The Home Key #TK
An Interview with Brendan Canty
The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis constitute one of the most interesting and rewarding bands of the 2020s. Like many listeners familiar with the independent music of the 90s, I was interested in the earliy trio formation of the this group(consisting of the former rhythm section of Fugazi—Joe Lally on bass, and Brendan Canty on drums—and Anthony Pirog, a specialist-in-all-styles on guitar) back when they started, back before the pandemic, and I especially liked their second album in that configuration, Anthropocosmic Nest, where no strange idea is unworthy of being set to an infectious rhythm. But when the band began collaborating with the remarkably versatile saxophonist James Brandon Lewis it was as if they sprouted a brace of extra capabilities. Suddenly they were thinking and making melodies in a way so incredibly broad, and with such energy, that they immediately lofted themselves into any discussion of most striking instrumental bands working today. Their first collaboration with Lewis, which was released in 2024, was among my most enthusiastically listened to albums of that year, so I especiually looked forward this new follow-up, Deface the Currency, which came out in January 2026. It was like I was a much younger person, again, excited about his favorite band. The results with the new record, as has been widely noted, are altogether more incendiary than on the first collaborative album, with both Pirog and Lewis using their solos, from time to time, like they were playing with John Zorn on the Lower East Side circa 1990. The noise, the skronk, is abundant, but at no point are the melodies in more modest supply as a result. Indeed, Deface the Currency shines with the same kind of singable sweetness that featured on the first album, and the same doesn’t-need-to-be-pyrotechnical rhythmical greatness, too. And may I be excused for thinking that the album is political throughout? I think it is the case, even though no one has been saying it out loud much. But check out all the titles, as on the ultimate track “Serpent Tongue (Slight Return).” They are a DC band, of course, and fully half of the band learned its trade in one of the most political bands of the hardcore era of the nineties and oughts. Loudness canbe construed as a dissent!
I spoke with Brendan Canty by Zoom in the early part of March, and he was affable, polite, and exceedingly knowledgable (understated news most surprising to this writer: Anthony Pirog sometimes writes out the Messthetics compositions on paper and brings them to rehearsal, which means: the guys from Fugazi read music, can apparently read very sophisticated music). Canty is just an all-around decent, engaged, and admirably curious adult. I felt really lucky to talk to him, as I would have felt about talking to anyone from this, one of the most interesting bands of our time. And, because we discussed great album-length jazz covers, I made a list, which is at the end, along with a suggested song list for a Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis album consisting only of covers. Bonus question, touched on glancingly below, but always orbiting around this discussion: is jazz really the name? Or do we need a new one?
Rick: The first question is: how did the compositions get composed?
Brendan: Well, our practice is that Joe (Lally) and Anthony (Pirog) and I get together on Monday mornings and Friday mornings. We go from 10 to noon, or 11 to 1. We do that religiously because it keeps the ideas coming. It’s not so long that you sit around staring at each other — you get all your business done and your ideas recorded really quickly. Then you spend the rest of your time coming up with things to bring in.
We used to do this on the first couple of records in my studio, which is over in Adams Morgan. That went away during COVID. You see, there are sort of two sides of the band: the first couple of records, done before COVID, and then after the second record came out we took a break. We really didn’t play together for a year and a half or so. Anthony moved out to Monterey, and people had different health concerns in their families — they couldn’t risk getting infected at all. So we ended up not being together. When we came back together, we had some things left over from earlier — more collaborative pieces written the same way as the first records.
That’s a long-winded way of saying there are a lot of different ways the songs have come together, from beginning to end. The most recent and ambitious pieces — like “Gestations,” (on Deface the Currency) for example — was brought in by Anthony with a bunch of sheet music. He said, “I have this idea and I don’t know how to deal with it.” That actually happens pretty often. Anthony has a melodic idea that he brings in, and then we have to make it sound like the band or make it playable. That’s Joe’s and my job: to jam on the thing until we come up with something we’re all happy with.
Something like the first song on the record, “Deface the Currency,” we’ve actually had that song for a long time. It was written using a process where we were really trying to make the studio and the practice be the same thing, the way Can (the German band) used to do it. We would record everything and use the actual takes while they were fresh. That was what the first two records were.
That song — it used to be called “Instinktive ” with a K — we kind of Frankensteined it together. We had all these different parts and I assembled it in Pro Tools out of different takes and jams. So it’s very written, with really distinct sections. We had it in our back pocket, and when James joined the band we started playing it live. It sounded great — everything sounds great with James on it now. All these melodies written on guitars, really complex and kind of pseudo-boppy, once Anthony and James play them in unison, they just start sounding like a million bucks. As soon as we started playing that live, it was like, “Oh shit, this really works.”
The same with “Gestations” — Anthony brought that in. I think the last two Impulse records were written with the idea that James was going to insert himself into them in different ways. On the first Impulse record, we had moments where we thought, “James can write a melody over this.” He’s like the golden goose — he just drops these things in all the time. He’s so in touch with his instrument and such a great collaborator that he comes up with things very quickly. He’s great in the studio, great live, and if you put any pressure on him, he rises to the occasion and comes up with some really amazing stuff.
