All Around The Mulberry Bush with Chuck Garvey
by Jesse Jarow

As usual, moe. are busy. Their newest album, a finely crafted pop sculpture called "Dither", hit stores in early February. They dropped like a bomb on the west coast last week and intend to ride "Dither" all the way back east over the course of the next month or two -- and probably a few more times around the country during the next year. For that matter, moe. would probably be doing that anyway, with or without a new disc under their belt.

When I caught up with a slightly sniffling Chuck Garvey via phone on Seapods' New Year's (2/11), he and his bandmates - Al Schnier, Rob Derhak, Vinnie Amico, and Jim Loughlin - had just pulled into Flagstaff, Arizona, for a rare day off between concert dates. Chuck planned to use the opportunity to grab some fresh air in the crystal healing capital of the country. For the moment, though, I leashed him to a hotel phone.

JJ: I guess, to begin, an all-purpose general philosophical question: are you ready to rock?

CG: Are we ready to rock? At almost all times.

JJ: Ever been caught unawares, unprepared?

CG: Unprepared to rock? Yeah, every once in a while. You can't be ready to rock 24/7. You wouldn't be human.

JJ: Yeah, then you'd be a rock star.

CG: (Laughs.) Yeah.

JJ: How's the tour going?

CG: The tour's going great. We just played at the Warfield [in San Francisco] last night. That was pretty fun. We've been doing some serious traveling. A lot of ass-hauling going on. We've had some pretty long drives.

JJ: Any stand out moments from the first week?

CG: I really liked Anaheim. We played at this place called the Sun Theater. Basically, the place is like this dinner theater. Included in the price, you show up early and you actually eat dinner and see the show. It's pretty nice. Before the show, we put on these masks. You know that movie "Sugar and Spice"? You know the masks that the cheerleaders wear? We were in Park City [Utah] - Park City was our first show - and after the show, Rob found a bunch of the masks that someone was throwing out. I guess they were promoting the movie at Sundance. Rob grabbed the masks and, basically, before the show in Anaheim, we put on the masks and ran up front to the entrance area and just played acoustically, for three or four songs. It was fun. We're gonna try to do a couple of more things like that. Just kinda fun to do before a show.

JJ: Did the disguises work?

CG: For a little while. (Laughs.) For about the first 20 seconds.

JJ: Are you guys doing anything differently this time out, either consciously or unconsciously, musically speaking?

CG: We have some new material. Basically, this is the first week we've been playing it, except for two shows -- one at Bearsville, at WDST, and we did a Monkeys [on Ecstasy] show in Albany at a place called Valentine's. We've been doing that new material. In general, I guess, there's always a slightly different spin on everything. There are different elements that work in different parts of songs, definitely. A complete overhaul is not going on right now, if that's what you mean.

JJ: Now that "Dither" is recorded, mixed, and out, does the experience of playing a song live change?

CG: A little bit. Actually, when you get into the studio, everything's under a microscope, so you really try and have it be polished and also intense at the same time and you actually try to make everything better. When you're under that kind of microscope you see some smaller flaws that you might not see just playing it night after night. As far as I'm concerned, there is a conscious effort to make everything better. (Laughs.)

And that's just what the recording process has been for us: to take all the best elements of some things that we've played live and distill it down and make it all the very best, and then add to that. There was a lot of new stuff that we did in the studio that we'd never done before live, as well. We try to incorporate those new elements as well.

JJ: There are a lot of things that you did on "Dither" in terms of overdubbing different instruments with different arrangements. Have you consciously tried to work those things in live? Is it possible even?

CG: Yeah, it is. Like, the Faker, for example, is much different. We wanted to include the acoustic piano and acoustic guitar and just broaden the musical palette of it just because the different tonal qualities of those instruments make things sound broader. We can't really do that live, but we kind of had to change-up the feel of the song a little bit. I think it has changed a little bit, as far as the overall feel goes. We can't have a piano there so we can include that for that one song. It doesn't really make sense. There are definitely the elements that we came up with in the studio that we're trying to continue doing when we play 'em live.

JJ: Some of the elements, at first, seem foreign to the general moe. sound and some of them seem kind of out of left field. How did you come to the decision to, say, add the bouncing keyboards to Captain America, or something like that?

