Last week Ben Shepherd unleashed his solo album In Deep Owl. Full of haunting and hypnotically alluring tunes that furrow the brow at the deeper meanings underneath some pretty cryptic sounding lyrics, Shepherd has not three-sixtied away from his Soundgarden roots. He has just chosen an almost Lou Reed/Plastic Ono Band kaleidoscope in which to mix his brew. Maybe it was the precipitation on long Seattle nights that had his mind whistling with the rhythm of picking at wounds. Or maybe he was just feeling restlessly creative. Lyrics such as “They lay there soullessly, where no one else can do them harm” from “The Train You Can’t Win” or “Everywhere I go it’s just the same, even my shadow shows my shame” from “Loose Ends” are almost uncomfortable in their non-shy proclamations. “Don’t be lonely, I do that every night,” Shepherd sings in “Keystone.” “Robbing graves, to find out who you are” makes you wonder, what happened to this man when we weren’t looking?
Then again, Shepherd has what they call a dry sense of humor. Things said in all seriousness and a straight face causes a momentary stun gun shot to the brain. A partial lift of his lips brings you relief. Or does it? Shepherd keeps you guessing, keeps you on your toes; prodding you for a reaction that is not always kosher to what is politically or socially correct but is real. Humans are not perfect, despite the kabuki freak show of trying to appear so. And Shepherd has decided not to play along to preconceived notations of what should or should not be written on a spreadsheet of musical notes.
So when he called in to talk with me a few weeks ago, delving into his past to figure out his present seemed like a good idea, but we stayed pretty close to the center of his album. We talked about songs and we talked about creativity. He dropped hints of a not-so-happy past while wishing for the weather to clear so he could go out on his boat. He reminisced about his late friend Andrew Wood of Mother Love Bone, then in the next breath talked about his spirited niece. He is a man of many colors: Intelligent yet cool, confident yet guarded, talkative yet quiet; but most certainly talented.
I bet you’re excited about having your new album out finally.
Yeah. It took a while, didn’t it. Had to get all the ducks in a row, you know, make sure it was right. I took advantage of Soundgarden time away from it. Because I’m touring with Soundgarden, recording with Soundgarden, and all that, you know, and then when listening to tapes of it, I was like, no, I want to fix that before it goes out. So I took advantage of that kind of backburner time, really. I didn’t get enough done, I don’t think, but got some of it done that way.
It’s a very hypnotic-sounding record. It really pulls you in.
I hope you feel that way, that it could take you somewhere else than where you’re at, you know.
What was the first song that you wrote for this album that you knew this was going to be an actual album project for you and not just a song you created?
Here’s how it went: My friends were doing some editing and I was worried for them. I had my guitar and a little tiny amp. And I said, “You guys are going to be doing this weird editing of lectures? Well, I’m going to play guitar for you because that sounds creepy to me; that sounds insane, like you’re going to go insane cause you’re going to be there for so long.” So I started playing guitar and I kind of came up with two songs and they were like, “You should record those,” cause they were in the recording studio doing this editing, right. And I’m like, “Yeah, whatever.” So the two songs were “The Great Syrup Accident” and “Neverone Blues.” And that’s how it started.
For a while, I was tracking those guitar tracks and things fell apart at home; they thought I was having an affair because I was out in the recording studio so long and all this crap, so I wound up making a record because I had nowhere to go. But “Great Syrup” and “Neverone Blues” were the first songs I started recording. There were no drums or anything; didn’t ever plan on drums. It was a postcard from oblivion, cause I basically disappeared, then washed up in Georgetown.
Why did you choose “Baron Robber” to introduce everybody to this album?
Because it was the only rocker on there that I feel like is rock & roll. It’s like the “Immigrant Song” on Zeppelin III, it’s the one rocker.
“The Train You Can’t Win,” which closes out the album, is very haunting, almost in it’s simplicity.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That was all one take and that was hard to do. I was making that song the whole record and it was supposed to be this acoustic thing that, the train gets going, da-da-da-da, and then it stops and plays a different move into music, like a train station, a different station, and then it moves back on the train tracks again and gets to another one. There were five different stops for that when we were writing. And the vocals were supposed to be buried way in the back. There weren’t any words for it, it was supposed to be an instrumental, and then it just kind of forced it’s way into being what it is now. And that’s one of the songs that went back with Nate Yaccino, my bass tech, and the producer/engineer guy that worked with Soundgarden. That and “Baron Robber” I went back and fixed cause I couldn’t stand the old way of “Baron Robber.” We rearranged it, totally chopped it up and moved it around and added backing vocals and stuff like that. Just remixed it, basically.
What do you have going on at the end of “Veritas” with the little bings and whistles?
Oh yeah, that’s the contraction. That’s just for the fun of it, to break the monotony up of the CD, because in the context it’s like the breaker of the side of the record. Like side one to side two.
You went in the studio and did this on your own. How comfortable were you with that situation of doing this yourself without the guys around you?