Anyway, that’s just to say there are a lot of different ways the songs are composed. There are times when I’ll bring in a bass line or some other ideas, but most of that work is really done in person. Sometimes it happens spontaneously when the three of us are playing, sometimes Anthony brings in sheet music, and occasionally James will bring in a tune recorded on a cell phone — very simple ideas that we flesh out. Sometimes he’ll email them to us and we’ll flesh them out without him being there, so that when we get together we’ll have something to play.
It kind of sucks that he lives in New York, but it’s not that far away. We go up there pretty often. Mostly, when it’s time to record, we get together very quickly beforehand, go in the studio, and record very quickly. We’ve done both of these records in less than two days.
Rick: Holy shit.
Brendan: I know, it’s really wild. Especially this last record (Deface the Currency)— we were fresh off a tour, and when we were in the room, it was almost like playing an encore to a set. It felt like all the audiences we’d been playing in front of were in the room with us. I was visualizing that — it had to be the exact same energy we’d been bringing live, because the shows had been great, and everybody was in that mode. You don’t want to go into the studio and tamp it down, trying to make it sound perfect. We basically kicked it out the way we do live, and almost every version on that record — if not all of them — is a first take.
There were some songs we hadn’t quite finished. For example, we hadn’t added the big loud ending to “Gestations” yet. So we recorded it and it was kind of cool, and then I said, “Remember we used to do this big loud ending?” We put it on and then everything started to make sense. It felt like it had a destination. We could keep things uptight during most of it and then have a big payoff at the end.
Things do happen in the studio, but they happen very quickly. There’s a lot of spontaneous enthusiasm about each other’s playing and about what we’re hearing. Our engineer, Don Godwin, is a genius — he makes it all super positive and super easy. The monitoring is good, the rooms sound great. Tonal Park, where we record, sounds great. The whole thing ends up being a very joyful experience.
Once you’re done, you can feel the energy dissipate. We did seven songs — all stuff we’d been playing on the road and were excited about. We actually recorded one evening, then played a gig in 105-degree heat on the Washington Mall, and then went right from the gig back to the studio and finished the record. The whole thing was done in such a limited amount of time it was absurd.
We weren’t planning on finishing the record. We were just going in to record a few songs because it felt like the right thing to do. But then suddenly it felt like a piece — a session. A snapshot of the band in a particular voice, collaborating and communicating well. It was like, “I think we really should put this out.” There are certain records where you just feel the energy of the session. I’m thinking of something like Tony Williams’s Emergency!, where you can just sense the energy coming off the musicians. I was like, “This is it. They’re done.”
Once the label was okay with us putting out something shorter — it’s only 35 minutes instead of 40 — it all flowed from there. Anthony came up with the name “Deface the Currency,” which I love. The artwork flowed out of that idea. It all came together from that energy, from the live experience, really.
Rick: Are you saying that when you record in two days, Anthony never rerecords a solo — he and James play all those solos live?
Brendan: Yeah, they play the solos live. On the first record, there was one solo that didn’t get finished in the studio — “Fourth Wall” didn’t get finished there. And then on this record there might have been a solo in “30 Years of Knowing” where James rerecorded his solo, and maybe Anthony did too. I honestly can’t remember. There were a couple of patches here and there. But for the most part, something like “Universal Security” just happens. We only played it once. Anthony just explored it.
I think what it comes down to, for both Anthony and James, is that they play a lot — all the time, in different iterations. They’re really in touch with their instruments. They’ve already done a lot of exploring in different groups and different bands. They have ideas of where they want something to go, and they now have the skills to get there. All they need is a sort of psychic destination, and then they can arrive there pretty quickly. Joe and I just try to support them and reinforce it — energy-wise, and foundationally. Joe does that more foundationally than I do. But yeah, mostly it is very live.
Rick: The drum sound seems punchier on this record than on the first two. Maybe it’s the rhythm section as a whole — it’s just punchier and bigger. Is that a function of the room, or did you experience that as an intention?
Brendan: Well, it’s a different producer too. I produced the first two albums and I was probably just trying to keep things contained, over-producing them or something. The first Impulse record (The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis) is just the rough mix — we didn’t even mix that record. We weren’t really trying to make a record, per se. We weren’t signed to Impulse at the time. We were just had the songs and wanted to experiment with James in the studio. Don did such a good job putting it together, getting sounds and good rough mixes. Everybody was so happy with it. Jamie Krents from Impulse saw on our Instagram that we were recording together and asked if he could hear it. We sent him the rough mixes and he said, “We’d like to put this out.” We just never changed it. We let Don mess with it a little bit, but we weren’t ready to redo it.
To me, that first recording with Don was more subdued, more natural sounding, a little warmer. There was something about it I really liked. Looking back, maybe that was a mistake — because I really love the mix on the new record. It’s super punchy and super forward. I told Don, “You do you,” and he ran it through all his outboard gear. He makes a lot of rock records, among many other kinds. I also recorded the newest record on my Gretsch kit — my Fugazi Gretsch kit — so it was intentionally a little more jacked up and open, freer sounding, not as contained. Not thinking toward production, but thinking about energy and performance.
