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Andrew Combs Interview: A Journal of Transformation

Photo by Alysse Gafkjen

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Making music didn’t save Andrew Combs, but it helped return him to homeostasis.

Around Christmas 2020, Combs suffered a mental breakdown that lasted a few weeks. Exactly how long it lasted, nobody knows; time is indeterminate for such a phenomenon, as it’s not like a flip switches and it’s over. But sitting down and forcing himself to write songs, after practicing transcendental meditation, helped Combs transition from a vulnerable period of time. Specifically, at the suggestion of friend and collaborator Jordan Lehning, Combs would write every week and enter the studio on Sunday to record the song he’d finished that week. Combs spent 7 or 8 of these Sundays recording, and he ended up with an album named after the very day that represented this state of reflection, Sundays, out this Friday via Tone Tree.

Due to the unique recording schedule and the nature of the time, Combs knew he wanted to keep things simple and record in mono. During the initial pandemic lockdown, he had already written two songs, and those were the first Combs, Lehning, and drummer Dominic Billet laid down. Eventually, they tracked more songs as Combs wrote them. At the time the recording of Sundays was going on, Lehning was working on a record with Katie Pruitt that was using woodwinds, and eventually, he suggested to Combs that woodwinds would work on a lot of the Sundays songs, adding texture without taking away from the stripped-down lucidity of the material. After Lehning wrote arrangements, he and Combs added contributory woodwinds from Tyler Summers, as well as some lead guitar from Juan Solorzano. It worked, resulting in a record that’s much more subdued and insular-sounding than past Combs albums like Canyons of my Mind or Ideal Man, while still grappling with big ideas. First single “(God)less” is a soulful treatise on humanity and its capacity for good and evil. “We are capable of such a mess / But God still lives on in godlessness,” Combs sings, finding beauty where he’d least expect it. Yes, there are times when he’s close to giving into despair, as on “Mark Of The Man”, where he waxes about human selfishness and labels it “the mark of the man, not the beast.” For the most part, though, Sundays is a record that sees Combs trying to come to terms with better ways to view himself and the world, realistic about ills but not letting them weigh him down. “It’s the most ‘me’ record I’ve ever done,” he told me over the phone a couple months ago.

As Combs gets ready to release Sundays and embark on a tour of the UK and Europe with Billett and multi-instrumentalist Jerry Bernhardt, he’s not quite ready to get back into the same grueling US touring lifestyle pre-COVID. “The COVID experience was a nice time to take a step back,” he said. His U.S. booking agent decided to leave the music industry, and he parted ways with his managers while nothing was happening. Even though he can now play venues throughout the US, while he’s in his home country, Combs prefers to spend time with his kids, paint, play music at home, and work part time. “Honestly, I’m happier than I’ve ever been because I can be home and don’t have to stress about being on the road and being away,” he said. Really, the experience of Sundays shows that the aforementioned homeostasis is not some sort of scheduling normalcy, but a state of mind conducive to observation and creativity.

Read my conversation with Combs below, edited for length and clarity.

Since I Left You: You said this record is “the most ‘me’ record I’ve ever done.” Why do you say that?

Andrew Combs: I think when I first got into music, I was emulating other folks, which is natural and common. I was sort of projecting myself the way I thought other people--the audience, I guess--would appreciate. Not to say there weren’t parts of me [there]. There were. But this record came about so organically and naturally that I couldn’t help but feel it was the most personal and most connected to a piece of music that I’ve ever been a part of.

SILY: It was written during what was a very vulnerable time for all of us--the pandemic lockdowns--but especially for you, as you had a nervous breakdown. I know you were practicing meditation as a result of your struggles. Why did you decide to write songs as a means of working through things? Has that always been what songwriting has done for you?

AC: I don’t know if that has been what songwriting has been to me. Maybe more so recently. I don’t really know why it came about that way other than it was right in front of me and kind of all I knew, trying to navigating through a weird time. When I was younger, I really thought I had to put in the hours every day. [Songwriting’]s become more of a “take it where it’s available” [thing]. Rely on the muse, but also, “There’s a 20-minute period here where my kid is watching TV, just sit down and try to be present and not overthink anything. Try to have fun and write something that feels good.” At our old house, we had a little shed out back, and I was spending a lot of time there painting and being anxious and trying to get through this weird mental breakdown that I had for a few weeks. Those songs came sort of on the heels of the breakdown. I was getting better. I don’t thing I could have written anything while I was having a hard time, but luckily, Jordan Lehning, who I work on the record with, had an idea for me to get into the studio and try something in mono with no reverb or delay on anything, put my voice really high up front and see what happens. I had a couple songs from the year before. We did those right on the heels of that breakdown. I said, “I’m kind of working through this whole situation right now, so if you’ll bear with me, I’ll try to write every week as I come out of this space.” It ended up working. Some didn’t work, but we would go in every Sunday and record what I had worked on during the week. The whole mono recording situation really complemented these songs, because they’re sparse and subtle.

SILY: Over how many Sundays did this recording take place?

