Classic sounds from the ’70s
The Waterboys’ Mike Scott was simply looking for a studio large enough to record the band live, instead of using numerous overdubs. But a side effect of recording at London’s legendary Sarm Studios was getting a CD that oozes with sounds straight out of the classic rock period of the early 1970s.
But this result isn’t unexpected. After all, Sarm Studios is the former Basing Street Studios where the Who, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin all worked between 1969 and 1974.
“I guess it does have some of those sounds, but it was accidental,” Scott said by phone from Holland. “But that may have been a personal taste thing, because my favorite guitar sounds come from that period between 1967 and 1972.”
The Waterboys are on their first tour of North America since 2003, and their first full-band shows since 2001. The full band is Scott, Steve Wickham, Richard Naiff, Mark Smith and Damon Wilson. They play the Moore tonight.
Scott decided to record most of “Book of Lightning” live after working on remastering the band’s renowned “Fisherman’s Blues” album from 1988.
“I generally let the songs dictate what an album sounds like. ‘Universal Hall’ had minimalist spiritual songs, so I knew it would be gentler, while ‘Dream Harder’ had darker and moodier songs, so it needed a rock background,” he said. “But after hearing how well Steve and I played live together on ‘Fisherman’s Blues,’ I decided we had to record ‘Book of Lightning’ live, and I didn’t have any other strategy than that.”
The result is an album full of songs that could easily be dropped into some of the classic albums of the early 1970s. “She Tried to Hold Me” and “You in the Sky” sound like “Blood on the Tracks”-era Bob Dylan, while rockier numbers like “It’s Gonna Rain” and “Love Will Shoot You Down” could easily fit on a Traffic record or the Rolling Stones’ “Let It Bleed.”
The album also hearkens back to the past in another way: Scott used several songs that had been either left off previous records or that had been left unfinished over the years.
“Some of the songs are brand new, but several songs were written seven, eight or even 20 years ago,” Scott said. “I felt this weight of all these unused songs so I felt I had to get them out before I could move on.”
Scott said the song “Sustain” from the new album was one he had played live for years, but one that he had never found a suitable way to record. It had taken him a while to write “Sustain” because, he said, he “had to battle with the chords.” But other songs come together almost magically, he said. And although those “automatic” songs are the ones he usually prefers, he said there isn’t one particular method he uses when writing.
“My favorite songwriting experiences are the ones where the song comes out almost fully formed at once. ‘Crash of Angels Wings’ was like that,” he said. “The key is for me not to let myself interfere when that happens and not let myself overcook the song. But there are times when that doesn’t happen and I have to invent myself from the ground up.”
Scott has also had to reinvent the Waterboys several times as the band has gone through numerous personnel changes over its 24-year history. The resulting list of names is quite impressive: accordionist extraordinaire Sharon Shannon, World Party’s Karl Wallinger, Lúnasa’s Trevor Hutchinson and Anthony Thistlethwaite, who now plays with the Saw Doctors. Scott says he keeps in touch with some of them more than others.
“Sharon and I are great friends, and we see each other quite a bit. Anthony is a wonderful person, but I don’t see him that often - and he’s bad at returning e-mails,” Scott said with a laugh. “I haven’t seen Wallinger in years, though.”