Hey! Cass McCombs
What with December fast approaching, we’re only a few weeks away from endless end-of-year lists – including, no doubt, one by yours truly. Catacombs, the fifth album by well-travelled American musician Cass McCombs, might well be on our list – so we decided to catch up with him ahead of his Roadhouse show on 2 December.
Hello Cass, how’s your day going? What have you been up to?
Hi, going well, thanks. I’ve been rehearsing for the tour in New York City.
You’re coming to Manchester next month. How do you feel about the city’s musical heritage? And which artists are your personal favourites?
Yes, I am aware of Manchester music. I’m a pretty severe record collector, but I’d rather not get into the name game. I understand you people are very territorial about these bands, this history.
The opener of Catacombs, Dreams Come True Girl, sounds very 50s/60s influenced. Who were you listening to when writing the album?
We wanted the record to have a 1950s rock and roll element, not the 1960s, so we bought some old broken equipment we read the great old studios like Sun, Chess, Norvajak, Gold Star, The 3-Track Shack etc used to use. We also recorded in the same manner: we recorded each song ‘live’ and very few overdubs were made. If I missed the vocal we had to do the whole thing again, because all the mics in the room were picking up everything. But it was part of an ethic we were attempting that we hadn’t done before and it was exciting. We were only able to overdub once we bounced tracks on the tape machine, which is a risky process as you’re never sure how the bounce will turn out. But throwing out caution was again part of the ethic, each one of us had made records where the recording process was too precious and felt it sucked the fun out. We wanted to make something fast and flawed.
There’s a contribution on that song by Karen Black. How did that come about?
Karen came into my life through a friend called Aaron Brown, who designed the last two album covers and made the video for Dreams. Both of them are so creative and wonderful folks. And Karen taught me a lot about performance and singing out with my biggest voice.
You move about a lot in the US. Is this to soak up different musical environments for your song-writing, or a sort of restlessness… or neither?
Everyone in the states moves a lot. I move out of the necessity to work; I move wherever I can work with the most clarity.
What made you become a musician: a particular turning point, or was it something you always wanted to do?
It wasn’t a thought. I love music and writing and drawing and I’ve always been lucky to be surrounded by talented folks to teach me things. I just kept writing songs and at some point I guess they were good enough to get some attention. I also had the patience to deal with the nonsense – that’s huge, a lot of people quit or scale down because of an ego conflict.
Who or what are your major influences when writing?
There are no influences worth mentioning. Writing or music is not motivated by fame. I’m guided by my instinct and ethic and soul, and write only when I have to get something essential out. I do a lot of reading and research for each record, so it takes me a very long time to write each song. It’s a challenge because you have to maintain the emotional instinct as you plunge into analytics. I imagine this separates me from most other musicians – I don’t care to keep up the myth of rock.
What do you hope the next year will hold for you?
Generally, I don’t make plans, I try not to have expectations. I have so much work to do right now, I just need to finish that first and things will turn out the way they need to, for better or worse.
Cass McCombs plays at the Roadhouse on 2 December. His latest album, Catacombs, is out now on Domino.
Questions by Chris Gilliver
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cass mccombs • catacombs • the roadhouse
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