Mason Jennings

Dark Wings came together at the Minneapolis workshop of drummer Scott McPherson (Elliott Smith, Beck, She & Him), who makes leather goods when he isn't playing. Engineer Aaron Featherstone hauled recording gear into the space, McPherson invited Jennings over to cut a single song for fun—"Try Me"—and the one-off stretched into a refreshing 16 months of collaborative sessions that reinvigorated Jennings.

The solo stuff will return in good time, he says, but Mason Jennings is excited about a new album made with more breathing room than normal, and he sat down to tell us all about it.

Analogue: Eighteen albums. That catalog density is so rare, so what does that mean for your relationship with release day?

Mason Jennings: I love it, man. It's almost like a holiday at this point for me, because it's just been such a big part of my life for the last 30 years, just putting records out. I usually take about a year and a half, or a couple of years, to make a record, and it's a really immersive experience—the writing and recording, it's always different—and it's just so cool to share it with the world. It just feels really good.

Analogue: That sounds very healthy. It’s also the opposite of what a lot of people say about release day and the emotions around it. [Laughs]

Mason: Are most people stressed out?

Analogue: Oh, yeah. Across the board. There's the relief of getting it out there, but then also the vulnerability of that. Maybe after 18 albums it's like my mom's birthday. She just turned 70 and said, ‘We really didn't do anything. I’m 70, so why would you?’ Does it feel like that in a way?

Mason: I think it's changed a lot. It used to be a lot different with the physical, the CDs, back in the day, when it would be a big physical release. Also, the internet's just constantly going. Now it's just 24-7 input, so it's a little different. Back in the day, it was more of a physical event. I'd be starting a tour, and all of a sudden there's all this new information and stuff going out to the world. But now I'm constantly in touch with people who like my music through the internet, and the music is just in more of a constant stream, in a way.

It's similar to that with birthdays, where it's like, ‘Hey, I'm really glad to still be here.’ I have some songs I really feel good about putting out there, and very few people actually purchase the music anymore. It’s more just listening online. So it's sort of like, ‘Hey, check in, and let's celebrate!’ It feels pretty good now. It definitely was more stressful back in the day.

Analogue: Do you remember the emotions around the self-titled?

Mason: The self-titled was just putting something out in the world. I was thinking of it more as a demo to try to get a record deal, and then that one just took off on me. I started selling them at my shows. I probably pressed 500, thinking I would send 100 to record labels, and they kept rejecting me, so I just was like, ‘Well, I'll just sell the rest of them,’ but then I probably sold like 100,000 of them. I just kept making them and selling them and selling them, so it was sort of a slow thing with that one. It wasn't about the release date. Then more stuff like Boneclouds was a really big one for Epic Records. That was a lot of stress. They put a lot of money into you. You're kind of like, 'I hope this goes well.’

Analogue: Coming back to more of a band approach after your solo album, Magnifier, was that a palate cleanser? Is it essential for you to move between methods and processes like that?

Mason: Yeah. After a record's made, I'll kind of just sit, and I probably won't write for a while, and then just kind of look for a new feeling, a new something that feels different than the last record, so I'll just kind of feel around. And with Magnifier, I was at my lake house, and I just was like, ‘I haven't really made a really quiet record. I’m just going to make this record, sitting with my guitar and piano, and just do it all myself.’ It's a lot of finger-picking guitar and very simple.

So after that, I'd been doing that for about a year and a half, and I just got kind of lonely. And then my friend Scott McPherson, who played drums with Elliott Smith and Beck, he also makes leather bags, besides being a drummer. So he had this huge shop, and his friend put a bunch of recording gear in there, and he said, ‘Hey, you want to stop by the shop and record a song, just for fun?’ So I stopped by, and it was so much fun. We recorded the song "Try Me," which is on the record, and then I just had so much fun. I'd tour every month, and then I would come back and have a new song that I'd written on the road, and just hang out with my friends and record it.

So it was way more social, and then Scott was like, 'Maybe I can produce this record. I'd like to try production.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, let's do it.’ So we'd record the basics, and then he and Aaron Featherstone, the engineer, would just kind of work on it during the next month, have some players come in and add parts, and he did such an awesome job. So it was very collaborative. It was very much a palate cleanser. The next one will probably be more isolated. I’ll probably go back to doing more of the lone thing, but it just kind of goes like that.

