Portrait By Abbey Simmons

[Ed. Note: Shane Tutmarc plays tonight at 8pm, the early slot for tonight's Sunset Tavern edition of Noise for the Needy. Also on the bill is Widower, Jack Wilson and his Wife Stealers and Adam Stephens (of Two Gallants) and his band the Finite Plan.]

Earlier this week we posted the first section of this interview, where we discussed the winding path Shane Tutmarc has taken to get to where he is today. In this second edition of the interview, we cover Shane’s new course adjustment, and it’s result, an LP titled Shouting at a Silent Sky, which was released today on iTunes.

In the last portion of the interview, Shane discussed the reason he let go of his longest running project, Dolour, saying that it no longer represented who he was as a person. With his latest release, Shane has synthesized his own experience, his family’s musical legacy, and the help of some experienced musicians, into a record that completely represents Shane Tutmarc, personally and musically.

He says, “I feel like the goal of songs should be to be able to connect with people and to relate with humanity. There is a place for every type of song, but I feel like, at least with me, a goal is to always be true to yourself. And if you’re true to yourself than people can relate.” And Shane has succeeded, because we most definitely relate.
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SOTS: Do you consider yourself a songwriter or a story-teller?

Shane: I think the song part of it is as important to me. Though, I’m totally in love getting around writing devices and structures. And I’ve definitely, through the Dolour era and the Mercies, tried a million different approaches. To me the joy really is finding a new way to get it out. And I know that if it was just strictly story telling, it wouldn’t be as important to me as the craft part of it.

I think phrasing is a big thing. Like Bob Dylan. Just the way he phrases things makes me aware that when you’re telling a story, there’s a million different ways you can tell it, and so much of it from Sinatra on down comes down to how they place those words. I think with Dolour it was a lot like “Here’s a melody written out that I am singing.” Whereas from the Mercies on it’s been “How do I want to say this” as opposed to “What are the notes that I’m singing?”

Which to a lot of my pop songwriter friends that I knew through the Dolour phase have no idea why I’m doing what I’m doing now and hate it, and think I’m doing the wrong thing.

SOTS: What do they think you should be doing?

Shane: I guess following their dream of what I should be doing or something.

SOTS: Is that part of what’s on this album? The sense that people think you should be doing something else? But you don’t.

Shane:

So definitely through the Mercies it was kinda of a battle. You want to make a record that your friends are going to like, but I don’t think I was pleasing too many of my friends.

It was interesting how it kind of, it polarized. I don’t think I took to many Dolour fans with me with the Mercies stuff.

SOTS: You’ve grown and you’ve aged.

Shane: I definitely feel like I don’t know that person that wrote the Dolour Albums. Thomas Mertin later said that about his first book (his autobiography).

SOTS: Are you embarrassed by some of it?

Shane: I did the best I could. But I feel like I would constantly get myself to the edge of the cliff. An escape. I would be in a dark mood, and maybe write a song to get me out of that dark mood. Running from reality in a lot of ways. Pop music to a certain extent says “Everything is all right.” Folk traditions, or blues, or even rock generally speaking says “Everything is not alright.” And I think it was that turn that I took with trying to stay in those moments that might be painful but might also bring some truth. That’s what kind of led to this collection of songs.

SOTS: In the song “Idle Hands” you have this line you repeat “idle hands, devils work.” Are you drawing a line between Robert Johnson and yourself?

Shane: There are like archetypes of good and evil. And I think through some different scenarios… I just know for myself personally, I try to keep busy. You know…? I think it’s when you’re not busy that you get yourself in trouble. I know that’s true for me.

I definitely relate to the John Lennon quote “Had I not been a songwriter I would have gone crazy or gone to jail,” or something like that. I think people that have that creative drive, if they don’t get it the right places, it leads down the wrong places. So I think that song kind of sums up that sort of feeling.

SOTS: How did the album get it’s name?

Shane: “Shouting at a Silent Sky.” It was something I rediscovered. I had scribbled in a notebook at around the time we started the record and then forgot about. I was just looking through that old notebook and saw that name again and suddenly it felt like wow. That pretty literally sums up what all these songs are doing. You’re sort of asking questions and not getting answers. Wondering if you’re talking to yourself when you’re dealing with that God and devil that you have in your brain at all times.

And when I googled the phrase it had never been put together before. Which blew my mind. Because it’s such a simple phrase that just rolls off your tongue, but I couldn’t find any reference to that phrase. Which was exciting in this google age were in.

