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A Conversation with Caitlin Cary

Puremusic: Where do I find you this morning, Caitlin?

Caitlin Cary: I'm pulled over in front of the weirdest building I've ever seen in my life. It must have been a restaurant and it's abandoned, and it looks sort of like something out of Jetsons, really.

[laughter]

CC: I'm in Wisconsin.

PM: Who are you with?

CC: Well, right now I'm actually riding with my parents--they live in Ohio but they decided to come see a couple shows, so they joined us in Madison and they're coming to our show in Milwaukee tonight.

PM: That's great. We think that Begonias is a fabulous record.

CC: Oh, I thank you very much.

PM: I think that Brad Jones was a very interesting choice for a producer, certainly one of our favorites.

CC: Oh, yeah. I think we couldn't have made a better choice as far as that goes. He really got it. He actually put off a project in order to do ours because he was so interested in doing a duets record, per se. So he stopped everything to do this, which was really nice.

PM: He's a very fascinating character, such a very musical person, and so very interested in everybody else.

CC: Yes, absolutely. And he's very high energy, in a good way. You know how sometimes people with a whole lot of energy can be kind of off-putting and scary? He somehow manages to be one of those guys who has way too much energy without [laughs] being intimidating or something.

PM: Yeah, without freaking out everybody in the area. In fact, I've often heard people say that no matter how off-the-wall an idea you put to him--like, "Well, let's put the violin through a fuzz box and then thru your old record player, and let's mic that"--he'll always just look at you and say, "Well, let's try it. It could be good."

CC: Right. Exactly. I would say so. There wasn't a whole lot of that going on, obviously, on this record. But yeah, I think he would have been game, and I totally understand what you're saying.

PM: But on the other hand, as traditional as the material was, there were still a lot of ideas, arrangement-wise and sonically, that were pretty out-there.

CC: I think so too. And I think that both Brad and also Logan Matheny had a lot to do with that. Logan is this young multi-instrumentalist. He calls himself just a struggling drummer, but it's totally not true. He's very self-effacing. And I've said in the press and I'll say it again here, if he's not producing records in five years, I'm going to kick his ass. He's a really, really talented guy.

PM: Now, my advance copy has limited information. Was he playing bass on the record, too, or was Brad playing bass, or somebody else?

CC: Aaron Oliva plays bass.

PM: Great, thanks.

CC: If you're a Thad fan, he's played on Thad's records as well.

PM: Right, he's great. And Logan did some great tracks. Also on that record I heard Pat Buchanan for sure. And somebody said that Will Kimbrough was also on it.

CC: Will Kimbrough is on it. Am I going to be able to remember which songs he played on? I think on "Two Different Things," and then maybe on one other one as well.

PM: And was Pat on a lot of cuts?

CC: Pat was on just about everything.

PM: Yeah.

CC: He was sort of the tracking guitar player.

PM: Was Pat very familiar to you already as a Nashville guy, or was he just a guy that Brad brought in, and that you'd heard of, perhaps?

CC: I had heard of him. I'm not a liner notes studier. I'm a terrible music fan in that way. I'm starting to be that person, but I'm such a late bloomer in this whole thing that--

[laughter]

CC: --it can always surprise me who's played on what. I'm always in the van with a bunch of guys, we call them muzos, and they sit and talk for hours and hours and hours about who played what on what, and who produced what, and who's doing what now. And I feel pretty lame in those conversations, usually.

PM: Well, there's a charm to that, too, because the people who don't know, they're thinking about something else, and it's probably good that they are.

CC: Maybe so. I mean, my approach to songwriting and all of this--even though I've been all of a sudden doing this for about ten years, I still feel like a beginner, or what would you call it--a folk artist or something, in the sense of being kind of a naive primitive in the music industry.

[laughter]  

PM: I think it's charming, actually.   continue

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