Dan Montgomery is an artist most associated with Americana music which developed from his early career as a singer/songwriter playing an acoustic guitar. His even earlier career began as a very young teenager playing Rock ‘n Roll in cover bands in his native New Jersey. That past might have faded from public knowledge had his own roots not come calling via a new batch of songs. He’s recently released the album Cast-Iron Songs and Torch Ballads via Fantastic Yes Records, collecting the most Rock ‘n Roll songs he’s been part of since his teen years. The development wasn’t intentional, but it was very natural for this multi-genre artist.
Various circumstances meant that Montgomery found himself writing hybrid Rock tunes, most prominent among them the purchase of a vintage electric guitar, but even more surprising is that his compatriot bandmates given very little time to rehearse or play together due to pandemic conditions managed to track the album mostly live. And in only a few takes. Clearly, they felt inspired by this change of tack. Montgomery has always been a storyteller, and you’ll find that in these songs, but he also likes to include the texture of real life which might leave you guessing how much is based on personal observation. Montgomery doesn’t shy away from sharing tales from his far from conventional life via his songs and in person. I spoke with him about this return to Rock for Cast-Iron Songs and Torch Ballads.
Hannah Means-Shannon: I’m calling from Southern New Jersey, your old stomping grounds.
Dan Montgomery: Yes, I started out when I was about 14 playing cover bands there. I think if you’re going to be an original musician, you should spend at least two years in a cover band. You learn a whole lot that you don’t think applies to you, but down the road, it really does. It’s not like anyone can tell you they don’t have any influences, either.
HMS: In some ways, your new album proves that everything we’re saying is true! Because you didn’t know that all these things from your past were going to come out on this album, making it much more Rock ‘n Roll. But they were still there from your youth.
DM: We were playing Bad Company and Bachmann Turner Overdrive. Classic Rock now was just Rock music then. Then I got hit by Punk, then Country. With the band I was in, everyone went off in other directions, so I was a solo guy for a while. Over the course of my albums, if you look at them, you can see my work building from a solo thing into a band thing, in the long run.
HMS: I noticed that your previous album had a wide range of sound aspects to it, though it wasn’t a Rock album. You tend to be multi-genre.
DM: I think it’s just short attention span! Also, if you have three songs in a row in the same tempo, that’s not really good for a record. I think in terms of arranging setlists. I’ve also never been into just one type of music, so therefore I don’t want to play just one type of music. It’s really strange how I feel like I’m going back to who I was, originally, though.
When I moved to Memphis, I didn’t really know anybody and I didn’t have a band, so for the first two years, I was just playing solo. A lot of peoples’ first impression of me in Memphis was a guy with an acoustic guitar singing really sad songs. I used to get frustrated by that, but that was my own doing! [Laughs] I like sad songs.
HMS: You needed to write what you needed to write at the time.
DM: I’m from New Jersey, what do you expect?
HMS: You were still getting over all the bar fights. Though I’m sure there are some in Memphis, too.
DM: There are plenty of them in Memphis! But after touring my first couple of solo records, and around the time of my third record, I found Robert Mache, who’s now basically my band leader and my co-Producer. Robert used to be in a band called The Continental Drifters. I was a huge fan of his and he was one of the most amazing guitar players I’d ever seen. 30 years later, I’m in a band with that guy. Getting Robert involved was really key because he and I have a really similar way of looking at things, aesthetically and musically. When we started working on records together, we could really mind-meld.
Our drummer’s studio is in his house in Memphis, and it’s really nice but it’s really small, but all of the basic tracks on this album are us playing there live. We’re playing in a room with very few overdubs. Robert does our mixing in his home studio in his attic. It’s called “A La Carte Studios” because the entire thing can fit only a hand cart! We can move it from the attic to the garage if needed.
HMS: I’m sure a lot of people wish they had that cart!
DM: I’m incredibly lucky because all these musicians are talented and generous, and they put up with me.
HMS: Was there a conversation where you said to the guys, “Hey, these songs coming up are going to be a little different…”?
