Lotta Love
Artist:
RWD
G. Love & Special Sauce are a trio from Philadelphia, US), whose 13-year long career has seen the release of seven albums, countless sold-out performances all over the world and collaborations with the likes of Blackalicious, Jack Johnson and Ben Harper to name but a few. Their style incorporates everything from laid-back blues and soul to hip-hop, funk and psychedelia. The group - G. Love (born Garrett Dutton) on guitar/vocals/harmonica, Jeff Clemens on drums, and Jim Prescott on upright bass - released their self-titled debut in 1994 and have been one of the hardest working groups in the USA ever since. With financial problems, record label issues and the stress and strain of so much touring, it’s hardly surprising that the band haven’t always seen eye to eye. But with the release of 2006’s Lemonade, G. Love & Special Sauce are firmly back on track with a selection of easy summer groovers to chill out and sip (you guessed it) lemonade to. They came to the UK in May 2007 to tour for the album and arrived to the news that every single show had sold out ahead of time (a first for the band in the UK). Eager to get a slice of the action and experience the band live, we high-tailed it down to Bristol on the 25th to see for ourselves what makes Special Sauce so tasty.
After a few minor disasters including a lost tour bus, finding ourselves in Bristol’s red light district and dodgy chicken burgers for dinner, we finally managed to pin down Mr Dutton at the Trinity Centre and talk to him about the album, his collaborations and plans for the next album. Here’s what followed:
So… the new album, tell us about it.
It’s better than fish and chips (laughs). Nah, it’s uh… alright well, my goal with this record was really to make like a summer time, kick-back groover you know? That’s kinda what I set out to do and then um, also to make the collaborations. I wanted to do the collaborations on this record but I didn’t want to lose the identity of the band you know? I honestly wasn’t really trying to push myself too hard on this record, kinda because I was thinking I was tryin’ too hard and I figured I’d lay back my approach a bit and have a little more success.
This like, compared to The Hustle?
Yeah. You know, namely our single Astronaut off The Hustle. That was really rock n roll and I really dig that track but a lot of the vocal stuff on that album, it seems my vocals can be really harsh, so I wanted to kick back my vocal style a little bit and smooth things out a little bit.
What kind of process did you go through to write this album? Was it more jamming or pre-written, or hanging out with Jimmy and Jeff?
Yeah we’re definitely making a different record right now than we made then. On Lemonade, we kinda got off to a bad recording start because we came off tour and were supposed to record in July, but everyone was pretty burned out except for me… And I was like, we had this session set up to start working on the record, and I like to record when I’ve come off tour and I’m hopefully hot vocally, and like, hot guitar-playing wise… You know I got a five year old kid so when I get home I can’t practise… and especially two years ago I just wasn’t getting the time to practice all the time. So I was like kinda out of practice, the drummer had been practicing for months, he just wanted to get it every take first time but nobody knew all the songs because I’d written them in my time off.
So all in all it was a bit disastrous and everyone got on edge real quick and so that was when we started bringing in special guests. We weren’t really getting takes so we had to start making loops, a more hip hop style production than more rock n roll type songs. That’s actually something we’re pretty good at. So some of the stuff, we were taking a live performance and then making a song out of it. Not a concert, just a live in-studio performance. We started looping it up and getting the changes n shit in there, so from there we started building the tracks as opposed performing the tracks…
You’ve said you did a lot of collaborations - did you have the songs written before they came in, or did the artists come in and influence the style of the songs?
Like, both… Rainbow was written, we did our track and sent it over to Jack (Johnson) in Hawaii and he put his shit on. Banger was a collaboration between us and Blackalicious where we had been on tour together and had been doing the song - or a form of the song - live as a freestyle. So that was a full collaboration both artist-wise and production-wise, cause we sent them our track and we produced our thing and let them produce it further. So that was a really solid collaboration.
And then, the Ben Harper track was really cool, on that one we just gave Ben a loop of drums and bass and he started layering… Then we changed the break-up, and then this kid Marc Broussard came in like a month later, and sang my verse, which is now his verse at the end… And he just destroyed it also. So yeah, both… the combination you know like, of having a solid base and everyone just tweaking it out from there.
Are there any British artists you’d like to work with?
Um, well I just worked with the Fun Lovin’ Criminals that are almost British (laughs). Yo, like I’m just a phone call away, I’ll work with anybody, you know? Well I also think a lot of musicians don’t really realise that you can call up anybody you want whether it’s fuckin’ Hubert Sumlin or… BB King, G-Love, or KRS1... you know… anybody. You can call them up and get them in the studio. They might say no, they might charge you money, they might do it for free, you know.
