Bill Adams vs Mark Sasso of Elliott BROOD
BA: …I don't know if I remembered to say congratulations on the show the other night, but it was pretty great and remarkable that you pulled it out like you did.
MS: Thanks! Yeah – it was pretty good.
BA: I thought it was great.
MS: Well, that's kind of our show, really. We view ourselves as entertainers and, the way we look at it, we've invited these people over so we want to try and talk to everybody and get them involved. That's what makes the night for us: getting people involved and getting them to lose their inhibitions a bit and inspire them to participate.
BA: And that's just it you know? It worked! I can safely say that I've been doing this for ten years and I've never been to a show where the band will just hang around on the main floor of the venue after they play, and people bring CDs and records that they just purchased off the merch table at the venue to collect autographs. That was just cool to see.
MS: It actually happens quite often for us. We've always seen hanging around after the shows as a sort of mutual appreciation; people are giving up their time to come see us, so the least we can do is be there and interact with them. Without them, we're not there and vice versa right? We enjoy that aspect of it; sometimes it can be hard to do it – especially in bigger venues – but when the room is just small and intimate, I like taking the time to do those things.
BA: I can definitely say there's no doubt it was appreciated. You pulled songs together for the set from each of your albums too….
MS: We did. We tried to concentrate a bit on the new record; like, I think we played eight out of the ten new songs. Our focus was certainly on the new material, and we have been playing songs that we don't normally play on tour too; we've been a band together now for quite a few years and we don't like playing the same set every night, so we mix it up to keep it as interesting for us as for the audience.
BA: I can understand that. I had the luxury of being able to sit pretty much anywhere I wanted in the room and watch everyone, and people were really having a riot.
MS: That's really our goal – we feel like, if we don't have that kind of show every time we play – where people are just loving it like they were in Waterloo – that we've failed them somehow. We really want to engage our audience and some of the shows are just absolutely epic; the show we played recently at the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver is a good example of that, it was insane. I don't know how many shows we've ever done which were comparable to that, but I think it's beginning to grow into that; I think people come to our shows kind of expecting to lose themselves in it now and that's what we like – that's what we want and, the more people talk the more people come to the shows and it just keeps building.
BA: I did notice that you were concentrating on the new record a bit at the show I caught, so what was the plan when you began making it? Was the plan to make something which could theoretically be performed in its entirety on stage? I mean, it really did should perfect.
MS: Well, I think that's been the goal with every record we've made – to be honest. I mean, I don't think we'd put a song on a record if we wouldn't be able to pull it off live; that has been a big rule for us and we kind of limit the amount of instrumentation that we put into a song; if we can't pull it off – if the core of the song isn't going to sound the same or be a likening to what we've recorded, they we won't do it. We've had that discussion where we set limits on ourselves as far as what we'll put on a record with an eye to how we'd present it on stage. We've sort of made sure we hold ourselves to that too by the WAY we record too – every record we've made, we recorded live off the floor so we know we can pull it off live and we also road test new songs beforehand when we're on tour.
BA: Really? You record everything live off the floor?
MS: We do. We do some overdubs afterward, but we start live off the floor. We've always looked at records as a moment in time and we try to capture that first – then we try to build on it a little afterward.
BA: I see. So how long was Days Into Years in the making then?
MS: It was probably about a year and a bit. Some songs didn't get finished lyrically until a couple of days before the record was all finished and locked. I know “My Mother's Side” was one which was like that, and a lot of that had to do with the fact that I wasn't really confident with it but Casey was really pushing for it to be on the record. He really wanted to work on it and really wanted to get it done, and that pressure actually helped me finish that song, but there were others too – like “Their Will” – which were still changing lyrically right up until the last minute. Musically, everything was honed pretty quickly, but it was the lyrics that I sort of toyed with constantly; I just wanted to make sure I had the right lyrics to tell the story the right way. The basis and skeleton of each of the songs was there, it was just the way we filled each out – like the harmonies and the lyrics and stuff like that – which took a little longer.
BA: I see. Now, after ten years, has the writing process established itself as ongoing? Like, are you guys still working on new songs even now before you head south of the border?
