M. Ward’s Dream of Chuck Berry

By Cameron Matthews

Matt Ward, professionally known as M. Ward, is a guitar player’s guitar player. He’s got a bag full of riffs that most other axers can’t even fathom, borrowing lead lines from the heydays of soul, jazz, rockabilly, and even American primitivism. It’s hard to compete with an M. Ward solo. All of those jangly notes are like candy.

You may know Ward through his solo work, his guitar heroics with Monsters of Folk (Conor Oberst, Mike Mogis, Jim James), or by the classically American hits he churns out with Zooey Deschanel in the two-piece She and Him. A Wasteland Companion, his last solo endeavor, was built upon Ward’s already critically aclaimed repertoire of complex guitar music and sultry vocals. It took the guitarist four years, but he’s finally back with a brand new album, More Rain, out now on the illustrious Merge Records. He also produced the just-released new LP from Mavis Staples, Livin’ on a High Note.

You took four years off from solo M. Ward material and now you’re back. So, how are you? What do you do every day?

Family and friends are my life.

You have a family?

Yeah, well, yeah. Everyone has a family. [Smiles] I like to spend time with music, but it doesn’t have to be the kind where you’re touring or recording, necessarily. It can be just … writing. I think it’s safe to say that I’ve spent the majority of my own music over the last four years just writing and relearning old songs that I never recorded. That’s what this record is made up of — new songs mixed with old songs that I finally finished.

I’ve been trying to finish John Fahey’s novel How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life. The reason I bring that up is because you are in a class with him — a class of philosophical guitarists. Have you ever felt the urge to write a book?

Whenever I think about it, it ends up turning into songs, because I don’t have the right tools of the trade for writing a book, in my opinion. I don’t have it. Maybe I will someday, but it requires incredible foresightedness and discipline. For me, if I start off with an idea, I can see where it ends fairly quickly; whereas, I think people who write books are able to be inspired by an idea for chapter one, and maybe they can see all the twists and turns that can happen. But I don’t see that. I see more like a poem, with some twists and turns, and then how it can end.

Poetry is climbing again through the art forms, don’t you think? I know that poets aren’t necessarily super famous these days, but I think it’s something we all need.

Absolutely. I think, whether or not we’re conscious of it, it ends up affecting so many things that we are conscious of. Poetry affects journalism. It affects all the writers at work.

Are you reading anything in particular right now?

Right now, I’m reading Moby Dick, again, which is one of my favorite books. And I read the newspaper a lot, mainly The New York Times.

You keep up to date.

Well … through The New York Times, I keep up to date … which is a certain perspective.

In the press release, More Rain is described as “the singer on the inside, looking out.” Tell me about that approach.

It’s something that happened unconsciously. One of the things the record, to me, tries to do is is to paint a problem and then paint a solution. I think every problem has a solution, and it’s something I think about when I am reading the newspaper and all these terrible things are happening in the world. The solution is oftentimes invisible and oftentimes behind the story.

You’ve said that music is kind of a “safe space” to explore a solution.

Yes, to me, it’s like a meditation away from the barrage of news and the barrage of facts that are very discouraging. It helps me to step away from those things. But you have to stay in touch, also.

We live in a world where all of our thoughts, especially on social media, are weighted equally. The echo chamber grows more cacophonous every day. I thought about this while listening to your song “Phenomenon.” In it, you sing, “But you know what you believe / And if somebody ever asks you / You tell ’em: It’s the truth.” So, is everyone actually entitled to their opinion?

I think that everyone is entitled to their opinion, but the problem is if you take it too far. If I start thinking about it in terms of that song … the song reflects things I think about a lot, which is how hard it is just to tolerate different people’s opinions. It sounds like such an easy thing for people to do, but it’s just so hard for people to do. It’s just somebody’s beliefs and I — speaking for myself — have no problem with anyone’s belief system. The only problem is extremism and when those beliefs affect your judgment and how you’re treating other people, or other countries. Yeah, I’m hoping for more tolerance.

Was this song more political, spiritual, or in between?