AC: I think there were maybe 7 or 8 Sundays. We tried to do every Sunday, but I know a couple weekends we couldn’t meet up. We’d do the basics. Just three people for the most part, myself, Jordan, and Dom Billet who plays drums. We’d play everything, and later on we added woodwinds. [On] a few songs there’s a lead guitar player, Juan Solorzano. He played steel on one song, too.

SILY: You had worked with Jordan and Dom a lot before. How important was it coming out of this mental state and reflecting on it to work with people you had a trusting working relationship with beforehand?

AC: There’s no way I could have done it without [them]. They’re two of my best buddies. I haven’t even thought about that, but you posing that question, A, it wouldn’t have been fun, but B, we wouldn’t have gotten much good out of it.

SILY: Sonically, what stands out to me in comparison to your past material is the woodwinds. Was there a moment you or somebody decided that would fit on a lot of these songs?

AC: In 2020, when the pandemic started, I was really jazzed about making stuff. I wrote a bunch of songs and put out this EP I recorded in my shed. For the rest of the year, I basically didn’t write anything. I wrote two songs. So when 2021 came around, I had those two songs I was comfortable with. When we did the two songs, it felt really good, and Jordan had this other session with Katie Pruitt where they were putting woodwinds on the song. He said, “I could just piggyback with this guy and have him put woodwinds on yours.” At this point, we’re just having fun, drinking coffee and recording. He sent the tracks back with the woodwinds, and that’s when it really clicked. I was going on a walk--I would go on three-hour-long walks every day--and I just kept listening to them over and over again. I called him and Dom and said it was something I wanted to pursue. I didn’t have any money, but we weren’t really doing anything. Jordan is a great writer, producer, and engineer, but where he really shines is in string, horn, and woodwind arrangements. There were times I would hum something I felt like would be a good piece of music for the woodwinds to do, but he wrote all of those parts.

SILY: Which song or songs were the first two you finished?

AC: “Anna Please” and “The Ship”. It kind of makes sense. [With] “Adeline”, those three songs are really about trying to center yourself.

SILY: I wouldn’t really peg “Anna Please” and “The Ship” as tracks where the woodwinds stood out.

AC: On “Anna Please”, they stand out to me just because they’re complementary and let the chorus do its part. There’s this pad of woodwinds under it. I’m super thrilled about it. It works with the whole dry/mono thing. We thought about strings, but it felt too lush.

SILY: Why did you choose to release “(God)less” as the first single?

AC: It sort of felt like a good introduction to the record and to where my brain was at and where I felt the world was at. I’m constantly amazed by our divisiveness and lack of empathy for other people. I feel like I’m still holding out with hope and love for the world, and I feel like it’s still there, but I just wanted to talk about [it].

SILY: When you sing, “Red is the color of blood and love,” on “Anna Please”, I feel like it gets at the same idea.

AC: That’s interesting. I feel like that song is solely about a character in a movie, but that’s cool it also applies to the rest of the record.

SILY: What character is that song about?

AC: The caretaker Anna in Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers.

SILY: Are you a Bergman fan?

AC: Bigtime, yeah. Jordan got me into Bergman. Over the pandemic, I watched a lot of his films.

SILY: How did the video for “(God)less” come about?

AC: I’m working with this guy Austin Leih. He’s a young guy from Dallas, but I met him when he was at film school in Austin at UT. He’s 24 and is just so intelligent and charismatic. We got along really well. He did a last-minute video for me for “Dry Eyes” from my last record. We hit it off, and I decided I wanted him to do all the videos for this record, and I wanted them all to be in black and white. He had just moved from L.A. to Asheville under unfortunate circumstances, and he couldn’t really get to Nashville. He had this idea about diving under the earth. I said, “Okay, we’re running out of time, but I love it.” [laughs] He built that whole set and filmed everything at his parents’ house in Asheville. He’s a phenomenal dude. Loves Bergman. Cool to talk about stuff with. But the “(God)less” idea is diving into the fertile earth. It’s all good down there.

SILY: A lot of this record is centered around where to find goodness, but also the good and bad things people are capable of. I was struck by the line on “I See Me”, when you sing, “The older and wiser build their castles / Big and strong and tall / But the children, they all laugh with joy / When their castles fall.” I don’t know if you’re talking about two distinct sides here, but I wanted to ask you where you thought you stand.

AC: I’m around my kids all the time, and I’d like to be like them. I’m constantly in awe of their ability to navigate through anything awkward, strange, or sad, and how they can bounce back, how their imagination is limitless. I’d like to think I subscribe to that side of the coin. I also think as I get older I find myself being more conservative in certain ways. Not politically, but, when I sing, “Build your castle strong and tall,” the need for structure and form. But I think the best art and creativity comes from childlike senses where you just let it go.

SILY: What’s the inspiration behind the track “Drivel to a Dream”, and the idea behind the line, “Find a way to rid of everything / Then shapes will fade from drivel to a dream”? What is that song referring to?

AC: Meditation. Letting things go.

SILY: Like getting rid of dead weight?

