'TRAVELLING & WRITING,THE US IS A VAST EVER CHANGING VISTA,ITS THERE FOR THE TAKING!' JACK BROADBENT
coming up this saturday on beyond the vibe i'm out on the road once again as i'm joined in person by jack broadbent, the thing is if if you put me in a folk club i'll play some blues just to mix it up a bit if you put me in a blues club i'll play some folk music you know and that in itself is a an interesting uh dynamic for if you're starting to try and branch out your material or do things it's sort of like where is the line in terms of traveling and writing you know i mean america obviously is this vast you know ever-changing vista i mean that that as a songwriter is you know if you've got a tour and you're driving from new york and you're going all the way over to la or if you're going down to you know new orleans whatever you if you sit in a dingy [ __ ] hotel in the middle of new york city you're gonna write some dingy [ __ ] old new york city blues you know it's there for the taking it's wonderful to be here this is it yeah it's so strange a few weeks ago i didn't even know you personally so i'm here uh once again with chat broadbent it's becoming a bit of a habit i said thank you very much for having me nice to finally meet you properly i know uh it's uh it's a weird thing because like this whole thing kind of started in covid the podcast so it's my first night being released into the world doing interviews there you go make sure you don't get into trouble tonight i know i've got to be here myself um the of course this is like the the first time in a few years now that you know you've come back to the uk um how's it going it's great um we've done about three gigs so far we did um started in lemington spa went up to newcastle it's wonderful and uh after that we went down to the black deer festival the first time going there down in kent fantastic festival and uh yeah good to be back in a muddy field with a load of brits you know speaking of that is has there been anything that you've uh it can be can be in your own time but like anything you've kind of missed about the uk uh yeah i mean the ale obviously now there's something um there's definitely something to be said for a british crowd if you're if you're from england you know so definitely i'd have that homecoming feel about it which is you know you can't get that anywhere else um but uh no it's been it's been really great and uh the gigs have all been um you know nice rooms nice nice people no complaints that's cool man um of course you know you're you're uh out and about promoting the the latest record ride um obviously on the on the record you know you're with a full band um whereas on about your are you always on your own or are you with your dad on specifically yeah on this record i've got uh mick my father who played on the record um so uh so that's great and uh we've we've always played as a duo anyway so uh you know we can make quite a lot of noise you know it's nice to have a drummer sometimes it's nice to just have the have the sparseness have been out play a little more uh look more subdued you know can take us in into areas that are a bit quieter that we wouldn't normally go if we were with full band so it gives us a quite a large dynamic range to to play as a duo you know it's great i was gonna say is there a is there a conscious decision of a you know you kind of leaving the drums behind um no um sometimes sometimes it's purely logistical sometimes it's you know i think for this tour especially touring with mike dawes who's a great acoustic player it was actually quite nice to uh you know ultimately the gig is a night of acoustic music a few things plugged in but uh but yes it's um it's nice and certainly offered a more intimate show rather than you know raucous you know um obviously like uh is this your first time meeting mike mike dawes yeah yeah yeah he's fantastic you know we've uh yeah we really hit it off and um yeah and we both play completely different styles too so it's really nice because we sort of like uh it's an interesting partnership like yeah yeah no i think it works great and um and he's having a good time i'm having a good time so uh you know it's great obviously like you you're known for kind of you play the the the cover of on the road again um you know quite a few times and you know this album it's linked to kind of moving and traveling and stuff um was is there a decision or like was there a moment where you're like i'm going to play this song regularly because it's kind of the your big song isn't it like well yeah well sort of fell into my lap really i always like to play it and uh and i feel like you know a lot of people come along um wanting the slide guitar stuff it's it's a piece that i love to play and it's a piece that really uh you know can a nice showcase for that area of the sound and um no it's a joy to play it and the the whole point of playing any cover for me is just to try and keep that keep the spirit of that song alive particularly if you've got you know deceased members of bands who are no longer you know with us it's a great thing to do i i believe you know that's why we play willing by uh little feet and homage to low george you know ray charles and you know that's kind of the idea really it's just if there's anyone in the crowd who hasn't heard one of those songs which you doubt then it's nice to feel like you're making the um making the point of keeping that music know uh uh um do you like to kind of keep things quite stripped back because obviously on ride you know you've you've just worked with uh your