It’s hard to say, exactly, but it’s definitely more spiritual — which is a place that music can go to, in my opinion, very easily and doesn’t go to as often as it could or should in popular music.

Your songs “I’m Going Higher,” “Confession,” and “Phenomenon” feel like they were written together. It almost seems like you were working on a gospel record there for a minute.

Yeah! Well, part of it was recorded in the summertime which is when I got this invitation to work with Mavis [Staples]. So I would say the record is definitely inspired by Mavis Staples. The song “I’m Going Higher” is pretty old, but when I wrote it — which was probably 15 years ago — it was definitely under the influence of the Staple Singers and the Carter Family, and where those songs were coming from. Those songs you mentioned are definitely inspired by gospel music.

Are you religious or spiritual?

I definitely am, but I don’t like beating anyone over the head with it … and the song “Phenomenon” is a little like that — describing that feeling of wanting a way where everyone is able to believe whatever they want to believe without any feeling that you’re believing in something because somebody told you to or because somebody told you not to. I’m not being very concrete right now …

Did your parents practice?

Yeah. Very Christian. I think it’s more important to have voices out in the world that are encouraging, not discouraging people, if you’re not following my beliefs or somebody else’s beliefs. I’m inspired by voices that are able to go there. The fact to me is, we still only know the tip of the iceberg about what life really is. And I hope, for the betterment of the world, that we come to finally realize that — that most things are unexplainable. Most things are impossible to even talk about. So music helps. Music helps.

Let’s talk about “Girl from Conejo Valley.” You grew up there, right?

That is where I’m from. I spent my life there.

Do you actually know someone named Raolo?

All names are changed to protect the innocent, but I do like the name Raolo. There are a lot of things to be inspired by when you look back on the place where you came from because you finally have perspective, you know?

A poet friend of mine often says that, if we don’t mythologize our families or childhoods, we’re doing it wrong. Do you ever do that in your music?

I’m going to probably say all the time. There’s a lot of mythology, mixing fact and fiction, in everything that I’ve ever done. It makes for a better story.

Sometimes the truth isn’t the most interesting story …

Yeah, and it might even be closer to the truth of the story. If this guy’s name was actually Winterhart, you know? But I think that’s a good point about mythologizing your past. Mythologizing your future has a lot of value, too, because that’s dreaming. That’s creating a vision of yourself for the future that is worth chasing after.

Speaking of your future, on “I’m Listening” and “Little Baby,” it sounds like a parent speaking to their child.

Well, that “Little Baby” song actually came to me in a dream of Chuck Berry. And he was singing this song.

Chuck Berry singing “Little Baby”?

Chuck Berry was singing these verses. And it wasn’t the Duck Room, but it was in some … I don’t know where it was. But he was singing, and there was a baby in the audience and he brought the baby up and just started singing this song. And I remember the words and the melody and I wrote the song. So that song is unique.

Holy shit!

Yeah. I’ve had dreams of … Keith Richards. He ends up in quite a few dreams. And Mick Jagger. But never a song, whose words and melody I remember when I wake up. It was amazing. I’ll never forget that image.

So, is “I’m Listening” about a parent speaking to a child?

Yes, it’s the point of view of a child and how incredible it is that they are able to absorb everything people say. So yeah, it’s just a fascination song.

Both songs seem like the narrator is asking a child “What do you know?” Or “What do you have to say?”

Right. Well … how can I put this? I think, in a lot of ways, they’re more intelligent than we are. But I think animals are more intelligent than we are, too, sometimes. Especially when you’re reading the newspaper, again, and seeing what we’re doing to each other. It sounds like the plan of an idiot to do what we’re doing to each other and the world. It sounds like the plan of somebody who has no sense of anything. It’s not something that a child or an animal would ever think up.

Do you want kids?

I have one.

Oh, you have one?

I have one, yes.

Well, congrats!

Thank you. So, yeah, being a dad brings up so many great questions. So maybe that’s partly where that song comes from.

Photo courtesy of Merge Records

Originally published at www.thebluegrasssituation.com on March 11, 2016.