CG: That, for example, Rob just said that he kind of heard it going on. Instead of the guitar parts, he said he could kind of hear that funky thing going on in the background. We tried it several different ways. Actually, that mix - the first track on the album - was the a very, very last minute thing. We had a normal, kinda straight-ahead, guitar version already mixed, and that was gonna be on the album, and then Rob said "you know what? I never really got to completely pursue it".

We had already asked Kirk [Juhas] from freebeerandchicken to do a lot of tracking, and he had actually done minimal tracking, and basically Rob wanted to go back and take a stab at remixing it: basically just stripping away the guitars in the verses and including that funky part that Kirk laid down. He really had never played clav before, but he just kinda took a stab at it and that's what he came up with. It was all pretty off the cuff, but I think the result is pretty cool. Basically, a lot of the songs, we just wanted to experiment with a little bit -- different instrumentation and slightly different arrangements and everything.

JJ: Is that the original guitar mix that's tacked on 20 minutes after Opium?

CG: Yeah, that's the original that was going to be on. Actually, I went back and listened to them and there was some debate as to which one was the better version, the one we should include. After it was all said and done, and the albums were made, and both versions were on there, I went back and listened to them both and I think they're both equally meritorious. (Laughs.) I'm satisfied with both of them. I'm definitely glad that we did the keyboard version with Kirk. I think it sounds really cool, and it's kind of refreshing to hear that song in a different way. I'm into it. I think all of us were pretty into it. It took a little while to get used to.

JJ: The total sound of the album sounds pretty far removed from what you guys sound like onstage every night. This is kind of a stupid question, but what makes the moe. on "Dither" and the live incarnation the same band?

CG: We're the same people. What we do onstage is what we are capable of doing, or comfortable doing, and what we do in the studio is creatively what we can try to run down. There's a certain amount of creative energy that you can use onstage and things you can get away with. There's a certain dynamic that's involved with playing live onstage in front of people. In the studio, you have a lot more options and, creatively, it's a different kind of fun. Instead of working the energy of the moment, you work towards something that's really cool and lasting instead of the fleeting kind of energy of the moment that's onstage. It's just a completely different thing to me, but it's the same people that are doing it. It's just a different creative process.

JJ: What elements, for you, make an album lasting?

CG: Lasting? I dunno. It can be any number of things. It has to have some kind of energy outside of itself -- like there's some kind of magic in it. It can be anything, from a really nasty garage-band sounding Rolling Stones albums to a really highly anally crafted Steely Dan album and everything in between. That's what I think of. Some of my favorite albums are a lot of different weird combinations of that. I don't even know if I can explain it. JJ: Were you going for a conscious overall sound when you were working on "Dither"? I feel like it sounds very unified. But was that a conscious push or did it just come out?

CG: The sessions were all split up over a long period time. We started with basics, where basically we just played as a live band and tried to get a really good fundamental base for each song. Then we went back and experimented with overdubs and any flaws we would redo parts. A lot of the original scratch tracks were kept. We tried to get really good drums sounds, and a really good drum take, and - after that - we would work around the other flaws and add and subtract elements. That whole process occurred over a long period of time.

It was more just the state of mind we were in: what everybody wanted out of each individual song. You know, "I hear these different parts here" or "I've never really been fond of this here, let's take this away" and "let's try a different instrument here just because I can hear an acoustic guitar here" or "I can hear this percussion part here". It was a fun creative process like that, but it wasn't so much like there was some kind of global master plan that we were doing for the whole album. It was just a general frame of mind we were in in wanting to use the creative process to our advantage in the studio. That was basically it: use it to the maximum.

JJ: Do you think it would've come out differently if you had recorded it in a three-week chunk?

CG: Probably. We probably would've felt really stressed out. We would try to be bashing it out. There's something to be said for that, and we've done it before, but it's not always completely satisfying. It's good to have a little critical distance from it and then to come back and say "I'm glad we didn't get rid of that without thinking about it". The process was a little more gradual. I think all of the songs benefited from that.

JJ: How do you see "Dither" as a progression from "Tin Cans and Car Tires", or even "HeadSeed" and "No Doy" and all those?

