Wide Mouth Mason

Part 1

0:00Alright got Sean Varro from widemouth mason now doing his own solo thing here in the studio. How are you? I'm good man. Thanks for having me in no worries enjoying Calgary so far What I've seen of it outside the window of the bus. Yeah, and in the club so far has been as delightful as Calgary I'm sure you've been here before many I have I've been here a bunch of times with widemouth mason and And it's for a while. It was almost like a second home. We were playing here so much All right. Well you guys are from around you. Well not that close right? No, we're from Saskatoon. Saskatoon. Okay cool. What's that three four hour drive something like that? Uh, it's about seven. Well, it could be three or four depending on who's driving But uh, yeah I always I generally even preface the interviews I do as a solo guy by saying that um the band isn't broken up

0:45Even though it generally seems like that when you see a guy playing on his own We just my line is that we're no longer musically monogamous So we have we have different projects that we do and I have some material that that Was asking just to be kept stripped down and acoustic and I didn't want to do that in the format of the band. Mm-hmm. So So yeah, I did some touring and a acoustic record called the dagger lip sketches kind of materialized of me doing exactly what we're doing right now with one Guitar and my voice and one microphone and I did a record that way and toured it for a while and and The people in the Kim Mitchell camp were nice enough to have me on for a couple of dates That's cool tonight flame central you're on in about 45 minutes. You have to get out of your suit Yeah, I'll you know this will be a good warm-up exactly very nice and the and the step tonight

1:32We were talking earlier. You said some wide mouth stuff some solo stuff Yeah, I do a mix of things. Um, it's it's pretty liberating to play acoustically as one guy Almost as liberating as it is terrifying. So imagine I I sprinkle some wide mouth Songs in there so people will go. Oh, that's that guy and and some solo stuff And sometimes just some spontaneous inventions Sometimes you get carried away and make stuff up just like you would do in your rehearsal space and and I like to try and access that That's awesome. Let's give people a song right now. Okay. What do you like playing? I'll start off with this is a brand new one In fact, it isn't even on the dagger lip sketches because it's so new but it'll be on a solo record coming up in the next little while This is called it's not me. It's you nice

2:19All set yeah No, it's rotten. I can smell it. I can tell you're telling a lie by your telling You didn't mean to do it. You never mean to do it, but it happens anyhow One of us is doing what we said we never do Baby, it's not me. It's you Someone's telling lies pretending that they're true

3:05Baby, it's not me it's you Oh No, your mouth is like a weapon. You say you never happened through your traffic jam team Oh, please stop of the pretending the messages you send are coming through in spite of you And one of us playing like we haven't got a clue Baby, it's not me it's you One of us is setting up a secret run it though Baby, it's not me it's you Baby, it's not me it's you I've something to show you and I take off your disguise

4:16You act like the awkward you can't be surprised No, no, no, no, oh No, but tonight well do what we always do You talk to me and I listen to you And I try to figure out of what you're saying is true I'll be talking to hear yourself talking again One of us maybe it's not me it's you

5:10One of us is setting up a secret run it though Baby, it's not me it's you Oh, one of us is playing like we haven't got a clue Baby, it's not me it's you One of us was caught but fought themselves free Now baby, it's not you it's me Oh, and I come here and I come closer

5:59And I come here and I come closer And I come here I've something to show Awesome fuel 90.3 it's about the music Sean Varro live in the studio I apologize What was the name of the song baby it's not you It's not me it's you It's not me it's you traffic jam teeth One of the lines and they like that that's different Thanks. That's cool Of course, it's not you it's me or it's not me it's you It always makes me think of Seinfeld, Costanza you know I'm seeing or is it in there? I invented it's not you it's me It's essentially like how people would tie a string around their finger to remember something And if I ever am in the sad position of having to break up with someone again

6:48It's to remind me to just tell the truth instead of Costanza in it Yeah, exactly there you go Is that tuned on a record or is that brand-grained? It will be I've in the last little while I've been working on a wide-mouth mason record with the guys and also on a solo record Sometimes one day after the other Oh really? And some parts of the solo record are a true solo performance And that I play drums, bass, keys and guitars and sing And on some of it I have some friends come in and back me up So that'll be coming out in the next little while And and probably a little bit after that will be the the next wide-mouth record That's cool How come you don't get the wide-mouth guys to back you up? If you need a drummer wouldn't you ask one or like what's the name Earl right? Well yeah Earl's the bass player and Saphuan is the drummer Oh sorry

