I worked with the Neville Brothers. Art Neville used this term: "Oh, that's an old-folks-and-babies song." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "That song will touch everybody, somehow." So, we've had lovely comments on that song from grandmothers, from little kids, from hip-hop people. They say, "I like that song!" So, that one's one of my favorites. I think it's got a universal spirit. 

I also like "Dance On." It seems at first like, "OK, you feel like you want to dance, dance on." But then as it unfolds, Johnny really goes for it. I like that he breaks on through to the other side. And this is what we look for when we make records: we get to a place we don't even know exists. 

We call them "lift-offs." And if we're lucky enough to hit that magic point where lift-off happens, then we thank our lucky stars and we try to include it on the record. I believe "Dance On" has that in Johnny's delivery.

So you were sitting around listening to the record last night?

Last night at the studio, we put on a couple of tracks because I hadn't heard the record since I mixed it. I had a couple of friends over and we were reveling in the glory of finished work [chuckles]. We found the soul-ometer went on a couple of times. I felt pretty proud as a papa.

I believe that's what people respond to ultimately in music outside of the stylistic specifics. We want music to touch us, raise the spirit and take us someplace. I think we brought it to that place a few times on this record, I hope. 

And the likes of you, people like yourself taking an interest in our work, who might help spread the gospel and get it on the airwaves. If somebody feels a little bit of joy and maybe they want to start living a better life, being a better person from hearing a few notes, then: Job well done.

I wrote down a question about peoples' response to the record, and if they felt that warmth and camaraderie during this period of isolation. From what you're describing, they absolutely did!

I've been getting comments that way. People are thankful that this was made. This record was largely made before the pandemic, and everyone's feeling isolated now. I think it's been quite a reset button for everybody. So if there's something in this music that resonates with people that way, then I'm very pleased that it is.

But we wanted to say a little something about a kind of freedom that we'd like to get to, as people. "Tumbling Stone" has that in it. I said, "Johnny, how are you feeling, man?" because Johnny's from Shreveport, Louisiana, and he came to Los Angeles to make this record with us. It was hard for him to leave home because he's a choir leader, a church organist and a church singer. So he had to leave his church.

And I said, "Johnny, but you still have the church in you! We're operating in a church with no walls. We get to be traveling ministers of sorts and if we can touch a few hearts along the way, isn't that a great way of spreading the gospel?" So we wrote about it: "I left my home on a pilgrimage/ A church with no walls," and all this.

I thought we addressed our own experiences and put them in songs. I think the listeners respond to songs from a truthful place from the writers.

You cited "freedom" as an operative word. What stands in the way of freedom for people? When you think of that concept, what comes to mind?

I see a lot of confinement. Oftentimes, self-confinement. In the neighborhoods I grew up in, a young man is a man when he gets a student loan and applies for a mortgage, and then is shackled by that for a very long time. So there might be a more bohemian point of view, to sidestep these shackles and chains. 

It could be that a world could be entered that is not so driven by the usual pressures of loans and mortgages. Maybe there's something to be learned from the traveler, or the person who does not embrace those kinds of expectations—[who chooses] not to be living on credit cards. 

Maybe the pandemic is chasing us in that way of enjoying the growth of your own food, and appreciating where they come from, and how to be wiser with your spending and think about the impact we have on our neighborhoods and our planet.

To take it back to Heavy Sun a bit, what can you tell me about how you built these tracks from the ground up, on a technical level?

[Some] of them were built with a beatbox beginning. For example, "Way Down" has a little rhythm box that we played the song to. It was very layered. I started with my acoustic guitar—my little Guild acoustic guitar with a magnetic pickup on it—and the beatbox allows us to use echoes. So, I had a nice little triplet echo on my Guild acoustic and I laid down a couple of those.

Then, we put on the organ. The organ plays the bass line, to get back to what we said earlier, how the bass is always in tune when it comes from the organ. So we have the luxury of a very nice bottom end on that. And then we decided we would split the verses, so Rocco DeLuca—my good friend and a great singer—joins me, and we sing the first verse in tandem.

And then, the whole group comes in on the chorus, and then Johnny on the next verse. Something I always liked on records by The Band in the '70s—Robbie Robertson and The Band—was splitting vocals. So we revisited that idea to give it that feeling of a group of four singers.

Other things were more freewheeling. [For] "Dance On," I had an invitation [to play] from a dancer friend of mine, Carolina Cerisola, a great Argentinian dancer. She was at a little dance club, and she said, "I don't have a song and I don't have a band." It was a solo number she was invited to do. 

So I said, "Well, let's go down. We'll pay you a visit and we have a song called "Dance On," funny enough." And so in live performance, we recorded that version for her night and that's the version I got on the record. We hear them by hook or by crook. Ultimately, whatever provides the most magical feeling is what we go for.

All the singing was done right at the recording console because I do all my own punches and running back [and forth]. I invited singers to join me at the console and we sang to the speakers—no headphones and no vocals in the speakers. You can think of it as kitchen singing. 

A lot of producers I know bang the drum of analog—analog this, analog that. So, I'm interested in how you blended analog and digital textures.