CG: It's definitely a process of us taking more control. I see it as very much like the process when we did "HeadSeed". I think it's a lot more natural, and it's a lot more fun to do, because we weren't working under the deadline and the pressure of the record company. I think it was a lot more natural, and a lot more fun, creatively. We didn't have to answer to anybody.

JJ: Which can also be dangerous.

CG: Yeah, definitely. It's better to do it and just have no one to blame but yourself than to say "we put our trust in these people and it didn't work out and it was a big waste of time for us". Not to say that "No Doy" and "Tin Cans and Car Tires" were a waste of time, because it was a learning process to go into a real studio and do these things. Every time we learn how to use it a little bit better.

JJ: How do you feel the older albums hold up?

CG: That's hard to say. I don't really listen to them a lot. I don't really listen to "HeadSeed". I think that "HeadSeed" actually stands up really well, just because I think all of the songs are really strong and it was just us very honestly going into the studio and doing the best we could with what we had. We also had a long time to come up with those songs. It was our live repertoire that we were working on for two or more years. Each time it's been a progression. I think each successive album will be better and better. We've always just tried to go about it like that: what we're happy with, and what we can live with, and what's interesting to us is what we're going to end up doing. Hopefully everybody else appreciates that.

JJ: You mentioned the songs on "HeadSeed" being in the repertoire for a while. In the two and a half years since you recorded "Tin Cans" you've probably debuted either two or three times the amount needed for the new album. How did you decide what songs eventually wound up on the album?

CG: Well, for "Tin Cans", we started with - like - 18 songs and just whittled it down. It was easier to come up with the list this time. We wanted the newest material and the strongest stuff that we believed in the most, just made it and that was it. We wanted a cohesive album. Certain songs, we decided, wouldn't necessarily fit in with the album as a whole.

Like one of those songs was Blue Eyed Son. It's basically a bluegrass tune. In the greater scheme of the album, it didn't necessarily make sense to include that. Actually. Al was the one who said that. "I don't think it really belongs on this album." And when we stopped to think about it for a second, we were like "okay, I guess it doesn't necessarily belong on this one... maybe it'll belong on the next one". It was basically that process: "does this make sense?" and everyone would say "yeah, that makes sense". The process was kinda strange. It just kinda feel together.

JJ: Were these decisions made during pre-production or during recording?

CG: During recording, actually. The thing is we went into the studio just to make a demo, which is how it started out. We did this one session in a place in Greenwich, Connecticut called Carriage House. We weren't really excited with all the basic tracks we did there, though one of the basics that we cut there did end up on the album. I think it's Can't Seem To Find. The rest of them we decided to redo, because they didn't sound great. The whole process wasn't as great as we wanted it to be. I think the engineer there was really not very into helping us out. The entire process wasn't as enriching as any of us wanted it to be.

We didn't save a lot of that. As we went along in the studio, we kind of developed the idea of the songs we wanted to include and we just worked on those. We ended up cutting one or two other songs that didn't make it onto the album. But we just cut basic tracks for them. We don't have other completed songs.

JJ: In terms of the live repertoire, it's not uncommon to see a song drop out of the setlists for a really long time and then pop up in edited form. How do you decide when a song needs editing? And, conversely, how do you decide when it's done?

CG: Usually, the day after a show, somebody'll say "hey, man, that kinda really sucked last night". (Laughs.) And we'll soundcheck with it, try different variations. Or, during the recording process, we started recording tracks and said "that doesn't really work, let's try it again".

Actually, for this album, there were several songs where we recorded the basics and, then, actually manipulated them so that the arrangements were different. We physically moved around the chorus and intro parts like that, just because it was another creative tool and because we could do that without having to go through the much longer process of trying out every possible permutation. It's weird.

There's definitely a lot of different ways that any one song can be done. If you start getting really crazy, trying it every single way and seeing how it sounds, then it'll never get done. It definitely was fun to do it that way: compositions on the fly.

JJ: Is the initial author responsible for it or is it anybody's game?

CG: Ultimately, you defer. For example, if we're talking about New York City, everybody has input but if Rob says "I wouldn't be able to live with that, it doesn't sound right to me," then you defer definitely. Almost everything else is fair game. As long as we have the time and it's not too ridiculous a request. We try out a lot of options.

