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Home Again: Max Verna Goes to His Room

by Jesse Jarnow

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"This next song is called John Henry's Hammer," Max Verna announced from the stage at the Wetlands Preserve in New York on June 4, 1997. "I actually originally wrote it on a banjo, put it to acoustic guitar... next thing you knew, full-fledged electronic rock 'n roll!" Verna - then a member of the strangest bunch of mutants to ever devolve out of the North Country, the Ominous Seapods - was playing, along with Seapods' bassist Tom Pirozzi, under the moniker Murky Currents. The day after the show, the duo would rejoin the band in the south to continue to never-ending tour playing full-fledged electronic rock 'n roll that the Ominous Seapods continue to this day.

The 'pods, though, are doing it without Max. In November 1998, Max announced that - following the band's New Year's Eve show at Styleen's in Syracuse, New York - he would be taking leave of the group he helped found nearly ten years ago in upstate New York. Taking Max's place in the band would be Todd Pasternack of Albany's Mr. Ferguson Band (see Todd's A Pod). In January, Max returned home to Albany.

His latest doings can be found on the Max Ominous web site, which Max maintains. Among the items on the site is a list of the songs Max has recorded in preperation for his first solo effort, tentatively due out at an undetermined date in the fall. Midway down the page is listed "4.) John Henry's Hammer (banjo and vocals)".

Over the course of April and the first part of May, I interviewed Max via email.

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JJ: The obvious place to start: what've you been up to for the past three months?

MV: I've been trying to diversify as much as possible. I own my grandfather's violin and a banjo, so I have spent some time getting my chops together on those instruments. I've also been doing solo acoustic gigs every Monday in downtown Albany. That's been an ass kicker. There are many of my songs that don't work with that platform and others that needed to be reworked to sound right. Playing solo acoustic is an incredible discipline that not only made me work on my guitar playing in new ways, but also my voice.

The other way in which I have been diversifying is in my song writing. Lately I have been more into telling stories. The Stephen O'Rourke trilogy was obviously a story, but I haven't written like that in a long time. I was afraid that I never would because my psychoactive drug taking has dwindled down to almost zero. But lately my head has been filled with stories and music, so I have been putting the two together. Besides, the introspective thing is only good for so long. How many times is someone going to sing about themselves before everyone else is tired of hearing it?

I've also been playing in a cover band for nice easy cash. It's been good for me because I haven't done that sort of thing for a long time. Covering songs is another discipline that I have enjoyed lately. It's stimulated a part of my musical brain that has been inactive for awhile.

Another musical venture that I've been working on for the past three months is pre- production for my solo album, which depending on gear availability, money, and time, should be available in the fall. The album will be a blend of original songs, new and old, and traditional songs, all old. Since it will be a home recording, my philosophy has been low fidelity / high intensity.

In my day to day living, I have just been trying to gain some perspective on the things that I have done for ten years (as an Ominous Seapod). A ten year roller coaster ride gives you little time to think while you're on it and lots to think about when you're done.

JJ: How has your songwriting process been altered or effected by the fact that the material you're writing won't ultimately be presented to a band to learn and play?

MV: I feel a lot more freedom. I don't have to worry if the band I'm with won't like what I'm writing and I don't have to write specifically for a two guitar, bass, drum and keyboard ensemble. Many great ideas, or bad ideas that lead to great ideas, can get flushed down the crapper at the hands of band members if they personally don't like what you came up with. I can be very selfish sometimes about my song writing, I only like what I like. I love to get input from others as long as the input is intended to improve the song, that way a song can mature and not just die in an instant. This is due to the fact that all of my music is a work in progress. I like to make simple adjustments to songs that are well established and I like to tinker with songs that aren't working, sort of like buying an old car that doesn't run and rebuilding it. It can be frustrating to be tinkering with a project and have your co-workers tell you that they plan to junk the whole thing, no matter how much time you've put in on it. Getting your tunes junked is one of the pit falls of being in a band that plays out constantly. You have limited practice time and every song needs to be a hit, otherwise you lose the crowd when you perform. If a song isn't working right away, the safety mechanism is to scrap it and move on. Now I have time to let song ideas grow.