As soon as I hand off the reins of production to somebody else, I’m so free to do whatever, and it makes it so much more fun. That’s something I’ve learned far too late in life. I should have been doing it all along, but I’ve been far too controlling, which probably makes the record suffer. If you try to be the performer and the producer at the same time — when we were recording the first couple of records, I would record, then go over and listen and have to switch hats, then come back and record. It ends up being a kind of rootless endeavor.
I love recording, but even in Fugazi, when we had Ted Niceley in the studio with us as a producer, the whole process was so much easier. Especially as a drummer — if you have somebody who’s even passively encouraging you to play loud, it helps. There aren’t a lot of people in the world who like the sound of big drums. So if I can find a co-conspirator in the band, or at least a cheerleader of some sort, I’m much happier.
Rick: The general critical perception seems to be that Deface the Currency is markedly louder. Do you concur?
Brendan: Yeah, for sure. When we first started — when the first record (The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis) came out — we were really just getting to know each other as a band. After we were on the road for a couple of years, we’ve played more than a hundred shows — 150 maybe — in the last couple of years, we’ve been to Europe three times, we’ve been all over the States a couple of times—each one of those shows, you’re forming bonds. It’s like making bread — you’re forming proteins, and it’s turning into something else completely. That’s not just onstage. You’re trusting each other and learning about each other on the road.
James is great on the road. He’s great in the van. We talk all the time, play music for each other, share our lives, go through stuff together. The moments onstage are an hour or two out of the day. Most of the day you’re in the van together, thinking about what you’re going to do that night and what happened the night before.
I really love being in a band. It feels precious to me to have communication with other people every day and to be killing time with them. I love killing time with other people. Turns out I don’t like killing time on my own — I’m not good company for myself, but I do love other people’s company.
We play a lot of different venues. We play jazz festivals and we play rock rooms. It works in both places and it doesn’t really change what we do. So it’s sort of reassuring because you get positive feedback from both jazz and rock crowds.
When we first started, James and I talked all the time about transgressing genres, trying to get to the other side — how to bring people together, how to get jazz people into rock clubs or rock people into jazz clubs. After a couple of years the word has gotten out. Rock people are going to jazz clubs, jazz people are going to rock clubs. The Venn diagram is just getting wider and wider between those two worlds.
The key thing was going out there and seeing for ourselves that people were receptive in both places, and that we didn’t have to change who we are to play for people in either setting. Music is music. If you come at it as yourself, honestly, sharing what you’re doing, people aren’t going to shit on you. People are not bad people. (Laughter.)
The more comfortable we’ve gotten in front of audiences in both settings, the more the band has been able to push it and relax. If you go into any show or recording relaxed, and you can bring the best part of your personality and creativity to the people, it really makes a difference. The music sounds better, the band sounds better.
Rick: So the loudness emerges from greater trust and evolving internal dynamics among the four of you playing together?
Brendan: I think so. For me personally, having somebody who likes the sound of drums is huge. James is somebody who’s constantly turning around and screaming at me to play louder. He wants it as jacked up as possible, and having that permission is a big deal. I’ve been in bands where individual members weren’t always happy with the drummer pushing it that hard. Fugazi was not one of those bands, but I have been in bands like that. So it’s refreshing. Anthony’s the same way. The band starts to elevate itself organically.
You cross these thresholds as you play enough. You’re always trying to find the outer limits of whatever the song can do and what the band can do.
Rick: The relevant composition on the record, I think, is “Universal Security,” because the end section of “Gestations” is loud, too, but “Universal Security” has that really intense drone section. To me, it’s almost like the record rises toward that. It’s the acme of a new direction for the band — a very positive use of aggression is maybe how I’d say it. Different from the first Impulse record, because those solos are amazing, sure, but it’s not often that there’s two minutes of electric guitar drone, like on the new album. It seems like a new color.
Brendan: When we did that take, Anthony was just so happy. He said, “This is what I wanted.” The idea is so slight, right? The count at the top is really unnecessarily difficult. The first minute and a half is incredibly complicated, but it doesn’t sound complicated. It’s not that hard for me, I just play in sixes the whole time, except for the break, which is like four, four, six, and three — some weird count. I’m counting that entire break. And then it releases itself into the drone section. That was one of those moments on the record that really wasn’t written — it was really just a feeling of following each other into that realm. Anthony was really in charge of the dynamics.
The end of “Serpent Tongue” was another inflection point like that — we just followed the energy all the way. As a rock drummer, in a rock band, I don’t often get a chance to do that. We experimented with some of that freedom on other records, but not to this degree.
If I had been producing it myself and came off a take even remotely critical of what I was hearing, I would have asked to do it again. But having Don engineering it really releases you from that. You just know it’s been captured. It’s really just about getting inside Anthony’s guitar tone and living in there for a few minutes.
