Aaron Williams
There are few debates around music more common than “Who is the greatest rock band of all time?” Of course, as a mostly subjective and often-rehashed unanswerable question, it can feel like a bit of a tired conversation at times. Not helping this is the fact that the conversation seems to get dominated by the same few names. This is not to say that the Beatles, Stones, and Zeppelin aren’t worthy of the praise they get-but the conversation often overlooks many worthy bands. One of the bands that sometimes gets lost in this debate is Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
The case for the heartbreakers is multifaceted but comes down to a few things-namely the strength and depth of their catalog, their lasting influence over wide swaths of popular music (that very much lasts to this day), and of course their legendary live shows.
One of the key cogs to all of this was keyboardist Benmont Tench. Tench, a gifted player and writer, played piano and organ in the band for the entirety of their thirty plus year run. So crucial is his contribution that many call him one of rock’s great sidemen, a moniker that undersells his role significantly. However you frame it, Tench’s work, like the band he is most associated with, is the stuff of legend.
In addition to his work with Petty and co., Tench has had a prolific career as a session musician, working with the likes of Bob Dylan, Stevie Nicks, Warren Zevon, U2, and many others. In recent years, he has played on albums by Chris Stapleton, Ringo Starr and the Rolling Stones, among others.
This year, Tench released his second solo album, The Melancholy Season. Arriving eleven years after his solo debut You Should Be Lucky, The Melancholy Season showcases Tench’s considerable skills as a songwriter, a side fans are likely less familiar with, though one that is no less rewarding. Produced by Jonathan Wilson (Father John Misty, Margo Price, Billy Strings), The Melancholy Season finds Tench in fine form. Fans of You Should Be Lucky, or singer-songwriter work in general will find much to enjoy and chew on. The title track, especially, is a doozy of a song, reflective and indeed a bit melancholy but very well-written. Other highlights on the album include “if she knew” and the sublime “Under the Starlight.” With a little melancholy, a bit of nostalgia, and a little bit of rock and roll, The Melancholy Season is a varied and successful Sophomore release from a writer and player who has worked with and absorbed much from the best of the best.
Tench Plays a special show at the Dakota on Sunday May 18. The show will be a rare opportunity to see one of rock’s living legends in an intimate setting. Cuts from both albums are expected, and with a body of work like his, who knows what else is on the table. For fans of classic rock and singer songwriters, this is truly a show not to miss.
Below is an interview with Benmont Tench. The following has been edited for consistency
Music in Minnesota: I do want to ask a little bit about The Melancholy Season. I know your debut You should be lucky was released a little over a decade prior. How did your approach to your music shift between those records, and how did your process change between records?
Benmont Tench: My process, the way I prefer to make music didn’t change. You should be so lucky I hadn’t made a record of my own before and I learned a lot. My Friend Glyn Johns Produced it. He had thirteen days. We had thirteen days to finish to record. He had thirteen days to finish recording and do whatever overdubs we needed, and to make the record. That made it a certain kind of record. We recorded everything live and kept as many live vocals as we could. We did not have a giant band, but multiple guitar players, drums, bass, me and a few more friends. We got it done in thirteen days but on this record, I didn’t have the time constraint. Glyn worked the budget out beautifully on the first record but he came in from England so I couldn’t get him by the time I made the second record, logistically. So I didn’t have the limitation of having to record in thirteen days, but it was still recorded as live on the floor as possible. I got to go in over the course of a couple of months. But this time, one of the biggest differences was the time constraints, which I found wonderful, because the need to get it done makes you play and gives you a different mindset.
To change your mindset is a great thing to do when you are involved in an artistic endeavor. It was a change of mindset to record with as many people playing together at once as possible. It was a change of mindset for me to include as many live vocals as I could. Having to get (You should be so lucky) all done in thirteen days with Glyn as opposed to having (The Melancholy Season) be more open ended with Jonathan Wilson who produced it was another change of mindset, and I think it works well. Because we recorded this record when covid was just barely being lifted, we had a very small ensemble. It was just me, Taylor Goldsmith on guitar, Jonathan Wilson producing and playing some percussion, and Sebastian Steinberg playing bass. Jenny O, who is a wonderful singer-songwriter, came in to sing background and play guitar. Sara Watkins came in and sang a little harmony for one song. So that was the whole process, it wasn’t that complicated. But it stuck with the same kind of mindset that I usually prefer, which is a mindset that has limitations, but also keeps it more intimate and more emotionally direct, from the heart to the finished product.
