Chattanooga Times Free Press entertainment reporter Casey Phillips spoke with Jamie McLean, front man of the New York-based Jamie McLean Band, about his time with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, milking emotion from every note and his secret birthplace.
CP: You’re headed up to Canada tomorrow. What will you be doing there?
JM: We’re playing a festival near Winnipeg called the Great Woods Music festival. We’re playing there tomorrow night. We’re pretty psyched to be doing a little international thing.
CP: Will that be your first international date?
JM: This is our first band as The Jamie McLean Band. I’ve played there a number of times with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band.
CP: Have you worked up anything special for that show?
JM: We’re just going to keep doing what we’re doing. We’ve toured a ton since the record came out in April. We’re pretty tight right now. I feel like we can put on a hell of a show, so we’re just going to do our thing.
CP: When was the last time you were in Chattanooga?
JM: We were actually there in Chattanooga in May opening up for Gregg Allman at the Tennessee Pavilion. We opened up for Gregg in May, which was amazing. We toured with Greg for the better part of May. The last date we did with him was in Chattanooga. We’re psyched to get back. They actually made a big announcement at the show about the show we’re doing next week. People are really starting to get excited about it.
CP: You played with the Dirty Dozen for six years. What made you decide to go off on your own?
JM: Basically, the last two years I was with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, I was writing a lot of original music that wasn’t necessarily suited for the Dirty Dozen. It felt a little bit more rock’n’roll singer/songwriter. It’s stuff that was naturally coming out of me. During breaks in between tours, I was flying up to New York where my brother was living and started storyboarding these songs with musicians there.
A group sort of formed. I was doing double duty between my group and the Dirty Dozen for the last year and a half, just flying in between tours. It got to the point where I was getting some really great offers to open up for tours for the North Mississippi All Stars and other bands, stuff that I felt I couldn’t turn down.
At a certain point, you need to know when to hold them and when to fold them. It was becoming obvious that it was time to do my full project. I went ahead and left the band in late 2006. I’ve been doing it full-time ever since.
CP: Have you ever looked back on that decision with regret?
JM: Oh, no. I’m convinced I made the right decision. It’s a difficult one because you’re leaving your bread and butter, you’re leaving an established group that’s been doing it for 30 years and has toured all over the world playing with everyone in the business.
But I got a really solid deal from that. I played with them for six years. I playedin Madison Square Garden three times and recorded with Norah Jones and played with Elvis Costello. I can definitely check off a bunch of boxes.
I could feel it coming as the months started to go. It started becoming more obvious. I love those guys – they’re family and always will be – but it was time to do something new. They knew it when I went to talk to them about leaving. They said, “We knew this was coming. We wish you the best. When you’re the next Dave Matthews Band, don’t forget about us and try and find us an opening slot.” They were really encouraging.
Being a singers and songwriter and band leader before I joined the Dirty Dozen, it was something that is in me and wasn’t necessarily finding an outlet with the Dirty Dozen. I don’t regret moment.
CP: What’s a lasting legacy of your time with them that continues to inform your music and how you approach being a professional musician?
JM: Well, when I joined that band, I had been touring a little bit, regionally, with my own group, but that was my first real step into world touring. (Laughs.) The basics of, “Ok, you need to pack a bag for Istanbul, Hawaii and Colorado, and you’ll be gone for three months.” (Laughs.) It’s like, “OK …” That sort of logistic stuff.
On the business end, seeing the management, and the way the band conduct themselves in the studio and on stage. It was a lot more than, “Hey, let’s go and play a bar and hopefully our friends will come out.” It was a whole other level.
I learned a lot from that. When I started my band, I was sort of manager and booking agent. I wore all the hats, and I was comfortable doing that because of them.
The thing that rubbed off on me the most was the music, the music history and musicality. When you’re playing with a baritone sax player who was in Fats Domino’s Band, that’s a quick connection to the history of rock’n’roll. Just sitting around on the tour bus and trading stories and rubbing elbows with them and digging through his iPod and being on stage with them – your playing changes.
I was young and trying to be flashy. I had some technique, and I was trying to play everything I had in my bag on one song, but I learned that playing one note with all your heart and soul trumps the 10,000 notes that you’re trying to flash through. The sax players could get up there and milk one note, and the crowd would be going nuts.
That was something that sort of changed me. I remember Dave Schools from Widespread Panic when we were playing at Madison Square Garden, and he said, “Man, I’ve always loved your playing, but you’ve gotten so much soul into your playing in the last couple of years.” I definitely attribute that to the guys in the Dozen and New Orleans music, in general.
CP: What’s been the high point for you since you’ve been out on your own?
JM: Man, I would say our high point has been 2010. This entire year has been a high point for us. To tour with Gregg Allman was obviously a high point for us. To be able to share a stage with a legend in the business but also someone who’s been an influence. The Allman Brothers was someone we listened to when we were playing in our high school bar bands. To be able to shake hands with him and hang out in the dressing room was a high point for us. Those were some of the biggest crowds we’ve played with since I left the Dirty Dozen.
