Interview: Iron & Wine Cook Up A Musical Soup Ahead of UK & Ireland Tour

In dealing mainly with the great and the good of the indie community, Ragged Words doesn’t tend to come across too many big egos. In fact, we're pleased to report that most interviewees are just plain lovely - and none more so than Samuel Beam, the bearded frontman of folk darlings (and recent 4AD/Warner signings) Iron & Wine. Shortly before last month's release of Kiss Each Other Clean, the group's fourth studio LP, and a record whose "delicious, rapidly altering soundscapes" deservedly saw Beam and co. riding high at number two on The Billboard Top 200, Sam kindly took our call. As we quickly discovered, the South Carolina native is every bit as polite and friendly as his music is enchanting, and he was more than happy to talk to us about moving labels, the retro, AM radio feel to much of his band's new material, and the importance of "playing the room". Enjoy!

Hi, Sam. Padraic here from Ragged Words. How are things? 

Hey, Padraic. How you doing?

Good, thanks. How are you?

I’m good, I’m good!

Thanks very much for your time.

Not at all... Thank you for your time and your interest. Where is it you're calling from?

I’m calling from Dublin.

Oh, great. Cool.

I think I can speak for all your European fans in saying that we’re very much looking forward to having you back over here. I know I'm certainly enjoying the new album...

Great, I’m glad you like it.

It sounds to me like a record that's going to slowly unravel and go on revealing itself over time - there's quite a lot of intricate instrumentation on there. Does that observation sound about right to you? And if so, is that a quality you're perhaps keen for Iron & Wine material to have?

It’s something that I strive for, yeah. I like the idea of listening to something a few times and getting something different out of it on each revisit. You can listen to it doing the dishes, and maybe enjoy the beat or something. Then later you can listen to it again on headphones and get something else a little more intricate out of it. I like that idea.

It seems to carry on from where (2007 LP) The Shepherd's Dog left off, with arguably even fuller accompaniments this time around. Was that what you envisaged before even a song was written?

Not necessarily, actually. Like you said, it just sort of picked up where the other one left off, but, you know, you try to leave yourself open. I don’t like the idea of putting the same record out twice, so you end up pushing yourself to put your songs in different clothes; and so that’s what we ended up with. As you can probably tell, there’s a bit more of a classic '60s/'70s pop radio kind of thing going on this time, so when that started to happen we definitely pushed it, embraced it and ran with it. We then threw other things in on top of that, just to mix the soup up a bit. There’s ethnic African and Eastern music alongside modern electronic music, all cooked up together in one big soup.

Yeah, that mining of '60s and '70s pop influences is something that gets mentioned in the press release. To tell you the truth, I usually try not to read too much into press releases, but I think they really got it spot on with that reference point...            

Yeah, it has a nostalgic feel of some kind. When I grew up, it was Fleetwood Mac and Elton John on the radio: that’s what music was. My parents had a few Motown records, so that was a big deal for me. As a kid growing up, you tend to make associations before you really know what the music industry is - you hear it and that’s what music is. So it was fun to run with that on this record.

It does sound like something that could have been made maybe forty years ago... So you're basically saying you just stumbled upon that feel, rather than it being a particular veneer you were consciously looking for?

The writing process hasn’t really changed that much. I just fool around with the guitar, the piano, go with a vocal melody and spend some time, write some lyrics around it. So you have this core of a song and you start to put some different clothes on it, you start recording - push it one way, then maybe try it another. And when I played them a certain way, they just sounded like those songs on the radio. At that point you either run with it further or put some other things on top of it. You basically just stay open to be surprised. More so in the last few years, I’ve been much more interested in being surprised in what the process will give you, rather that just being successful or unsuccessful with what’s going on in your head or your imagination. You know what I mean?

Yeah, for sure. Would you say you approach things with a wider palette now? You've already mentioned your fondness for African music, and Jamaican music is again mentioned in the press release... I think with a song like 'Rabbit Will Run', you can certainly hear some of that coming through.

Yeah, that one almost feels like The Steve Miller Band playing a Jamaican tune - with a New Orleans brass band or something!

Haha. Mind if we steal that line for our review?!?

Sure, go for it! (laughs) Just don’t tell Steve Miller, he’ll probably sue me! But yeah, you just try as many things as you can and see what sticks. The recording process is not the time to be close-minded; if anything, in fact, it’s the time to be open-minded. Or at least for me, I feel more rewarded when I’m surprised. And that has to do with pushing yourself and finding fun collaborators who have some great ideas themselves.

When did you actually start writing this album? And are you one of those people who's able to write much while you're on the road? Because I know you toured the last record pretty comprehensively.

Sometimes I find I can write on tour, but that doesn't really happen very often. I don’t really 'sit down' and start writing records, though - like, SIT DOWN: TRACK ONE! That's not me... I just write all the time, and then when it comes time to put out a new record I start recording. You just look at what you have in your bag at that point and see which ones might work together as a group of songs.