If you work with tape and have some kind of time and budget constraint- and I couldn’t spend endless money-you have some kind of limitation to work within that makes you make choices. If you know you have no net to fall back on, it’s a subconscious thing that says, “I better play this correctly, because I can’t alter it.” I can’t change the pitch, I can’t change the time. Whereas with digital recording, with Protools, you have infinite choices. You can punch in a breath on a vocal or instrument. You can change if it speeds up, slows down, or goes steady. All of that, it’s choice after choice after choice. I really like just being direct-this is how I play, this is how I sing. Yeah, I can sing this vocal over again if I didn’t like the way I sang it, but I could only get it the way I could get it.
MIM: That makes sense, it’s more direct, more simple, it’s almost a creative trial by fire of sorts.
BT: It’s kind of throwing you in the deep end sink or swim, but you know there’s a life raft somewhere. But you still have to swim to the life raft. Whereas with digital recording, you don’t really have to swim that well at all. I’m not the best singer in the world, technically. And by not being able to change every little detail, change the tuning, or change this that and the other, you get how I really sing and you get how we really play. Those are the kind of records I want to make, and a lot of my favorite records are that kind of a record. That was what I was after, but I thought they were that kind of song, and that’s the kind of music that I like.
MIM: I think the beauty of it and the simplicity and directness of it really shows through on the record.
BT: Having worked so hard on the songs, I wanted anybody curious enough to pick up the record to actually be able to hear the songs. Another thing about the limitations is you can’t put endless syllables on something. Since I prefer to leave more space on a record anyway, it facilitated that. So, the main thing was, you can’t make the record without songs. You can’t make a good record without good songs. And, so, I found absolutely the right producer, and absolutely the right gang of musicians that I was meant to use, at least for my taste. And we went in, and we did it. And here it is (laughs).
MIM: You’ve been a songwriter for a long time, but your emergence as a solo songwriter as a recording artist is relatively recent. You spent much of your career working with one of the best to ever do it, and you’ve played with many other legends. I’m curious what lessons you’ve taken from some of those writers.
BT: We didn’t have just one of the best songwriters, we had two. A lot of the songs, not all of them, maybe not even most of them, but a lot of the best known, Tom wrote with Mike Campbell, and Mike’s contribution is immeasurable. But Tom yes, by himself, or with Mike, or with whoever he was writing with, was a terrific songwriter, fantastic.
The other people I’ve had the opportunity to work with-I’ve gotten to work with the Rolling Stones. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are Wonderful Songwriters. The Rolling Stones, for all the personality and all of the swankiness and groove, have written terrific songs. So, I’ve gotten to work with them. I got to work with Bob Dylan. I got to write songs with Don Henley, and Don Henley is no slouch. I got to play on records by John Prine. Stevie Nicks. All these people are really good songwriters. And so, I kind of let myself get drenched in these songs and if I learned anything from them, it was to try to say something that meant something to me.
I also spent some time in Nashville, because I wanted to know how do you do that? How do you wake up in the morning and write a song. I know somebody like Tom would wake up in the morning, sit down and work and write a song, but I’m not like that. I know in Tennessee, they still do that, wake up in the morning, sit down, and write a hit song. From Nashville I learned that.
