The Muteflutes’ ‘cool creative journey’: Grand Rapids folk-rockers prepare to unleash ‘American Dream’

A Local Spins exclusive: A sneak peek into the Americana-hued five-piece band’s more electric sophomore album, to be unveiled during a Billy’s Lounge CD-release show in May.

 

The Muteflutes’ “really cool creative journey” as indie folk-rockers building on their 2012 debut album involved months of teamwork as songwriters, followed by an intense, six-day recording blitz in February at a rented house near Kalamazoo.

“We just locked ourselves in the house for about six days, and were working 16- to 18-hour days,” singer and guitarist Micah McLaughlin says of the sessions produced by Mike Koch of The Music Box in St. Joseph.

“Poor Mike: All the rest of us got breaks and he just kept working. We kept feeding him coffee and food and peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches and he just kept plugging away at our album. We recorded pretty much everything except a few vocal tracks over those six days. It was fun to put all that energy in and it was exhausting, but it was nice to have that final product done.”

That richly produced and impressive final product, “American Dream,” officially gets released to the public on May 10, when the Grand Rapids band stages its CD-release show at Billy’s Lounge in Eastown.

The sophomore album from The Muteflutes – McLaughlin, guitarist and banjo player Aaron Wildey, drummer Levi Gardner, singer and keyboard player Marie Dornan and bassist Adam Thompson – represents a shift toward a “bigger, more dynamic sound” for the Americana-hued band.

“There’s a more creative genre shift on this album,” says Wildey, who plays more electric guitar on the new recording, with the band continuing to address “cross-generational themes” while adding sonic layers and pumping up the rock edges of its music.

On Wednesday, McLaughlin, Wildey, Gardner and Dornan gave Local Spins Live listeners an exclusive preview into the new album by performing an acoustic version of the track, “Giving In.” Listen to a podcast of the show here, with a video of the in-studio performance at News Talk 1340 AM (WJRW) below. (Podcasts of this and past Local Spins Live shows also available on iTunes.)

The song, McLaughlin says, was sparked by a strange dream in which he stood his ground against some wild animals. He applied that lyrically to much-publicized social causes — from Rosa Parks to the Occupy Wall Street movement.

POLITICAL CHUTZPAH AND THE ‘AMAZING’ WRITING PROCESS

“Music’s always been sort of an expression of what’s going on deeper within my heart and my life,” says McLaughlin, who finds a “lack of depth in some of the lyric writing” in contemporary music. “I’ve never been one to shy away from things that maybe people don’t normally talk about at the dinner table.”

Neither did the band shy away from changing things up a bit from the folkier, more laid-back vibe on the group’s 2012 album, “The Ballad of the Rebel Grape.”

The songs on that debut were written almost entirely by McLaughlin, who comes from “a singer-songwriter background,” inspired by the James Taylor and Jim Croce albums of his father. “I listened to a lot … of pop-rock in the ’90s,” adds McLaughlin, who admittedly has a hint of Rob Thomas in his voice. “The band always jokes that I’ve got a lot of that Matchbox Twenty pop-rock feel.”

Gardner, who joined the band about a year ago, describes development of the new album as “this really cool creative journey, coming from this folky, singer-songwriter-centric music into this more collaborative process where all the various influences of all of us as musicians helped shape and craft the music. Micah would bring the bones and lyrics and chord structure of songs and then we would all just throw out ideas for songs.

“We went through this amazing process of each week having three to four hours to just work out one tune and try it 10 different ways and see what really fit with all of us. So that writing process I think was enriched by all of us having to write parts for the other musicians.”

TURNING IT UP A NOTCH AND MOVING ON

Material on the upcoming album has “definitely been touched by everybody in the band,” says McLaughlin, noting some songs also were co-written with Grand Rapids singer-songwriter Tom Hymn.

Armed with the new songs, band members headed into February’s marathon recording sessions with real energy and focus.

“There’s something about deadlines that sometimes can be helpful and useful,” McLaughlin suggests. “It’s sort of like a painting. You can paint it, and you can always look back and find things that you could change, but at some point you have to say, ‘This is done.’ We all could do that and keep reworking the art, but at some point you have to say, ‘This is really good and really close and you move on.’ ”

That attitude doesn’t mean abandoning the band’s roots.

“For people who like that singer-songwriter feel, there’s definitely still a good chunk of that in this new album,” McLaughlin insists. “But we’re taking it up a notch. We’re turning it up to 11.”

Before unveiling the new album at Billy’s Lounge in May (where the band jokes it will also reveal the origin of its name), The Muteflutes perform at Short’s Brewery in Bellaire on April 12. The band also will play the Buses by the Beach festival in West Olive on May 25 and New Holland Brewery in Holland on June 27.

Get more information about the band at its official website or on its Facebook page.

Email John Sinkevics at jsinkevics@gmail.com.
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