7:33And the beauty of it is is to have completely different projects That not only are musically different but involve different people Or that can be stripped down to just acoustic And our bass player Earl has a sideband that's kind of like sublime Like an island rock kind of funk band And I think it's really healthy for a band when they've been together For over a dozen years to have some different outlets So that if I write a song and I really like it But it's not wide-mouth ask that we don't try and shoehorn it into fitting into the band That's cool Yeah balance is good Balance is good Everything in moderation That's right I ask every band that comes in five questions Just one-word answers real quick iPod or CDs iPod

8:18Leninger McCutney Lening Alcohol or marijuana Uh is both an answer? Both is a one-word answer it works Song you've written your most proud of Obviously doesn't have to be one-word answer Um Uh Wow There's a A new one called If You Want Me To That Isn't Quite Done But I I'm right now it's my it's my favorite Yeah, it's always the most recent You can't you can't trust an artist when they say oh this record is our best one Because you're always you know You're always you're happiest with your newest stuff You're like oh it's new it's fresh I'm sure you've been playing some of those songs Like you said for a dozen years Yeah You gotta be kind of like Need something new Exactly Yeah And one word Wide-mouth mason Uh Hmm Uh Friends You know those guys are my those

9:03No change that say brothers instead Oh that's cool that's closer Yeah I know you got to get going So you want to do one more tune for us Yeah Have you wanted the big hits I'll bust you out some wide mouth here Thank you I'm looking at a long time to get there I'm looking at a black light I'm looking at a fall from a building I'm looking at the fireflies And I think

9:54I can't even think I can't even speak No I can still smile Stay waiting till the freezing is over Stay a few sticks and the inside Falling as I'm holding the table Gonna sound like And I think I can't even think I can't even see

10:41But I can still smile I can't see In the sky

11:32Like a planet in daylight Not hidden very well I can only see half of what's going on But I'm alright I'm alright I'm alright Cause I can still smile I can still smile I can't even think

12:18I can't even speak I can't see I can still smile Shomburo live from Center Street Just awesome Just amazing Thanks brother I like the solo That first riff of the solo where you had the hammer on

13:04Can you give that to me one more time? Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah got it I was gonna put some finger tapping in there for you But it doesn't you know it's not as flashy on the radio I understand Catch him tonight Flame Central along with Kim Mitchell Just oh coming up real soon actually So get down there if you don't already have tickets It's go time It is go time

Part 2

0:00Well, I'm excited to let's just let's just get into this. I'm excited for this new disc. Oh man We're really excited to be Sometimes when we made records, it's been sort of a reactive process where you just start working on it and and it's like people Say yeah, we had a baby and it and we looked at it and its name was Paul It we knew it would be Paul and in this case it was more like we started making a baby called Paul a couple years ago and had a real Distinct idea about how we wanted the process to go and how we wanted to record it and how live we wanted it to be and how Few overdubs we were gonna do and and and it's real gratifying to be sitting here on the other side of the record knowing that we did just that When are we gonna hear when is this thing coming out? It's gonna be spring or early summer depending on some of the music business variables

0:49There's the one track that's out and and we've been playing the stuff live for quite a while And we'll continue to do so in the shows that we do that was part of how we shaped it into its current state We noticed a lot of times we'd make a record We'd make it and then go on the road with it in six months later We'd have these bangin versions of the songs that had been tested in front of people and and really grown almost like when we were Making our first record so for this one we decided to make that the process where we played them on this easy top tour this summer when Gordy first started playing with us and and then all the shows we've done since so by the Time we went into the studio. They were songs that we we were deep inside of and really knew how to play But they had this Looseness that was maybe inspired by seeing the top every night for a couple weeks or a lot of the music that we were listening to that

1:41Was real loose and funky and not time corrected or pitched or any of that stuff Gordy came by the studio. Oh God when was he here? I think over a great cup Maybe I want to say sometime in November something like that and he had mentioned that he was playing with you guys And I was just like what I I was perplexed. So how did that come about? Well, we know Gordy for a really long time the he's one of our oldest friends in the music business and in like 96 he thought for the first time and part of how we Got an audience across the country was that he asked us to open for big sugar And that was right is digging a hole it come out So we were playing for these rapidly sold-out rooms across the country to a pretty sympathetic audience to what we do and then he produced the stew record for us in 2000 and so

