Music First

Over the past two years, some things have changed for the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. A Jackknife To A Swan will be the band's eighth full-length release, but it will be their first for the Los Angeles-based indie label, SideOneDummy Records. What remains the same, however, is the Bosstones strong songwriting and the infectious energy of their ska / punk-flavored music. The Synthesis was lucky enough to catch up with Bosstones saxophone player Tim Burton, fresh off the stage at the Dallas stop of this year's Warped Tour. This is the band's third full-time stint on punk rock's summer festival, and Burton spoke with us about what it's like at the new label and the process of writing and recording the new album.

How are things going with SideOneDummy Records? How is the experience different than being at a large label like Mercury? Do you feel like you have more freedom at the smaller label?
Things are going really really well. This is probably more of a logical fit for us than the big label, but if you can get a big label to sign you, you should definitely do it (laughs). There's definitely nice things about it…you get a lot of time in the recording studio and stuff like that, and certainly money for those types of projects exists on a different level. But certainly SideOneDummy is a full-on, legit label. They're an independent label, but we've had everything that we need from them to exist creatively as a band as far as being able to get in the studio…Basically it comes down to how good [the people who work on the album] are. At SideOneDummy we have four or five people who are working on our record who are excellent. They're stoked. They're into the band. They're doing the Bosstones because they really want to work with [us] - not because the president of the company told them to do it. There were great people at Mercury and at Island / Def Jam. I don't wanna make it seem like there weren't, but sometimes the enthusiasm level can be different when you're doing it because you love it and because you're into the band than when you're being told to do it.
I would definitely say that there's more freedom…For instance, we just shot a rock video for a song on the record that's not necessarily going to be a single. If you're at a major label, there's no way you can do anything like that.

Those decisions are made already?
They're not necessarily made for us, but if you're going to make a rock video at a major label, it's gotta be the song that's going to be the single. Whereas at SideOneDummy…there's a lot more flexibility, and we're not so worried about getting a song on the radio - not that we necessarily were before either, but that's the kind of thing that big labels put a big importance on.

Where you come from seems to play a big part in your music. Is that why you chose to record your latest album, A Jackknife To A Swan in your hometown of Boston?
I think that certainly has [a lot] to do with it. I mean, we've recorded some on the West Coast and some other places, but by and large, we've always recorded at a studio within a half-day's drive to Boston. We've recorded a lot of our albums in Woodstock, NY…We recorded the last album in western Massachusetts, and this one we recorded in Boston. I think we always like to record at home. I think that almost any band would like to record at home. The great thing is that we found a really good studio, it's fairly new and it was a good enough studio for us to work in.

I noticed a more aggressive sound to some of the songs on the album. Was this something that you and the band planned on the way into the studio, or is it something that happened naturally during the course of the recording?
Other guys in the band might answer this question differently, but to me, I don't think we ever really have a plan like that. We write songs that we're into at the time. We usually demo a bunch of songs and choose the best ones to go into the studio with, and that's what we record. There's never like, 'hey, let's make a hard album,' 'let's make a ska album,' 'let's make a pop album.' It's just what we got at the time - whatever it is that we're feeling. In fact, on this record, we demoed like 30 songs, and we were having a really hard time choosing which ones to record - we liked them all - that's always the hardest part; culling the herd. So what we did was we made a CD of all 30 songs, each Bosstone got one and voted for their favorite 12 songs, and which ever songs got the most votes, that's what we recorded for the album.

Where else do you get your inspiration? Do you put the music before the lyrics or vice versa?
Usually the way we write songs is that someone will have [one] laid out, fairly well intact, and sometimes the person [who] writes the music might have an idea for a theme for the song or an idea behind the song. Sometimes we just say, "Dicky [Barret, vocalist], help" (laughs). He's a great songwriter and lyricist, and, like I said, we demoed 30 songs, so he's gotta be brilliant 30 times, and that's really hard to do. He really stretches himself, and if we can, we try to help him with ideas in a kind of general way, and he fleshes them out. I wrote a song on the album called "Chasing the Sun." I had the chorus and the verse parts, musically…and [Dicky] put words to the rest of it.

You already have a large fan base that is familiar with your sound. What does this new album have to offer old fans and new ones?
It's definitely the Bosstones' sound. We do what we do - at this point there's not too much mystery to it as far as our fans are concerned. We definitely try new things. We've never been a band to paint ourselves into a corner and not try something because we were afraid of offending our fans. I think that's part of what our fans like about the Bosstones.
For new fans? Um…Well-crafted pop songs (laughs). I think we're just a good band, and there's really not a whole lot of those out there - there's a lot of cookie-cutter shit out there, there's a lot of very disposable hard, heavy crap and hip-hop and punk - people who put the image before the music. We've been around for a long time, and we've worked really hard to develop our chops and to become good songwriters. I'm proud of the fact that we're just a good band, and we put on a good show.

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