Recently I have been going through lots of old "junky" tunes and getting a fresh look at them. Some of my old tunes had integrity, but just lacked that one thing that would make them magical. Some times the magic lies in the way you play the song. For instance, slowing the tempo down and only playing it on the piano can really make a tune work. Sometimes a killer drum beat and bass line with only lyrics over the top can do the trick. I don't like to place a band-aid on a hurting tune by adding some ridiculous part just to make the song more exciting. I'm more apt to simplify it and build it back up from there. These are things that work better and faster when you have a band to knock ideas around with, but I can still get these things accomplished in my apartment.

JJ: To continue the "rebuilding an old car" comparison: when you're editing a song, where do new parts come from? Do you consider your unfinished songs as individual entities or as a pile of ideas, like car components, that you can draw from to help make a tune run more smoothly?

MV: I do anything and everything to make a song work. I always found it to be a cop out when I heard a teacher or an idol of mine say "just do what works for you". At moments when I was seeking guidance and wisdom, that phrase used to crush my spirit. Now I find myself saying it more and more. I just do what works at the moment. Plenty of times I have taken parts, from songs that were not working, and placed them in other songs to make them shine. As long as the final product doesn't sound all cut and paste. There are other songs that aren't quite there yet and I am hesitant to take parts away from them because when I get the inspiration one day I might be able to get the song to work. But every day is different. I might be feeling good and I might be feeling down. So a song might live one day and die the next, depending on my mood. But a song that is good all days will stand the test of time.

JJ: As you said, no song is ever really finished. But how do you determine when a song is "done" enough to play out?

MV: This time I have a simple answer for you. A song is ready when it feels right. It can lose steam after awhile and have to go back up on the drawing board, but as long as it feels right and possesses that wet magical texture every time you play it, it's done enough to play out.

JJ: In many aspects of your music, you've seemed to gravitate towards the folk tradition. You mentioned that you've recently been working on your banjo and violin playing -- both instruments important in American folk music. Your songwriting has often made use of older elements -- Leaving The Monopole, for example, borrows its chorus from an old jug band tune (and an even older figure of speech). The story of John Henry's Hammer has been sung about in dozens of forms for nearly a century. In Murky Currents [Max's now-defunct side project with Seapods' bassist Tom Pirozzi] - and now, solo - shows you regularly cover older tunes like Long Back Veil or Don't You Let Your Deal Go Down. What's the allure of this type of music for you?

MV: In the same way that the popular music of today tries to reflect the feelings of the present generation, no matter how diverse that may be, old time music was a reflection of its generation. For me the allure of traditional music is the way this music seeps into my soul and makes me feel.

When I play and hear traditional music it take me places that I can't go to and conjures up images that I don't see in my day to day living. A good book can do the same thing although the feeling is not so instantaneous. Great songs and great stories are usually written during moments of purity and clarity. Their messages cut through when people are ready to absorb them. Traditional music has been cutting through for many generations.

I'm also drawn to classic stories. Shakespeare has taken up lots of my time over the past few years. It's amazing to see that he drew from the classics of his time and people draw from him. "Romeo and Juliet" was already a poem by Arthur Brooke, which was an adaptation of a classic story by Matteo Bandello. Shakespeare merely put the story into a rich and image provoking play. Today we have the movie "Ten Things I Hate About You," which, never having seen the movie, is obviously a take off of Shakespeare's "Taming Of The Shrew". Traditional music and traditional stories have clear cut themes and messages that everyone can relate to when presented in the right way, that's what makes them so great.

JJ: The thing about Shakespeare as a borrower is especially interesting seeing as how Shakespeare himself has become something of a folk character -- now more than ever with the success of "Shakespeare In Love". With the story of a "Shakespeare In Love" as one example, a lot of the appeal of classic stories (for me) is the murkiness involved -- there's lots of open-endedness that one can easily shape. Like, no one really knows for a fact who John Henry was and what, exactly, he did. Because of that, the meaning the John Henry story can be bent any which way -- it can be used a pro-union song, an anti-union song, or anything in between or outside. Do you see any of the popular music or popular culture of today as planting similar seeds for anything that might be considered a tradition? If so, do you see yourself as part of this tradition?

MV: Now I wouldn't say that I am a "popular music" song writer. Popular music and popular culture are what is main stream at any given time and this is always changing. If the type of music that I write and my music in particular gains heavy public recognition, then that would be a different story. Right now I still only appeal to the jam band underground scene, a place that I am quite content to be.