I do find us trusting each other more, communication-wise, wanting to go down that road more. I don’t want to go entirely free all the time, because when jazz is free —
Rick: — The audience doesn’t pay. Ornette’s line, right?
Brendan: Right, exactly.
(Laughter)
But we love melody. When those guys are playing the melodies together, it sounds beautiful. We’ll never abandon that. But that’s more what our practices are like — trying to find things by playing live together.
Rick: Is it true — I read this somewhere — that last year you did some live dates where you played Ask the Ages by Sonny Sharrock in its entirety?
Brendan: Yeah. We just did it in Paris two weeks ago. We only did it in Philadelphia first, because the guys who run Ars Nova Productions in Philadelphia were having their anniversary and they asked us to do it. Then at Thanksgiving, we were asked to play this sit-down dinner theater place, and because it was Thanksgiving, we thought it would be nice to pay tribute to Sonny Sharrock. He’s a big part of why we came together, because Joe and Anthony really bonded over that record. And then the Sons d’Hiver festival in Paris saw that we were doing it and asked us to do it over there. We need to do it in New York one more time sometime, but I don’t know when that will be.
Rick: Will it get released?
Brendan: Oh, no. I don’t think so. I don’t like tribute records. I went to see that REM thing the other night that Jason Narducy and Michael Shannon are doing — their band was fantastic. John from Wilco is playing bass, Jon Wurster’s playing drums. It sounds fantastic, the songs are all really great. But there’s something scary about it to me. Something doesn’t sit right. It’s like you’re removing time from the equation, or maybe over-accentuating it. There’s something so contextual about musc. This is why Fugazi doesn’t play. Fugazi wasn’t just Fugazi — it was Fugazi in the crowd, with the people. The people were there as much as we were, and we were there for them.
The exciting thing about being out here playing again with The Messthetics is that I can communicate with people now, and it doesn’t feel like we’re driving a ghost ship around the country. Playing other people’s music is different, though. When we do the Sonny Sharrock record, we’re really just using the melodies. It’s not super written, and there’s a lot of license to do whatever — because nobody would ever accuse me of being Elvin Jones. It’s a very particular thing. Our record is from a very particular time, a weird bunch of people on a very distinctive record.
We have released songs from it. On our first record, we did “Once Upon a Time” and did our own thing with it. We play “Dick Dog” live, which isn’t on that record. We’ve played “Many Mansions” live many times. Sometimes we’ll go out to this roadhouse in Virginia called JB’s as a trio and play all night as the bar band — covers and our own songs. We play Link Wray, Hendrix, a lot of Sonny Sharrock. Those shows are really great. By about 11 P.M., when you still have an hour to go, you’re almost in a trance, just stretching things. It’s a really joyful experience.
But I don’t think doing a tribute record would be good for us. I don’t see anything but putting a big target on your face. It’s like doing an album of Beatles covers — it’s not going to end well.
Rick: Maybe you’re thinking about it from rock context and not from a jazz context? I mean, Miles Davis, Porgy and Bess.
Brendan: And there’s Sun Ra doing Disney songs.
Rick: In a jazz context maybe there’s more tolerance for that. I actually listened to Ask the Ages yesterday preparing to talk to you, and I thought: the rhythm section has to change, but that’s the how interpretation works. You would have to peel off the Elvin Jones.
Brendan: Yeah, exactly. Nobody’s Elvin Jones — nobody. And that’s the beautiful thing about drums, really. If you’re trying to do something distinctive — Elvin Jones, I don’t even know how he got to that place. He was just a monster, always. He had his voice and he stuck to it. I got to see him play live when I was a teenager, down at Blues Alley. That was just unbelievable — completely loud, blowing back my hair in a little tiny room. He was older, but he was in a really small club. I’ll never forget it. I feel very grateful that I got to see him.
I also got to see Tony Williams, got to see Max Roach — I tried to see everybody I could. But Elvin will always be Elvin, so it’d be a folly to try to really emulate him in any sense, although there are times when I hit something and I go, “Oh, so that’s how Elvin played that.” If I mess around long enough, every once in a while it comes. I should honestly just be playing more, trying to stretch myself more when I’m home, but there’s always other stuff to do. The more you play, the more stuff comes out of you.
Rick: One last question: if you’re not going to record the Sonny Sharrock album, do you have an idea of what follows To Face the Currency for the band?
Brendan: We have stuff we’re always writing, but it’s going to require time — hitting our regular practice schedules and coming up with stuff. It’s going to take a minute.
I’m not against recording Ask the Ages if you think it’s a good idea — it would actually be an easy way to fulfill our contract! But I’m all ears. We’re going to do another Thanksgiving show, and we have to come up with another idea. We play two sets — a set of somebody else’s music and then a set of our own music. So I’ll have to come up with another bunch of music we want to pay tribute to. We’ll see.
