The Good Listeners "Don't Quit Your Daydream" (Ind

The Good Listeners
"Don't Quit Your Daydream"
Posted Sep 15, 2010.


This is an interview with The Good Listeners from right here in Los Angeles, California.
Hello Clark & Nathan, thanks for doing an interview with Big Smile Magazine. How's everything going today?

Well, thank you!

Not to long ago you guys released "Don't Quit Your Day Dream", a film about recording a song every day for a month with a different artist each day traveling across the country. I know bands that have taken years to produce what you guys did in a month, knowing it defiantly was not easy, how did you guys prep for a trip and adventure like this prior to leaving?

After the concept of collaborating with strangers was hammered out, we had the task of finding people and that proved to be a bit of an easter egg hunt. And then also collecting the recording sites that we'd optimally want to see on film.

Tell us something that happened on the trip that stands out to you guys the most that wasn't in the movie.

There was a location omitted from the doc called Arcosanti, an experimental community we we met and collaborated with a jazz singer at. An amazing place for sure overlooking this canyon, but we thought the song never really came to our liking, and ended up dropping it. Cindy was a good collaborator and it was a shame we couldn't have made it work out.
Throughout the trip, we encouraged skits and things like that between stops to ease tensions. There was a running joke between Merritt and I about a lost Michael McDonald song called 'Riddle of the Sphinx' which led to many a bad impersonation. And at one stop, we all performed water ballet to camera. Stuff like that sticks in your head as much as the rest I suppose.

What did you end up eating the most while on the road?

Well as a veggie, traveling in the south was a nightmare. Subway sandwiches for me. Everyday. The rest of the crew had it easier in that department.

Do you guys plan to release an album of all the songs you created while on the road?

There were really only a couple of songs that didn't get used, one as I said in Arcosanti and another song was "gifted" to us by an awesome Navajo guy named Clarence Clearwater. We didn't feel we were improving upon his song with our "enhancements" and it was turning into an Enigma song. Our other two albums had yielded a bunch of misfit songs, but this time we were pretty short on extras. Maybe one or two ideas worth exploring in the future…

In the video, you guys created songs with some interesting people, do you think you will ever go on a road trip like this one again?

We'd prefer to release an album per year. This film ate up so much time in editing, we're a little sad it's taken so long to do another. We had talks once of going to the amazon with backpacks and laptops and collaborating with the locals. There are about fifteen ideas currently being debated.

You said in the movie that you tried to make a new song every day while locking your self in a house, how and why was that different and less productive then "Don't Quit Your Daydream"?

I wouldn't say it was any less productive, but it was certainly more of a capped environment when we did Ojai and Crane Point Lodge. I guess DQYDD was initially conceived as a way to not only be be less isolated but to add different colours to our canvas. We thought of it kind of like Lomax field recordings. If we didn't get true collaborations, then at least perhaps we'd get a trace artifact on the recording of having been some place different and interesting. What we both came away from the experience feeling was a sense that we were still quite ourselves and that we were still very much alone in this.

How did the movie premiere at The Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood go? Sorry we missed it.

We were very pleased with the turnout. It's an amazing venue to begin with and we were most honoured to be shown there.

With the new movie, new songs and all the new friends you made recently, where are The Good Listeners going? Any future plans to tour, upcoming shows, TGL on Oprah, ect?

Oprah, for sure. We are looking forward to making a new record in the next few months. Still sorting out the details, but we're both quite antsy to start setting up the microphones and lock ourselves away for another. We're currently looking for the appropriate shows to play and should a tour come up that fits us, we'd be thrilled to get onboard. We are playing Levon Helm's Ramble in early october and attending Woodstock film Festival in NY to represent the doc.

Thank you guys so much for doing an interview! Any last words you'd like to say to your fans reading this?

We can't wait to give you more.

You can check out The Good Listeners out at:
www.thegoodlisteners.com
www.dontquityourdaydream.com