DM: There wasn’t a formal notice. Our last record, Smoke and Mirrors, which just came out on vinyl, came out the same week as the pandemic shutdown happened. It got kind of lost in the mix. We also had a big family health crisis which took up a lot of my time during lockdown. I didn’t feel like I was going to have any time to write. All the sudden, songs just started falling out here and there. It wasn’t my usual writing routine. I’d go back and look at stuff and rearrange lines. I’d just record what I could on my phone with an acoustic guitar and send it to the guys in the band.
Because of restrictions, the basic tracks were done in only four two-hour sessions. There wasn’t a lot of time for discussion. We’d just get together and play. I wasn’t really sure that we were making a record, but Robert is really of the opinion that there’s no such thing as demos. If it’s good, it’s not a demo. That’s what we did. The first song on the second side is called “In For a Penny” and aside from the maracas and the harmony vocals, that is completely live and the second take. Including making up the lyrics on the spot! We had some extra time so we went for it.
HMS: I can understand it feeling natural to you how to shape the sound on these songs, but it’s pretty amazing that your band picked up on those developments so quickly, too.
DM: It’s funny because after making the last record, we had planned to make the next record all sculpted and experimental, but there just wasn’t time when it came down to it. When it happens that fast, you can be suspicious of it, because so much of life is hard work. I think it was Paul McCartney who said, “You don’t work music, you play music.” But that was also a big escape for me, those two-hour sessions. It was my only chance to step out of the world for the last two years. I had to make sure I didn’t prolong things simply because I enjoyed it.
HMS: Did you see any relationships between the songs as they were completed?
DM: This was my first record where I didn’t consciously go for a conceptual theme. Two of my records are full-blown concept records. But as I started to put the songs together, I realized, “Oh, there is a theme. It’s all people surviving really weird circumstances and persevering.”
HMS: It sounds like the recording process was a therapeutic experience, even. When you were writing in this way, were you aware that it felt nostalgic or like a return for you?
DM: Yes, because something else happened during this time. On a whim, I bought a guitar online, which is something that I never did. It was a 1959 Danelectro. It’s a really wonderful guitar, and is semi-hollow, so I could play it around the house without disturbing anybody, but it still felt electric. I’d play at night by myself sometimes. I remember that the first song I ever played live was “Rock Steady” from the first Bad Company record. When I got the Danelectro, I just started playing that riff again, and I thought, “God, I haven’t played this since I was 14!” It wasn’t a conscious decision, but it was almost like I picked up where I left off at a certain point in my musical world without intending to.
HMS: In terms of creative stuff, sometimes things just sit there in the cabinet, and you really can go back to them. It’s kind of outside of time.
DM: My writing room is more of a chop-shop. I have so many notebooks around here from I don’t know how many years and I still go through them and find a line which kickstarts something. On the new record, there’s a song called “Lonesome Train” that’s a Country Rock thing. That is actually 40 years old this year. I wrote it when I was 23. I remember thinking it was the first really good song I had written, but it took me 40 years to record it.
Other stuff just came along and I never found a place for it on an album. It usually got played in a more acoustic, string band kind of arrangement. But we just did it on a whim while we were working on this record and it was an amazing full-circle thing. It’s almost like I hung onto it until I had the right band. I never throw anything away!
HMS: It shows that you’re respectful of inspiration not to throw things away.
DM: Respectful, yes, very much so. I’ve always been jealous of people like Nick Cave or Randy Newman who could get up in the morning, shower, put on a suit, and go to an office, and write songs for eight hours. Anytime I’ve ever tried to do that, I’ve just sat there going, “hmmmmmm.” But instead, there’s a phrase or moment that sets things off for me.
HMS: When you wrote that song, “Lonesome Train”, you were so young, but the ideas of the song are very worldly-wise. Was your life tough?
DM: I’m probably the only person in the world who got off of hard drugs through going on tour with a Rock band. It makes no sense.
HMS: Why do you think that happened?
DM: Those guys drank beer, but they weren’t partiers, but I had been living a full-time party life. Then, when we went on tour, I wanted to fit in.
