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Erin McKeown Takes Flight

by Nick Wolven

For critically-acclaimed songwriter Erin McKeown, preparing an album is less about having a finished product than finding a point of departure. She’s got the chops to lay down tracks for every instrument in the standard rock-and-roll roster, but uses this knowledge to prepare musical recipes for gifted studio musicians to realize. And her aesthetic approach mirrors her technical method: when a theme or mood strikes her, she gives in to its influence, following the lead of an intriguing idea to whatever lyrical discoveries it implies. Her latest album, We Will Become Like Birds, is both an example and an exploration of this approach, an investigation of the ways in which we rise above asperity—of how trying circumstances can inspire us, or impel us, to take flight.

I spoke with McKeown by phone about touring, recording, click tracks, New Orleans, and the attraction of biological metaphors.

WOMANROCK: This album has a very salient theme that appears in the cover art, the title, and throughout the lyrics: a theme of flight. What inspired it? Was it something you planned in advance, or something that emerged as you were writing the songs?

MCKEOWN: About two or three years ago—right around the time when we invaded Iraq--I was listening to the radio, and I heard an anti-war poem read on Fresh Air. It had been written during World War II, but it still had lots of things to say about what was going on in the world today. It contained the phrase per aspera ad astra, which means “through harsh ways to the stars.” And as soon as I heard that I thought “this is what’s going on in my life right now. This is what’s going on with my country right now, and this will be the theme of my new record.” I had a few ideas, a few blueprints, but nothing done yet, and the album really got written after the idea.

WOMANROCK: So the theme was a response to a political situation, and to a personal situation as well—to what was happening in your life at that time. Was the personal situation directly informed by the political one, or were there other experiences that came into play?

MCKEOWN: Well, it was in part my personal reaction to the political situation. I think it’s impossible to be an artist right now and not be affected on some level by the war. And I guess depending on what kind of person you are, and depending on your job, that will determine the ways in which you are affected--and your awareness of being affected, which may ultimately be more important. But everyone is affected by constant discussion of war, in the media and on the street. So that played into the album. But I was also going through a difficult breakup at the time. So that resonated through the lyrics as well.

WOMANROCK: So you knew in advance what ideas would organize the album. Is that true of your songwriting in general? Do you know in advance, intellectually, what you’re going for? Or do you rely more on experimentation, on noodling around?

MCKEOWN: I lean more toward the experimentation side of things. I tend to believe a song happens on its own terms, and you just have to prepare yourself for it, in the sense of being ready for when songs are going to occur. And there are a few things you can do to make yourself ready for that experience, for instance reading, or reacting to works of art. But as far as the actual writing is concerned, I tend to just experiment until something seems to be greater than the sum of its parts. For me that means a lot of home four-tracking, trying out different lyrics.

WOMANROCK: So it’s an organic process.

MCKEOWN: Yeah, and part of it is recognizing when something is working. I can still get better at that; you can learn to be better at that. But ultimately I think the songs come from a mysterious place. And I would rather not know too much about where they come from, or have a set process. It’s really the most beautiful part of my job. And it’s the most important part—because nothing happens if you don’t make the songs. So I like to let myself enjoy that process as much as possible, and control it as little as possible.

WOMANROCK: You play all the standard instruments of a rock/pop band—drum, bass, guitar, keys—and sing as well. Is there one instrument that you tend to work with the most, one that you focus on when you’re composing a song?

MCKEOWN: I always work from a beat. That’s just been my process for the last several years. Harmonic tracks are written on the piano and bass, more than anything. I do find myself playing a guitar a lot on the road, which feels a little more like work. But I like to simply feel something when I’m composing, and the keyboard and bass are writing instruments for me. Then later on I’ll figure out where the guitar fits into it.

WOMANROCK: You not only play a number of instruments, but make use of a variety of musical modes and genres. Where did all this eclecticism come from? What sort of training have you had?

MCKEOWN: I think it comes from trial and error, and from not being afraid. I don’t mind being bad at something. I’m not the world’s greatest drummer. But I don’t mind that; it doesn’t keep me from being happy playing drums. The same goes for other instruments. I don’t mind—for lack of a better word—sucking. And I feel like in the process of not being good at something, you can write a lot of interesting music, and come to know each instrument in a natural way. I kind of like to be new to things, so in looking for that feeling I’ve come to pick up a lot of different stuff. I did take piano lessons as a kid, but I wouldn’t say that anything I use now is from those lessons … other than the ability to, you know—use my fingers for music.

