Rivers of Song, staat sinds zijn goudverkopende debuutalbum uit 2005 bekend om zijn samenwerking met een lange lijst van medewerkers en tourpartners, van Paul Simon tot Zac Brown Band.
“There's
a lot of existential stuff in these songs,” says Amos Lee. “If you really
listen to what's in between the lines, there's a lot of grappling with your
place in the world, grappling with loss. There's a lot of grappling with the balance
between bailing out the boat and rowing at the same time—the experience of writing
music and playing songs while trying, as we all are right now, to make sense of
a world that feels like it's changing really quickly.”
On
his eleventh studio album, Transmissions, singer-songwriter Lee
continues to expand his sonic range while sharpening his closely observed
lyrics that squarely address death, aging, and love. The force behind such
acclaimed albums as Mission Bell and Mountains of Sorrow, Rivers of
Song, ever since his gold-selling 2005 debut Lee has been known for his
association with a long list of collaborators and touring partners, from Paul
Simon to Zac Brown Band.
For
the new project, he craved a return to an old-school style of recording, working
with his longtime band in a studio in rural Marlboro, New York that was built
by drummer Lee Falco and his dad out of reclaimed wood from an old church
(“it’s exactly what you’d think a studio in upstate New York should be,” notes
Lee). Playing live on the floor for long hours, in close quarters, they were
able to capture the album’s twelve songs in less than a week.
“I
really wanted us to be all in the room, making music together, listening to
each other and responding to each other,” says Lee. “In this age where you can
do everything at home and fly it in, there’s something really beautiful about
getting in a room and starting at the top, the drummer counting in the song and
everybody just playing. I would call it vulnerability.”
Despite
the simplicity of the set-up, though, Lee also augmented the band’s soulful,
folk-funk sound with arrangements that extend the scope of some songs. “I've
done a lot of shows over the past few years with orchestras,” he says, “and I
wanted to find a way to have miniature moments that could represent those
experiences. If you listen to the end of ‘Night Light,’ or ‘Built to Fall,’
there are moments that express those ideas of collaboration and orchestration.”
Transmissions
marks only the second time that Lee has produced his own album (following 2016’s
Spirit), a daunting challenge even for someone so familiar with the
musicians. But he was determined not to overthink or over-complicate the task.
“As
a producer, I had to have a clean and clear vision of what I wanted before I
went in,” he says. “Especially now that I've done ten albums. I'm not lighting
a bunch of candles and trying to conjure the spirit—it's either there or it
isn't. And it was there from Day One. We were playing the song ‘Beautiful Day,’
and I thought, ‘Okay, here's a song I have a demo for, but I don't have a full
version in mind. I've never played it with anyone, I've never shown it to
anybody, and it's a bit of a weird, herky-jerky tune.’ And the bass and drums
kicked ass, the guitar playing is really cool—so yeah, I felt it from note one.
I was never in doubt.”
The’
last few years have been wildly productive for Philadelphia native Lee. After
2022’s Dreamland album (which featured “Worry No More,” a Top Ten AAA
hit and his biggest single in over a decade), he followed up with two full-length
projects paying homage to musical heroes—My Ideal: A Tribute to ‘Chet Baker
Sings’ and Honeysuckle Switches: The Songs of Lucinda Williams. He
expresses his awe for these two renegade artists; Williams for her incomparable
language and Baker for his delivery. “I love songs that have the ability to expose
a wide range of emotions in a short song,” he says. “That's what my favorite
songs always do.”
The
Baker album in particular had a strong influence on Lee as a vocalist. “I
didn't grow up singing anything other than what was on the radio,” he says, “and
when I started playing guitar, it was John Prine and Dylan and Bill Withers and
this classic songwriter stuff, but also all this ‘90s R&B that I loved. I'd
never approached what we're calling jazz—the classics, the songbook—and listening
to Chet singing and singing along with him was like, ‘Oh, my God, how is he
doing this?’ It was like taking a master class in control and where to use your
voice. That level of singing, that level of musicianship, was hugely
inspirational—you don't have to sing loud all the time. You can be really
vulnerable, and soft, and really be at your best.”
Transmissions
is Lee’s first release of original music on his own label, Hoagiemouth Records.
