100 Musicians Answer the Same 10 Questions

Part Two: Jonathan Meiburg of Shearwater

instigated by dave heaton

Shearwater's fourth album Palo Santo is to me one of the most exciting albums of the year so far - a rich tapestry of song and sound that's hard to classify or pin down, a melancholy, dramatic adventure with almost astounding highs and lows of mood. As good as Shearwater's previous releases were, this expansion and reinvention struck me as unexpected; it should blow aside the band backstory (their outgrowth from the band Okkervil River) that articles often fixate on. Jonathan Meiburg is the group's lead vocalist and songwriter. MP3s from several of their releases, including Palo Santo, can be found on the Misra Records web site.

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What aspect of making music excites you the most right now?

Dragging the lake for fragments of the next record, and then, once the mud's hosed off, figuring out how (or if) they go together. It's slow but interesting.

What aspect of making music gets you the most discouraged?

Oh, you know, the money stuff.

What are you up to right now, music-wise? (Current or upcoming recordings, tours, extravaganzas, experiments, top-secret projects, etc).

The first Palo Santo tour starts next week. Kim's going electric for this one – we'll see how that goes – after the upright bass broke in two pieces in Toronto last time we're trying to see if we can do without it live. It's sort of like having a fifth, quadriplegic member of the band on tour. After that, more touring in September (US), October (Europe), and after that, who knows? I'm hoping to start a new record in the spring and tour a bit more with newer songs. I did a couple of solo shows recently and really enjoyed them, so I might do a few more of those here and there.

What's the most unusual place you've ever played a show or made a recording? How did the qualities of that place affect the show/recording?

Will and I spent an evening recording in the (empty) x-ray room of the old student health building at the University of Texas a couple of years ago. It had a really interesting natural reverb that was friendly and very rich for such a small place and seemed completely, irrevocably sealed off from the outside world. We drank a lot of red wine, I remember. I don't know what came of the recording. I always wanted to record in one of the stairwells of the biology building, but I didn't know what would happen to me if I took a banjo in there.

In what ways does the place where you live (or places where you have lived), affect the music you create, or your taste in music?

Sometimes I think this is the ONLY thing that affects my music! I try to let every song conjure a different landscape, for me. I think of Palo Santo as an impossible little archipelago made up of islands and icebergs. I've lived a lot of different places with a lot of different people, so there's not exactly any one place that means 'home' to me, though I probably feel the most comfortable in the southeastern US. I don't think I've made a very 'southern'- sounding record, though, except maybe the second one.

When was the last time you wrote a song? What can you tell us about it?

Umm, I'm working on it, on piano. It's kind of repetitive, but it has a feeling of constant climbing to it. I'm having a hard time figuring out how it's supposed to end or what it's about, but I think Peter Matthiesen's book "The Snow Leopard" is helping.

As you create more music, do you find yourself getting more or less interested in seeking out and listening to new music made by other people...and why do you think that is?

It comes and goes. All music I haven't heard before is 'new' to me and I'm more and more aware of how much I don't know about music (classical, pop, other) that's been recorded in the last century. The further I go from 'indie-rock' in my listening the happier I am.

Lately what musical periods or styles do you find yourself most drawn to as a listener? (Old or new music? Music like yours or different from yours?)

Right now a lot of music from East and West Africa – some of the amazing Ethiopique catalog (esp. a singer/group? named Alemayehu Eshete), also a kora player named Papa Suso (not Foday Musa Suso, though he's also excellent). And Ali Farka Toure's final album.

Name a band or musician, past or present, who you flat-out LOVE and think more people should be listening to. What's one of your all-time favorite recordings by this band/musician?

Baby Dee. Her very limited-edition record called "A Book of Songs for Anne-Marie" (Durtro) is truly beautiful; she plays the piano (and also harp and accordion on her other records) and sings in a voice that's a bit like Julia Child in the best possible way. I think she's working on some new versions of these songs for a wider-release record soon.

What's the saddest song you've ever heard?

Oay Lahy E (O! Dear Friend), by a Malagasy choral group, recorded in the 1930s. It's the first track on Yazoo Records' wonderful "The Music of Madagascar" compilation. It's also one of the happiest songs I've ever heard.

To check out the rest of the Q&As, click here.