Ten Great Jazz Records That Consist of Covers
Porgy and Bess, Miles Davis
The Big Gundown, John Zorn
Songs of the Poets Nina Simone
Thelonius Monk Plays Ellington
Tony Bennet Sings the Rogers & Hart Songbook
Standards, Vol 1, Keith Jarrett
I Only Have Eyes for You, Lester Bowie
Blacknuss, Rashaan Roland Kirk
London Brew (full-length, refractory cover of Bitches Brew from a couple of years ago)
Around Robert Wyatt, Orchestre Nationale de Jazz
And: PATRIOTIC SONGS, by the Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis (as compiled by Rick Moody)
“Star-Spangled Minor and Other Patriotic Songs” (Carla Bley)
“Bulls on Parade” (Rage Against the Machine)
“Driva Man” (Max Roach)
“Are You Glad to Be in America” (James Blood Ulmer)
“Alabama” (John Coltrane)
“Smallpox Champion” (Fugazi)
“Adagio for Strings” (Bley/Haden)
“America” (Leonard Bernstein)
”Seeds” (Springsteen)
“Rocket USA” (Suicide)
“Machine Gun” (Hendrix)
“Hard Time Killing Floor Blues” (Skip James)
“We Shall Overcome” (Haden)
I spoke with Brendan Canty by Zoom in the early part of March, and he was affable, polite, and exceedingly knowledgable (understated news most surprising to this writer: Anthony Pirog sometimes writes out the Messthetics compositions on paper and brings them to rehearsal, which means: the guys from Fugazi read music, can apparently read very sophisticated music). Canty is just an all-around decent, engaged, and admirably curious adult. I felt really lucky to talk to him, as I would have felt about talking to anyone from this, one of the most interesting bands of our time. And, because we discussed great album-length jazz covers, I made a list, which is at the end, along with a suggested song list for a Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis album consisting only of covers. Bonus question, touched on glancingly below, but always orbiting around this discussion: is jazz really the name? Or do we need a new one?
Rick: The first question is: how did the compositions get composed?
Brendan: Well, our practice is that Joe (Lally) and Anthony (Pirog) and I get together on Monday mornings and Friday mornings. We go from 10 to noon, or 11 to 1. We do that religiously because it keeps the ideas coming. It’s not so long that you sit around staring at each other — you get all your business done and your ideas recorded really quickly. Then you spend the rest of your time coming up with things to bring in.
We used to do this on the first couple of records in my studio, which is over in Adams Morgan. That went away during COVID. You see, there are sort of two sides of the band: the first couple of records, done before COVID, and then after the second record came out we took a break. We really didn’t play together for a year and a half or so. Anthony moved out to Monterey, and people had different health concerns in their families — they couldn’t risk getting infected at all. So we ended up not being together. When we came back together, we had some things left over from earlier — more collaborative pieces written the same way as the first records.
That’s a long-winded way of saying there are a lot of different ways the songs have come together, from beginning to end. The most recent and ambitious pieces — like “Gestations,” (on Deface the Currency) for example — was brought in by Anthony with a bunch of sheet music. He said, “I have this idea and I don’t know how to deal with it.” That actually happens pretty often. Anthony has a melodic idea that he brings in, and then we have to make it sound like the band or make it playable. That’s Joe’s and my job: to jam on the thing until we come up with something we’re all happy with.
Something like the first song on the record, “Deface the Currency,” we’ve actually had that song for a long time. It was written using a process where we were really trying to make the studio and the practice be the same thing, the way Can (the German band) used to do it. We would record everything and use the actual takes while they were fresh. That was what the first two records were.
That song — it used to be called “Instinktive ” with a K — we kind of Frankensteined it together. We had all these different parts and I assembled it in Pro Tools out of different takes and jams. So it’s very written, with really distinct sections. We had it in our back pocket, and when James joined the band we started playing it live. It sounded great — everything sounds great with James on it now. All these melodies written on guitars, really complex and kind of pseudo-boppy, once Anthony and James play them in unison, they just start sounding like a million bucks. As soon as we started playing that live, it was like, “Oh shit, this really works.”
The same with “Gestations” — Anthony brought that in. I think the last two Impulse records were written with the idea that James was going to insert himself into them in different ways. On the first Impulse record, we had moments where we thought, “James can write a melody over this.” He’s like the golden goose — he just drops these things in all the time. He’s so in touch with his instrument and such a great collaborator that he comes up with things very quickly. He’s great in the studio, great live, and if you put any pressure on him, he rises to the occasion and comes up with some really amazing stuff.
Anyway, that’s just to say there are a lot of different ways the songs are composed. There are times when I’ll bring in a bass line or some other ideas, but most of that work is really done in person. Sometimes it happens spontaneously when the three of us are playing, sometimes Anthony brings in sheet music, and occasionally James will bring in a tune recorded on a cell phone — very simple ideas that we flesh out. Sometimes he’ll email them to us and we’ll flesh them out without him being there, so that when we get together we’ll have something to play.
It kind of sucks that he lives in New York, but it’s not that far away. We go up there pretty often. Mostly, when it’s time to record, we get together very quickly beforehand, go in the studio, and record very quickly. We’ve done both of these records in less than two days.
Rick: Holy shit.