There's been a three-and-a-half-year gap between these records: was that down to extra touring, or did this one just take longer to write?

It actually took about the same length of time as the last one; we just ended up doing it a little bit different. The last one we did all at my house, in my studio, but with this one we split it about half-and-half between my house and Chicago. In total, it took about nine months, but not all in a row. It was more a case of doing, say, a week of work, and then not working for two weeks, and maybe doing a bunch of overdubs at my house before then going back to Chicago for a week. 

It still feels like only yesterday that I put The Shepherd's Dog out, though; I guess I’ve just been real busy. Yeah, everyone’s been saying "Why did it take you so long?" To tell you the truth, I didn’t realise it had! We toured quite a bit for the last one, and then released (2009's B-sides and rarities compilation) Around The Well and toured a bit around that. I also had another child in that time, and was recording and writing and just keeping busy. I don’t know, life just goes by...

That's something we can all relate to I reckon! Well, I suppose the demand to tour must have risen considerably after The Shepherd's Dog charted so well in its first week (the album debuted at number twenty-four in The US)...

Yeah, we were really lucky with that.

Was that a nice surprise? To be suddenly reaching a bigger audience three albums into your career?

Yeah, it was a nice surprise. It was great... I mean, I’m going to do what I want to do and not change stuff around to suit others; but at the same time I like people to like my music! (laughs) I really feel like musicians are being dishonest when they say they don’t care whether people like their music or not. That’s bullshit; any artist likes to be appreciated - it’s flattering and it’s a wonderful feeling.

You’ve obviously changed labels too... What made you choose to go with Warner and 4AD for this one?

Well, we made the record and then they came knocking. It just seemed like a good idea, to be honest with you. Not that Sub Pop had done anything wrong - I’m really proud of my work on that label, and I still feel like we’re family - but it felt like the time had come for something new. When you’re almost ten years on a label, it’s time for a change. I always liked the records that 4AD put out... Some of my favourite records are on Warners too; actually, come to think of it, Sub Pop is half-owned by Warners, so I’ve been putting out records on Warners for quite a while really! (laughs)

How are the new songs sounding live? I know you played a bunch of shows back home before Christmas... 

It’s been a lot of fun. We’ve got a fun band, just a lot of friends and a lot of fun players. For quite a while now we’ve been not really playing the records note-for-note; we just interpret them as we go and that always brings a new life to the songs. We take old songs and augment them like the new songs, or else take new songs and play ‘em stripped-down like the old songs. Just mine the catalogue, basically. It’s fun!

So who's in the touring band this time?

It’s another eight-piece, another big band. Some of the same people as before, but not all of them. Stuart Bogie is playing the horn - he has an Afropop band called Antibalas, and he also plays with TV On The Radio; Nick Luca from Calexico is playing the keys and singing; Rosie Thomas is singing with me too. Em, I don’t know if you’re familiar with a band called Califone?...

I was actually about to ask if they were going to be joining you again! I’m a big fan.

Yeah, everybody’s in the band. Tim (Rutili, Califone frontman) is off making movies, so I snapped up his band! (laughs)

Are you bringing everybody over to Europe too?

Oh yeah.

You’re playing some pretty big theatres over here: The Roundhouse in London, for instance, and The Olympia here in Dublin. Is it ever nerve-wracking stepping up a venue size to tour new material, or do you know from experience Stateside that it's working?

Ummm... It doesn’t worry me, to tell you the truth. There are definitely different things that you can do in a smaller room, whereas with a bigger room you have to play in a way that holds people’s attention. At the same time, you’d be surprised what you can get away with when you're playing to a big crowd. Or even when we play quieter stuff at some of the outdoor festivals, it usually seems to go over okay. Luckily enough, the catalogue is now big enough that we have lots of different types of songs, and the big crowds don’t scare it too much!

Anyway, instead of trying to play to the size of the crowd, you should always just try to play the room. I feel like the last time we played at The Olympia we tried to play a different kind of room, when we should have just played the acoustics of that hall. I plan to remedy that this time though!

Well, we certainly can’t wait for that gig ourselves. Like we said earlier, we’re fans of the record so we hope it goes really well for you.

Thanks so much, Padraic - I’m glad you enjoy it, man! Take care of yourself, good luck with everything.

Iron & Wine are currently in the middle of an extensive European tour. The band will play the following UK & Irish dates throughout March:

08.03 @ The Roundhouse, London

09.03 @ The Corn Exchange, Brighton

10.03 @ Town Hall, Birmingham

11.03 @ HMV Picturehouse, Edinburgh

12.03 @ Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool

14.03 @ The Olympia, Dublin

15.03 @ The Academy 2, Manchester

16.03 @ The Sage, Gateshead

17.03 @ Metropolitan University, Leeds

Kiss Each Other Clean, meanwhile, is now available across all formats through 4AD. Read Michael James Hall's review of the record here, and then order yourself a copy by going here.