“It's just a sign of the times,” he says. “Things have really changed for someone
like me, and I’m going to adapt. I always wanted to have some kind of small
label, so it's a cool opportunity.” (The imprint is distributed through the
Thirty Tigers company, which Lee is especially excited about since he and
president David Macias are friends through fantasy baseball.)
Fresh
off of some dates with Willie Nelson and heading into a co-headlining tour with
the Indigo Girls, Amos Lee notes that his attitude about being embraced by his
peers and his idols has transformed over the years, and that his gratitude
deeply informs the emotions throughout Transmissions.
“I
just appreciate everything a lot more now,” he says. “When you're younger, you
get it, but you don't really get it because you're like ‘Oh, cool—my
first tour ever and I'm opening for Bob Dylan? Cool.’ Or Norah Jones, the
biggest artist in the world, bringing you out right off the street. How do you
appreciate that? I was just sort of clueless, honestly. Not out of malice, but you
have no context.
“So
now I'm just grateful to have a career,” he continues. “I'm grateful to be
asked to share the stage with folks who I respect and admire and love and want
to learn from and want to support. Now it’s about really being present while
it's happening and knowing that this is not promised, none of this is destiny. It's
a lot of chance. So I’m making sure to really enjoy and appreciate all these
opportunities.”
‘TRANSMISSIONS’
TRACK-BY-TRACK
Hold
on Tight
This
is about having a much tighter handle on how important our people are to us,
your friends and your family, and watching people go that you love. It's about
appreciating people and wanting to make sure everybody that you love knows you
love them and find them important.
It's
a pretty simple little song. There's not a ton going on. I like the lyrics
because they're saying a lot with very few words, which I really love. The band
really did a great job on this one. I didn't want it to be hard to get through,
I wanted it to be a thing people can sing to each other.
Beautiful
Day
I
have had serious anxiety problems my whole life, panic attacks from the time I
was very young. I don't remember much time in my life where I wasn't depressed.
This is a song about accepting that in yourself, and not fighting it—knowing
that you have this bear inside of you, this thing rattling around, and just
being like, “It's okay; I know, you're never going to completely disappear, but
that doesn't mean you're going to eat me.” So the whole tune is sort of self-acceptance,
and then the bridge is accepting other people—when they're coming to you with
their pain, you don't have to judge them. They're much more than just the pain
that they have inside of themselves.
When I wrote that song, I was like, “Look, man, you don't have to judge
yourself so hard. The shit you feel is just shit you feel. Work through it and
try to get out and do stuff.” Just because you feel pain or feel fear doesn't
mean that you have to be incapacitated by it.
The
last verse is very autobiographical. I live in this little shack-y house right
on the side of a huge highway. Every single day, all day long, these tractor-trailers
just shake the whole place. When I moved in there, I was cursing myself and
wanting to leave, but now, I sort of find them to be soothing.
Carry
You On
I
met this gal, this really sweet person, six years ago. She was a family member
of a friend of mine. I knew she was sick, she had gotten diagnosed when I met
her and she was going through treatment. She would tell me songs she liked—she liked
Billie Eilish before anybody knew about her. She sent me the song “Ocean Eyes”
before anybody had heard it and I was like, “That's actually really good.”
The
next few months were really brutal, and she didn't live much longer. She lived
maybe six months after I met her. It progressed really fast. As a songwriter, I
sometimes try to slip into situations. Not everybody can write a song, and I'm
not saying I'm writing a perfect song, but I wanted to write a song for her, and
to express to her twin sister, I'm here with you.
I
have no idea why I wrote it. I just did. I loved her, I thought she was really
special and beautiful and amazing, and I wanted to write a song that she would
be remembered by.
Madison
Sometimes
you fall in love with someone's art. I do that a lot. You're not trying to be
in love with the person, but you fall in love with something about what they're
doing. I don't really want to say much about who it is or what it is. Obviously,
it’s a love song but it feels nonspecific, in a lot of ways on purpose. It's
about loving the idea of someone. There's a deep longing in that tune. I don't
know exactly who it's about, but it's about a lot of people.
Built
to Fall
That
was just a huge stream of consciousness thing. A friend of mine, Coy Bowles
from Zac Brown Band, sent me a really beautiful hand-made dobro. I don't know
how to play dobro, I wasn't even going to pretend to know how to play dobro.