And it felt like with earlier working titles, it felt like it might have captured part of the record, or part of the mood, but that one seems to be a sort of all-encompassing, from track one to eleven… it almost seems like every song is doing that.

SOTS: So the new musicians that you’ve hooked up with. How did you hook up with them?

Shane: It’s so perfect and easy that it baffles me that it hadn’t come to me yet. Brendan Bosworth who is playing bass with me right now was in the last incarnation of Dolour and he was part of a crew that all moved up here from San Diego about eight years ago, with a buddy Josh Ottum. He kinda led this crew up here from San Diego, and Brendan used to play in a band with him years ago called Friends for Heroes. So I knew him through that, so I’ve known him pretty much since I moved up here. I had just kind of lost contact with him after the Dolour stuff. I had played a couple of shows with him and then it was just like over. And his brother Brian had just recently moved out here recently from Chicago. And then Ryan Richter played steel with me, played steel on Hey, Lazarus on a couple of songs. And they are all from San Diego. So it was this perfect connection. Two brothers, so the rhythm section is a family thing, and then Ryan, grew up them and who I have a lot of musical history already.

I had run into the drummer [Brian] at a show and didn’t realize he was actually a drummer, I just knew him as Brendan’s brother. So when I was like “Dude I need a band.” He was like “I’ll get my brother involved.” Brian was the next logical step. It just really fell into place so beautifully.

Being that I knew I couldn’t just start over again like when I was sixteen and build that band from the get go, so I was looking for a band that already had a built camaraderie, and chemistry. That is always the toughest part about hodge-podgeing a band. They’ve all played music together for their whole life or whatever, so it was an added bonus.

Two of the three are music teachers, so they learn the songs immediately. So quick. Which I love. Because I’m always impatient.

SOTS: So these recordings were live band recordings?

Shane: We did ten of the eleven songs, in two days, live all-together. And then we recorded “Red Winter Coat” on my grandma’s piano at their house, and that was the only other song we did outside of the group stuff.

Being able to hear what the band is doing, being able to sing in reaction to that, and them have them react to you, that whole give and take you don’t get if you’re just: “Band record a perfect take, and I’ll record my vocals later.” And then try to pretend that I’m in the mood. There’s no faking it. You’re going for it.

There’s this phrase, John Prine might’ve created this phrase: “Chasing the Demo.” You make this cool demo and then you’re constantly trying to recreate that magic. So it was important to me to not create any magic. Here’ s the nuts and bolts. Let the magic actually happen (in the studio). Let the magic be when it’s actually being recorded for real.

A real goal with for these last couple of records is having something happen in a room. There’s a time and a place for the perfectly crafted thing that you can admire for different reasons, but if your trying to convey something from your soul, really the best way to do it is in a room captured live.

So none of these songs have ornate demos. For the new album, my brother and I actually did some demos where I did some overdubbing, and kinda got the framework there. But once I got the studio band together it was a whole new thing. And we took the songs where we wanted to. And it felt really free.

It was the first time I had worked with an outside producer since the really early days of Dolour. So I had somebody there to really be the final word on stuff.

SOTS: So who is this producer?

Shane: Johnny Sangster. From the third Dolour record through the Mercies stuff, I was the producer and essentially did everything myself. But I almost felt that to get out what I wanted to get out l need somebody else in my corner to pull that out of me. With Dolour it was too easy to shy away from pushing myself. I would push myself to a certain extent, and then I would back off. I knew if I brought somebody else in to stand behind it, and not let me cower away from things… which he did so many times. Sometimes other musicians would mention lyrics I should change, or this or that, and he would always be in my corner. I really value that. Johnny Sangster produced the album, but he made the album that I wanted to make.

SOTS: In your Mercies records you were delving into old Gospel but never had any backup singers recorded. In this new record you’ve notably got soul singers on a number of tracks.

Shane: I’d been inching toward the idea for a while, but having the facility to find them, was always what stood in the way. So I was like “Johnny, I’d really like to have some soul backup on this record.” And he was like “I know the perfect girls.”

He had worked a few times with them already in the studio… Chroma studios closed shortly after I finished the record. But they had done so much work there in the past they had been dubbed “The Chromettes” this trio of girls. Fiia McGann, Alicia Dara, and Mia Katherine Boyle.

They all came in, after we’d finished the basic tracks. They would just do a little huddle, run in the studio and do some amazing soul stuff. They ended up singing on more than half the record, and I feel their contribution makes the whole album connect a little better. Hearing them on all the different styles going on.”

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For right now, you can stream the entirety of Shouting at a Silent Sky at shanetutmarc.com.

Portrait By Josh Lovseth