The rootsy and acclaimed New York band launches Listening Lawn in Grand Rapids tonight before gracing the main stage at northern Michigan’s Blissfest on Saturday. The Local Spins interview.
‘The Simplest Thing Can Feel So Joyful and Interesting’: So says Chris Wood of The Wood Brothers. (Photo/Shervin Lainez)
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The Wood Brothers roll into Michigan this weekend, making a tour stop tonight (Friday) for the kickoff of the Listening Lawn series on the Studio Park piazza in downtown Grand Rapids, followed by a 10:30 p.m. Saturday headlining appearance at Blissfest, north of Harbor Springs.
Tickets for tonight’s 7 p.m. Listening Lawn show are $59-$69, available online here. Elias Hix opens the concert. Get details and ticket links for Blissfest at blissfestfestival.org, with a Local Spins festival preview here.
With a storied career, spinning their own take on traditional and modern Americana, the band is no stranger to the American interstate.
Bassist Chris Wood took some time from his home in the Pacific Northwest for a Local Spins Q&A with writer Enrique Olmos. The veteran musician talked about living on an island farm with his family, practicing an instrument like meditation and hitting the road with his “tour family.”
Enrique: What have you been up to today before this interview?
Chris: I’m here on the West Coast and we have the tour coming up so I like to spend my mornings just playing through some songs getting ready for the tour. You caught me getting ready for the tour, doing some practicing you know, singing through songs and reminding myself of some things. I have a crazy, I think safe to say, unusual life where I spend my home time on a small island in the southern gulf islands of British Columbia farming. So that’s pretty much how we spend all day, every day here. It’s a beautiful place where we can grow year-round. A lot of hard labor and being outside is kind of the antidote to the touring musician life.
Back n Michigan: The band on stage at Meijer Gardens in 2023. (Photo/Chelsea Whitaker)
Enrique: Why do you call it an antidote for touring?
Chris: With farming, the work’s never over. It keeps me really hungry for the music. In the past I feel like I’ve almost had too much time to work on music in a way, you just sort of end up in these not very fruitful rabbit holes. I’ve been doing this for a long time, so in a way having something to take me away from it, at least physically, helps the creative process. But since I’m always working on music in my head, I’m always playing with music as I work, which is a really effective way to work on something that you’re creating.
Enrique: What kind of farming do you do?
Chris: It’s a small vegetable farm, basically like an enormous garden in a Mediterranean climate. It’s a wild ecosystem of a couple acres under production of all the kinds of things you might grow in a big home garden. Different roots and greens and legumes, cooking greens, salad greens, tomatoes, onions and garlic.
Enrique: Do you have vehicle access to the island or is it only accessible by ferry?
Chris: We’re at the mercy of the ferry out here. That’s the first step to get to town or to get to an airport. You sacrifice convenience in a place like this in all kinds of ways, but you get something you could never get in the city. It’s not for everyone, and I never thought I’d end up in a place like this, but it was just one of those crazy pandemic stories.
Enrique: What does your practice routine look like?
Chris: Obviously, the first tendency is that I want to work on the hardest licks, the hardest parts, but if you’re working on that stuff in this very controlled environment, usually you know in a room by yourself, then I find it more useful to practice how I want to feel on stage. It can be some really obvious stuff like make sure you’re breathing, your body’s relaxed and then for me always the most interesting question that I ask myself is “Can I enjoy this?” That implies that joy is a choice. Practicing an instrument is like meditation. That’s ultimately what it’s about. We like to say it’s “remembering to remember” what’s important as we do it so that the essence of the music can come out.
LISTEN: “Pilgrim,” The Wood Brothers
Enrique: Has that type of thoughtful practicing changed the way you perform?
Chris: When you practice in that way everything is enjoyable. When I was younger and I didn’t quite understand that concept I was always hungry for something more musically interesting or difficult or challenging, or trying to make the music weirder or more complicated. I think once I understood the the joy of it and the lack of control, suddenly the simplest thing can feel so joyful and interesting. It makes you a better player in terms of making music, not just playing an instrument, but actually giving the music what it needs. You have to listen to it and wait for the music to need something before you add another note. So it’s that kind of paying attention that lets the music literally breathe.
Enrique: It certainly does sound like meditation, with similar elements like being present and observing your surroundings in detail.
Chris: We have a song, “Between the Beats,” on our last record. It’s very different to listen to a drum beat by listening to the hits of the drum versus listening to the spaces between the hits. That’s where the feel of the music is, the length between the actual hits. That’s what gives you the feel of the music. It’s a very different way to observe reality. I mean if you look at a tree, instead of looking at the bark and the leaves try looking at the space between the leaves. You’re actually going to see that tree, not just your mind labeling it as a tree. You’re going to see that individual tree like you really see it because you’re appreciating the negative space.
Festival Headliner: The Wood Brothers (Photo/Jamie Geysbeek)
Enrique: That’s quite insightful. Sounds like a lovely way to experience reality and music.
Chris: There’s just the simple fact that nobody knows what makes music good. There’s no formula. Nobody knows. It’s this magic combination of all those things so you can just endlessly have fun tinkering with it and stumble across amazing things that you didn’t think you were going to find when you started the song.
Enrique: I’m curious what you’re looking forward to about getting back on the road?
Chris: Well the weird thing about this life is you sort of have two lives and two families. So on tour, you know, we have of course the band, but then our crew and it’s the same people we’ve had for quite some time and their family. We all live together on a bus, we love seeing each other, we love being around each. You know we feel blessed to have such an amazing group of people to work with and I think everybody involved feels that way, so it’s really special. It used to hurt my heart a lot more. I’ve gotten used to it and accept it’s always the complicated emotions of the pain of leaving, but the joy of seeing your other family again.
VIDEO: The Wood Brothers, “Kitchen Floor”
VIDEO: The Wood Brothers, “Line Those Pockets”
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