A Conversation with Brett Dennen (continued)

PM: What's it been like opening for John Mayer and Sheryl Crow? How has their crowd treated you, and how have the stars themselves treated you?

BD: Well, the crowds were great. The crowds were fantastic. Everybody told me that they thought it was a good match to put us up in front of them, that they had really good audiences, especially the mix between John Mayer fans and Sheryl Crow fans.

PM: Right.

BD: Going into it, I didn't know what it was going to be like. I thought maybe it would just be like tons of young girls or something like that, screaming for John Mayer, but it wasn't. And I think that has a lot to do with the fact that Sheryl Crow's fans are more of an older adult contemporary crowd now, but also I think that John Mayer's crowd is morphing. The turn that John Mayer took from his last big release to the blues tour, to his current release is significant--he's maturing and growing as a person, and I think what he's doing is playing music for the age group that first started listening to him back when he released his first record, and now they're growing up, and he's growing up, and his music is growing up with them, and he's playing to that same crowd that's a little bit older now.

PM: Right.

BD: So it wasn't tons of screaming girls like I thought it would be, which it probably was six years, seven years ago when he released his first record.

PM: You bet.

BD: So the crowd was great, really nice people. None of us ever got to meet Sheryl Crow, but I got to meet John Mayer, and he's about as classy as it gets.

PM: He's a beautiful guy, right?

BD: He's a good guy, yeah. And he said some really nice encouraging things.

PM: He's certainly been saying them in the press as well.

BD: Yeah, he's really spectacular. So overall it was a good experience. Most of the time we played a side stage. As people were walking through the gates of the arenas, there'd be like a side stage near the food booth. And we'd play there while people were walking in before music would start on the main stage. But one of the shows we got to play on the main stage, in Atlanta, and that was really cool.

PM: Wow, that's amazing, the whole side stage thing. And yet, do people, as they're filing in and getting their food and all that stuff, does it still feel like, hey, there's a bunch of people paying attention to what we're doing, for sure?

BD: Yeah. It depends on the venue. If it's an open seating venue, and it's like first-come, first-serve, then nobody would really stop and listen. But if it was a seated venue, people had their tickets to get to their seat, and there's no rush to get there, then people would hang around and listen.

PM: So what's the story there--how does a guy on his second record on a small but mighty label get to open a tour that huge?

BD: That was all John Mayer. He saw us playing at a little club in Hollywood, and he only stayed for three songs. And a few weeks later he said, "I'm planning a tour, and I want you to come on it." And originally he wanted us to be an opening act, but I think as the politics go, and the business of music, and like creating a tour, I think he must not have been able to sell the kind of tickets that he wanted to sell, and he needed to co-headline with Sheryl to sell out the big gigantic amphitheaters.

PM: Right. And then he didn't have final say.

BD: Yeah. They needed the acts to bring in some hard ticket sales. But he still wanted us to be on the tour, so they created that side stage component to it. It was really nice. That was all him, he made a phone call saying, "I want Brett Dennen on my tour."

PM: That's a beautiful thing. I love him for that.

BD: Yeah.

PM: How did Greg Leisz come into the recording? He did a great job on your record, in his characteristic way. [Leisz is a phenomenal lap steel specialist and multi-instrumentalist who has graced many fine recordings quietly, indelibly.]

BD: Yeah. He came through Kevin McCormick, who produced the record. Kevin called him up, got him in. I mean, that was all Kevin, not me.

PM: What about Kevin? How did he come in to the picture?

BD: He's a Ventura guy, he lives in Ventura. He plays all over the world. I mean, he does a lot of recording and producing in L.A., but he lives in Ventura, which is a town I'm pretty familiar with. Leslie--you spoke of her earlier--was there, as well as Mario Calire, the drummer from Ozomalti. There's a bunch of musicians I know who live in Ventura, so I'm in pretty tight with that particular scene.

PM: Several of the tunes on this fantastic record, "Darlin' Do Not Fear," and "When You Feel It," incorporate a real African feel into the groove and the guitar approach.

BD: Uh-huh.

PM: Do you have African or world music artists you enjoy, or is it a more Paul Simon influenced thing?

BD: Oh, no, I enjoy a lot of them. We listen to Ali Farka Toure a lot. Yeah, King Sunny Ade, Habib Koite, he's a great guitar player. And Fela Kuti, and Peter King, other guys from Nigeria, and Thomas Mapfumo from Zimbabwe.

PM: It's amazing how you get it going on on the acoustic guitar, really the essence of that high life guitar and so forth, you do it really well.

BD: [laughs] When I'm fooling around at home, I've been drawn to playing an electric guitar. When we go out on this tour next year I'm going to bring an electric guitar along and do some stuff on an electric guitar. I love the way it sounds on an acoustic guitar, but it's hard to do. It's kind of pushing the limits--I'm playing it like an electric guitar.

PM: I've never heard anybody do it on an acoustic guitar the way you can do it.

BD: Paul Simon can do it, man, he can do it better than anybody. Well, I mean, Ali Farka Toure does it all on an acoustic guitar.

PM: He does, yes.

BD: He does more of a blues kind of thing.

PM: Exactly.

BD: But Martin guitars are nice guitars, they have really great action, and you can play them like an electric guitar.

I'm driving through like some of the most beautiful country you'll ever see. This is really pretty.

PM: Oh, that's such a great stretch.

BD: It's 12:30 here, and it's like the winter is kind of starting to set in, so the sun is still pretty low, but there's a lot of mist. So there are all these mountains in the background, but in between every mountain range there's like a pocket of mist. And the trees are all blue. It's really beautiful.

PM: Wow.

BD: We're about to go through Grants Pass, and then Medford, and then Ashland, Oregon.

PM: That's a great run, it's such a beautiful road.

BD: Yeah.

PM: And what nice towns to be playing.

BD: Oh, I know. Ashland? Come on.

PM: Yeah, come on. What do I want? Those are nice people.

BD: Exactly.    continue

print (pdf)     listen to clips      puremusic home