For Monsters of Folk, it's in the stars
By Brian Baker, September 2009
As poetic as Ward's description sounds, the explanation probably lies a little closer to Mike Mogis' recollection.
"Our tour manager was like, "You guys are like the monsters of folk,'" says Mogis. "It was very organic."
The general consensus of how the group actually got started seems to be consistent. Various touring combinations of MMJ, Bright Eyes and M. Ward (Matt Ward's solo persona when he's not with actress Zooey Deschanel in the duo She & Him) resulted in after show jams and eventual we-should-do-something-together-sometime discussions.
"When people ask, "Who thought of the idea?,' I honestly can't remember, and I don't think anybody can," says Mogis. "It was that synonymous in our feelings and thinking. We all kind of felt that it already existed."
Unlike most post-jam reveries, Oberst, Mogis, James and Ward walked the walk, assembling a 2004 tour, originally billed under the unwieldy banner of all four participants - An Evening with Bright Eyes, Jim James and M. Ward Acoustic - but ultimately dubbed the Monsters of Folk.
"We started calling ourselves Monsters of Folk because it was easier than saying all of our names," says Ward with a laugh. "It started out as an invitation from Conor to Jim and I to try an experimental tour where there wasn't a specific opener or middle act or headliner. He wanted to try something where we were all working on each other's songs and entering and leaving the stage at all times of the show, so as an audience member you weren't sure exactly what was going to come next. The tour went really well, and during that time, we decided it would be incredible to try and make a record together."
Eventually, the newly minted quartet made good on their desire to hit the studio to create a more permanent document of their collaboration. In some projects of this nature, the schedules of the participants are such that it often becomes necessary to complete recordings via e-mail, but MOF was committed to maintaining the interactive vibe that had defined their tour relationship.
"We were all in the studio at the same time for all the recording," says Ward. "We started off in Omaha, and then we recorded some in Malibu, Cal."
Once their massive scheduling issues were addressed, the foursome assembled in Mogis' Omaha studio early last year for what they had planned as preliminary work for the debut Monsters of Folk album. Each brought in demos of largely skeletal ideas, and everyone had input on everyone else's material.
"The idea was to let go of the reins of what you normally do in your bands, respectively," says Mogis. "Conor is the head honcho in Bright Eyes and the Mystic Valley Band, and Jim is the authoritative figure in My Morning Jacket, and Matt's a solo artist and in control of his own mind. So, we came in with the idea that it was going to be more of a collective in the writing."
"We brought in fairly fleshed out seeds of ideas, but some of them were just chord progressions and a verse, then we changed the chord progression, added a chorus and wrote new lyrics as a group."
"But when we started the record, nobody had heard a speck of music. We didn't know what we were going to do at all. We were just hoping to make demos of songs and come back and record them, but two days later, we had four songs recorded. We were so comfortable with what we were doing that we started making a record. Out of that first session, which was nine days of tracking, we ended up with nine almost completed songs, which blew my mind. We hoping to get a couple demos recorded. It surpassed all of our expectations."
"The point was to have the others finish them, and that's what made this project really extraordinary for me," says Ward. "It's a group instead of a solo artist with accompaniment. Every song has four producers. Hopefully when people hear the record, they can hear that collaboration."
The foursome was equally committed to dividing labor in the studio; as a result, there are no outside musicians on the MOF album, even on instruments that are beyond the group's primary skill set. And while a song's writer would often steer the track, the collaborative process was the true guiding factor in determining where the song ultimately wound up.
"That happened at the beginning of each song," says Ward. "That was the time when we chimed in with lyrical ideas and production ideas. The biggest inspiration for the production were the demos and the lyrics. You want to take the song wherever it wants to go. You try as best as you can as the producer to enter the frame of mind of the composer and use your imagination as to where you think this person might have been and, based on your imagination, filling in the blanks. It was a fairly quick record to make, but it was measured. In my opinion, a perfect combination of improvisation and composition structure."
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