You’ve played in guitar bands before, but what’s different about playing piano-driven music?
First of all, I have to pull more weight; I’m more exposed because it’s just the three of us. Ben beats the crap out of the piano with his left hand, and I have to find a way to fit with that. The Big Muff distortion pedal helps a bit, but it’s more about going up the neck and thinking like a guitar player. Before playing with Ben, I had always been a pocket player, staying with the kick drum and holding it down. My thing was, it’s what you don’t play that makes you a great player. Now I’m exploring half the time, searching for places where I can just go nuts, then going back to holding it down and letting Ben and Lindsay go insane. It’s pure freedom, and you don’t see that often in Nashville. They hire the same guys, they put a chart in front of them, and they just shit out the same licks. I got tired of that scene.
How did you adjust your sound to play with a piano?
I played with a pick on the whole album in order to compete. I had never played with a pick before, but I told Ben I had, so I really had to sit down and learn to do it. I’m digging it now. EQ-wise, I was always a bass and treble guy. I’d boost those, turn down the mids, and leave my bass’s tone control off. Now I turn up the mids and keep the tone knob turned all the way on. I found using flatwounds really helped my sound not butt up against the piano’s, maybe because the piano has roundwound strings. Actually, I’ve always been a freak for flats. I’ve had mine on for three years. I don’t like that new string sound.
Did Ben give you much guidance on what to play?
Ben’s one of the best bass players I’ve heard play, and not just on piano—he plays the hell out of bass guitar. So he’d sometimes give me suggestions or we’d work out things together, but the whole session was absolutely loose. We just went for it; it’s all on the fly. The take we ended up using for the single, “Landed,” was the first time I had ever heard that song, and you can hear all the spontaneity and craziness. We left mistakes in, too. At the end of the first track, “Bastard,” you’ll hear me screwing up all over it. But that seemed to fit the overall sense of what we were doing.