MATT BEAN aka SNEAKY BONES: Going Deeper And Farther
An interview by Tim Gruar.
Despite having just rolled off a long haul flight, Matt Bean (aka Sneaky Bones) would have to be one of the most upbeat travellers I’d ever had the privilege of chatting with. A troubadour, tourist and DIY musician and all round nice guy, Bean calls me up to talk about his upcoming national tour, which kicks off in Invercargill today.
A quick read of his website tells me that the Sneaky Bones project (that’s Bean, multi-instrumentalist Sam Weber and drummer Marshall Wildman) have recently been playing a multitude of gigs around Europe, soaking up the summer and seeing the sights. I have to ask, why so many Kiwi dates, and yet none in Australia? “I’ve been here a couple of times before and loved it. My buddy and I had a dream to come here, from way back when we were in Oregon, we wanted to be musicians and tour around the place, along with others. So what a great job that allows me to tour, surf and play gigs around the country.”
Back to Europe. I ask him where he enjoyed playing most. “Norway. Definitely. I don’t know why but the appetite for Folk, Country and Americana is really being there. He tells me about local artists selling out 1500 seat gigs on a regular basis and rattles off the names of various local artists I’ve never heard of. He assures me they are all popular over there. “There’s a real love of that music at the moment. And all over Scandinavia. You’ve heard of First Aid Kit? And there’s plenty more bands like that in that part of the world.”
He goes on to tell me that touring in the States is not as fun or as productive and branching out internationally. “There’s so much ‘noise’. It’s harder to get noticed and appreciated.”
Our conversation swerves about all over the road. You can tell he genuinely wants to discover more of this country, and asks about towns, cities, places to eat, things to do. Several times we talk about good places to surf. Some he’s already been to. I recommend the ‘shark infested’ and rocky coastline near Pencarrow. “I love that. Really. Ha. Definitely! I’m polishing up the board as we speak.” He also quizzes me about the rip curls at Lyall Bay and likes the idea of surfing only 5 minutes outside the city.
After chatting a bit about all the Kiwi artists he knows (everyone from Adam McGrath to Aldous Harding and Holly Fullbrook of Tiny Ruins), our attention turns to his third album. There’s definitely a quizzical moment. “I kind of like to create a mystery,” he says. Strangers I’ve Already Met invites you in for ‘discovery’. Bean explains that the line is from Strangers, one of the songs on the album and stems from his own theory of ‘familiarity and simulation’. He says that in life there’s a constant sense of déjà vu going on. For him, he often meets someone and thinks ‘I know this person from somewhere’ and he tries to find the common thread. No matter how vague, how intangible that connection might be.
So how do you sum up the ‘bold and beautiful music’ of Sneaky Bones. The elevator explanation of the new album is like trying to describe a stranger you’ve already met. There’s a reframed roots/folk vibes, those elements of country that the Norwegians seem to love, a bit of rock and a dash of soul. But like all artists he likes to mix the colours in his paint box – adding his own magical force along the way.
Yet, Bean’s music sounds effortless, almost like campfire tunes, interspersed with sudden, unexpected rushes of guitar reveries that explode out of hushed intimate moments. There are good ol’ fingerpicked folk melodies and a ‘cunning blend’ of doo-wop and soul. Bean, who grew up in the Bay Area on a diet of Grateful Dead, Paul Simon and Neil Young was keen to pour everything he knew and heard into his music. He sums it up on his web site: “I wanted to take everything I did on my first two records and go deeper and farther. As I wrote, I wanted to get away from all useless space. If something didn’t contribute to the end goal, it was gone, so that allowed me to concentrate on what was really good – and then I worked to make it better.”
Bean didn’t pick up a guitar until his late teens but he made up for it pretty quickly, through school bands and then an education at California’s Berklee College. It was there where he met singer-songwriter Paige Califano and formed neo-Americana/cosmic folk duo the Dwells. They made two well received albums (2012’s Fortieth Floor and 2013’s Don’t Ever Leave Me Like You Do) and did a couple of national tours as a duo off the back of those releases.
But by 2015 Bean needed to go solo. So, he made his own debut, Dream of the End, under the moniker Sneaky Bones. Dig it up and you’ll hear luscious, gorgeous, multi-genre-spanning songs with a deft structure of fine storytelling stitching them together. Two years later he expanded the catalogue with High as the Stars, more multi-genre folk, focussed on the human experience. Fans of Avalanche City and the Eastern will certainly find plenty in common on this album, especially the brooding hook laden title track.
