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American Sunshine - 2009
KeithbHumphreys | 00:21 | 0 comments | Filed under Labels: albums
Having never recorded in Nashville with local studio musicians before, Hay intended on cutting three songs and had them prepared in advance.“We had all three done before lunchtime, the first day,” he says, laughing. “I had to scramble back to my hotel room and bring in more material.” A constant and consistent songwriter, Hay dug through his notes and returned with more songs – all of which were cut live, on the floor, and only subtlety fine-tuned after the fact. “They were such good musicians,” he said of the crack Nashville band assembled for the session, “that we did nine tracks in two days. It was like the old days: you’ve got the song, you show it to everyone, and then the drummer counts it off and they play like they’ve been playing it for ten years. I played guitar and sang live with the band. I did a few overdubs, but I didn’t labor over it. I tried to keep it fresh. It’s an old way of working,” he says, “but it seems new again. Overall, there’s very little machinery on this record. It’s real instruments and real musicians.”
“My last record [2007’s Are You Lookin’ At Me?] was the first new album I’d done in a long time,” Hay continues. “In a way, it felt like my first solo album. I’m still learning, and I learned a lot on that record. This one is definitely a step up in terms of the quality of the songs and the sounds we captured. Dare I say, there is something a little more effortless to this record.” The vibe established by the Nashville sessions – spontaneous, heartfelt, immediate – is carried through the rest of American Sunshine, which was recorded at The Washroom, Hay’s well-appointed home studio, with similarly timeless methods: a lot of live tracking, minimal overdubs, and without an over-reliance on technology.
Much of the stripped-down energy and unflinching clarity of American Sunshine can also be attributed to Hay’s endless tour itinerary, which consists of both solo and full-band shows. Just prior to the release of American Sunshine, he traveled for a little over a month, playing 28 solo acoustic shows, 26 of them sold-out. “It was, honestly, the best tour I’ve ever done,” he says – no small claim from a man who has performed in every possible situation, from packed arenas and enormous outdoor festivals with a full band to demanding, intimate shows in small rooms with just his guitar. Hay’s solo shows intersperse classic and new songs with hilarious, poignant, and downright surreal stories drawn from his often unbelievable experiences over the past three decades. “I’ve been doing these solo tours for a number of years,” he explains, “going back to the same places and building audiences by doing the best shows I can. Judging from this last round, it seems to be building to a critical mass.”
“Sometimes you do all these things 3 tours, TV, all that – and no one thing pushes you over the top,” he concludes. “Success becomes a point where everything you work on converges. I equate it to a boxer in a match. It’s very difficult to knock someone out with one punch – it’s usually a series of combinations over fifteen rounds that wins the fight.”
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