I’d advise you to not attempt to look into any sort of discography of Centro-matic frontman Will Johnson. By the time you tally up the albums he’s done with them, add in the output of the band’s mellow alter-ego South San Gabriel, throw in Johnson’s solo projects, and his work with everybody from the Patterson Hood-led Screwtopians to the Monsters of Folk – and take in that most of it has all happened since 1995 – it’ll make you nervous. Very, very nervous. And I’m not going to get into Johnson’s work as an artist, the most recent example of which graces the cover of Candidate Waltz, the latest “Centro-matic release”: http://www.jambands.com/reviews/cds/2011/06/21/centro-matic-candidate-waltz

For a man who seems driven by his art at times – and a fascinatingly intense performer in a live setting – Johnson is nothing but a laid-back Texas gentleman to talk to; modest as all hell and tickled to talk about his music. We recently had the pleasure of chatting for a bit on the eve of Centro-matic hitting the road to support the release of Candidate Waltz.

BR: First of all, Will, I hear you have a wee little new baby in the house, so I’m going to talk real quietly –

WJ: (laughs)

BR: – and if you need to hang up and tend to things at any point, I completely understand, buddy.

WJ: (laughs) Extremely considerate of you; thank you for even acknowledging – I appreciate that. I think Momma’s got it under control for the time being, so we’re all right. But I’ll certainly tell you if I have to go. (laughter)

BR: Well, I had three of my own – the greatest kids in the world … but sometimes you have to double-team them, you know? (laughter)

WJ: Yeah, sometimes things crop up and you have to stop everything. It’s totally true.

BR: How many does this make for you?

WJ: Just one.

BR: Oh, wow – well, seriously: congratulations, man.

WJ: Thank you very much. It’s a very exciting time; very exhilarating and thrilling – but I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.

BR: And just think of the song possibilities coming up.

WJ: Yeah, exactly. That’s a good point. (laughs)

BR: It’ll be like, “I gotta jot that down …”

WJ: I know – on pieces of napkin and paper, stuffed in your pockets with tons of notes on ‘em.

BR: And corners torn off Pampers boxes.

WJ: Right! (laughter)

BR: Before we talk about Candidate Waltz, I wanted to ask you: do you still have your old, trusty, brown Telecaster Custom? I saw some video taken at a recent show and you were playing a red-bodied Tele that I didn’t remember seeing before. Is that new to you?

WJ: Let’s see … it sounds to me like you saw some clips from a show we did in Barcelona, Spain.

BR: That’s right.

WJ: And the reason I was using that red Tele was because the airline did not bother to get our guitars, effects pedals, cables – anything – to us in time for the show. I had to borrow that red Tele. (laughs)

BR: Oh, no …

WJ: Oh, yeah. (laughs) The show had to go on; the place was full and the airline just couldn’t pull through, so we were using gear we borrowed.

You’re right, though: usually I use the brown Tele or an old Epiphone Dot that I’ve souped up a little bit and really enjoy. The old Tele is in fine condition, but I typically don’t travel with it to Europe because it’s now 35 years old and I just don’t trust the airlines.

BR: Ah – I’ve never known just how old it was.

WJ: Yeah – it’s a ’76. It’s gotten to the point where I feel like I’ve pushed my luck with it as far as the airlines go. It feels like a cat that’s lived its eight lives and I don’t want to push it. (laughs) I travel to Europe with other guitars now – just for preservation’s sake.

BR: I love the sound of that thing; I’ve always felt like you had such great control over the power of it. I figured somebody else could pick it up and it would take right off out from underneath of them, you know?

WJ: (laughs) It does have some interesting nuances and some very subtle little powers that still surprise me to this day. I’ve known the thing for a long time and it still emits certain sounds and certain tones that continue to surprise me. I guess that tells me that the relationship with the guitar remains healthy, you know? (laughs) It’s just like a good friend or something: they continue to bring you joy and surprise you in new ways.

BR: Ah – that’s cool to hear. Well, I could talk about Teles all day – we’d better move on to Candidate Waltz. Did you have a focused period of writing for the album?

WJ: I did. The majority of it happened in the summer of 2009. It goes back a little ways, but I did write the majority of that record in the same session. It was sweltering, sweltering hot and I was living in this little town here in Texas called Bastrop. I just set up all my gear in the kitchen and could go from station to station as I demo’d up the songs. And all that writing pretty much happened in the span of maybe two weeks.

BR: I’m assuming you primarily write on the guitar – acoustic usually or electric?

WJ: I write some on the electric, for sure. Most of these songs, however, were written on the bass guitar.

BR: Really?

WJ: Yeah, I really got into writing on the bass at that time because I wanted a less-comfortable approach. Also, I wanted to peel things back a little bit and leave more to the imagination; leave more to the relationship between the rhythm section and the vocal rather than layering up a bunch of guitars. I enjoy doing that, but we do it all the time and for this record we knew we wanted to take more of a “peeled back” approach – relying a little bit more on tension rather than release.

We sometimes have a habit of blowing the doors wide open with ride cymbals and layered guitars and that’s fun … except we wanted this record to embody a little bit more restraint and a little bit more tension, rather than the overall explosive, loud release.

Writing on the bass guitar led me down a certain road … it changed some of the decisions I made vocally and some of the thoughts that we had as far as the drums. It gave the guitar more of a different role; it put it in a slightly secondary position, which is exciting. It changes your writing somewhat, you know? It put me in a less comfortable situation, which told me I was learning something, which is a good thing.

BR: Cool. There’s no question that it’s a Centro-matic album, but at the same time, there’s a different vibe.

WJ: That’s what we wanted to try for – and I’m excited to hear that you feel the same, because that’s what we were going for. It’s nice to know that it translated.

BR: Matt Pence does – what? – quadruple duty on Candidate Waltz as drummer, co-producer, mixer, and doing the mastering. How do you feel – or do you feel – that his role as percussionist affects his approach to production?

WJ: I do think that Matt’s role as drummer – and as engineer – and as co-producer – and as mastering engineer – and as the band photographer, as well – he’s a master photographer – I think that all those roles combine to help him understand and see the music with very, very clear eyes. Matt’s pinpoint vision with our music has a lot to do with the fact that he does get to experience the songs as time goes on from different vantage points, you know? We all try to do that, because we all play different instruments – a lot of the time on stage we switch off a lot.

We’re not all chops players, necessarily, but I do think that our want and our ongoing need to experience our music from different vantage points – be it on guitar or bass guitar or drums or through the window as an engineer – has helped us understand it a little bit better. Hopefully, it’s added to the longevity of the band and has allowed us to have as enriching an experience as we can with our music. I definitely think that Matt is the force that drives that approach in so many ways … he has to listen to those songs so many more times than we do. (laughter)

BR: I hadn’t thought about that.

WJ: Oh, yeah – he really does … and he knows them inside and out, so therefore I think that inevitably improves his musical skills.

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