2:27About a year ago Earl our original bass player decided he wanted to focus on Mobadass on the band that he had started that he's the primary songwriter for and his lead singer in and and More power to him and I can't fault a person for wanting to To sing songs that they wrote so and you guys are taking a little bit of a break right because when you came by the studio It was just like you wasn't it a few years ago? Yeah? Yeah, we we sort of looked at things and thought we looked at the model of of blue rodeo and thought that's how you how you Keep a band going for a really long time is build in little stretches where go off and do a solo record in the case of our drummer Go off and get a law degree Together yeah and and and have a fresh outlook on it

3:14But don't break up to just go off and do some other stuff and then come back so that was a really great thing for From writing and for experiences playing with other people and and we all came back pretty jazzed about it And then as I said Earl decided you know what I kind of was Loving focusing on my side bend. I want to make that my full-time thing So not long after that we had done some shows hiring some other people like girls cousin to play with us other people and then There's easy tops who are came up and and we called Gordy and said hey man Who who do you think we could hire as a bass player for this thing and he's like well? I know one guy on the phone with you And a lot of people wouldn't have get that his first instrument was actually the bass

4:02Grew up playing bass and going over the bridge from Windsor to Detroit being the being the bass player at these parties where people Grew up on James Jamerson and Verdeen White and some heavy R&B where where the role in rock and roll comes from Funky Stalin bass playing so she did that trip with us and it was only gonna be That tour and then producing the record and then we were having so much fun that we just thought you know Dave Grohl's in his rear four bands And Josh from Queens in the Stone Age seems to be able to juggle it so let's do this man We were calling the record no bad days because we had none in the entire process of making it It's just big Lebowski jokes and laughing and real easy musical camaraderie

4:49How long did ticket recorded you do it quickly or do you spread it out over a while? No, we did it really fast we had we were so prepared when we went in that we recorded and mixed the entire thing in 13 days. Oh wow have you ever worked that fast before is that how the old records were done, too? We've never worked that fast before it was it was It was an idea that came to us when we were on the road with AC DC quite a few years ago now Where every third day we had a day off because of Brian's voice and needing to rest after singing the AC DC stuff So we found ourselves in the same Somewhere every third day and we started trying to get to like Sun and Stacks and Motown and all these old studios So to have some of that magic rub off on us and we went in and discovered that these

5:37nondescript little you know plaster rooms or tile rooms and The magic came from the players just knowing the songs really well and playing them and then living with the way they sounded as not that Many people playing instead of the sort of the modern piece it together from it's that you chop up and tune it So it's perfect. It was I think attitude and swagger and and the idea of the song or more important than a Then an HD sort of view of it Close you know so we wanted to make one of those records that we We spend all these years learning how to play and and we wanted to just go in and rock it like we were playing a set nice Well, you mentioned AC DC there you mentioned ZZ to who's left on the list These are like the biggest bands of all time that you've toured with who's left for you

6:27Great like watching how they they go out and own it and really give her on the smallest night Which is relatively speaking? You know watching Angus get carried off covered in blankets or watching Mick Jagger go on stage when he know he has the flu and Stick back stage. It's like that it really inspires you to play as if your heroes are In the wings of every show you ever do no matter what show it is Every once in a while they are I wonder if I get a couple of clips like storytellers bits from you while I got you on the phone here Sure well start with the new one let's do shopping kiss me cuz we're gonna feature that one tomorrow. All right Showed up and kiss me is Represent about a third of the record comes from a place of we are driving to the studio

7:13We were listening to a lot of the Freddy King albums that Leon Russell produced That are like where funk and blues and parliament funk Adelek and that kind of stuff started overlapping with the Chicago and Texas blues that we that we were really drawn to and obviously Hendrix had a big part of that influence so this is kind of like band of gypsy is playing Jackson 5 song sort of the vibe we were going for Awesome, what was my smile smile was a song that we wrote with Craig nordy from odds and we were in south basement in Saskatoon and And it sort of had this we've been listening to a lot of the meters at the time and and it had sort of a different groove and then

7:59We Gordy produced the record and it sort of got the guitars got bigger and that's that They're near near near near near near near near near it gets our line came out and it and it turned into the song that people know now Change which is a complete departure from smile. Yeah written in the same basement with Craig as well actually and and It made it had maybe the most radical change because it was sort of half the speed that it ended up being and had this really Plinky groove that we've we've to it sometimes when we play live and then it it just took on this sort of Stevie Wonder I wish vibe once we got in the studio with it and it sped up so sometimes the