But I wanted to use this instrument, which is so beautiful and when you play
it, there's real magic. So I did this open tuning, and the song just sort of
happened. It’s cool to have a new tuning on a new instrument because it will
lead you to different directions.
The
demo was vocal and dobro, just those two things, but they were recorded
separately, so the timing was a little weird. And when we went to lay it down
on the record, I was like, “Man, this dobro is awesome, but this is not the
right sound for this song, it’s not capturing what I want.” So I had Jaron Olevsky,
who I’ve been playing with forever, transfer the dobro notes and chords and
feel onto piano. He laid some other keyboards on it, and there's some electric
guitars and then Rob Moose played a gorgeous string part over it.
Darkest
Places
I
wrote that one in LA. It's about a strip club, but you wouldn't necessarily
gauge that. It's not metaphorically dark, but literally dark—but I guess it
translates to metaphorically dark, too.
It's
just a jam, an up-tempo tune that feels good and has a nice message to it. I
was spending a lot of time, like I do everywhere, just observing things and
people and places. But really, it's a song about not thinking that you're
supposed to fall in love the Disney way every time.
When
You Go
My
friend Jesse died of an overdose two years ago, and we miss him a lot. We love
his parents, and I stop and say hi to his mom a lot. I went to her house, and
we talked for a bunch of hours, and when I left, I was pretty fucked up and I went
home and wrote that song.
But
it was really based on something else. I read this article about Jeff Buckley, an
interview with his mom, and they asked her what she would say to Jeff if she
could talk to him. And she said, “Take me with you.” And it broke my heart,
man, broke my fucking heart. To lose a child—yeah, maybe you just don't want to
be here.
Baby
Pictures
Jesse
was my bandmate Zach’s husband, and he passed away from an overdose. Our whole
crew are very tight. They're my family—I don't even consider them friends, they're
not bandmates, they're family members to me. And Jesse was just brilliant, he
was the kind of person that when he walked into a room, I always felt better.
Zach
and I were texting a couple weeks after he passed, and Zach was sending me all
these pictures of him. So it's just a song about how beautiful he was, but also
about the idea of going into the light and the duality of what the light is—Lucifer
is the Lord of the light, and the light at the end of the tunnel is often
thought of as good. With heroin and opiates and fentanyl, I’m saying don't go
into the light. Because it's not what you think it is—yeah, it's beautiful.
It's warm, it's going to hold you for a minute. But I just don't want you to go
there.
I
wanted to express to him that he was loved and that we hold him dearly. Everybody
in that session loved Jesse, and a big reason why I wanted to record these
songs with these people in that space was really to honor him. The engineer,
Pete Hanlon, was really tight with Jesse, and he said, “After I listened to
that song, I took it home, and I listened to it all night.” He said he was so
angry at Jesse, and I understand that—you feel like he left you and he was
being a careless fucking idiot. He said, “I can finally let go of the anger,”
and I was like, man, that validates everything, I don't have to write any more.
These
last couple of tunes are real centerpieces of the record emotionally. I don't
know how we're gonna play them every night. I hope we can, but I don't know.
Night
Light
I
was dating this woman who I felt a strong connection with, but she was really
mentally unwell, and she couldn't sleep at night. She always made me keep this
weird night light on for her.
She
had all kinds of weird visions and stuff. But the song is, again, a bit two
things. It's sort of about her, but then it's also about when you lose that
person who makes the world make sense to you. What do you do when there is no
night light anymore? I don't exactly know what that song is about, but there's
something to do with losing that last glimmer of what you thought was keeping
you safe
Transmissions
Very,
very pandemic song. My mom had COVID, and she was really sick and was in the
hospital. I didn't know if I was going to see her again. A lot of these songs are
about appreciation—as you get older, you appreciate things a lot more. The
simple things, like the beauty of nature, the slowness of nature, the way that
silence is.
And
what can a “transmission” be? Why did I choose that word? Well, it's a lot of
things. it's a disease being transmitted, it’s a post being posted, it’s a
thing that makes a car run—if it's not working, it doesn't run anymore. When
your head’s under the hood, you ain't driving! So it was meant to be all of
those things, along with an ability to be present in the world.
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