I just finished an interview with someone on the subject of today's popular music and what I basically told him was that I see this generation as very diverse and very complacent. There are no mass counterculture movements like we had in the 30s and the 60s. Nowadays we are more like the home brew generation. People are more likely stay at home and voice their opinions on the net than band together and start mass protests and marches. This is not to say that these things don't happen, they do, but they are not a part of the popular culture. I find this generation to be more focused inward than outward. The home brew generation grows its own pot, brews its own beer, watches our wars on crisp satellite TV, surfs the net on a Saturday night and thinks about how to make their personal future better. While it creates an aire of apathy, it also makes us wiser and more independent.

Today's popular culture is very diverse, like I said earlier. Radio and MTV, being the most powerful forces for administering popular music, must remain as diverse as possible. Even with the amount of different stuff that they play, they still lose lots of listeners (people in the jam band scene for one). MTV and radio also need to turn over their music as fast as they can to keep their patrons happy and interested. This creates a stockyard full of one hit wonders. This stockyard is filled with music that is catchy and lyrics that are empty. Traditional music needs to speak to and about a generation or at least a driving force in that generation. Then it needs to speak to or hold wisdom for the generations that follow. So in answer to your question; no I don't see the seeds of traditional music happening in popular culture and if my music or if any music in the jam band scene becomes traditional or even standard to a generation, it will be through a force unforeseeable at this time.

Just a quick bit about John Henry's Hammer and the moldability of that song. If you were given an accurate account of what happened that day, it would never live up to the legend that the stories around that event have created. Like I always say, a good story is far more interesting than the facts.

JJ: Despite the superficiality of much of the popular music, there are still people who manage to slip through and achieve a fair degree of success producing songs that are intelligent and honest. A glance at your recent setlists reveals a bunch of these: Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Morphine, Nirvana, and others. Does your approach to playing contemporary songs differ greatly from that of your approach to playing traditional songs? Do you feel less freedom if you're playing a tune that's defined by a specific artist's version rather than a folk number where there's a lot of leeway built in?

MV: A song needs to move me or a have moved me at some point in my life in order to make it into my repertoire. I look at a song as being a pure entity. As long as the song sounds good to me, I don't care who wrote it or when it was written. Lots of great music has been written in the past few decades. I really liked Kurt Cobain's contribution to the world of contemporary music. I like Sheryl Crow and Liz Phair also. Sheryl is not as deep as Kurt or Liz, but she strikes a great mood with her voice and the texture of the music. Neil Young spanned the decades writing great material and staying true to himself and his integrity.

When I hear something that I like, I first try to see how I will approach performing the song without just spitting back what a great song writer has written, or what a great performer has presented. I like to put my own mark on the tune. If the version that I come up with sounds good to me, then it makes the cut. If it sounds like ass or I find myself struggling to make things happen, I can it. I do find more artistic freedom when approaching a traditional song than I do with a contemporary song. Reason being that there are so many different versions of traditional songs to choose from and usually only one version of a contemporary song to choose from, when learning how to play any given song. But it does make for a nice challenge to cut new ground on a song that hasn't been performed in so many different ways.

JJ: Cover songs can function in a similar fashion to standard jazz charts and provide a good opportunity to open up. Does your approach for jamming on a cover song differ at all from your approach for jamming on an original? (Do you even have a conscious approach?)

MV: I've always liked the notion that you can do anything you want with any song. One of the classic examples is The Allman Brothers rendition of First There Is A Mountain by Donovan, which became just Mountain Jam on the "Eat A Peach" album. That was a beautiful. They just took a theme and ran with it.

I like to approach all of my jams with a fresh head. If having a one chord jam works over John Henry's Hammer and Jump For Joy, or if soloing over the changes in Guardian Angels or Leaving London is what works, then that's what it will be. When it comes to songs and jams, I try not to discriminate. Whether it's my own song or a cover, I like to end product to sound good.

JJ: What are you conscious of when you're improvising?

MV: Most of my consciousness about improvising is done behind the scenes. I think about concepts during idle time and practice integrating them into my playing in my living room. That way most of the formal thinking gets done ahead of time and I can be free or unconscious while I'm improvising. When I go hiking in the Adirondacks, I like to run down the mountain trails. Things are happening so quickly that there is no time to think. I already know how to run, turn and jump, so I don't think about those things. I just focus on what is ahead of me. If I took a split second to think about anything else, I'd probably trip on a rock or smack into a tree. The same goes for improvising. I just focus on where I am and what's ahead of me, and rely on what I know to get me through the way I want to get through.