8:45The acoustic guitar versions of the songs are one way and then the way it ends up being when it's arranged is a band either put the leather jacket or or some some You know big heeled boots on it and it gets a totally different vibe when it's dressed Sugar can oh and that was those one of the only songs on our second record that we had Played live throughout the course of touring for the first record We'd we played that song a lot and I think the shape of it was totally different And then when we got in the studio with David Leonard a producer who we really learned a lot from he was one of the first people who got into Song structure with us and really making us have a reason for things to happen

9:33You know there has to be a setup for this part to have the most impact So that's what I think of when I think of sugar cane is that he he really taught us how to Cut the fat out of arrangements and make it so that everything had a reason to be there beyond Well, we just do everything four times before we do the next thing You know, it's like if doing it once Has does the same thing but has more impact and is less boring just do it one time That's it. Did you take that approach into this record? Yeah, I guess making it so quickly. Yeah, I mean the the record certainly has the most Guitar solos of any album we've ever done. I think they're definitely wasn't a cutting down on things to

10:20Like on the on the length of things if we felt like we weren't a good groove in the guitar solo It was going somewhere it would go on for a long time, but we've learned about Using space and and having less things have more impact So there are really very few overdubs at all on the record one of the things we allowed ourselves was was We were lucky enough to have Ian McCleggins from small faces and the faces that he played on a bunch of stones records Playing keyboards on it and sap overdubbed a bit of percussion, but beyond that it was it was really About simplification and like if you want the chorus to explode But you don't want to overdub a bunch more guitars or use pedals or anything because I was going straight into an amp Then you just play single notes during the verse

11:08So that when you play chords on the chorus it gets it gets bigger it explodes with fewer things It's it does sound very raw actually your guitar on shut up and kiss me does sound like it's just going into an amp no pedals Yeah, yeah, and and I really when we did this easy top tour I left my pedal board at home and wanted to discover how much I could do after and part of that was from as you mentioned Making those acoustic records and touring just within acoustic guitar Trying to figure out how to make it so that it had intensity without a lot of distortion or without a lot of effects or Or really just as stripped down as you can be so the intensity came from what I was playing rather than How how loud and saturated the sound is like one of the main comments

11:53We've been getting when people find out that Gordy is now our full-time bass players is your band way louder now and strangely a lot of the record especially the set of songs like shut up and kiss me and there's one called sweet little thing and And they get into this R&B place where it's like you're standing in the room with us So if we were Thudding away on as loudly as we could it would it would get higher some after a while and there'd be no Since there's no valleys there'd be no peak We've really gotten into making the shapes of the songs Interesting with fewer elements and and less volume if need be when are you gonna come stand in the room with us? What are you gonna come out to are you guys gonna you must tour the record? I would think the summer at some point yeah, it's all getting figured out right now, man

12:41I can't wait to know that now that These songs are starting to trickle out and and we feel so So into playing this stuff. There is a new big sugar record coming out this year as well So there's Gordy being in both bands. There's gonna be a lot of double bills and I Anticipate something being booked real soon in Edmonton Rock City for both bands together Now and you'll have to come by the studio of course again and play some of these new songs live. Yeah Well we did this last time and there are a couple more tunes I want to get to but we got to do news in like two minutes here So I'm gonna have to let you go shortly all right But but we do something called five questions five quick questions one more answers. Oh, yeah, right?

13:28I think we've done this before but I'll try and change them up a little bit. Okay rotor studio Road Lennener McCartney Lennet most important thing in a song lyrics melody or rhythm. That's a tough one It depends on what kind of song it is. Let's go for melody cool song you've written your most proud of Right now Say there's a song called when the night fell it fell on me on the new record nice today I'm that those lyrics are speaking to me speaking it did it's not you it's me or it's not me It's you whatever that song you recorded me last and that make the record no that's going to be I've recorded a Solo electric record that will come out at some point after the wide mouth stuff

14:17So there's a it'll be on the songs that I had on that Yeah, and it'll be featured on that one so we it's uh this this record really is is It's diverse and eclectic as we always are but it but it really showcases the bluesy R&B side of the band And and the beauty of having these different projects is that then if I have something that's more singer song Rittery or or kind of Tom Petty straight ahead rock it has another place to go and I don't try to Can try and put it in wide mouth clothes in one word wide mouth Mason back