To connect the timeline to Electro Melodier, where would you place this record on the arc of your overall development? It's a thread that follows the river and, usually, good music follows the river and the road. Louis, as well as in New Orleans and all the way up from Minneapolis. Yeah, it runs right along the Mississippi here, near St. Is that a place you continually return to in your mind? When you mentioned Highway 61, I remembered that tune from Okemah and the Melody of Riot. I put the expenses for that record on my girlfriend's credit card and away we went. Crazy things like that that I wouldn't do now, but I did it. I also remember that I think I hooked up a U-Haul trailer to a Honda Civic - one of the hatchbacks - so I would fit all the equipment in there. I used to take the 55 and the 35, just kind of soaking up those parts of the country. Some of the other guys in the band were in Minneapolis, so I spent a lot of time driving north to south, up and down Highway 61. You know, I was living in New Orleans at the time and I had a lot of my equipment in St. What feelings or memories about its making come to mind? Your debut album Trace just celebrated its 30th birthday. So, that's what I'll be going for whenever we start playing live. I was told to maybe find a thinner-bodied guitar, so I came across an old Kay Speed Demon guitar that I just put some acoustic pickups in and it sounds like an acoustic guitar. Forty years of acoustic guitar took its toll, so like a pitcher in baseball, I got the rotator cuff repair. I recently had some rotator cuff shoulder surgery from playing too much guitar. I've also adapted some new guitars to my live - when I get back to playing live. On the new recording, I used a baritone acoustic guitar, which is an Alvarez. What other gear have you been checking out lately? I came across two amplifiers - one called Electro, the other one Melodier - and I felt like that was emblematic as a title for what I was going for with this record - an emphasis on electric, uptempo, melodic songs. This time around, with the pandemic, I had more time to be looking at equipment. On the very first Son Volt record, there's a small amp pictured on the cover. It took me a while to realize what I would call the Keith Richards method of using small amps to record. If you had the background I had, all you need is an acoustic guitar and a small amp and an electric guitar. It is if you had the background I had, yes. Is an electric guitar through a cranked-up tube amp all one needs to genuinely express themselves? You mentioned in the press release that the title comes from the names of two vintage amplifiers. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. caught up with Farrar to discuss the road to Electro Melodier, dive into every song on the record and discuss everything from COVID-19 to his 25-year marriage to the civil rights upheaval of 2020. And it's bound to be catnip for those who believe a guitar, a tube amp and a pen comprise the ultimate form of human expression. The album is a sequence of well-crafted, warmly-recorded tunes for fans of Tom Petty, the Replacements and Bruce Springsteen. "I came across two amplifiers - one called Electro, the other one Melodier - and I felt like that was emblematic as a title for what I was going for with this record: An emphasis on electric, uptempo, melodic songs."įarrar couldn't have found two words that better sum up Son Volt's latest, which arrives July 30 via Thirty Tigers.
"I had more time to be looking at equipment," the singer/songwriter tells. While Wilco spent album after album racing to the brink of experimental chaos before pulling back in the 2000s, Son Volt remained staunchly devoted to the core components of rock 'n' roll storytelling - words, melodies and chord progressions.įlash forward more than 30 years: The pandemic has given Son Volt’s leader, Jay Farrar, more time to write songs and check out vintage gear. When the Americana heroes Uncle Tupelo broke up during the Clinton administration, they left two unbelievably different rock institutions in their wake.
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