LiveMusicDaily Exclusive
with Reid Genauer
Assembly of Dust front-man, Reid Genauer, sat down with us last month in Washington, DC prior to his performance for what was surely one of the most fun interviews to date. Reid has been the sing-song writer for AOD for nearly 12 years even collaborating with jam legends such as Keller Williams, Bela Fleck, and Mike Gordon among others. Before that he was a part of the well-known group, Strangefolk.
In all honesty Reid couldn’t be more cool and down to earth. He discussed with Andrew McConnell a variety topics from The Band, 2015 tour dates, lyrical inspiration, Strangefolk and much more.
Bands that thrive on live improvisation often find themselves unable to convert that energy into the studio setting. Your personal influences have led you to really value the studio setting. You’re different from most bands that love to improvise because you’ve completely mastered the songwriting aspect. How do you reach such an equilibrium ?
Reid: Honestly I’m not sure we do. I think at our heart we’re still a live band. I don’t know, I mean, it’s true; it’s almost like a different sport; like the difference between cross country skiing and downhill. They’re totally different mechanics. I think there are a couple things.
One is just how my brain works. When I was a kid I was interested in Shell Silverstein. It was the words that were compelling. So that was partly just like a creative awakening and then I was always into the grandfathers of jambands; Clapton and Little feat, the Allman Brothers… all those bands jammed. I’m not a burning guitar player and like with anything with life you lean on what you’re good at.
You’re one of the best story tellers, could you walk us through the different times in which inspiration strikes you as a song writer ? Certainly it is noted in songs like “Songs We Sing” where you literally tell the listener that you write songs about life such as the changing of seasons. Could expound on the general approach to lyrical inspiration for you ?
Reid: Like anything, there’s a spectrum. So, I’m trying to think where in that spectrum to drop in. But, um, it’s rare for me to sit down and say I want to write a song about X. There’s only been half a dozen times I’ve felt inspired to do that. Like, breaking up with first love of my life, that was pretty good inspiration. The birth of my kids, falling in love, leaving Strangefolk. Other than that there wasn’t like a marquee epic emotion.
A lot of times I’ll have a cadence and melody and have a sense of what the lyric is going to be over the top and often times Ill search for little nuggets I’m going to stick in there.
I actually keep a phrase bank in my iphone. I’ve got like pages and pages and pages and Ill just scroll through and look for something that caught my ear. Whether it’s something I heard at a cocktail party, something I caught on TV, or whether I read it in a book, I kind of start from there and then imagine what the story is that could encompass that phrase… You write songs about what surrounds you.
You’ve said the Band has influenced you, or at least left an imprint on your musical personae. Do you think there is an audience or a desire in the listening public for a re-invigoration of that style, and is Assembly of Dust’s popularity a reflection of that?
Reid: Throughout the 90s at least and the 80s to some extent, The Band was the amorphous entity that people like me could not connect with. I remember seeing The Last Waltz and being like why did they keep letting the backing band keep singing a song between the celebrities? [laughing]
So that was my perception when I first saw it…but I know for me they’re definitely cousins of the Grateful Dead. At some level the Band is better than doing what the Dead does. Which is they have this earthy roots-rock thing. To me they pulled it off. It felt like what the Dead was going for, but the Dead got lost in psychedelia. To me the Dead is better, but The Band is the archetype of what that type of music is. In early 2000s they kind of had their renaissance when Levon Helm started recording again. I think where their ethos got picked up the most was in indie folk. Mumford and Sons is popular example of that as are other bands like Blitzen Trapper. Everyone says they want to sound like The Band. There is a reason because it’s authentic, clunky, great tunes.
There is a southern flavor about your music, and yet you are a New Yorker. Did this come from the music you listened to earlier in life, or friends and family in the region, or was it more spontaneous?
Reid: We were playing in Virginia last night and I was self aware we were technically in the south. Each time we play a song it fits contextually better here than where I live. Even Neil Young, who shit on Alabama, had this Southern quality to his music. James Taylor, Jackson brown, the Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers… to me I think I was going more for the Americana thing than southern but it just so happens Americana emanates from Appalachia.
There is a whole asthetic that goes with it. The forlorne high lonesome, mournful whales of Appalachia. Their cool epic tails of the Ohio River. In some places, destinations in my imagination that I’ve never even been to. Kentucky is a place I’ve never even been. Tennessee Jed. You see him clear as day right. So I borrowed some of that South Eastern mythology.
May I ask you about the Strangefolk reunion? Please take it any direction you please.
Reid: It was a blast from the past. I’m not really sure what to say except that, when I left the band, for better or for worse, I just didn’t do it in a graceful way. It wasn’t like I was intentionally trying to be dramatic about it there wasn’t an easy way to do it. I felt fucked up and kind of lost. And I pulled my self out.
So for a lot of years there was just a lot of bad blood, but that’s almost not descriptive enough. There was just a lot of pain around the subject for a lot of people and so it was something I certainly wasn’t dying to step into and I don’t think anybody was. And I think like anything else, as time smooths the edges, for me it’s just nice to be able to reclaim that part of my life—or at least reconnect with it—because it’s a big part of who I am.
I’m 43—I spent a quarter of my life doing Strangefolk. It’s nice to be back in the fold. As far as everyone wants to know what we’re going to do—I don’t really know. I love doing it. I would like to write new songs and make new music. My conflict is that there’s just so many hours in the day. My jam has been AOD for the last 12 years. That tends to be just where my focus naturally lands. I just need to recalibrate. I’ve got a bunch of moving pieces that aren’t just music. I’ve got 3 kids. 2 drinking problems [laughing]. You know, I’m teasing-but you know—just a lot of moving parts. I think the summary is that we’ve reconnected and that there’s still an audience that cares and gives us room for possibility.
Any immediate plans for AOD? We can we look out for a live album in the near future ?
Reid: That’s funny you asked that. So with AOD, we had just a transitional period where Nate left he band (the keyboard player) and then Andy our drummer who was just tired of the travel. The drummer of AOD is managing Strangefolk. That gets a little tweaky. Thanksgiving in our household is a little weird. But we have this new lineup we’ve been playing you know now for whatever it’s been and the band sounds great. It takes a while.
No matter how much we rehearse, it takes a while for it to feel natural, and for the language and sort of the listening to evolve, and it has. And we don’t play as much as we probably should. So my thinking is would be cool to do another live album, to kind of show the world what AOD 3.0 has to say.
In general though, whether a live album or a studio album it’s nice to put a stake in the ground, and say we’re doing it at this point in time. Because it forces the creative process—like, YOU HAVE TO MAN UP—otherwise you’re going to hit a brick wall.
Changing subject slightly– From time to time I’ll talk to a young musician asking What should I do? My first instinct is to say quit and get a real job. [laughing] But what I always say is to create those forcing functions. So whether it’s booking a gig or a series of them, or whether it is booking studio time, or setting some sort of arbitrary deadline for yourself, it’s like studying for a social studies test. If you don’t have a deadline it’s just not going to happen.
Tour plans after the DC show and the one at the Bowery in late November ?
Reid: We’re doing a short run on the west coast in December. San Francisco and Portland, Oregon. A few dates in January in Chicago. We have another Southeastern run some time this spring. I forget the exact towns, but it’s like Charlottesville, Charleston…Just keep on keepin’ on.