A Conversation with Pierce Pettis (continued)

PM: You know, for a guy whose lyrics are held in high esteem, you write really good groove songs.

PP: Thank you.

PM: So do you enjoy them equally, writing the serious ballads and writing the groove, or up-tempo type tunes?

PP: I think I do, really. I mean, it satisfies a different part of your brain. I just like things that feel good, and songs that are just fun to play. But there's nothing more satisfying than writing a lyric that you've worked on really hard and you feel like you've really gotten it. They're both satisfying, but in very different ways.

PM: As much as I love a good groove song, I remember when I saw you play at the Basement, that it was "Alabama 1959," and especially "Leonardo" that really put me on my ass. [clips of both on the Listen page]

PP: Oh, thank you.

PM: And "Black Sheep Boy." Is that in standard tuning?

PP: No. That's a very odd sort of a minor tuning. It's C-G-Eb-F-Bb-Bb. I learned that from a guy named Phil Buckholdt, who's an Australian rock 'n' roll guy. I'm not sure this is the story Phil told me, but it's a good story, so let's just say it is.

PM: Okay.

PP: In Australia, you fly everywhere because the country is so gigantic. And so you're always loosening your guitar strings and tightening your guitar strings, when you get on and off the planes.

PM: Right.

PP: And if I'm not mistaken, I think he said he just tightened his strings one day, and they came out like that.

[laughter]

PP: So I don't know.

PM: Ah, that's funny. What are the songs that go over the biggest at shows, and are they different from the ones you enjoy playing the most lately?

PP: Well, I've got some new songs that are going over. I guess I shouldn't talk too much about them because they're not recorded. But I enjoy those because they're new. Also, I have some older songs, like, "She Walked Away Like Jim Brown," with a different arrangement, and that's going over real well. And people always love that Dylan song. A lot of times I'll close with "Down in the Flood," just because I love the song.

PM: Ah, yeah.

PP: And that always gets a lot of attention.

PM: And are they the ones you like playing the most, too?

PP: Absolutely. Right now--well, right now it's around St. Patrick's, and I've been doing "The Lakes of Pontchartrain," and what I'm using is a high string guitar that's tuned in a C, so it has almost a chimey, almost mandolin sort of sound. And man, I love playing that song. I'm probably butchering it. I'll never do it better than Paul Brady. Paul Brady is the king when it comes to that song. But I just love the song so much.

PM: Now, when you say "high string," do you mean the G is an octave up, or more than that?

PP: Yeah, the three lowest strings are an octave higher. In other words, instead of your standard low E string, I would be putting I guess what would normally be a B string. And then my A string would be a G string, and then my D string, I would get a real thin E string, like an 11-gauge or something, and I'd just go an octave higher on all the strings--and actually, no! You know what? I missed one. No, that's not right. I was throwing you off. Now, let me think. [laughter] No, the high one is the G, the G is an octave higher. So it's all four of the wound strings. So the G string is like an 11-gauge. And then the B would actually be a B string, like a 16-gauge, and it's tuned normal. Then I've got a G, and then I've got a D. That's the way it works.

PM: Right. So the four bottom strings are an octave up.

PP: An octave higher, but then I go one better than that, I put that in a C tuning.

PM: Ah.

PP: Which is really kind of nuts. And I've been playing that. And it's real cool. You break a lot of strings doing it. It's very unnatural because it wasn't invented to do that, but I love doing it.

PM: I think it's a testament to your transparency as a songwriter that you can really hear each of the co-writers and the co-writes, that you can hear David Wilcox in the title track, you can hear Dana Cooper in "Rodeo Around the World," and Irene Kelley in "You're Gonna Need This Memory."

PP: Yeah, yeah. Well, I'll tell you--and speaking of Dana Cooper, he really helped us out. He came down and was going to do vocals on one track. And he ended up doing half a dozen tracks of background vocals on it. And in fact, he was singing with Andrea Zonn, and they just really hit it off, because their voices just blended beautifully.

PM: Really?

PP: So Dana really helped. He spent a whole day with us doing vocals.

PM: They're both remarkable singers.

PP: They are. Andrea is really something.

PM: Oh, yes, she is. She's incredible.   continue

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