JJ: How is it different playing and improvising with Box Of Rain in contrast with the 'pods, where you had a ten year musical relationship built up?

MV: It's very different. As far as the Seapods go, we sort of grew up together musically, so we always had a similar idea of where everyone else was coming from. They knew how I played I knew how they played. In Box of Rain we are still feeling each other out musically and discovering how each of us plays. The musicians in Box of Rain are incredible, so I'm learning a lot of new concepts and new ways to approach my playing. I don't know if I'll ever get to jam with the Seapods again, but if I do I would imagine it would be as Ozzy Osbourne described singing with Black Sabbath after a ten year hiatus. "It's like putting on an old shoe... it just fits more comfortably than anything else you own."

I'm sorry I can't go into more depth, but playing in a cover band (Box of Rain) is very new for me. I'm absorbing as I go along and I haven't had much time to think about it. Doing something new is always exciting, but it's hard work.

JJ: After your stint with Box Of Rain is done, do you have any desire (or plans) to play music with a regular group of musicians on a steady basis?

MV: Yes, but not for awhile. I'm staying focused on learning, writing and recording music. I plan on doing a few gigs in NYC when I move down there, but I want to keep it light for now. This is a good time for me to breathe in and absorb everything I can.

JJ: What kinds of things do you pick up from watching other musicians play?

MV: Feel! Once in awhile I pick up a few technical tricks, but I'd rather watch Stevie Ray Vaughan drop his guitar on the stage than break out a pen and note pad at an Al Dimiola concert. I like to watch musicians that pull from their heart, not from their heads or out of their ass (although that has a charm all its own). So much has to do with tone. This applies to all musicians on all instruments. Tone is your voice and music is your language. If it sounds to me like someone's tone is contrived, or just plain bad, I get a little aggravated. If their tone is happening, one note can say so much more than a nights worth of mediocre playing.

JJ: What kinds of things do you pick up from other mediums (literature, film, the visual arts)?

MV: Anything can be interrelated with music. In the haze of all the things that go on in my daily life, the few things that cut through and get my attention will have an effect on my music. It could come from the color of the tiles in my bathroom, the nonsense words of a babbling child, the silence of two a.m. in my living room, the smell of spring, a good story or a great spiritual connection with another artist. I never know where it's going to come from. For example; I was watching a cheesy movie two years ago with Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline called "A French Kiss". There was this scene where Kevin's character is teaching Meg's character about the different flavors that exist in wine. That scene blew my mind, I couldn't even focus on the rest of the movie after that (which was a saving grace). For the first time I realized that wine was not just the taste of fermented grape juices, it was so much more. Along with the obvious grape and alcohol flavors, there could be a cherry body with a hint of curry, currant or hickory, if fermented in a wood vat, with a light chocolate closing taste . The same is true about perfume as Tom Robbins explains so well in the book "Jitterbug Perfume". In perfume you have an introduction, usually citrus, a body, perhaps jasmine, and a finish, perhaps rose all in a alcohol bass (my order and contents my be off, but the point is clear). At the same time that I was hit with the concept of wine and perfume, I was staying very focused on my guitar tone and I realized that the same could be true about guitar tone.

In an article on Jerry Garcia in Guitar Player Magazine the author described Jerry's tone as being "horn influenced." He was right, but there was so much more than that. I listened to a tape of him playing in the mid 80s and I heard horn, banjo, mandolin, electric and acoustic guitar, piano and a few other tones in his sound. I'm not talking about his MIDI stuff or his effects either, this is strictly guitar tone. I started to get chills with the realization about what he had accomplished with his tone. His tone was as multi textural as a good bottle of wine or a well balanced bottle of perfume and it had a lot to say about his history as a musician. It helped to know a little about Jerry's background to be able to pick those tones out. All of that made me focus even harder on my guitar tone and what, in my life history, I wanted to get across.

So you see, anything can get my mind reeling if it comes to me at the right time, even if it comes disguised in a foreign context. I try not to close out anything because you never know when something is going to change the way you think.

JJ: How often do you completely surprise yourself while playing and end up picking up something entirely new by recognizing something you've been doing unconsciously? MV: All the time. So many of my improvisation ideas have come out of that and so many songs have come from that too. That is the moment when you are being as true to your soul and spirit as you can.

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Does Jesse Jarnow know what rhetorical means?!? Yes, of course! Following the completion of a shload of papers, he gets to return home, at least for the summer.