AC: Yes. “Drivel to a Dream” and “I See Me” are companion pieces, not only melodically. [The former] feels like more of the experience of trying and figuring out how to meditate, and “I See Me” is the end result of figuring out what good can come from [meditation.]

SILY: Was the instrumentation on “Shall We Go” meant to sound old timey, or even like Scottish folk?

AC: [laughs] I wanted to write a song that was one note. Maybe it’s hard just for me, maybe it’s hard for everyone, but it ended up sounding like a sea shanty. Jordan really wanted to do the reed organ. We originally had just a piano. It just worked out that way. I feel like it’s a nice palate cleanser on the end. Like the ending of a movie.

SILY: Overall, what’s the inspiration behind the sequencing of the record?

AC: I wanted “(God)less” first because I felt like it was a good introduction. I don’t really practice getting too philosophical about track listing. I basically want [it to] flow correctly, and I want to decide the first side on the side B if it’s going to be vinyl. I have a tendency to not want a slow song there. “Anna Please” felt like it chugged and moved after “(God)less”. I wanted “I See Me” and “Drivel to a Dream” to be next to each other because they’re companion pieces. But on the whole, there wasn’t a storyline. I wanted it to feel right for me.

SILY: What’s the story behind the cover art?

AC: It’s just an idea I had of a reflection in the mirror. Sort of cliché, I guess. But it felt right with this whole record being a journal entry or observation on transformation and coming out of a strange place. I just wanted everything to be super simple: album layout, front cover, videos. The whole record felt like a black and white short film. I wanted everything to correspond to that.

SILY: You covered “High and Dry” for a compilation by 3Sirens Music Group. Are you a big Radiohead fan?

AC: Yeah. When I first got into recording music in high school, Radiohead was pretty much all I listened to and wanted to be like. I’ve gone through phases here and there. I’ve really been digging The Smile’s record. They’re coming to the Ryman, but tickets went really fast, and now they’re really expensive. I’ve never seen Radiohead live. I’ve seen every YouTube video. My wife has [seen Radiohead live]; she says it’s a religious experience.

SILY: I don’t know if I would have thought this if I hadn’t heard your cover, but on the song “Truth and Love” from Sundays, the keyboard hue almost sounds like something from Amnesiac.

AC: Totally. That song gave us the hardest time. I wrote a bass [line]. We couldn’t figure out what to play. But that was the direction we went in the end. It felt like it could be a Radiohead kind of song.

SILY: Are you finding it a creatively rewarding experience adapting these songs to a live setting?

AC: I’m excited. Initially, I was like, “How am I gonna do all these woodwinds?” But at the end of the day, I’m a firm believer in all the arrangements, lyrics, and structures. I’m not worried about them translating if slightly or even vastly different. I think it will be a fun way to keep things fresh.

SILY: Are you always working on new songs? Anything else next for you in the short or long term?

AC: I’m recording with Dom. We’ve been fiddling around. I’d like to make an EP with him. I have little sprinkles of seeds for the next full-length in my brain, but I don’t even know how to articulate it yet. I’d like to explore doing some more stuff with film and music. I don’t know if it would be a short film or an art installation that incorporated video and music, but I’ve been thinking about that a little bit, too.

SILY: Anything you’ve been listening to, watching, or reading that’s caught your attention?

AC: The Smile record. It’s always hard for me to think of it on the top of my head. Lots of Raffi. [laughs] Francis Bebey’s Mwana O. A lot of his songs are singalong-able. My kids can listen to it. I work three days a week at a warehouse job, so I’m always listening to books. I was really blown away by the Richard Powers book Bewilderment. It left me weeping at work. I’ve been getting into George Saunders. I just read Tenth of December. I still haven’t read Lincoln in the Bardo. I’ve been meaning to do that. My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki. I went to a Jesuit high school, and we were required to read these sci fi books by Mary Doria Russell about a Jesuit mission to another planet, The Sparrow and Children of God. I’ve been rereading those.

Tour dates:

8/25: Railway Inn, Winchester, UK 8/26: Mid Sussex Americana Festival 2022, Hassocks, UK 8/27: The Long Road Festival 2022, Bottesford, UK 8/28: Cluny 2, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK 8/30: St Lawrence's Church Biddulph, Stoke-on-trent, UK 8/31: The Grace, London, UK 9/1: The Angel Microbrewery, Nottingham, UK 9/3: Café "De Amer", Amen, Netherlands 9/4: Zentrum Altenberg, Oberhausen, Germany 9/6: Qbus Club, Leiden, Netherlands 9/7: Valve Records Studio, Solingen, Germany 9/8: Poppodium Metropool, Hengelo, Netherlands 9/10: NOCHTWACHE, Hamburg, Germany 9/12: El Lokal, Zurich, Switzerland 9/13: Café V lese, Praha, Czech Republic 9/14: TheaterBar Heppel & Ettlich, Munich, Germany 9/16: Privatclub, Berlin, Germany 9/17: Nashville Nights International Songwriters Festival 2022, Odense, Denmark

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