A Conversation with JD McPherson and Jimmy Sutton – HuffPost 4.27.12

Mike Ragogna: JD, your new album is titled Signs & Signifiers.

JD McPherson: It’s a little bit of a tongue in cheek nod to art school pretentiousness I guess.

MR: (laughs) You were an art school student?

JDM: Yeah, I got a Bachelors Degree in Media Art and graduate Masters of Fine Art in Open Media, which was like weirdo art.

MR: What would that be?

JDM: I experimented with film, video. I also did some sculpture and painting. I think I’m the only person in the world that has graduate credit hours in card magic as a fine arts.

MR: (laughs) So you incorporate magic into your live shows.

JDM: Every day!

MR: Okay, let’s get Jimmy Sutton, producer and uber-musician in here. What do you think of this new album Signs & Signifiers.

Jimmy Sutton: It’s the best album I’ve ever heard in my whole life! (laughs) I’m pretty happy about it and I think we’re pretty proud of it too. It seems like when I started working with JD about three years ago, we’ve been on the same page and everything has just fallen into place. So on top of the end result, it’s also been a really great experience, and I truly mean that. The recording experience was wonderful and I think that really added to the whole album. When we were recording the record, this was the first time that I’ve ever recorded and walked into a control room and heard immediate results, because we’re recording pretty much live to quarter-inch tape. It’s a studio that took me eight years to build in my attic.

MR: You’re mixing down to a quarter-inch tape, but did you also use tape as the medium with the multi-tracking?

JS: I built a studio like some guy in 1960 who decided to build a studio in his garage. That’s the equipment I have.

MR: Do you have a Studer?

JS: Actually, what I have is just a bunch of mics, mixers, and I recorded on an old machine, a radio-broadcast quality. It’s kind of like the classic Ampex 350, which are all our favorite old recordings and rock ‘n’ roll was made on early on. We would also record straight to the tape and then it would immediately bounce down to a computer. We did use a computer as a tool, so we were able to layer it. But it wasn’t like multi-tracking, we did the bulk of the band and then we would layer some backup vocals and percussion at the same time to keep things very alive.

MR: In Pro Tools?

JS: Yeah, almost as if we were working on an Ampex tracking machine.

MR: So you attribute the band feel to it, that process?

JS: Yes, it definitely forced us to perform to the environment that we were in that week.

MR: JD, how do you see this project as a whole, how did these songs come about?

JDM: First, I had a couple of songs in my pocket and then I’m in that pressure situation where I can’t really produce unless there’s an intense amount of pressure that gives me ulcers, staying up late in the studio after having bought a plane ticket to Chicago, not telling Jimmy Sutton that I’m out of songs so I’m staying up all night writing songs. Most of the stuff was coming straight out of traditional rock ‘n’ roll and R&B music, but after a certain point, Jimmy and I were talking, “Hey, I like the Pixies, I like Wu Tang Clan, I like this kind of stuff.” So those influences started subtly creeping into the recording and songwriting process, and that’s when you start getting a couple of weirder songs like “A Gentle Awakening” and “Signs And Signifiers,” the title track.

MR: Can you go into the story of a couple of songs?

JDM: “North Side Gal” was one of that I had previously written and I was almost like a slow ballad-y blues shuffle. Drums start that record, that’s the grabber. But it’s just about a cruise around the neighborhood, an unrequited love type of thing.

MR: Is this your story?

JDM: It could be a story. (laughs)

MR: It could be one of many stories?

JDM: Sure. (laughs)

JS: He’s holding back, but that’s good.

JDM: The trajectory of that song is a mystery to everybody, we’re keeping that one close to our chest. Yeah, that’s a story for sure.

MR: “B.G.M.O.S.R.N.R.”?

JDM: That is “Big Gold Mine of Sweet Rock ‘n’ Roll.” That was an on-the-spot recording, like, “Man, we need a New Orleans R&B on this thing,” so that’s just a bunch of gain vocals and bouncy, professor long-hair feeling to it.

JS: The title track was a little long, so me being the label guy and designer, we needed to do something about that. That’s where the initials came from.

MR: Who are your influences?

JDM: Everyone from Irma Thomas to Little Richard to Joe Strummer to Billy Bragg, Bo Diddley, The Pixies… I love all music. All music is sacred, and it all comes from the same place and it’s just there is so much good music out there. But what really gets me excited is R&B and black rock ‘n’ roll from the 1950s and blues based stuff.

JS: Yeah, black rock ‘n’ roll, gospel, late ’70s punk rock, rock ‘n’ roll, The Ramones…huge. I think that was my first rock concert, so I think we’re on the same page in many ways. But I’ve learned a lot from JD.

MR: JD what is your advice for new artists?

JDM: I can’t say that this template would apply to everybody’s situation but we were able, through a lot of playing, hard work, and building the studio over time, to keep the work 100% in-house. I think that it’s really important to stay independent and keep control over what you’re making and do as much as you can yourself. If you do it and you keep the quality up, people will start to listen to it as we have discovered.

JS: Don’t lie!

JDM: Yeah, don’t lie. Write songs that are relevant to you and the time. Use what technologies you have available, be pragmatic.

MR: Jimmy, what would you say, what advice would you have for new artists?

JS: I interjected “don’t lie,” but it’s really important. Don’t lie, do things that are relevant to you. Look at every great painter that’s out there. There’s this saying that says you have to paint 400 paintings before you’re really considered an artist. But in a way, I jive with that because everybody has all their influences. We’re influenced by our parents, that makes up our personalities.

JDM: “You’re just like your father,” we’ve heard that how many times?

JS: Also as artists you pick influence here and there, that makes you unique because not everybody picks up on the same influences. There are so many variables that make up who you are. I think, to be honest to those, let them in, embrace them, go with them, run.

MR: So what about 400 songs before you consider yourself an artist?

JDM: Well, I broke that a little.

MR: (laughs) What’s the future looking like for JD McPhearson?

JDM: We’re just excited that things are happening with this record. We’re having an absolute blast playing shows around the record and running with it, making work, making videos, talking about things, talking about how things and how they look. We just signed on with Rounder Records with is a great boon to us. In Europe, Universal is releasing it on the Decca label and things are going great over there. Then we’re talking about recording again soon and just seeing where it goes.

MR: Any words of wisdom?

JDM: Don’t buy pointy guitars.

JS: Don’t buy pointy guitars and don’t start playing the acoustic bass. This thing is hard to carry around sometimes, I’m dying!

MR: Thank you again for talking with me guys.

JDM: Thank you!

JS: Thank you, we appreciate it.

Transcribed by Narayana Windenberger