WOMANROCK: When you were writing these songs, you laid down all the tracks yourself, then brought in studio musicians.

MCKEOWN: Yes, I set everything down on my four track, then handed that recording to my studio musicians when we were ready to cut the final product.

WOMANROCK: How close was the final product to those initial tracks you set down? Was it the same basic material, just more professionally played? Or did the material evolve?

MCKEOWN: It depends on the song. There’re a few songs where the demo really achieved something great, and it was just a matter of—not reproducing it, necessarily, but reinterpreting it using the sonic palette of the album. But some of the songs changed a lot, which was really fun. You know, you can make a suggestion to a billion different musicians, and they’ll recognize it as something they can do, or as an idea that they can work from. So “To the Stars,” for example, had a drum beat that played out in a certain way and was based on a particular bass line. And Matt Chamberlain listened to the drum machine beat that I had, and I could see his mind turning, and he just sort of brought it to another planet. That’s not a drum machine on that track; that’s actually him playing. And it’s beautiful and amazing. And with the bass line, I showed it to Sebastian and said, “This bass line is really the heart of the song, and this is how it should go.” And he said, “Okay, but let me show you how it can go even further.” And he went to his bass and added some things to it. You can still hear the original idea in it, but it was just taken much further. And of course, when he listened to what Matt was doing, it influenced him. Steve Moore was playing keyboards—and that’s not much of a keyboard song—but he listened to what Sebastian and Matt were doing and based his own part on that. So if you listen to the original demo, you can hear the same basic song there, but on the album it’s just gone to a whole other level.

WOMANROCK: So there was a lot of communication among your musicians as you were playing these songs. It wasn’t just a case of having each participant show up and lay down his tracks.

MCKEOWN: Oh no, we were all there in the same room. I had another drummer come in for a few days, but on the days when Matt was there, it was Matt, Sebastian, Steve and myself all there in the tracking room, and Tucker, of course (who produced the record with me). We would play something, talk about it, go into the control room and give a listen, talk some more, and you know—the nuts and bolts of the songs were all done live. Of course you can always go back and mix things around, and we did a little bit of that. But it was collaborative in that everyone would come to the studio, even if they weren’t necessarily needed that day. Especially Matt and Steve—they stayed a lot longer than they had to, just because they wanted to be around. I think that kind of enthusiasm and investment makes the record a lot more beautiful. You may not recognize it consciously, but I do think it’s in there.

WOMANROCK: Well you can certainly hear the stylistic influences and input that the individual musicians bring to the work. In the drums, for instance …

MCKEOWN: Matt is a very interesting drummer to work with, in part because he composes his own click tracks. They’re never just clicks and quarter notes. They’re little beats and patterns, compositions in and of themselves. A couple of times we even kept his click tracks in the songs, because they were so cool to listen to on their own. “The Golden Dream” is a great example. That little beat that’s playing at the beginning: that was one of Matt’s clicks. It was so musical and fit so well with the song that we said, “Well, we’ve got it printed. Let’s keep it!”

WOMANROCK: Now you write your own songs … then go into the studio and play with one team … then go on tour with another … so you’ve got a lot of different people working with each song. Does this lead to a need to make your songs more flexible, to interpret them more loosely … or do you find it has the opposite effect, that it leads you to lock them down, just so everyone knows what’s going to happen?

MCKEOWN: I’ve always thought of the songs as being flexible from the beginning. You have some words, you have a harmonic idea, you have a basic structure or pattern, and you have a mood that you want to get across. Everything else is flexible. Everything else is open to interpretation at all times. In some cases there’s a hook that needs to be there. There’s a bass line in “To the Stars,” for example, and there’s a wurlitzer part in “The Golden Dream” that need to be there. “In Beautiful (I Guess),” the drum pattern needs to be irregular. I don’t care what the drummer plays. It’s in 15/8 on the record. It could be in 15/16. I just need it to circle back and hit a different part of the harmonic pattern on each loop. So that’s what it’s about: for each song you have core ideas, and those are what individual people work with. I can’t ask someone to be Matt Chamberlain, and I can’t ask Matt Chamberlain to be my drum machine. So each time I take my basic pattern and present it to someone, and listen to what they do and make suggestions to help them play more to their strengths. Every musician has certain things they do exceptionally well, and the songs change as a result of that. I want everyone who’s playing my pieces to sound their best, to play their best. So whatever I have to do to finagle things in a way that makes that happen—that’s what I do.

