The Road He's On: the transcript

On Friday, January 10, 2003, I interviewed Sonny Landreth at his home in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. Due to space constraints at the weekly newspaper where I worked at the time, I was unable to publish the entire interview. What follows is that entire interview. The edited version of this interview was published in the Jan. 22, 2003 issue of The Times of Acadiana.

Sony Landreth photo by Terri Fensel

You've said before that your last album, Levee Town, wrapped up the trilogy of albums you started with Outward Bound and followed up with South of I-10. Right now, how do you see The Road We're On?

As kind of cleaning the slate and starting over. I never really intended for those albums to really have any kind of connection, but as I would get into each of those as a project, the songs always seemed to write themselves. I feel like you have to honor that. That's the way it turned out.

But this was definitely more of a conscious effort to get back to some of the basics. I wanted it to be a simpler production. I wanted the sound to be more direct. I wanted to be playing live, much more like the gigs, and to be blues-inspired. In that regard, it's a very different album than the other ones.

For years now, there's been a rumor among your fans that you've been cloistered off in a cave working on "The Blues Album." Is that what this is?

(Laughs) I'd probably have to answer no.

But have you also heard that rumor?

I've heard something like that. One thing is that I didn't want to take three to five years to make an album. I wanted (it) to sound more fresh than that and to have more spontaneity.

I started writing these songs a year before and wrote probably 90 percent of those tunes in airports, in between flights, going through security checks - the plethora of logistics of getting from point A to B then C. So originally, I would have liked it to be more of a gut-bucket blues album, as some people might say. But as I got into the songwriting part of it and as the songs developed, it just took on a life of its own. I felt it was more important to be more true to that.

I don't know what I'd do. I guess I would probably do it even more stripped down with a National guitar and one microphone like Chris Whitley did.

Maybe some people will be disappointed if they're thinking it's a completely pure blues album. That's why I say it's more of a blues-inspired album. There's definitely the shuffles. There's slowed-down blues tunes, and there's also a couple of rockers, like a couple of blues rockers and a Cajun honky-tonk stomp. So, in that regard, it probably isn't that locked-in-the-cave, stone-blues album.

But I think it comes from that source. There's always been a blues tune on the albums. On Outward Bound there was "Speak of the Devil." On South of I-10 there was "Mojo Boogie" and on Levee Town there was "Broken Hearted Road." So being inspired by those particular songs is the approach we took to those sessions and getting those on tape. I wanted to do a whole album of that, and that's basically what we did.

So "The Blues Album" is a myth?

I'm not sure. In the back of my mind, something's always going on. There's an instrumental album I've been working on for a long time. I've got a lot of songs for that. I've got more blues tunes, too. I actually had to cut this one off. At one point you have to stop recording and move on to the next thing. So there are other songs that fall into that category. Perhaps there will be a collection of songs that will be a lot more straight ahead.

I have to say that some people call this straight ahead for the most part. I just wouldn't. I just don't really care. The blues has always been a point of reference for me. It's always been the thing that got me back into staying interested in playing the guitar and writing. With my early heroes, that music is what spoke to me, and also with the writing part of it, the story songs. When I finally did hear Robert Johnson as a kid, I flipped. I had never heard anything like that. So I go back to that.

I think more than anything I thought with this album I would approach the production somewhat like if you were listening to a Muddy Waters or a Willie Dixon album. It's a four-piece band, and there are four parts you hear. If it's a three-piece band, you hear three pieces. I added a few layers of acoustic with the National (guitar), Steve (Conn) played keys on four songs, and there's rubboard in the right places from Danny Kimball and Zydeco Joe (Mouton). That, to me, spiced it up enough. I think it still stays quite true to form as what we were doing live with it.

In fact, learning the songs first and going out and playing them and then going into the studio ‹ now there's a concept ‹ was the plan, which we did. I really liked the fact that we got out, played these songs and copped a groove before going into the studio and pinning it down for the first time, getting it fresh like that and still being spontaneous. Know just enough, but don't get to know it too well.

You just said, "There's a concept." Are you saying you usually work in reverse, nailing the songs before going into the studio?

A lot of times I have a vision or an idea or thought, and I make my demo here at home. For the most part, we're in the studio, and I'm showing these songs to the guys. Some of the songs would make their way into the set list, and the new songs perhaps would take a longer turn. Whereas this time, it was more about getting them out and seasoning them a bit before going in (to the studio). I think it paid off.