JJ: In the liner notes to "Dither", you occasionally refer to songs sounding like other artists -- Understand was the Strangefolk song and Can't Seem To Find is similar to Tom Petty. You guys do a lot of genre playing in general, so what makes distinctively moe. and not just a bluegrass song or a funk tune or something?

CG: I dunno. We're not a hardcore bluegrass band and it's obvious that we're not purists for any one form or another. Stylistically, we can't completely cop something -- you know, we don't sound like Zeppelin. (Laughs.) There are those elements that are part of the common American landscape. There are these things that people recognize immediately. In the same way that Frank Zappa took a lot of different elements and put them together - his sense of humor, and his personality, come through - even though there are these elements that everybody recognizes -- touchstones in American history and general consciousness. You recognize it, but you can almost immediately recognize that it is Frank Zappa. He had a very unique voice about what he did. There are a lot of artists that have a very specific voice that's not necessarily their singing voice, but their guitar voice or their compositional voice is pretty recognizable.

I don't necessarily think we are quite as unique as Frank Zappa, obviously. I do think we have a unique voice, even though we use these different elements. The elements that we choose are what define us. Definitely the sense of humor and the specific lyrics that we use. I don't think this combination is something that you see a whole lot of.

In addition our new songs are already very much a departure from some of the "Dither" stuff.

JJ: Have you been writing anything lately?

CG: (Long pause.) Yes.

JJ: Anything you wanna share with the rest of the world?

CG: (Laughs.) No, not yet.

JJ: Well, as a third party, how would you say that Al and Rob's songwriting has evolved over the years?

CG: (Long pause.) Huh. (Laughs.) I dunno, I think everything has gone in cycles. One of the cycles has been with Al gravitating towards more traditional straight-ahead songs. On the other hand, he also appreciates the weird stuff. As far as his songwriting goes, I think he's gotten better at making more straight-ahead and alt.country type things, because that's what's been into for a little while.

I think Rob... I think there's gonna be a turn towards the more bizarre. I think everybody gets interested in different things and it kinda goes in cycles. I think everybody's gotten better at making more concise, powerful songs that are less generalized. It's hard to say. Everybody's gotten better at putting different elements together and making it a little more seamless. Maybe that's one thing that's been interesting or fun to do for a little while, but everybody's interested in putting really wild elements together also. Everything kinda goes in cycles.

JJ: How do you think your own guitar playing has changed over the past few years?

CG: I think I'm going downhill at a rapid pace.

JJ: Oh no!

CG: (Laughs.) I've heard stuff that I played five years ago and I'm, like, "wow, that's pretty good". Right now, I'm not so pleased with it. You always have to deal with it with a little bit of critical distance.

JJ: What kind of habits do you find yourself falling into onstage, personally or as a band?

CG: Taking a really long time between songs, fucking around and talking about stupid shit, making off-color jokes that not necessarily is gonna get. I mentioned something onstage the other day, and all the guys were like "I can't believe you said that". Somebody in the back of the room was shouting out for Gin and Juice, which is a Snoop [Doggy Dogg] tune but I immediately associate it with Dre. We riffed for a couple of seconds, we were talking about something in between songs and then I said the opening for Dr. Dre's "the Chronic". Do you know I'm talking about?

JJ: I haven't heard it since junior high school.

CG: You know the beginning of "the Chronic"? Where he says "this is for all the niggas that was down since day one"?

JJ: Yeah.

CG: (Grimaces.) I said that onstage. We were worried. I just kinda smacked myself. But it's a funny thing and I think it's part of our culture. Maybe not everybody has the same sense of humor as we do. Some of those habits are sorta hard to break: shooting your mouth off every once in a while.

JJ: At least you didn't flash the west coast signal and get a cap popped in your ass.

CG: (Laughs.) Yeah, that's right. But it's all in good fun.

JJ: Yes, yes.

CG: Musically, I think we've gotten into this habit of making things as big and steam-roller like as possible, that's not always necessarily the best thing. You also have to go in waves of trying to make space in songs, because sometimes those spaces are equally as powerful as all those crushing power chords. It's good to try and shake it up and force things up in a different direction.

JJ: Are there specific things you can do to break the habits and get something new going?

