Happy Accidents and Mysteries

When Conor Oberst scooped up the relatively unknown M. Ward as an opening act for the 2002 Bright Eyes Orchestra Tour, most audiences had never heard of the mysterious Portland-based songwriter. Ward is not by any means a household name, but this obscurity lends to his advantage. Part of his magnetism lies in his mystery.
After cutting his teeth with the San Luis Obispo-based Rodriguez, he cut loose and developed a style steeped in the traditions of American folk, country and blues, conjuring the smells of sawdust, mold and moonshine with simple, grainy, magnificent songs and a roughly whispered, smoky voice.
Presently nearing the end of a month-long tour with Saddle Creek’s Rilo Kiley for his third release, Transfiguration of Vincent (Merge), I caught up with Matt Ward (who changed his performing moniker because of another artist by the same name) at a hotel in Tucson, Arizona; Howe Gelb country. Gelb, the former Giant Sand frontman originally caught wind of Ward’s songcraft through a mutual friend and released Ward’s first album, Duet For Guitar #2 on his own Ow Om label. Now on his third album, Ward’s timeless tales and experimental, ambiguous tones have cemented themselves as facets of his unique and captivating sound.
Transfiguration of Vincent’s title is in reference to a whimsical and idiosyncratic character first explored on Ward’s 2001 release, End of Amnesia (Future Farmer), though Ward is reluctant to delve too much into what makes this character so intriguing to him. Rather, he prefers to let Vincent O’Brien’s story rest in the metaphors and melodies of the songs dedicated to him. The mystery is part of the magic, and though Ward is comfortable speaking on other subjects, Vincent’s story will remain shrouded.

I’ve read some other interviews with you where it seemed like you’re kinda reluctant to talk about Vincent O’Brien.
There’s a lot of things I’m afraid of over-sharing. As far as that one goes, I’ve just been explaining that it’s the same character that was on the second record [2001’s End of Amnesia]. People ask me about him and I thought the best way to flesh him out is to keep him in the music, and that’s what I’ve figured out for doing for this new record too.

In “O’Brien/O’Brien’s Nocturne” [off of End of Amnesia] there’s one line in it that I always thought was one of the coolest descriptions of a guitar. It was something along the lines of “It says Sears down the neck, had a little blood stain on the second fret, but it still keeps impeccable time.” That always stood out to me.
I like that song, I think it turned out okay. People seem to have an interesting reaction to that one, they wanted to know more, so this newer song, “Vincent O’Brien” is, I guess, me looking back on that song and painting a picture from the same source.

So you’re performing with a backing band on this tour?
Yeah, Rilo Kiley is playing with me on this tour. This one’s ending in LA, but I’m playing a show in San Francisco, actually on Monday.

How has it been touring with Rilo Kiley?
Really great, really amazing. They’re great musicians, they have a lot of energy. They have a really interesting chemistry, as do all bands, but I think theirs is really strong, so it makes it easy to plug in new songs with them. Wind them up and they go, it’s great.

How is it that you came to know Howe Gelb?
Through a mutual friend in Jason [Lytle] from Grandaddy. Jason passed over some of my early tapes to him, and then I met Howe in Seattle, gave him a rough copy of my first record. He called me back saying it was interesting and he wanted to try to work together on it, so he took me on my first tour of Europe, my first American tour also. He’s been amazing.

Can you compare the differences between working with a band — playing with Rodriguez — and your work as a solo artist?
For recording, mostly what I do is work with the engineer, and the engineer doubles as my percussionist. But live, most of the time I’ve been playing with a new band each tour. For the last couple years, I’ve been really fortunate that every band that’s invited me on tour has also acted as my backing band, so that keeps things really interesting for me. As far as the studio goes, the only thing that I’m really experienced in is experimenting with instruments and microphones with the engineer and myself. I’ve never brought in a full band. Generally I’m working solo and it’s a matter of imitating what goes on when I’m four-tracking, which is how I first started recording. In a lot of ways it’s a matter of turning a 16-track studio into the feel of a four-track. That means just a very minimal amount of people in the studio.

Your tonal palette is really interesting with the Tin Pan Alley-toned piano and the gramophone-sounding samples, the graininess that creates a bit of chaos and discord, but still somehow works beautifully. How did you develop it?
Let’s see…I would say 99 percent of all developments are happy accidents. In the studio you can open the door for mistakes that lead to chaos, and that’s usually the thing that makes a song surprising, even though you wrote the song. If you include those X-factors, then the song becomes more important for me…if that makes any sense. Then it becomes standard operating procedure, I guess. Slowly, it becomes a style, even though you’re not really out to find that, it just sort of happens. There’s a lot of mystery in the whole process; I don’t really understand it…but I try my best in interviews [laughs].

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