How long did it take y'all to record this record?

It took probably a couple of weeks, which for me is different. (Laughs)

It's been said that you're pretty meticulous in the studio. Is that fair?

That would be fair, a fair assessment. I have opened up to the strong possibility that perhaps now would be a good time to outline the space more, leave some parts left alone and honor the moment. If you're going to honor the song, in turn, you can honor the moment, too. It's two different things.

You make an album. It can be like a painting. I was thinking of that when we were out there yesterday at Elemore's (Morgan Jr.) place. He has this incredible art and these beautiful paintings, so full of vision, his heart and his soul. Recording a song, mixing a song and producing a song can be very much like that. You have different textures, different layers. You want to support the lyrics in a certain way at a certain point in the song. That's all really fascinating to me. I get really caught up in it. It is an art form.

On the other end of the spectrum, another way to do it, is that you go in and you just play what comes out in that point in time, just like on a gig. It's a different feel. That's basically what we wanted to capture this time around. It feels good, though. I think I'm going to be here for a while.

In some ways, this record feels like you're speeding down the road on an old truck. It's about to fall apart, but you're still trucking. The bolts are jiggling, but it still holds together.

It's a hurtle through space by the seat of your pants. There is an excitement about that because you're on the verge of either something quite grand or something quite frightening at all times. That brings out a certain kind of energy and excitement. That's very appealing. It always has been.

I think the difference with the production on the other albums is a different approach and philosophy. It all depends on what you want to accomplish and what you're shooting for. I like that it's more intimate. You really get surrounded by the nuances of each instrument. Every time you add something else to the mix, you're making a bigger sound overall, but you're thinning out individual voices and sounds. Each instrument you put in there has a combination of frequencies that define that instrument. It's all in how you treat it. That's what I like about it.

It's interesting too how you get on the same wavelength with people. When we went to record John Hiatt and The Goners' new album, which was a few months after I finished mine, we did the exact same thing, but taking it to another stage of the game for John. We went and did that without learning the songs at all. In fact, the idea was don't learn the song. Get it right to the point where you almost know it. That's taking a little bit more of a radical approach than I would, but when I got it back and listened to the mix, I love it. Everything sounds so big and spontaneous. That's what we've got on our project too. I like that a lot.

Does that take you back to the days of playing with Clifton Chenier, when he called it, you played it, and there was no time for thinking?

Absolutely. When he went in, he would record a whole album within a matter of a couple of hours. I was inspired by that with Blues Attack. For the most part, we went and cut the majority of those tracks in a couple of hours. I went back and did some acoustic tunes and Dave (Ranson) and I did an acoustic instrumental. Merlin Fontenot came in and played fiddle. We added little things to that to make it something special overall. But I like that. I like getting back to it. I don't know if I would treat the instrumental album in quite the same way. It might be a combination of the two.

But just because you don't polish something doesn't mean that it's sloppy. There's a difference. I've played with plenty of people who didn't care what they were doing. But there's a difference between that and laying it on the line and being brave enough to leave the mistake in.

Clifford Brown was a great trumpet player many years ago. That was one of the things that endeared him to so many people. He would be playing along and just take an approach on a solo that came out of left field. He'd hit a wrong note, or what would typically be thought of as a mistake, and that would propel him into another direction to play something brilliant. There's something about that that's sustaining. It's real music.

Maybe this is a little bit of a backlash from all the technical music being made and going through this era of time when these productions on television, forget it, you're not hearing anyone performing live music. A lot of that has escaped us over the years. When you go to hear a band or a concert and the magic happens right then and there, you're part of it. I think that's the intimacy, too. The drawing in brings people in and makes them part of the experience I was trying to point out earlier with this approach.

It's hard to listen to The Road We're On without reflecting back on Blues Attack. Does that strike you as well?

You're right. That's part of the model for the way we wanted to approach this album. I think, too, that you come to a point where you become more trusting. Maybe in 1981 I wasn't quite as trusting. Another thing is that I've always wanted to make albums that sounded good, and that takes time to do that. It takes time to learn how to do that. It takes time to go through that process.

Sonny Landreth Photo by Terri Fensel