friend and and your father um you know do you feel that you you kind of produce your best work when you're in like a small crowd like a small group of people yeah well um i think it's the closest i can be to just obviously operating solo and then you get the luxury of you know second year third year kind of uh sometimes uh decisions are made last minute or you just switch up a groove at the last minute and it can be the the difference of a tune being one way or another and um you're never going to run into that if you're playing on your own it's always the involvement of others and so i i quite sort of meticulously try not to try too hard to keep things small you know uh too many cooks spoil the broth type thing and then you know uh my father i don't even have to second guess what he's gonna do we we're so uh synthetic at that point and and that's what i found with mark too he just uh he plays for the song so uh let's see where it takes the song have you worked with mark before on on we've been friends for a few years and we sort of jammed together and stuff but i've never really um sort of like contributed any of my own material uh for a while and then we sat down and started playing around a few songs and we went like this there's a vibe here you know so we sort of uh you know entertained that when we got three or four songs in we went hang on a minute we gotta get my dad to play bass on it and it just started coming together you know um of course again the the album has that theme of traveling in relation to that you know you've played in some interesting places is there anywhere that kind of really sticks out for you i remember seeing a while ago there was that video of you kind of in front of the grand canyon oh yeah that was quite an interesting place is there so somewhere that sticks out um in terms of in terms of traveling and writing you know i mean america obviously is this vast you know ever-changing vista i mean that that as a songwriter is you know if you've got a tour and you're driving from new york and you're going all the way over to la or if you're going down to you know new orleans or whatever you're gonna get inspired if you're gonna be anywhere you're gonna get inspired there and particularly with a richness of music that that you know trickles down that path so you know i found america to be very inspiring whether or not i've completed the songs there or so like you know flirted with them and then finished them later uh being in the states as a blues fan and a jazz fan and you know americana or whatever you want to rock and roll uh there's probably nowhere better really it fits really well with that that type of music that you play i think i think just being in that environment i imagine it would just be like perfect for us home of the music i like to play so in that sense you you kind of you kind of tackle two things really one is that you sort of aim to impress yourself or the air you know you're trying to try to fit in but the other side is that you know there's such a rich wealth of history there you know if you sit in a dingy [ __ ] hotel in the middle of new york city uh you're gonna write some dingy [ __ ] old new york city blues you know it's there for the taking i took a walk we'd mentioned that you have kind of two ways of writing like you you do a bit of writing on the road and you do a bit at home um from you know your recent tours have you kind of started writing again or uh well the ideas start to flow out of what you know what what you're doing and this is where it kind of goes back to what you're saying about playing with other people you know i mean my father uh so playing these songs for the first time together since the recordings so they're starting to become a bit more elastic stretch out and sometimes you might do something on a song and go like oh there's an avenue there you know and so it's it's more a feel thing you know maybe there's a maybe there's a sort of style that's emerging out of out of the newer material that might just sort of forge the next the next lot of songs but right now when you're touring you know i don't i don't i don't particularly go back to the hotel and get my guitar and start writing lots of songs at the end of the evening you know this is trying to save the energy for the performance but usually by the end of the tour you start looking at and going like oh what would we do next or how how you know what what's missing from the set yeah you know you get a good idea of that um last time you know you mentioned the you were debating between ride and and doing this kind of acoustic um album do you think that you'll you'll go down that road going forward yeah well i've got i've got a lot of acoustic pieces um you know we're finished and i'm definitely definitely interested in releasing them it's uh for me now it's just interesting to know when i might sort of top up that that that that that style you know um i'm just thinking like looking at kind of mike now who's kind of doing an acoustic thing maybe you look at that and think maybe you know i'll have a bit of that kind of acoustic flavor yeah well i've always balanced it you know the shows are always a pretty heavy balance of each um with the record so i decided for ride as we discussed before that i wanted to i wanted to have a punchy record that was sort of more focused in that area um so the next decision will be whether or not the next record is exclusively acoustic or whether i choose the songs that i've written and put it together more in a in a flow with with some other material but you know