Brendan: I know, it’s really wild. Especially this last record (Deface the Currency)— we were fresh off a tour, and when we were in the room, it was almost like playing an encore to a set. It felt like all the audiences we’d been playing in front of were in the room with us. I was visualizing that — it had to be the exact same energy we’d been bringing live, because the shows had been great, and everybody was in that mode. You don’t want to go into the studio and tamp it down, trying to make it sound perfect. We basically kicked it out the way we do live, and almost every version on that record — if not all of them — is a first take.
There were some songs we hadn’t quite finished. For example, we hadn’t added the big loud ending to “Gestations” yet. So we recorded it and it was kind of cool, and then I said, “Remember we used to do this big loud ending?” We put it on and then everything started to make sense. It felt like it had a destination. We could keep things uptight during most of it and then have a big payoff at the end.
Things do happen in the studio, but they happen very quickly. There’s a lot of spontaneous enthusiasm about each other’s playing and about what we’re hearing. Our engineer, Don Godwin, is a genius — he makes it all super positive and super easy. The monitoring is good, the rooms sound great. Tonal Park, where we record, sounds great. The whole thing ends up being a very joyful experience.
Once you’re done, you can feel the energy dissipate. We did seven songs — all stuff we’d been playing on the road and were excited about. We actually recorded one evening, then played a gig in 105-degree heat on the Washington Mall, and then went right from the gig back to the studio and finished the record. The whole thing was done in such a limited amount of time it was absurd.
We weren’t planning on finishing the record. We were just going in to record a few songs because it felt like the right thing to do. But then suddenly it felt like a piece — a session. A snapshot of the band in a particular voice, collaborating and communicating well. It was like, “I think we really should put this out.” There are certain records where you just feel the energy of the session. I’m thinking of something like Tony Williams’s Emergency!, where you can just sense the energy coming off the musicians. I was like, “This is it. They’re done.”
Once the label was okay with us putting out something shorter — it’s only 35 minutes instead of 40 — it all flowed from there. Anthony came up with the name “Deface the Currency,” which I love. The artwork flowed out of that idea. It all came together from that energy, from the live experience, really.
Rick: Are you saying that when you record in two days, Anthony never rerecords a solo — he and James play all those solos live?
Brendan: Yeah, they play the solos live. On the first record, there was one solo that didn’t get finished in the studio — “Fourth Wall” didn’t get finished there. And then on this record there might have been a solo in “30 Years of Knowing” where James rerecorded his solo, and maybe Anthony did too. I honestly can’t remember. There were a couple of patches here and there. But for the most part, something like “Universal Security” just happens. We only played it once. Anthony just explored it.
I think what it comes down to, for both Anthony and James, is that they play a lot — all the time, in different iterations. They’re really in touch with their instruments. They’ve already done a lot of exploring in different groups and different bands. They have ideas of where they want something to go, and they now have the skills to get there. All they need is a sort of psychic destination, and then they can arrive there pretty quickly. Joe and I just try to support them and reinforce it — energy-wise, and foundationally. Joe does that more foundationally than I do. But yeah, mostly it is very live.
Rick: The drum sound seems punchier on this record than on the first two. Maybe it’s the rhythm section as a whole — it’s just punchier and bigger. Is that a function of the room, or did you experience that as an intention?
Brendan: Well, it’s a different producer too. I produced the first two albums and I was probably just trying to keep things contained, over-producing them or something. The first Impulse record (The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis) is just the rough mix — we didn’t even mix that record. We weren’t really trying to make a record, per se. We weren’t signed to Impulse at the time. We were just had the songs and wanted to experiment with James in the studio. Don did such a good job putting it together, getting sounds and good rough mixes. Everybody was so happy with it. Jamie Krents from Impulse saw on our Instagram that we were recording together and asked if he could hear it. We sent him the rough mixes and he said, “We’d like to put this out.” We just never changed it. We let Don mess with it a little bit, but we weren’t ready to redo it.
To me, that first recording with Don was more subdued, more natural sounding, a little warmer. There was something about it I really liked. Looking back, maybe that was a mistake — because I really love the mix on the new record. It’s super punchy and super forward. I told Don, “You do you,” and he ran it through all his outboard gear. He makes a lot of rock records, among many other kinds. I also recorded the newest record on my Gretsch kit — my Fugazi Gretsch kit — so it was intentionally a little more jacked up and open, freer sounding, not as contained. Not thinking toward production, but thinking about energy and performance.
As soon as I hand off the reins of production to somebody else, I’m so free to do whatever, and it makes it so much more fun. That’s something I’ve learned far too late in life. I should have been doing it all along, but I’ve been far too controlling, which probably makes the record suffer. If you try to be the performer and the producer at the same time — when we were recording the first couple of records, I would record, then go over and listen and have to switch hats, then come back and record. It ends up being a kind of rootless endeavor.
I love recording, but even in Fugazi, when we had Ted Niceley in the studio with us as a producer, the whole process was so much easier. Especially as a drummer — if you have somebody who’s even passively encouraging you to play loud, it helps. There aren’t a lot of people in the world who like the sound of big drums. So if I can find a co-conspirator in the band, or at least a cheerleader of some sort, I’m much happier.