I would say that as well as everything we’ve done this year. We signed with a new booking agent last year. This year has been non-stop for us. We’ve done the West Coast twice this year.
Releasing the new record “Completely” is always a highlight. You can’t relate it to having a child because that’s just the tops, but it’s really a lot of blood, sweat and tears, and when it comes around, you’re glad it’s there and you’re proud of it. We put a couple of years into this record, and now that it’s finally here, we’re seeing a really great response and touring a lot behind it.
CP: Listening to “Completely,” it’s surprising to find out that you’re from Connecticut. Those songs sound like they came out the back door of Muscle Shoals.
JM: Connecticut is the home of the blues, man. Yeah, I can’t deny where I’m from. I don’t regret anything. People say, “Well, you sound southern,” and a lot of that would be that I did live in New Orleans for a long time and toured with band from New Orleans for a long time. Prior to that, I was listening to a lot of southern rock. Those were my main influences.
I guess putting all that together gives me a little bit of a southern thing. I don’t know too many people who sound like they’re from Connecticut. (Laughs.) I don’t know what that would sound like. I don’t want to know what that sounds like.
Even now that I’m in New York, we still maintain that. I hear it more like roots and blues. I remember talking to someone about this, and blues is southern, so however you want to slice it, my influences are southern. We just try to maintain that and try not to release where the real hometown is from. I’ve got to talk to Wikipedia or something and try to delete that fact.
CP: So that sound is something that’s always been attracted to?
JM: Oh, absolutely.
CP: Is it something you strive to embody in your music or does your music naturally come out that way because of your influences?
JM: I wouldn’t say it was a goal. I think it’s just what very naturally comes out of me. I’ve never sat down and said, “I’m going to write a blues thing today or a muscle shoals thing today.” I don’t know too many people who do.
It’s more like, I sit down, and I’m just praying that a song’s going to come out. It’s not an easy thing to write a song, so when it does come, you’re psyched, it’s a good day.
I didn’t set out to record this record in a particular style; it’s just the songs that came to me that particular month or year. It’s definitely including influences. I listen to what I think is a lot of great music and historical music and soulful music. Hopefully, some of that comes out.
CP: You also have a fairly keen pop sensibility to your music. It’s soulful, but it’s got plenty of hooks to it that make it accessible. Is that something that’s difficult to balance, pulling off a Muscle Shoals sheen while making it appeal to a wider audience that isn’t familiar with that style?
JM: Again, it’s not anything that’s preconceived. I do feel like I’ve been somewhat blessed in having an ear for … not a hook … but I lean towards melodic stuff. Whether that’s poppy or not, it’s something I gravitate towards.
The Dirty Dozen was sort of lumped into the jam band scene at a certain point when they were touring with Widespread and The Black Crowes. There’s nothing wrong with that scene and that music at all – I think it’s great – but there’s a certain point where it loses the songwriting and melody and lyrics when it becomes instrumental.
I got jaded with that and started going back to just songwriters. All the time, people ask me who I check out for guitar players and who I’ve been studying. Honestly, nine times out of 10, I’m listening to songs with no guitar solos. It’s just verse/chorus, verse/chorus, and it’s done within three minutes. It’s taking what I love to listen to and incorporating it.
Someone as poppy as James Taylor or Paul Simon, I wouldn’t consider necessarily soulful, but there are some great tunes there. If I can take a Paul Simon chorus and blend it with an Allman Brothers back beat or an Otis Redding vocal line, maybe it’s a bad idea to combine those influences together, but that’s what I dig.
I think it brings it full circle to where people who are not hip to the Muscle Shoals thing or where the people who are really into the roots thing and not so much the poppy stuff can enjoy it. It rides right along the line between what people dig.
It crosses between a couple different styles We’ve got some people who are trying to get us out on tour with some country artists. It’s just kind of what we listen to and what we’ve studied to a certain extent, and trying to make it a little bit of our own and put a twist on it.
CP: Where do your songs tend to come from? What tends to inspire you?
JM: Well, nine times out of 10, I’m completely alone with an acoustic guitar in my hands. They tend to come when I’m alone and can let it out and scream and sing whatever sounds like it should work.
I try to just get out of the way more than anything. I don’t sit there and try to write a love song or try to write a political song. I don’t necessarily go for themes right away. Paul McCartney summed it up when he talked about writing “Yesterday.” He had the chords, and he was humming along and started singing, “Scrambled eggs” instead of “Yesterdays.” He said, “Well, that’s what I’m hearing, but I have to go back and figure something out.” The next day, he went back and said, “Yesterdays would be the lyric.”
I do a similar thing. Lyrics come here and there, or even random, single words will come, and you have no idea what the song is about until it’s done, or even weeks or months later you finally figure what the song is about.