It seems like Ben Harper, Jack Johnson and you have all come along on the same wavelength, and the work together is more of a friendship. I was wondering if you have found that here in the UK?
Well I’m not over here a lot, so I don’t know many people, unfortunately. The last time we toured here we played with Corner Shop, and they were really shy, barely said two words. Tricky, yeah, I almost worked with him at one point and it just didn’t come together.
Musically, where do you think you’ll be heading after this album?
I think the next record, I think it’s kind of exciting ‘cause a) we are doing our preproduction right now and really making an effort to learn the songs months before we go into the studio, which we don’t always do, which I think will be a recipe for success. And then I also think that as far as how we record, we wanna make something raw and dirtier than Lemonade and The Hustle. Well actually I think The Hustle is pretty raw, but I know we wanna get a lot more dirty on it and get a lot more experimental on it and push ourselves in every direction a little harder. I wanna push myself harder on writing, making sure I tell a story on every song, like that Jenny Crash song, that song is kind of about a superstar girl gone bad and dying in a car crash. Like if you imagine someone like Lindsay Lohan, it’s like, in my mind, I’m making up an icon that’s called Jenny, and putting her in this dramatic situation, and she’s fucked up on cocaine and she crashes her car. So that’s what I’m saying, I’m gonna try and write songs like that.
(Oddly enough, the next day Lindsay Lohan DID crash her car, while allegedly under the influence of cocaine and booze. G. Love the Guru anyone?)
OK last question, have you anything to say to the readers of the review and your fans.
I just wanna say to the fans thanks, and thanks for the UK for representing so hard. You know we had kind of given up on coming over here cause it’s really hard to tour here, and once again even though we don’t get a lot of critical or industry acclaim you know obviously the people care and we have a place in this world playing music. Our tour is sold out and it’s bigger than it’s ever been, and they can’t really stop us, so they are gonna really hate us or. I think the Lemonade record got beat up in the press, but that doesn’t really matter, it’s been our fastest selling record ever, and I think the next record will be a lot more critical, so to me I know that’s not my last record.
When is the last?
When I’m dead man (smiles).
Interview by By Li.B and John Faill
Visit Philadelphonic for more information on G. Love & Special Sauce.
RWD Magazine
G. Love & Special Sauce are a trio from Philadelphia, US), whose 13-year long career has seen the release of seven albums, countless sold-out performances all over the world and collaborations with the likes of Blackalicious, Jack Johnson and Ben Harper to name but a few. Their style incorporates everything from laid-back blues and soul to hip-hop, funk and psychedelia. The group - G. Love (born Garrett Dutton) on guitar/vocals/harmonica, Jeff Clemens on drums, and Jim Prescott on upright bass - released their self-titled debut in 1994 and have been one of the hardest working groups in the USA ever since. With financial problems, record label issues and the stress and strain of so much touring, it’s hardly surprising that the band haven’t always seen eye to eye. But with the release of 2006’s Lemonade, G. Love & Special Sauce are firmly back on track with a selection of easy summer groovers to chill out and sip (you guessed it) lemonade to. They came to the UK in May 2007 to tour for the album and arrived to the news that every single show had sold out ahead of time (a first for the band in the UK). Eager to get a slice of the action and experience the band live, we high-tailed it down to Bristol on the 25th to see for ourselves what makes Special Sauce so tasty.
After a few minor disasters including a lost tour bus, finding ourselves in Bristol’s red light district and dodgy chicken burgers for dinner, we finally managed to pin down Mr Dutton at the Trinity Centre and talk to him about the album, his collaborations and plans for the next album. Here’s what followed:
So… the new album, tell us about it.
It’s better than fish and chips (laughs). Nah, it’s uh… alright well, my goal with this record was really to make like a summer time, kick-back groover you know? That’s kinda what I set out to do and then um, also to make the collaborations. I wanted to do the collaborations on this record but I didn’t want to lose the identity of the band you know? I honestly wasn’t really trying to push myself too hard on this record, kinda because I was thinking I was tryin’ too hard and I figured I’d lay back my approach a bit and have a little more success.
This like, compared to The Hustle?
Yeah. You know, namely our single Astronaut off The Hustle. That was really rock n roll and I really dig that track but a lot of the vocal stuff on that album, it seems my vocals can be really harsh, so I wanted to kick back my vocal style a little bit and smooth things out a little bit.
What kind of process did you go through to write this album? Was it more jamming or pre-written, or hanging out with Jimmy and Jeff?