CG: Talking doesn't necessarily always do the trick. It's hard to tell people in a mutually creative environment "stop doing that, do this" because it is about improvising and it is about doing it on the fly and everybody finding things and having it be a new, cool experience instead of orchestrating it and zapping some of the fun from it. The good way to do it is to try and do it in real time in front of people and take a chance. Everybody does it. All of us try to do it in different ways. We're all trying to get our point across at the same time. It's all got to be give and take. It doesn't always happen immediately. You don't always get immediate gratification. The end result, hopefully, is something pretty cool.

JJ: How often do you talk about these sorts of things as a band?

CG: Just about every show there are comments like "that sucked" or "I thought that set was very good". There are certain things, certain elements, specific elements that we talk about as well. I'd say that after just about every show - and sometimes before a show the next day - we'll make a comment about yesterday or the day before or the next day. We're not necessarily trying to fine-tune it like a race car but, at the same time, you want it to kick ass everyday. It's definitely a weird thing.

JJ: I guess this is sort of an abstract, music geek question: but how you differentiate between a solo and a jam? Or do you?

CG: You try not to. (Laughs.) The difference is that you're going for a more driving influence: one person providing the driving influence where there are other times when everybody collectively is driving in different directions at the same time, yet you're trying to hold it all together. I'd say that's the fundamental difference between the two. Whether or not you call something a solo or a jam is up to debate. There's a huge gray area.

JJ: Related to that: what are you conscious of during improvisation?

CG: (Long pause.) The feel of it. If it feels good, if it feels bad. If it's meant to feel bad.

JJ: (Menacing voice.) You'll feel pain and like it.

CG: If it's supposed to be painful. Those are the times where it's the best, where it's very specifically something that feels good or bad or painful or you feel the space, you can float on it. I think those are the things I notice the most, and not necessarily what key we're playing in or if it's speeding up or slowing down. Whether or not the whole thing makes sense in a conversational way.

JJ: What would you like to try as a band that you haven't done yet?

CG: Having access to different instrumentation, having different people play with us, switching up instruments, switching styles, writing for a specific purpose. Say, writing ten songs with a specific common thread, not necessarily a concept album. Like doing a soundtrack, for example, where you're writing for a bigger project, towards a different purpose than just coming up with specific kick-ass songs. A bigger goal. We've talked about that a bunch of times. The bigger you get like that, the more time it takes away from other things. You have to pick and choose the battles.

JJ: Shifting gears slightly: what have you been listening to lately?

CG: What did I just buy? Southern Culture On The Skids. Ween, "White Pepper". I've heard a bunch of the songs on that, but I haven't listened to my own copy yet. Danny Gatton. I just bought a bunch of Police albums. Oh, the Who. I just got a Who box set and it's fuckin' kick-ass.

JJ: Is that the "30 Years Of..."

CG: "...Maximum R & B"? Yeah. Pete Townshend kicks ass: compositionally, as a guitar player, as a singer. Fuckin' killer. I really enjoy that, especially the stuff from "Tommy" and all the live stuff. Every time I listen to it, I'm just impressed by something else.

JJ: Word. I just got a copy of "Live At Leeds" and I'm fuckin' blown away.

CG: A punk band, basically, but with this huge creative talent and drive and ambition. Pretty wild. Rock and roll, but they're very compositional about what they do. I love Pete Townshend a lot.

JJ: Do you hear any of this coming out in what you're playing?

CG: (Flops lips.) A little bit, I guess. I tend to get stuff stuck in my head that's more from TV commercials, and the radio, and what's playing in Denny's while you're eating. I get like Hall and Oates stuck in my fuckin' head and I can't get rid of it. I guess smaller elements start coming out, definitely in my guitar playing.

JJ: Just a last question: you've been at this for almost ten years, how have your goals changed? Or have they?

CG: They've definitely changed. Because when we started out, it was a hobby, like this thing that we did, that we loved, but did non-stop because it was all that paid the bills. At this point, we try to do it and also have a life beyond it so that if you have a rich personal life, everything else gets better. The priorities have changed a little bit. You're job can't rule your life at all times. Once you kinda realize that, things start to change a little bit. I love it, though. As far as a job goes, I'd love to do this for the rest of my life.

JJ: No reason why you can't.

CG: Hopefully.