Quick Q and A with Jake Armerding (April 2010)
 by Kathy S-B  ·  24 April 2010

This interview makes me smile and also gives me pause to reflect on the life of an artist. Here you’ll find some rather interesting responses from Jake about what it’s like to be in the studio and about the songwriting process in general. We’ve loved the fact that Jake grew up here on the North Shore so we consider him one of our own.

Learn more about Jake on his website. Here’s a video of Jake singing one of his signature songs, “Ithaca.”

Your website says “Jake Armerding: Organic Music.” From the description of your recording session for your most recent CD, “Her,” it sounds as though you just let happen what would happen and then so be it. Was that a totally freeing experience? Not feeling confined by any “rules”?

It was a mixed bag, like it always seems to be. Artists need to be confined to a certain extent — parameters are important — but too much confinement leads to forced art, which nobody likes.

The traditional studio experience is a real gauntlet. Since you’re spending so much money and it’s so tough to get all the logistics (e.g. player’s schedules) arranged, you absolutely have to be prepared — as prepared as you can be. But beyond that, it’s out of your control. So you have to do two things right: you have to fend off laziness and prepare, prepare, prepare, so you’re as ready as you can be; and then, once you’re in the studio, you have to forget all that and try to relax and play natural and not think. The latter of which is really difficult for me — I’m very analytical, so I tend to overthink situations. Recording each album has become another chance to let go of stuff I can’t control anyway.

In that sense it’s a lot like a stage performance. You prepare what you can — have a set list, warm up, etc. — but you also know that the real magic of a show is when it goes off script a bit. So you have to relax your grip on it and not force it. And that IS freeing, when you can pull it off.

Wayback machine: Do you remember the first time you played with Northern Lights?

It was out on Nantucket, actually. I don’t remember the venue, but since it’s a tiny island, I’m sure I could figure it out. It was a theater, and it was arranged that I would come up on stage and sit in on a song or two, as a special guest. We did it that way for awhile, before I was allowed to join the band. It was really easy for me to be in front of people as a kid — you’re somewhat naive and you don’t have any doubts about anything. The world is simpler as a 13-year-old; as an adult, it takes more of an effort to relax while performing, because there are so many more real world concerns that are waiting to creep in. Say there’s only a few people in the crowd: you have the choice to start fretting over whether no one is responding to your music anymore, that you’re a failure, that you won’t make your rent, that you’re not trying hard enough, that you should change your show because what you’re doing doesn’t work anymore. Or you can resist that urge and do what you were made to do. It’s tough, but it’s your only option if you really want to be a performer.

You learned violin in the Suzuki method. But . . . you were also exposed to other musical forms in which the violin can be implemented. . . . Was this the best of both worlds for you?

Very much the best of both worlds. The best fiddlers have very solid technique, but many of them don’t, and I think it really takes some classical training to dial that in. Then you have the very passionate classical players, who are wonderful, but a whole bunch more who don’t play all that dynamically. Fiddle tunes and improvisation develop your creativity and give you more “life” as a player. Of course you have counterexamples all over the place, classical players with poor technique and fiddlers who play with no emotion. But those tend to be rare.

So I was exposed to each of those, and tried to acquire the strengths of each.

Tell us about the musical voyage that you went on from Caged Bird to Jake Amerding to Walking on the World to Her. How would you describe your musical journey?

If a musician wants to continue creating art that is relevant, he really has to be learning constantly. Your first record is easy because you’ve got a two-decade vat of experiences and musical ideas to draw from. Each ensuing album gets tougher, I think, because the vat shrinks — you’re only working with a couple years’ worth of ideas, usually. So Caged Bird was a really easy record to make, because I had tons of ideas that I thought were decent. Then your choices become either working constantly to keep the ideas churning, or relaxing your standards a bit because two years of creating will only get you eight or nine good songs, not enough for an album!

Of course some people, the really legendary songwriters, work much faster and get great ideas at a much higher rate. But even they have seasons of huge inspiration in their careers, along with dry ones. Paul Simon is a good example: He’s not really going to put out a mediocre album, but you can see in the early 1980’s he may have been suffering from a lack of inspiration. Hearts and Bones (1983) is a pretty uneven record, even though it’s got some brilliant songs on it, such as the title track. And I’m sure, for some of his fans, that’s their favorite album. But when a friend gave him a cassette tape of African music — and he’s said this in interviews — it just spun him off in this whole new direction, and composition became effortless. And that’s what you hear in Graceland: the sound of a prodigiously skilled songwriter and record-maker who has been re-inspired.

So to finish answering your question, writing songs is either a real grind or suddenly, startlingly easy. And it goes back to your first question in that writing songs as a kid is really easy because, even though you lack the skill set, you’re not hampered by doubts or what you think the songs should sound like, any of that stuff. You’re writing from a very innocent place. So Caged Bird was easy, Jake Armerding was tougher and Walking on the World may have been the hardest of all.

Within each record, too, you have songs that were easy to write, and a few that were almost impossible. The easy ones tend to be the best; like “The Fleece” was a really easy song to write, because it’s just true, it’s not trying to be anything except what is true. And the surprising thing is how difficult it is to tell the truth in art, because you’re either giving too much information or hiding something, often without realizing it.

Her was an easier record because I had a little stash of good song ideas that I planned to develop when I found the woman I would marry. Like “The Coastline” was germinated back in 2001, but I didn’t finish it until the Her record.

If you had a humungous budget and an all-star band at your disposal, what would you do?

Well, I would fire the band and hire my own personal all-stars: Mark Erelli, Zack Hickman, Damien Bassman and a handful of others. Then I would squander my humungous budget on a booking agent, manager, publicist and a few roadies. Then we’d hit the road.