WOMANROCK: So before you get comfortable with a certain team, there’s a period of adaptation. Do you set aside time for that, budget practice time in which the musicians can get used to each other? Or do you just head out on the road, and grow with each other while playing shows?

MCKEOWN: As I’ve gotten busier, I don’t have so much time during the day to play around with. But I do like to work things out ahead of time. I have a whole new band this time out, and I made the transition very slowly: meeting people in various situations and imparting the material a little bit at a time, over the course of several months. Then when it’s time to head out on the road, they’ve had time to sit with this music for a while. That said, I don’t like to play the same set every night. So I always call out different arrangements of songs. In the middle of a song I might say, “All right, this is really working, the crowd is really feeling this; let’s keep this section going.” Or, “This one needs to end here tonight,” though it might not be a place where we ended it before. So that’s always changing. And again, as you play with different people, you get a better sense of their strengths. So one night I’ll hear the keyboard player do something, and later I’ll say, “Hey, that sounded cool, where you did that little thing. Let’s add a section where you get to do that.”

WOMANROCK: Do you solo a lot in shows?

MCKEOWN: I don’t usually solo much. It depends on the band. I’ve had bands where I played a lot of different solos because what was going on around me was inspiring in that sense. The band I have currently is less improvisational, and I’ve been focusing a lot on the song side of things. I think as I continue to work with this band, there may be more soloing. But at this point we’re focusing more on the arc of an entire show.

WOMANROCK: You’ve said you decided to record this album in New Orleans because you felt some resonance between the location and the material. Was the choice of location something that affected the recording process?

MCKEOWN: I had gone to New Orleans about eight months before I made the record. The record was still forming in my mind when I went on the visit; some of the core pieces hadn’t been written yet. I had a friend who showed me the city, essentially gave it to me as a gift. I think New Orleans, more than any other place I’ve been to, presents a mix of joy and sadness. Whether it’s the music that’s played there, or the way the streets look at night, that mix is always very impressive. That’s what I wanted my record to be about. So when I spent time there last spring I thought, “This is where I need to be.” When I actually recorded the record in December of 2004, there was very little time to do anything. We worked long days, and all you want to do is sleep the rest of the time. So after I had decided that New Orleans was the place—that the influence was there—when we actually started working it was hard to feel that influence or do much about it. But I know it was there, from the start, in the choice of location.

WOMANROCK: Did you always feel that you would have a musical career, or is this something that took you by surprise?

MCKEOWN: It definitely took me by surprise. I played a lot of sports in high school, and I was very academically oriented. I really enjoyed biology and nature and environmental concerns, and thought I might become an activist. But as I got older my interests began to shift, and I just got more and more involved with music, and less with science and sports. And right around the time I went to college, things changed. The first years in college are always overwhelming and exciting in terms of personal growth. At that time I just started to play more and more music. I was in college, too, which meant that I could travel to Boston, I could go to New York. So working as a musician was easy.

WOMANROCK: It’s interesting to hear about the science influence, because it explains some of the metaphors in the lyrics.

MCKEOWN: Oh yes. That’s especially true for the song “Air.” You know, there are several really exciting adaptations birds have for flight and they served as metaphors for me, for ways that we can change as people. Birds have no marrow in their bones; they have what are called pneumatic bones—which means, in essence, that their bones are hollow. They have a few little structural tidbits and supports in there, but they’re very light. I thought that was a beautiful metaphor, so that begins the song. But I always thought that science was very emotional. It has a reputation for being cold and intellectual, but it’s always been very closely tied to emotion and experience for me.

WOMANROCK: So what’s been on your mind lately? What’s inspiring you now and where is that taking you?

MCKEOWN: The record came out at the end of June, and I had some time off at the end of April. So that gives me time to prepare new material. I think for the next record I’ll be working with some deeper drumbeats, and toying with a few more keyboard sounds. We Will Become Like Birds is such a serious record. But I don’t usually write serious songs. The next record will be a lot less serious.

Nick Wolven is a writer for WomanRock.