SHAMANS HARVEST :
continued
“It had such a cool vibe to it,
we thought why change it.
Let’s just keep it.”
I want to go into another
one of my favorites off the
record: Track 7, “Long Way
from Home”. Give me a little
back story on that.
NATE: We were trying to figure out what to do
next. We were caught up with the songs we had
written. I wanted something with a slow blues
vibe on this record so, Keith, the producer, just
kind of dialed up some tone and some very ana-
log tape reverb and put a little slap back and
you can hear it. What’s interesting is the guitar
is my scratch track. But it had such a cool vibe
to it, we thought why change it. Let’s just keep it.
The whole song was kind of built off of that vibe
and that guitar tone was kind of demanding.
Did it give you a different
perspective or did it change the
way you looked at things? It reminded me of that classic open
Fender guitar plus a close and in the
room mic like at Sun Records.
NATE: Yes, it did. It put an expiration date on ev-
erything I do. In the back of my head at all times, I
am thinking all of this can end. Everything is mor-
tal. But at the same time, it doesn’t dominate my
daily decisions that I make. NATE: That’s exactly what it was. There was an artifact of
sound because the tape was stretched or warbled somewhere
or there was a defect in the tape. So, every time it comes
around there was a “click, click, click” and you can actually
hear it in the track, too.
Did any of that thought process
of what you’re going through
come through on this record
because obviously you were
going through it on Smoking
Hearts. Did you address any of
that on this record? The most curious track on the record
is a very telling one: “Scavengers”.
That is a dark, dirty song. What were
you doing in the studio?
NATE: It’s in there. It’s definitely in there, man.
Actually, “Soul Crusher” was a song that I had
written during Smoking Hearts and that era while
we were making that. It wasn’t quite right for the
record and I didn’t have a very good chorus for it.
That song, or the verses at least, it speaks directly
to that.
NATE: As far as what we did, there’s so many things going on
in that song. I think I was using a telephone to sing through.
That song, for me, that whole song is about social anxiety.
I get that on the road sometimes. That telephone vibe it just
made the hairs of the back of my neck stand up. It makes you
feel anxiety by listening to it. It isn’t a great thing but I like the
fact that it makes me feel anything at all. Also, it sounds like
you are in a crowded room. Me and Derek, the guitar player,
just read articles from The Onion. In the studio, there’s this
big book of every published article from The Onion for the
last fifty years. It’s pretty creepy, man. We weren’t trying to
make a song out of it. We were just trying to make a piece.
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