Yeah we’re definitely making a different record right now than we made then. On Lemonade, we kinda got off to a bad recording start because we came off tour and were supposed to record in July, but everyone was pretty burned out except for me… And I was like, we had this session set up to start working on the record, and I like to record when I’ve come off tour and I’m hopefully hot vocally, and like, hot guitar-playing wise… You know I got a five year old kid so when I get home I can’t practise… and especially two years ago I just wasn’t getting the time to practice all the time. So I was like kinda out of practice, the drummer had been practicing for months, he just wanted to get it every take first time but nobody knew all the songs because I’d written them in my time off.
So all in all it was a bit disastrous and everyone got on edge real quick and so that was when we started bringing in special guests. We weren’t really getting takes so we had to start making loops, a more hip hop style production than more rock n roll type songs. That’s actually something we’re pretty good at. So some of the stuff, we were taking a live performance and then making a song out of it. Not a concert, just a live in-studio performance. We started looping it up and getting the changes n shit in there, so from there we started building the tracks as opposed performing the tracks…
You’ve said you did a lot of collaborations - did you have the songs written before they came in, or did the artists come in and influence the style of the songs?
Like, both… Rainbow was written, we did our track and sent it over to Jack (Johnson) in Hawaii and he put his shit on. Banger was a collaboration between us and Blackalicious where we had been on tour together and had been doing the song - or a form of the song - live as a freestyle. So that was a full collaboration both artist-wise and production-wise, cause we sent them our track and we produced our thing and let them produce it further. So that was a really solid collaboration.
And then, the Ben Harper track was really cool, on that one we just gave Ben a loop of drums and bass and he started layering… Then we changed the break-up, and then this kid Marc Broussard came in like a month later, and sang my verse, which is now his verse at the end… And he just destroyed it also. So yeah, both… the combination you know like, of having a solid base and everyone just tweaking it out from there.
Are there any British artists you’d like to work with?
Um, well I just worked with the Fun Lovin’ Criminals that are almost British (laughs). Yo, like I’m just a phone call away, I’ll work with anybody, you know? Well I also think a lot of musicians don’t really realise that you can call up anybody you want whether it’s fuckin’ Hubert Sumlin or… BB King, G-Love, or KRS1... you know… anybody. You can call them up and get them in the studio. They might say no, they might charge you money, they might do it for free, you know.
It seems like Ben Harper, Jack Johnson and you have all come along on the same wavelength, and the work together is more of a friendship. I was wondering if you have found that here in the UK?
Well I’m not over here a lot, so I don’t know many people, unfortunately. The last time we toured here we played with Corner Shop, and they were really shy, barely said two words. Tricky, yeah, I almost worked with him at one point and it just didn’t come together.
Musically, where do you think you’ll be heading after this album?
I think the next record, I think it’s kind of exciting ‘cause a) we are doing our preproduction right now and really making an effort to learn the songs months before we go into the studio, which we don’t always do, which I think will be a recipe for success. And then I also think that as far as how we record, we wanna make something raw and dirtier than Lemonade and The Hustle. Well actually I think The Hustle is pretty raw, but I know we wanna get a lot more dirty on it and get a lot more experimental on it and push ourselves in every direction a little harder. I wanna push myself harder on writing, making sure I tell a story on every song, like that Jenny Crash song, that song is kind of about a superstar girl gone bad and dying in a car crash. Like if you imagine someone like Lindsay Lohan, it’s like, in my mind, I’m making up an icon that’s called Jenny, and putting her in this dramatic situation, and she’s fucked up on cocaine and she crashes her car. So that’s what I’m saying, I’m gonna try and write songs like that.
(Oddly enough, the next day Lindsay Lohan DID crash her car, while allegedly under the influence of cocaine and booze. G. Love the Guru anyone?)
OK last question, have you anything to say to the readers of the review and your fans.
I just wanna say to the fans thanks, and thanks for the UK for representing so hard. You know we had kind of given up on coming over here cause it’s really hard to tour here, and once again even though we don’t get a lot of critical or industry acclaim you know obviously the people care and we have a place in this world playing music. Our tour is sold out and it’s bigger than it’s ever been, and they can’t really stop us, so they are gonna really hate us or. I think the Lemonade record got beat up in the press, but that doesn’t really matter, it’s been our fastest selling record ever, and I think the next record will be a lot more critical, so to me I know that’s not my last record.
When is the last?
When I’m dead man (smiles).
Interview by By Li.B and John Faill
Visit Philadelphonic for more information on G. Love & Special Sauce.
RWD Magazine
Submit to:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Comments
No comments yet