Obviously, we move with technology. I use a digital recorder. But to use a photographic analogy, we don't throw away our old lenses. We might have a digital back, but we still find a way to still use our old Carl Zeiss lenses, let's say. If a ribbon microphone sounds better on the voice, then let it be. That doesn't mean to say if we have a brand-new, shiny, sizzly mic [that we won't use it].

We appreciate that certain pieces have stayed with us. My echo machines are the same ones I've been using for a long time, for example. But we're not afraid of technology. I have this process called dubbing. I extract from an available ingredient in the multitrack, sample it and then spit it back in once I've processed it.

You may hear some orchestral tones in the distance on some of these tracks, and we didn't have an orchestra in, obviously. Some of that sound comes from my stereo technique and my dubbing technique.

Daniel Lanois and Lucinda Williams

Lucinda Williams and Daniel Lanois perform at The GRAMMY Foundation's "Music In Focus" in 2009. 

When you consider the totality of your self-expression, where do your solo records sit as opposed to your production work?

It's all bleeding together more than ever. In regard to my solo work and production work, let me clarify that for any record I produce, I'm a musician in the room with the artist, usually. I'm a musician first, so I've always felt that kind of exchange with people I work with, including Bob Dylan and U2. They always welcome me as a member of the orchestra.

My contribution to production is largely my musicianship. There's plenty of people that do great work with technology and probably some better than me. But in regard to my aesthetic and my taste and what drives me, it all comes from a musical place. Every record I work on I learn from, and I take those lessons and bring them to my own work.

But when I'm working by myself on my solo recordings, I'm surrounded by people who I trust and are good mates. So they become producers, really. I can take that hat off for a minute and listen to good advice from my buddies.

You brought up Dylan and U2, and it might be elucidating for readers to hear a couple of stories about your production work. Can you narrow that down to three records you consider the most memorable?

I love all of my children, but I have fond memories of some of my work with U2. The Joshua Tree was done at a very potent time of devotion. We were very interested in experimentation with sounds and mixing technology with hand-playing. 

The Joshua Tree had that in "With or Without You," which became a very popular song. We started with a little beatbox, for example. We put the drums on after. But more importantly, we were really focused, in a lovely setting in a beautiful farmhouse outside of Dublin. We had nowhere to go. We just rolled up our sleeves and concentrated on our work.

Then, winding the clock ahead to Germany and making Achtung Baby with U2. Monumental time. The wall [in Berlin] had just come out. It was winter; it was rock 'n' roll, but it was bleak. And the bleakness of it kept us in the warm studio. And, again, the limitations were very much a part of what we were doing. 

Daniel Lanois in 1993

Daniel Lanois in 1993.

Let's move over to Time Out of Mind. That record was started in Oxnard, California, in a little Mexican theater.  Ultimately, we went to Miami, to Criteria, to finish the next chapter of the record. Bob wanted to assemble a large band this time, unlike the record I made with him called Oh Mercy, which was a very private record—just me and Bob in two chairs, mostly. This assembly of people made it such that we were afforded broader landscapes.

Jim Dickinson provided us with these very sophisticated musicians who provided us with the most amazing scapes—landscapes and skyscapes. It took us to a [magical] place a lot of times. We had the advantage of really greasy electric guitar work, but sophisticated details from Jim Dickinson. When you have 11 people in the room, you get a lot of results fast.

As a secret weapon, I had prepared these drum loops in New York from my friend Tony Mangurian. We had played along with some of the old blues records Bob wanted me to listen to—Charley Patton, Little Walter, Little Willie John. We did some backyard jams and I chose maybe a dozen loops of our best playing. I didn't include the original records; we just played along with them.

I vari-sped them at different speeds in anticipation of providing them to the two drummers in Miami—Brian Blade and Jim Keltner. The reason I'm saying all of this is that we were making a blues-based record and I wanted to have an insurance policy in case we fell into average blues, which I didn't want to do for Bob. I wanted to make sure we flew over the cuckoo's nest of barroom blues to take it to the future, at least emotionally.

So I used these loops four, maybe five times on the record. I fed them to the drummers in their headphones; Bob wasn't hearing them. When people came back into the control room to listen to the playbacks, they fed these loops in with what they played. The loops were magical to begin with, so it added this layer of magic to something that might have been more commonplace. I spoke with [some of the players] at one point and said, "Please leave expectations at the door. I don't want to hear any familiar guitar playing on this record. 

I'm [also] fond of the record I was asked to work on with Brian Eno, Apollo. We made that in Canada back in the day. We worked on a lot of ambient records together. That's another record that really transports a listener. It's the record that caused me to take my pedal steel guitar out of the closet. 

There's a track on there called "Deep Blue Day." If you ever saw the film called Trainspotting, "Deep Blue Day" shows up during the toilet bowl scene. But it's a record that takes you somewhere, and isn't that the job of art? That it would lift you out of your skin and take you someplace? It might just change a little something about your life for a minute.

How The 'Trainspotting' Soundtrack Turned A Dispatch From The Fringes Into A Cult Classic

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