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While touring Canada, Bean ran into two musicians – multi-instrumentalist Sam Weber and drummer Marshall Wildman – who became central to his current Sneaky Bones band. They were critical to the sound of the new album Strangers I’ve Already Met, playing both a role as producer and player.
For the new album (well newish, it was released in May, this year), Bean reunited with Joseph Chudyk, who’d worked on his earlier releases. The trio holed up in Chudyks “100 foot barn” over the summer on 2018. “Joseph and his partner had moved to Byron (New York State) where they’d set up an animal rescue. That barn (which you can see in his new video for Wear Me Down) , Bean says, was over 40 degrees Celsius most days.
“What were we thinking, jamming in there all day, all night? It gave us the freedom to try out things playing the instruments differently, swapping around roles, adding and subtracting without the pressures of (commercial) studio time, etc.” He laughs when I suggest that the barn animals must have been put out with these invaders in their space, what would Charlotte and Wilbur say? “It was a bit like that,” he laughs, “There were horses and cows in and out here and there.” But no cattle featuring on the recordings? “Listen hard. Maybe they are there. That barn gave us a really big live sound. Most of the songs were live takes with minimal overdubs, etc. You had this really thick, moist air. I like to say it was dripping off every note. So you could really feel that bass vibrate around the whole room, throbbing around you. All around the 100 foot barn. It was crazy. It was a very cool place to track music. We had just two weeks of, like, nothing but recording music. Be up late, 24 hour run of the place. Luxury. A very productive experience.”
Strangers I’ve Already Met begins with Speed Veins, the first single and a haunting lullaby track with a whisper of Springsteen’s Philadelphia about it. Bean says he wrote that about his ‘mentor’ musician and producer Richard Swift. “He founded the band The Shins, with James Mercer. He also played with the Black Keys. They say never meet your heroes. But I did. I was doing a gig at a bar in Cottage Grove, where he lived, in this tiny little town in Oregon. He was at the bar celebrating his birthday and I went over. I wanted to ask him about how he made my favourite Damien Jurado records. At first he didn’t say much but later we got into a really great conversation about producing and effects and music. And then we were recording in New York and I looked at my twitter account and saw that he’d died that day. We had that connection.” Swift had alcohol addiction issues and died in June last year from complications from hepatitis, as well as liver and kidney distress.
“When I think back to that moment, I’m a bit sad. So, the song is about his death, he’s at the end, in hospital, and then, like I sing, the lights go out.”
My youngest daughter is a huge Bowie fan, so she loves David Jones, I tell him. But why was it done as a wild cat-country tune (I’m reading liner notes)? “How old is she – 8 years, you say? That’s so wild! It started as a bluegrass song. Hard to put in a box. Bowie was a guy that never did the same thing twice, always moving. So that song is like that too.”
Influences for the album come from all over, says Bean. All I Need, a charming love song played over a swampy rhythm section (with Chudyk on percussion) must have been influenced by the high temperatures in the barn. You also get that on Strangers, with Weber’s ‘syrupy’ guitars – like “molasses”. It was supposed to be a recall of the Southern ambience the Stones created on Let It Bleed.
There’s another death song on the album, one that’s even more personal. Influenced by the passing of his old Oregon buddy, the one that wanted to come to New Zealand, When Does it Hit You is the best example of a happy/sad song with morose lyrics and upbeat tempo. “It took us ages to get that one. 100 takes. We tried out multiple combinations. Me on drums guitars, bass, keys, and everyone else swapping too. We did this until we finally got comfortable enough with the right mix. Check out the video, you can see us happy, maybe relieved when we play it.”
If you’ve never heard of Sneaky Bones then definitely try out Strangers I’ve Already Met as a good intro to his music and the perfect way to prepare for his extensive National Tour. Bean, backed by Sam Weber and drummer Marshall Wildman, is kicking off today at the Southland Musicians Club in Invercargill and working his way up the country, town by town. And, if you do make the gig be sure to stick around after to give him a few pointers on where to surf, or eat, or explore on his travels – he and the band will be happy to accept all advice.
Sneaky Bones kicks off his New Zealand tour today in Invercargill before winding his way around the country before finishing up in Tauranga on the 30th November. You can find tickets to all of his shows on his website.
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