On the new record, there are a lot of romance and relationship and love themes that I guess are obviously part of everybody’s life and something that was buried deep down there for me during that point of my life. Some of them are sad, some are funny and ridiculous and others are like, “Oh, I’ve been there” sort of songs. People have been gravitating towards those.
CP: Are you ever surprised, when you’ve finally assembled the songs for an album, by a revelation of an overall theme, like, “Oh, that’s what I’ve had rolling around in my subconscious for the last few months”?
JM: Yeah, you do have that kind of moment when the light bulb goes off, but I can’t say I’m surprised, you know? I know myself pretty well. (Laughs.) It’s like, “—- man, that girl broke my heart,” and it’s like, “No —-.”
There’s a little bit of that, especially once it’s all on paper or in the liner notes and you can combine them. But again, I sort of look at it like a child. I’m extremely proud of this body of work.
It’s not like, “Oh, we don’t have enough songs, let’s put this one on there.” We had 17 songs, and we took six off, because we felt that felt like the group that was together. We’ll probably release the other six as an EP.
It’s definitely a body of work, not just slapping a bunch of songs together. I feel that way about all three of our records. It was a snapshot of time. They’re all different, but I feel like they’re cohesive. You could put it on shuffle, and some may sound older or newer, but they’d all be in the same category. You wouldn’t be shocked by some strange, atonal fugue or anything. It’s the same idea.
CP: What about individual songs? Have you ever finished a song and been surprised by that eureka moment when you get what it was about?
JM: I can’t say I’ve been like, “I can’t believe I wrote that.” There is stuff that’s a little more serendipitous. The last song on the new record is called “Bible.” It’s not all that religious, it’s more like a mediation and a reassurance. I definitely had my grandmother in mind when I wrote it.
She’d been sick for a number of years and just elderly. Once that song was recorded and we started playing it a little bit, and she did pass away during a tour, and the light bulb hit that, “Wow, that really is her song. It’s a send off.” Those sorts of things hit. The “Don’t do me that way” kind of songs hit you harder when you’re going through a rough spot.
Songs definitely evolve with you.
CP: What’s your litmus test for your songs? Who do you play them for first and what’s the final test for whether they’re worthy of adding to your repertoire?
JM: It’s really when you get it to the stage and play it in front of fans. If I take it to the band, it’s passed the first test that I think it’s a good song and worth sharing it to other people. If they like it, that’s great, but if we play it on stage and the crowd goes wild, that’s better.
We debuted a song the other night in Pittsburgh, a brand new song, and a fan came up and said, “Hey man, great set, and the new song is by far my favorite.” Then you know, “OK, we should play that one again.”
For me, to get a response from fans and see fans singing along with it, you know you’ve hit a chord and people are enjoying it. If people aren’t responding to it, maybe you have to take it back to the drawing board and tweak it a little bit. More often than not, we’ve gotten good responses to the new stuff.
When you hear something was the best song of the night, you know you’re gong in the right direction and you haven’t written your last great song.
CP: Is there such a thing as a finished song or is the door always cracked for you to tweak them later on?
JM: I think we’ll always put a spin on it, but I feel like the majority of them are very strong compositions. It’s not like, “Oh damn, we need to write a bridge for this song now.” I feel like the songs are done as far as composition, but there’s always room for interpretation.
I listen to some recordings, and we play some of these songs differently live, not by structure or anything, but vibe and dynamics and vocal rhythms and stuff like that. They’re always moving along with us.
CP: Your latest album, “Completely,” is available through a “Pay what you can” system. Why did you take that route? Was this fan service?
JM: The first time I’d seen that done was when Radiohead did a similar thing a couple of years ago. We thought it was a good idea, but at the same time, I was sort of petrified thinking, “We’ve worked for two years on this thing, and now we’re going to give it away for free.”
I sweated it for a second, but the response has been amazing. People do take it for free, which was the intent, but some people also paid $30-$40 for it. Financially, it all evened out to what it would have been any way, but we’ve gotten it to two or three or four times as many fans.
I always think about the guy who’s like, “Yeah, I’ve heard of Jamie, but I haven’t really checked it out.” I’m like that, like, “I like it, but I’m not going to pay $15 for it.” You get it into the hands of people who never would have bought it anyway, and now they’re digging it and coming to shows.
I’ve had people who come up to me at shows and hand me a $20 bill and say, “Man, I owe you $20.” I’m like, “We haven’t met. I’m sorry,” and they’re like, “Well, I downloaded your record, but I didn’t pay anything. I loved it, and you deserve this money.”
More than anything, I feel like it exposes more and more people to the album who wouldn’t have heard it anyway. Then, the fans who have been waiting for it and really want it and want to support the band are able to do that as well.
We’ve actually left that feature up on the website. Initially, it was going to be a promo for about a month, but the response was so good that we left it up.
I feel like it’s a smart move to get it to the fans and let them dictate it a little bit. The music industry has changed so much that I feel like it’s good to let the fans speak a little bit. I’m really excited we did it because the response has been better than expected.
CP: So you’d consider doing it again in the future?
JM: Absolutely.