Quick Q and A with Michael Merenda (The Mammals and the Jay Ungar and Molly Mason Family Band)
 by Kathy S-B  ·  23 April 2008

I’ve been a Michael Merenda fan since he and the rest of the Mammals graced our stage at the me&thee a couple of years back. Needless to say, we were delighted when Jay Ungar suggested that he’d like to bring Michael and daughter Ruthy along for their me&thee show on April 25. Check out this video of Michael and Ruthy to get a taste of what they will bring to the show!

It seems that every time I turn around, I hear of new and different projects that one or both of you are working on besides The Mammals! You have both been playing as a duo and have a new CD out called “The Honeymoon Agenda” which is getting great reviews. It’s a CD of cover tunes — what prompted you to start this project?

As a wedding gift, our friend José Ayerve offered to record a duo record for us. At the time we didn’t have too many new original songs since a) we were busy planning a wedding and b) I had just recently released an album of original songs called “Quiver.” But we didn’t let that stop us!

Instead of waiting another year until we accrued a few more songs we decided to strike while the iron was hot, while the offer was fresh and while the wedding vibes were still in the air. We set some time aside in January 2007 (two months after the wedding) and made a list of all the great songs we know and sing that could be fun to record, regardless of whether or not they were our tunes. This gave us the opportunity to record some songs by some very talented, lesser known friends of ours (Carter Little, Aaron Ross) as well as try our hand at some of our favorites by some of our favorite songwriters. This being a “wedding gift session,” a lovers’ theme began to develop from our selections, although not exclusively.

I have always loved Dylan’s “I’ll Keep It With Mine” and so this seemed like the perfect time to lay that down. “I’ll Be Your Mirror” by Lou Reed is a song Ruthy’s always loved. The Tom Waits release, Orphans, had just come out and that’s where we discovered “Long Way Home.” “I’m Going to Get My Baby Outta Jail” is a beautiful old folk song written by Len Chandler that I discovered on the Best of the Broadside Box Set. That song came out of the Civil Rights movement. Ruthy had the idea to record Etta James’ “Something’s Got a Hold on Me” in a sparse, country blues style. We were basically just having fun and taking liberties trying different ideas out.

There are, by the way, a handful of original songs that did make it on the record. The lead off song “All the Time” is a song I wrote for Ruthy during our engagement and some people say it’s the stand out track on the album. Pretty flattering considering the company it keeps! There’s also another song I wrote for Ruthy called “For this Love,” which is Ruthy’s favorite song on the album. Ruth wrote a foot-stomping political rant called “Beg and Borrow” that we laid down with the help of Molly Mason on upright bass. There’s a silly, sorta ragtime, instrumental called “Diamond Ring Rag” that we wrote together to see if Ruthy could still play her fiddle with her engagement ring on! “A Head is Better than a Leg” is a very old song of mine that made it on the list and got put down. That was fun for me and José since he was around when I wrote it back in college.

Mike, what are your favorite musical projects these days? The last I heard you were fronting an alternative rock band called Spouse.

Actually, I was the drummer for Spouse and my producer friend, José Ayerve fronts that band. Spouse started as a rock trio in the late 90’s while myself, José and Dan Pollard were all studying at Bowdoin College in Maine. The band writes and record really original and hooky indie-rock songs and continues to tour and record today with a rotating cast of band members.

These days I’m really enjoying working with Ruthy as a duo. There’s a lot of freedom both creatively and logistically and it’s more manageable now that we have a little boy traveling with us!

I’m also really excited about a new reggae band called Dub Traffika that I’ve been playing guitar with and recording here at my house. That band is the brainchild of my home town friend, Ben Hardy, who I was in a band with in high school along with my brother, Chris Merenda. Dub Traffika is a great excuse for us to all get together to make some really fun music. And the album is really coming together.

Speaking of Chris, we’ve been having some fun recording here at my studio, too. It’s been great to back off on the touring for a spell in order to get some work done here at the home front that we call Humble Abode Music.

Your musical inflluences are quite diverse ranging the Clash to Billie Holliday to Bob Dylan and back again. What grabs you the most about any kind of music that you like?

First and foremost I’m interested in really good songs. Songs that really stand apart from the pack. A good song is a good song regardless of what genre it is. These days I’m getting more interested in recording and producing as well and so that has become interesting to me, too. A good song, recorded well. And of course “recorded well” could mean some girl alone in her apartment with a boom box. Whatever’s right for the song.