Analogue: You said you kind of look for the feeling—I think that’s how you put it. How long have you had to wait for that in the past? Ever feel a lengthy dry spell there?

Mason: Yeah, the most it'll probably be is eight or nine months, where I won't really write much. I might write a little music, but sometimes it's more like the feeling… I really want, after a record, to have a new feeling to it, so sometimes I have to wait eight or nine months. Oftentimes it'll be six months. There'll be a break, and in those six months I'm just taking in input. I'll check out different authors that I haven't read before, or I'll go travel to different places, or I'll try a different instrument. I'll buy a mandolin or something and just try to learn to play something new. And I paint a lot, too, so a lot of times that'll be a lot of painting in that time off. And then one day, something will kind of bubble up, and it takes shape, and it has a spirit to it, and you're like, ‘Oh, okay, I guess we're here now.’ I'm pretty patient with it. I don't really push it. It's way more of a pleasurable experience. The writing part, I don't ever force.

Analogue: Have you ever forced it?

Mason: I've tried to write certain kinds of songs. I'll be like, 'I should write about the political situation,’ or ‘I want to write a song about this certain story or something,’ but it always ends up being very cerebral. It doesn't have that spiritual… it doesn't feel like a gift. It feels more like I forced something, so I just usually scrap them.

Analogue: You said "Try Me" was the cornerstone track for a new batch, but you also mentioned those activities that inspire you: painting, new authors. Was there some of that before "Try Me"? What were you working with this time?

Mason: "Try Me" was because Scott just said, ‘Come on in and let's do a song.’ I was just finishing Magnifier at the time, and I had a version of "Try Me" that was just acoustic guitar—very, very sparse. So I just brought that song, and I was like, ‘Hey, let's see what it sounds like with the band.’ So that was sort of a bridge, the feeling of being with the other players, and just having fun in the studio.

I didn't put that song on Magnifier because it sounded really different. And I was really interested; the last year and a half I was working with Scott, in collaborative artists, so I really got into the Grateful Dead. I was listening to them a lot. I was listening to different bands that were more collaborative. I listened to some jazz and stuff like that, and I think that really informed this. I was just in more of a zone of, what's some stuff where other people work together, you know?

Analogue: It sounds like there were several sessions over the course of more than a year. That's an interesting rhythm to me, where things could still feel current and yet there’s breathing room to take it in as you go.

Mason: Yeah, there was tons of room. It was really different than usual, because usually I'll record over just one month, or two or three weeks. It was interesting to record over 16 months. It was really fun, because the weather would change. We went through a whole cycle of weather. Sometimes it'd be super hot—we didn't have good AC—and then sometimes it'd be freezing, because it's Minnesota. So it was just depending on what was going on, and as I amassed these songs, I just felt like I had a really cool batch, because we probably recorded 20 songs, and I think there's 11 on the record. We'd probably do one or two. I'd come in, and because I'd been practicing it on the road, I'd have a new song, and I'd just be able to show it to Scott really quickly. Then we'd record one or two songs in one day, and then I'd head back home, or head back on the road again to try to get another one.

Analogue: Are all these brand new, or do some of these tracks go back a ways before resurfacing?

Mason: On this record, they're all pretty new. "Try Me" was a little older, just because it was from the year before, but everything else was just on the road. And there are a couple that I didn't put on there because the lyrics weren't quite right, so we'll see. I could always pull one of those and maybe try recording it a different way, or adding different lyrics, so I keep some around. Sometimes it's neat to have a chorus from somewhere that you might use. And I'm also in the band Painted Shield with Stone Gossard, and sometimes I bring some of these solo songs to Painted Shield, and we'll reinvent it. We've done that a few times.

Analogue: What's the status there? Are you guys actively working on something?

Mason: Yeah. Since we've done so much through the internet, we've been together a few times, but we want to do our next record all in one place together—kind of write it and record it in, like, a week. So I think we're going to, hopefully early next year, all get together somewhere and just create a record together in one space, and try to do it that way, more improvised.

VISIT: Mason Jennings