Rick: The general critical perception seems to be that Deface the Currency is markedly louder. Do you concur?
Brendan: Yeah, for sure. When we first started — when the first record (The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis) came out — we were really just getting to know each other as a band. After we were on the road for a couple of years, we’ve played more than a hundred shows — 150 maybe — in the last couple of years, we’ve been to Europe three times, we’ve been all over the States a couple of times—each one of those shows, you’re forming bonds. It’s like making bread — you’re forming proteins, and it’s turning into something else completely. That’s not just onstage. You’re trusting each other and learning about each other on the road.
James is great on the road. He’s great in the van. We talk all the time, play music for each other, share our lives, go through stuff together. The moments onstage are an hour or two out of the day. Most of the day you’re in the van together, thinking about what you’re going to do that night and what happened the night before.
I really love being in a band. It feels precious to me to have communication with other people every day and to be killing time with them. I love killing time with other people. Turns out I don’t like killing time on my own — I’m not good company for myself, but I do love other people’s company.
We play a lot of different venues. We play jazz festivals and we play rock rooms. It works in both places and it doesn’t really change what we do. So it’s sort of reassuring because you get positive feedback from both jazz and rock crowds.
When we first started, James and I talked all the time about transgressing genres, trying to get to the other side — how to bring people together, how to get jazz people into rock clubs or rock people into jazz clubs. After a couple of years the word has gotten out. Rock people are going to jazz clubs, jazz people are going to rock clubs. The Venn diagram is just getting wider and wider between those two worlds.
The key thing was going out there and seeing for ourselves that people were receptive in both places, and that we didn’t have to change who we are to play for people in either setting. Music is music. If you come at it as yourself, honestly, sharing what you’re doing, people aren’t going to shit on you. People are not bad people. (Laughter.)
The more comfortable we’ve gotten in front of audiences in both settings, the more the band has been able to push it and relax. If you go into any show or recording relaxed, and you can bring the best part of your personality and creativity to the people, it really makes a difference. The music sounds better, the band sounds better.
Rick: So the loudness emerges from greater trust and evolving internal dynamics among the four of you playing together?
Brendan: I think so. For me personally, having somebody who likes the sound of drums is huge. James is somebody who’s constantly turning around and screaming at me to play louder. He wants it as jacked up as possible, and having that permission is a big deal. I’ve been in bands where individual members weren’t always happy with the drummer pushing it that hard. Fugazi was not one of those bands, but I have been in bands like that. So it’s refreshing. Anthony’s the same way. The band starts to elevate itself organically.
You cross these thresholds as you play enough. You’re always trying to find the outer limits of whatever the song can do and what the band can do.
Rick: The relevant composition on the record, I think, is “Universal Security,” because the end section of “Gestations” is loud, too, but “Universal Security” has that really intense drone section. To me, it’s almost like the record rises toward that. It’s the acme of a new direction for the band — a very positive use of aggression is maybe how I’d say it. Different from the first Impulse record, because those solos are amazing, sure, but it’s not often that there’s two minutes of electric guitar drone, like on the new album. It seems like a new color.
Brendan: When we did that take, Anthony was just so happy. He said, “This is what I wanted.” The idea is so slight, right? The count at the top is really unnecessarily difficult. The first minute and a half is incredibly complicated, but it doesn’t sound complicated. It’s not that hard for me, I just play in sixes the whole time, except for the break, which is like four, four, six, and three — some weird count. I’m counting that entire break. And then it releases itself into the drone section. That was one of those moments on the record that really wasn’t written — it was really just a feeling of following each other into that realm. Anthony was really in charge of the dynamics.
The end of “Serpent Tongue” was another inflection point like that — we just followed the energy all the way. As a rock drummer, in a rock band, I don’t often get a chance to do that. We experimented with some of that freedom on other records, but not to this degree.
If I had been producing it myself and came off a take even remotely critical of what I was hearing, I would have asked to do it again. But having Don engineering it really releases you from that. You just know it’s been captured. It’s really just about getting inside Anthony’s guitar tone and living in there for a few minutes.
I do find us trusting each other more, communication-wise, wanting to go down that road more. I don’t want to go entirely free all the time, because when jazz is free —
Rick: — The audience doesn’t pay. Ornette’s line, right?
Brendan: Right, exactly.
(Laughter)
But we love melody. When those guys are playing the melodies together, it sounds beautiful. We’ll never abandon that. But that’s more what our practices are like — trying to find things by playing live together.
Rick: Is it true — I read this somewhere — that last year you did some live dates where you played Ask the Ages by Sonny Sharrock in its entirety?
Brendan: Yeah. We just did it in Paris two weeks ago. We only did it in Philadelphia first, because the guys who run Ars Nova Productions in Philadelphia were having their anniversary and they asked us to do it. Then at Thanksgiving, we were asked to play this sit-down dinner theater place, and because it was Thanksgiving, we thought it would be nice to pay tribute to Sonny Sharrock. He’s a big part of why we came together, because Joe and Anthony really bonded over that record. And then the Sons d’Hiver festival in Paris saw that we were doing it and asked us to do it over there. We need to do it in New York one more time sometime, but I don’t know when that will be.