I learned a lot, but the biggest lessons that I learned were, whether it was Nashville, Tom, Dylan, anybody, was that it’s gonna resonate with me if I feel like it means something to the person who is singing, and if I feel like if I was singing it would mean something. I don’t think Tom wrote any bad songs, and I think he wrote a lot of great ones, but a lot of his songs resonate with me to where I occasionally cover them. They feel really good for me to sing because I believe in what he’s singing about or what the character is singing about. And so, what I’ve learned from all of these folks was to say something that means something to you. Even if it’s a silly story that you’re making up, or it’s just a love song that hopefully is catchy. If you want to be shallow, do it in a way that means something to you. If you want to get something deeper inside your heart, find it and express it. Try and make something really good. I know everybody always tries to make something really good, but I think there’s another level always to strive for. The people I’ve gotten to work with were always striving for that level, and most of the time reaching that other level. Tom didn’t use cheap lines. Dylan Certainly Didn’t. Irving berlin, from the tin pan alley days, wrote gorgeous melodies and really good lyrics that are never cheap and shallow, even if they were just light. That’s the kind of songwriting that I like. That’s what I’ve tried to do.
Our first producer who signed Mudcrutch and produced the first couple of Heartbreakers records, “Breakdown,” “American Girl” all of that, Denny Cordell. I wrote a song once and played it for him, and he said “That’s bullshit, because that word sounds good there but you don’t’ really know what you’re talking about.” John Lennon’s famous line about songwriting was “Say what you mean and make it rhyme,” which sounds really simple, but the first half is “say what you mean.”
It’s really cool, whether it’s painting or poetry or writing a piece for a newspaper or how you raise your child, it all applies. It applies to everything, it’s really beautiful.
MIM: In your work and all of those writers you mentioned, it’s a testament to that. “Mean what you say” is simple but it’s profound.
BT: I was thinking about how the melody you choose, the lyrics that you choose, and the instrumental passages that you recorded can also continue to speak about what the song is saying. The Title track on The Melancholy Season, I wrote it and was really happy with it, and my wife said “it’s great but the music is wrong” because the music wasn’t suitable to the lyric. I realized she was right. I went back and rewrote the music to that song, and now it matches the mood and intent. Music is such a marvelous thing.
MIM: At its best, music speaks to the human experience. It’s a profound thing.
BT: Yes, and every medium has it’s own way of speaking. I watch a fair number movies. I’ve been especially watching older films. French films, and films from the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s especially. It’s amazing watching these masters at work, what they do to get their point across with the style the actors use, with the way the scene was lit, with everything.
Or a painting, if you see a painting by a medieval painter or you see a statue from ancient Egypt. The great ones really know how to say something deeper. Or maybe they just think it’s a beautiful combination of colors and geometric forms. But there’s something about every art form. I fear that for decades, the aesthetic sense of the United States has been on the decline. Not only the arts that you see, but in public like so many buildings that are just ugly. The way places are lit-that aren’t warm or pleasant. It’s things like that, they do matter. They really do. The arts matter and the aesthetic nature of living matters. It isn’t something that requires money coming from the elite people. Because you look at older houses, older normal suburban houses and you can see, the quality is so often more pleasing to the eye than what they’re building now. I’m talking about things built in the 50’s and 60’s and before. So, it’s really important-aesthetics, art, all of this.
There’s a power of a rock and roll musician. I also think “Louie Louie” is really peak as a musical art form. That record, whatever it has, has something that is defined. One of the greatest songwriters to do it was Chuck Berry-There’s a guy who could say what he means and make it wrong. I don’t want to get too pretentious or crazy because it’s rock and roll (laughs), but rock and roll is supposed to say what you mean and make it rhyme. It’s supposed to affect you, it’s supposed to move you, but at the very least it needs to move your feet. Hopefully all music moves you, but that’s the world I’m working in some corner of.
MIM: That is what the best does art does, it moves you. Somebody asked me recently “What makes music good?” and I think you get to the core of it. It’s not some other thing.
BT: When people see what I’m doing now, there are things I’m trying to get across, but it’s just me and a piano. That’s a limitation that has it’s own unique challenges. If a song was written on guitar and I’m out there with a piano, how do I get that texture across on a piano. How do I play a song with a really heavy backbeat without drums on stage? That’s a really fun challenge. But at the end of the day, it’s the songs. And it’s fun to do, really fun to do. Sometimes it’s really funny (laughs).
Comments
0 comments