it's a it's a nice problem to have to have different different styles to be able to pluck from you know speaking kind of hypothetically if there was kind of a you know you've got like a free reign like a free shot if there was another genre that you'd kind of think i'm going to have a go at yeah with what would that kind of die straight up gangster rap massive departure yeah christian gangster yeah yeah but i mean uh well within the guys of what i do anyway there's elements of funk there's elements of jazz there's elements of all this stuff and i think the best thing for me has always been never to concentrate on whether or not you're going to push into a certain genre it's about the song so if you get a song that's all of a sudden every metal and you love it stick it on your record you know and hopefully it's got its place um with a lot of the blues stuff yeah it has got a very um close tie to to jazz and to to funk so i mean uh that's always on the periphery anyway i i was gonna say like you you kind of walk this line uh with blues and jazz because like we're in a jazz place now so it's um there seems to be this kind of crossover i see with a lot of kind of blues eyes they stick very much to like blues venues or traditionally blues places would you kind of i'll play anywhere yeah well i think i think you know maybe you've got a bit more of that versatility you know i think like like the trailer like midnight radio kind of walks that line well the thing is if you put me in a folk club i'll play some blues just to mix it up a bit if you put me in a blues club i'll play some folk music you know and that in itself is a an interesting uh dynamic for if you're starting to try and branch out your material or do things it's sort of like where is the line where where does folk end and blues begins and is it it's not just three chords it's it's a feeling or a vibe you know um so yeah tonight at this jazz club we're gonna play straight up gangsta rap uh finally um kind of a further extension on that question i asked last time with the one from the past one from the present if if there was like a classic album that you could go back to and maybe be a part of in some kind of way what what what album would that be um that's a big question it's a very interesting question i don't know i mean for me i suppose it it's a wider question more so it sits in what era you know i mean like uh in the in that sweet spot in the 70s when you got the stones and um you know it's a different process at that point as well like a recording process absolutely um and i think they had a very similar process to to how i like to undertake recording which is essentially quite a lot of live aspects to it and then you put a bit of salt and pepper on at the end so you know for me um yeah i'd love to be a fly on the wall down at um exile on main street or some a little feet stuff or peter green's fleet with mac or you know just imagine you know so i think in terms of the the work ethic and how they were recording the music that era to me is a blueprint for what how i like to approach making a record you know it's kind of it links back to what i mentioned last time where the album has that classic flavor ride i think it feels like it's got that kind of uh old-school kind of warmth yeah well and that's it and it was recorded by a couple of bad boys in a small little room you know with uh with uh no separation on the instruments everything going hot on the hot on the microphones and i think that's that's what they were capturing in the 70s a lot of the time you know either a good ambient sound of a full band or uh or at least trying not to make things too clinical you know second you start to um pay too much attention to how does the kick drum sound how does this sound how does this sound then you start losing the focus on the entirety of the sound you know whereas if you're working on the basis of a vibe and you know all that cool jazz stuff that was recorded in the 60s you know oscar peterson and stuff like that it was a piano double bass and drums one microphone in the middle and they just put it in the right spot and they and that's what that band sounded like that's what i'm trying to record what do we sound like not what can we sound like what do we sound i think i think that's the thing isn't it like um because it's it's kind of going back to the basics you know in a way it's it's it shows it showcases more of your character whereas i think you know there's that danger in there where somebody that's striving for almost the kind of clinical um perfection you kind of lose that particularly if you're producing your own music the most heinous crime you could ever commit would be to over produce yourself you know i mean if somebody else does it then you've got you can blame them but if you ever produce music then you've you've ever thought it or it's not you know it's not um it's so uh so natural do you enjoy doing your own kind of thing yeah yeah i love it but i equally love having another set of ears in the room usually musicians you know um uh to to to just give that second opinion you know um i've never been really one for the idea of a a producer who's there for that specific reason yeah i'd rather wear what the bass player thinks if he's happy with the bass sound rather than what somebody else you know at the helm thinks you know that's cool man well thank you very much for joining you very much once again yeah and uh i'll be looking forward to to hearing you first time very much i hope you enjoy the show thank you for tuning in so okay
2022-09-06 02:13