(laughs) Well, definitely the checks and balances are missing but Dave French, the co-producer with me, we were on the same page. He wouldn’t let me lose focus on what I was doing because you can get argumentative with yourself and take a song completely the wrong path and wrong mood and all that. But I was pretty much making everything up on the spot so it was pretty loosey-goosey, and I always thought, the whole time I kept telling those guys, “This is never going to see the light of day. Don’t worry about it, we’ll just do whatever. Plus its only digital” and I was all smarmy about digital. It doesn’t count if it’s not on tape, you know. But I tried to do everything in one take to make it as real feeling as possible.
Do you think being a producer later on down the line might be something you’d like to do?
Fuck no, I could not produce somebody else. But it depends on who it is, who you’re working with, I guess. I don’t have the technical knowledge, I feel. There’s other people that do that and that’s their gig. I’m not honing in on someone else’s job, you know. I’ve produced people before but totally local, basically missing and broken up bands now. But I’d rather be making songs rather than recording other people’s songs. I’d rather be making them.
Bass players and drummers work together as basically the foundation for a band. Is that how you work? Do you play off the drummer?
No, sometimes it depends on the song. All those songs were made up either on the spot or at a drum studio after they were recorded. Like “Koda,” Matt played to a completely different song that’s not heard. I took all the music off and just used his drum tracks and made up a completely new song from what he drummed. So he didn’t even recognize his drumming when he heard it. He was like, “Who’s drumming on that song? That’s amazing,” cause it sounds all random and weird.
And you played guitar.
Yeah, I played all of it
How do you create music?
It just depends. Usually if I play guitar or a bass or something, I’ll make up a song. There’s always songs lurking in the instruments and you coax them out of there.
Is it easy for you to write a song?
There’s one song that I’ve been writing for I don’t know how many years now. The same batch of songs that I wrote “Taree” for Soundgarden was a long time ago and I’m still working on it. I need a third verse. To me, the lyrics and the verses are the hardest part. I always get in this battle, like, “Ok, you want to be a guitar player, do you want to be a singer/guitar player?” and I can’t stand that, I can’t split myself. On this record I had a lot of fun when I got to the bass tracks cause I could do whatever cause I understood the songs and I could just go wherever. It’s more about texture than anything too.
I understand that you like to improvise your bass parts.
Yeah, oh yeah. I like everybody to improvise. When you’re in a band with me, like not Soundgarden or anything, but my whole rule was when you’re learning a song, just know the next part, know when the next part shows up and do whatever you want till then, you know what I mean. It’s kind of based off the old joke that my friend Gregg Keplinger told me once, “Never the same thing once.” It’s more of a Jazz philosophy than anything, I guess.
You knew Andrew Wood of Mother Love Bone. Would you share a special memory of him with us?
Ok, my old punk rock band was playing this house party. It was the first show we ever did. We have a tape of it somewhere, really horrible ghetto box recording of it, but we’re driving on this intersection on Bainbridge, there were hardly any stop signs or stop lights, and there’s this one intersection and we were cruising to the party. And the bass player of this band, he was driving, and I took a bite of what we called the death fudge cause our singer got sick from the fudge. But I took a bite of it, right, and he goes, “Oh my God, there’s a wreck.” So we pull over and help everyone, see what’s going on, and everyone’s standing around and everyone’s fine. And it’s all kids heading to the same party. Some kids were going downtown to get like beer or whatever, I don’t know; probably not even beer. Everyone is kind of straight-laced really. Then all of a sudden out of this other car this guy climbs out of the back and I can’t tell what it is. It looks more like a Japanese anime cartoon, all this hair and this flowing kimono robe and everything. “Oh that’s L’Andrew or Andy.” (laughs). I’ve heard about him but I’d never met him before and that’s how I met him, right after a car wreck. And we were good friends. We used to hang out. One of the last times I got to hang out with him was when we did a song and a dance for everyone we made up on the spot. It was funnier than hell. He didn’t think we could do it.
So what are you going to do for the rest of this year? Do you plan on playing some solo gigs?
I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it. I think more about making little films for it than anything. That’s my daydream, putting together a stage production and then getting out and doing something with it.
What kind of film do you see?
Oh that’s secret. You’re just going to have to wait.
Do you miss being out on the road during this hiatus?
Yeah, I like having things to do. It doesn’t matter if I’m on the road or at home. I just like having things to do.
Do you have any songs left over that you didn’t put on this CD?
Yeah, there’s one song called “Up From Hell” that didn’t make it because half the drum mics weren’t on. That’s the other interesting thing about this recording is that all the drummers used the same drum set, except on “Loose Ends.” We redid “Loose Ends” with Matt’s kit. When we were making King Animal we had time off so we were waiting around one day and he fixed the drums on “Loose Ends.” So that was the one song that’s not the same drum set.
Speaking of Soundgarden, in your opinion, what was the best thing about King Animal?
Hmm, just being around the guys. I liked it when Chris brought the tapes of “Rowing” in. That’s when I knew the gloves were off. I was like, “Oh my God, now we got a real song on our hands.”
What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about you?
I don’t know (laughs). That I’m nice. I don’t like things when I read or bands go, “Oh, the real main thing is it’s funny how he uses the same drummers that Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard use.” It’s like, Jesus Christ, are you that shallow or what? That kind of stuff bothers me. I don’t know about misconceptions about me cause I don’t really hear anything about it.
Live photos by Leslie Michele Derrough
2 Responses