MS: Oh, for sure. Speaking for myself, I'm writing pretty constantly; just last week, I had a few minutes to myself so I turned on my dictaphone and recorded ideas for four different songs. I don't always have all the time in the world to write, but sometimes you just know when it's striking and you're able to get the basic idea down so you'll be able to play around with it later. I think that's sort of the clue that there's a bit of comfort in it now; where years ago, it would be like grasping at straws to write a song and just hoping it was good, I think eventually you get more comfortable and more aware of how to write – and I think that's where we are now; both Casey and I have tons of songs in the bank at this point, that's for sure. Right now, those songs have been banked because, while we liked the ideas, they didn't really fit with the ideas we were angling towards to put out as a record so they had to get held back. That doesn't mean they'll never come out – maybe next record or two down the road, the theme will suit a song that we had in the back catalogue, and that's when it'll come out. By the same token, sometimes songs just get left behind; like “The Banjo Song,” which was on a 7” and has been floating around since the day I bought a banjo pretty much, and it just just finally got recorded now. Casey really wanted it on Days Into Years, but it just didn't fit with what we were doing, I felt. After we'd completed the record, he completely understood what I was saying, but he really pushed for a while. Sometimes a song is good and all, but it has no choice but to be an orphan; and maybe it'll get out there and maybe it won't – you know?
BA: Well sure – I mean, there's a reason why Tom Waits put a record out which is called Orphans.
MS: [chuckling] Yeah – and he's a phenomenal artist! I'm pretty sure that record probably exists for the same reason I'm talking about: he didn't want to let the songs go because he saw value in them, it simly wasn't of value to the albums he had already released. I guess, when you're putting out a record, you're putting out a piece of art and you want it to be the best thing you've ever done – so bringing it down with something that doesn't fit just seems contrary to the point. If you were to look at it like a painting, why would you paint something into the image that just didn't fit? Sometimes it might be a mishmash like Orphans was for Tom Waits and maybe we'll do something like that someday but, until then, we'll just keep the good ones banked and see if they fit in somewhere later. We're kind of focused on putting out distinct art pieces for right now.
BA: I can totally understand that. Now, because you were saying that the writing is ongoing, is there the outside possibility that we may see a follow-up to Days Into Years even within the next eighteen months?
MS: Yeah for sure! I definitely want to and that's sort of what we've been talking about, we just have to make sure we have the time set to do it; I don't think I want to leave three years between records like we did between Days Into Years and Mountain Meadows – I think I want to get some more stuff finished. I mean, because our touring cycles are pretty consistent, a new release every three years has just been the timeline for us out of necessity, but I'm a little more eager now to step it up a bit. Not that I like the idea of recording something and then having it out the following week – I like having the time to sit with some music and let it gestate and editing it and making it proper and not releasing it until we're totally one hundred per cent happy with it – that's for sure.
BA: I can understand that, but it does beg the question of how much the songs really change between when you write them and when you record them.
MS: More than you know, actually. Even a song like “Lines,” we ended up re-recording it three times, cutting it up taking it back rearranging parts and ideas, opening it up and moving stuff around in it until we got to a place that we were happy with it.
BA: I can sort of understand that. I've just always wondered how much a song might change between its first inspiration and the last minute before it's done and available to the public.
MS: Well, the initial idea is always there for us between the beginning of the process and the end, but even changing a lyric can be pretty drastic for a song. Like “Their Will” is probably the hardest song I've ever written; there's no real verse in it, there's no real chorus in it, but there's still a flow and structure in it and I tried to blend the words together so one line would initiate the next and so on. Doing things like that lyrically can be tough; it took me three months to write that song, and it's not at all like the original draft.
BA: Oh wow – now I'm going to have to go back and listen to that song a lot more closely. Okay – so you've got a string of dates coming up south of the border – that's next – and then what?
MS: After that, we've got April and May off, and then I think we have Europe in June, followed by summer festivals in Canada and hopefully the US, and then I think we're going to do another tour of Canada in the fall, then possibly starting to record again but also touring the States… see, this is what I mean [chuckling] – it stacks up – the States again might be in January.