Rick: Will it get released?
Brendan: Oh, no. I don’t think so. I don’t like tribute records. I went to see that REM thing the other night that Jason Narducy and Michael Shannon are doing — their band was fantastic. John from Wilco is playing bass, Jon Wurster’s playing drums. It sounds fantastic, the songs are all really great. But there’s something scary about it to me. Something doesn’t sit right. It’s like you’re removing time from the equation, or maybe over-accentuating it. There’s something so contextual about musc. This is why Fugazi doesn’t play. Fugazi wasn’t just Fugazi — it was Fugazi in the crowd, with the people. The people were there as much as we were, and we were there for them.
The exciting thing about being out here playing again with The Messthetics is that I can communicate with people now, and it doesn’t feel like we’re driving a ghost ship around the country. Playing other people’s music is different, though. When we do the Sonny Sharrock record, we’re really just using the melodies. It’s not super written, and there’s a lot of license to do whatever — because nobody would ever accuse me of being Elvin Jones. It’s a very particular thing. Our record is from a very particular time, a weird bunch of people on a very distinctive record.
We have released songs from it. On our first record, we did “Once Upon a Time” and did our own thing with it. We play “Dick Dog” live, which isn’t on that record. We’ve played “Many Mansions” live many times. Sometimes we’ll go out to this roadhouse in Virginia called JB’s as a trio and play all night as the bar band — covers and our own songs. We play Link Wray, Hendrix, a lot of Sonny Sharrock. Those shows are really great. By about 11 P.M., when you still have an hour to go, you’re almost in a trance, just stretching things. It’s a really joyful experience.
But I don’t think doing a tribute record would be good for us. I don’t see anything but putting a big target on your face. It’s like doing an album of Beatles covers — it’s not going to end well.
Rick: Maybe you’re thinking about it from rock context and not from a jazz context? I mean, Miles Davis, Porgy and Bess.
Brendan: And there’s Sun Ra doing Disney songs.
Rick: In a jazz context maybe there’s more tolerance for that. I actually listened to Ask the Ages yesterday preparing to talk to you, and I thought: the rhythm section has to change, but that’s the how interpretation works. You would have to peel off the Elvin Jones.
Brendan: Yeah, exactly. Nobody’s Elvin Jones — nobody. And that’s the beautiful thing about drums, really. If you’re trying to do something distinctive — Elvin Jones, I don’t even know how he got to that place. He was just a monster, always. He had his voice and he stuck to it. I got to see him play live when I was a teenager, down at Blues Alley. That was just unbelievable — completely loud, blowing back my hair in a little tiny room. He was older, but he was in a really small club. I’ll never forget it. I feel very grateful that I got to see him.
I also got to see Tony Williams, got to see Max Roach — I tried to see everybody I could. But Elvin will always be Elvin, so it’d be a folly to try to really emulate him in any sense, although there are times when I hit something and I go, “Oh, so that’s how Elvin played that.” If I mess around long enough, every once in a while it comes. I should honestly just be playing more, trying to stretch myself more when I’m home, but there’s always other stuff to do. The more you play, the more stuff comes out of you.
Rick: One last question: if you’re not going to record the Sonny Sharrock album, do you have an idea of what follows To Face the Currency for the band?
Brendan: We have stuff we’re always writing, but it’s going to require time — hitting our regular practice schedules and coming up with stuff. It’s going to take a minute.
I’m not against recording Ask the Ages if you think it’s a good idea — it would actually be an easy way to fulfill our contract! But I’m all ears. We’re going to do another Thanksgiving show, and we have to come up with another idea. We play two sets — a set of somebody else’s music and then a set of our own music. So I’ll have to come up with another bunch of music we want to pay tribute to. We’ll see.
Ten Great Jazz Records That Consist of Covers
Porgy and Bess, Miles Davis
The Big Gundown, John Zorn
Songs of the Poets Nina Simone
Thelonius Monk Plays Ellington
Tony Bennet Sings the Rogers & Hart Songbook
Standards, Vol 1, Keith Jarrett
I Only Have Eyes for You, Lester Bowie
Blacknuss, Rashaan Roland Kirk
London Brew (full-length, refractory cover of Bitches Brew from a couple of years ago)
Around Robert Wyatt, Orchestre Nationale de Jazz
And: PATRIOTIC SONGS, by the Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis (as compiled by Rick Moody)
“Star-Spangled Minor and Other Patriotic Songs” (Carla Bley)
“Bulls on Parade” (Rage Against the Machine)
“Driva Man” (Max Roach)
“Are You Glad to Be in America” (James Blood Ulmer)
“Alabama” (John Coltrane)
“Smallpox Champion” (Fugazi)
“Adagio for Strings” (Bley/Haden)
“America” (Leonard Bernstein)
”Seeds” (Springsteen)
“Rocket USA” (Suicide)
“Machine Gun” (Hendrix)
“Hard Time Killing Floor Blues” (Skip James)
“We Shall Overcome” (Haden)
