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A Conversation with Swan Dive (continued)

PM: So share with us, each of you, one or two of your favorite spots in the new album, something somebody plays or sings that really excites you or makes you happy when it floats by?

MF: It's Chris Carmichael, all over it. He's such a sweet guy, and he worked so hard. There are a lot of those little special moments when those strings just kind of lift you up.

BD: The last chorus of "That Hat" has a pretty majestic kind of string swell that really complements Molly's vocal. I also think, in the song "Leftover"--and this is a song without strings--that background vocal arrangement that Molly did is just remarkable. And it's deceptive because it's so musical and it sounds so simple, but it's really complex. It has things starting at different times, notes that are close together. Like Brad and like Chris Carmichael, she also has a multi-track mind.

PM: She can see the big vocal picture.

MF: I like when the drums come in, in "Leftover," in the second chorus. When those kick in, that's a really nice moment. I love that too.

BD: Oh, that's a nice pattern.

MF: And I just love those sad songs. "Happy For You," I did not want to record it because Amy Rigby did it a few years ago, and it's my favorite vocal of hers, my favorite of everything that she's done. It's one of my favorites of any vocal, it's so beautiful, it's just heartbreaking. So I didn't want to do it, and Bill kept saying, "No, come on. You've got to do this."

PM: Yeah, I'm so glad you did--

BD: Me too--

PM: That's a really important cut on the record.

MF: I'm so glad he talked me into it. I love that song, I always have.

PM: Yeah. And as often as Bill and Amy co-write, you can't let that be a reason not to cut a song.

[laughter]

BD: Well, that. Also, Amy was the victim of corporate downsizing, and the record that had "Happy For You" on it went out of print so quickly that I felt the song never really got heard.

PM: Which record was that?

BD: It was on Sugar Tree. You can't even find it.

PM: I didn't know that. [see our review]

BD: Yeah. Koch--they cut her off and just deleted her catalog.

PM: Oh, my God!

BD: Yeah. So it was one of those songs that I just always came back to and thought, "This is one of my favorite songs I've ever been involved in."

PM: Yes, it's a fantastic song. How devastating for her.

BD: Yeah, well...

PM: Yeah, nice business.

[laughter]

BD: There's a little joke moment, too--I mean, it's not really a joke, but it's sort of an in-joke. In "Up With Love," there's a moment where Molly sings like Michael McDonald.

PM: [laughs]

BD: She uses the Michael McDonald vibrato, Wooo!

MF: [singing like Michael McDonald]

BD: And it sounds great. But Brad and Molly and I were just dying laughing. Yeah, Michael McDonald was the muse throughout this record. [At one of the recent video parties, there was a favorite clip from a comedy show of "Michael McDonald, Camp Counselor," where this guy keeps addressing all his kids in Michael McDonald's singing voice, it's a scream.]

PM: Oh, that's great.

MF: [laughs]

BD: We love Michael McDonald.

PM: One of my favorite parts is the clavinet in "Automatically Sunshine." I love that.

BD: Ross Rice. When Jenifer [Jackson--see our several reviews] and I finished that song, I knew that we needed clavinet on it. And I'd heard Ross play clavinet, and knew that he had that ability to bounce on the keys like Stevie Wonder, where it's just--you couldn't even notate it, it's so funky and loose, and yet precise. So yeah, we called him up, brought him up from Memphis to play.

PM: Wow.

BD: I love working with Ross.

MF: Yeah.

BD: In fact, when we do another record, I'd really like Ross in on it.

MF: Yeah, we have to.

PM: What is he doing now? Is he back in Memphis full time, or--

BD: I've heard that he's thinking about moving to Woodstock.

PM: Oh, I can see that.

BD: But he's still in Memphis, and I think he does a lot of session work. He's produced a couple of bands down there. He's been out on the road a few times with different people. I mean, he's like Brad, where he can play any instrument.

PM: And incredibly talented.

MF: Yeah.

BD: He's a great drummer. Drums are his first instrument.

PM: Wow.

MF: He played drums on "Beautiful Excuse" on our first record.

BD: And bass, yeah.

MF: He's great.

PM: Incredibly funky individual.

MF: Uh-huh. [laughs]

PM: So there's a surprising dearth of electric guitar in the record, but I guess you knew that going in.

BD: Yeah, I guess maybe we thought, again, with the decision to make it a beautiful rainy day record with strings, that electric guitar might be too jarring, or might compete too much with the strings. I mean, we never really said, like, "No electric guitar." But as the recording went on, it just never really came up that we needed electric guitar--only on "Up With Love," I think, and "A Few Thousand Days Ago."

PM: And on a bonus track or two.

BD: Yeah, exactly.  continue

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