A Conversation with Peter Mulvey (continued)

PM: It's an incredible symbiosis that's evolved between yourself and David Goodrich over the years.

PeterM: Yeah.

PM: A partnership that's rarely duplicated in the music world. And as amazing as that cat is on the guitar, on the lap steel he's a frickin' God.

PeterM: Yeah. He's a really, really great musician. He really is. And we are very lucky, I think, to have found each other.

PM: How did you find each other, then?

PeterM: We worked in a guitar shop together in Boston.

PM: Aha.

PeterM: And that’s basically the entire story. We met there, and we just started hanging out, and we started playing music, and we started having a great time doing so. And then a few years in, his band broke up and he started gigging a little more primarily with me, and producing the records and writing with me. And I think we've never really looked back.

PM: So you guys do a lot of writing together as well?

PeterM: Yeah. We wrote pretty much the whole Trouble With Poets record, and most of Kitchen Radio is co-written. We wrote those together.

PM: And what about this record, the Knuckleball Suite?

PeterM: Now, this was the first one--I mean, two of the tunes he co-wrote, but the bulk of the record I just wrote at home myself. It was about time that I could--this record really feels, I think, like--you know the whole thesis/antithesis/synthesis thing?

PM: Uh-huh.

PeterM: This is a serious synthesis record. This is me putting together all of the time that I've spent listening to Goody, and listening to all my influences--Greg Brown and Chris Smither, and my friends, Jeff Foucault and Kris Delmhorst--all that stuff, and just sort of wadding it all up and seeing what it does on its own.

PM: Yeah. It's really a fantastic record, Peter.

PeterM: Thank you. I'm real pleased with it.

PM: It's a really great record. And before we get off the Goody subject, tell us something about his new record.

PeterM: Oh, his new record is tremendous. What can I say about it? It's called Dust of Many Horses. I mean, this all happened--the guy writes so much that when he puts out a record he gets to choose just sort of the best forty minutes of the hours and hours and hours of output that he has. And so this record, it has a great shape. I'm convinced this record--my description for it is that it's kind of like a question mark, the shape of the record. It's sort of perceived straight, building on its themes, and then it takes this broad arc sort of lefterly, and then around through the Curt Cobain tune and the John Coltrane tune.

PM: Right.

PeterM: And it gets stranger and stranger and further afield. And then at the end it sort of reels itself right back in. I think of that as like the dot that's close to the beginning.

[laughter]

PeterM: And it's a real great record.

PM: What Coltrane tune did he cut?

PeterM: It's called "After the Rain."

PM: Yeah, I know that song. Beautiful song.

PeterM: I actually played it with him. That was a first for me.

PM: You played it with him on acoustic, or?

PeterM: Yeah. We both just sat and played acoustic guitars. He taught me the basis of the tune, and then I put it together.

PM: Wow. [You can hear some music and find out more about David Goodrich at his site.]

PM: Do you practice anymore, and do you continue to get better on the guitar?

PeterM: All the time. It's the one thing I regret that I don't make enough time for. I practice more now than I ever did. And there's so much room to go. I have a feeling the next couple of records--one of the things I want to do is a record of jazz standards. And that's just going to force my hand.

PM: That's going to take some woodshedding.

PeterM: Exactly. But yeah, I practice more and more as I go on. I'm just kind of one of those--like I read more history now than I used to, and I read more biography now, and I read more science now than I used to. You know what I mean?

PM: Yeah. I see the influence there, yeah.

PeterM: I wish I could be a student all over again.

PM: I notice you played lap steel and slide on the record you were talking about producing for Hayward Williams.

PeterM: Yeah, a little bit of that, yeah.

PM: Let's say something about him.

PeterM: Oh, Hayward has got it. I mean, he's just got that thing in spades.

PM: Is he a young cat?

PeterM: Really young, like twenty-three, twenty-four years old. So it's just good to see. I heard a record of his tunes, and I thought, "Well, I could help this guy make a record."

PM: Right.

PeterM: And I was glad to do it, I was pleased.

PM: That's cool. Signature Sounds , that's been a pretty amazing home for you, has it not?

PeterM: Yes, it has. I love the label. I love my label mates, Jeff Foucault and Kris Delmhorst and Mark Erelli, Chris Smither is going to put a record out on Signature sometime soon. And it's just great. It's great to work with people who will actually answer the phone.

PM: Yeah, I mean, I don't think the equal of that family and that organization exists elsewhere in the record business.

PeterM: Yeah, I'm glad to hear you say that, because I tend to agree. I think it's pretty unique.

PM: When I saw you play in that pub at SXSW, I never would have been able to stay, or might have had my camera confiscated because it didn't have a stupid little tag on it. It was just Jim Olsen [the founder and head of Signature Sounds] saved my ass by saying, "No, no, no. He's all right. Don't bother him."

PeterM: Yeah, he'll do that.

PM: He's a good guy.

PeterM: He really is, man. And he's a Red Sox fan.

PM: Oh, well, of course. [laughs]

PeterM: So that goes a long way.

PM: I really like the song "Lila Blue"--

PeterM: Well, thank you.

PM: --that I'm curious about her, if she's actually a person or a composite.

PeterM: Yeah, she's fiction. And that song is pretty much just a little composite of the way men are about women.

PM: Right.

PeterM: I actually had a female songwriter friend of mine, at the end of the tune--she was listening to the lyrics and she was like, "Oh, and now she disappears. How convenient for you."

PM: [laughs] Can the identity of that joker be revealed?

PeterM: No.

[laughter]

PM: That's very funny.

PeterM: Yeah, it was great. I mean, it was classic.

PM: "Now she disappears, how convenient for you." You don't have to confirm or deny, but I'm going to say that it was Kris Delmhorst who said that.

PeterM: No. Actually, I can say that it wasn't. But just go ahead and say "an unnamed source."

PM: [laughs]     continue

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