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Visit Dan Wilsons' Official
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Here is a link to his Imeem
Profile
Dan Wilson is a singer/guitarist/songwriter
from Minneapolis who is renowned for the elegance of his
melodies, the intelligence of his lyrics and the purity
of his voice. The onetime member of storied cult band Trip
Shakespeare and the critically acclaimed Semisonic is now
working as a solo artist, making music with a collective
of musicians from the Twin Cities and elsewhere, as well
as collaborating on songs with the Dixie Chicks (including
the memorable "Not Ready to Make Nice"), Mike
Doughty, Rachael Yamagata, Jason Mraz and others.
"The best thing about my album, in my
opinion, is the incredibly intimate feeling it evokes,"
says Wilson. "These songs sound like they already existed,
but at the same time, they project the feeling that they're
about somebody's life."
While he was writing the songs for what would
become Free Life, Wilson was living in a house built in
1903, and the place served both as a subtle influence on
the writing and a perfect setting for the recording. "I
found a few books of sheet music from that era at antique
stores and spent lots of time singing the songs at the piano:
chords and melodies the house probably hadn't heard for
a hundred years," he says. "'Sugar' and 'Honey
Please' both seem to have that spirit, as though they were
written by the house as much as by me. When the batch became
big enough, I hatched a plan to borrow a recording studio
and set it up in the living room and ballroom of the place.
"I'd learned a lot about digital recording
over the couple of previous years, but I was determined
to use very little of what I'd learned," Wilson explains.
"I had just finished reading the book Shakey, a biography
of Neil Young, and his insistence on live recording, capturing
the moment, starting with the vocal, avoiding overdubs…all
these things inspired the hell out of me."
"For the sessions, I called about 10
musicians whose playing and personalities I love,"
Wilson, recalls. "We ended up playing about 20 songs
live, vocals were all cut live with the band, and most of
the songs on the album stayed that way. I had met with the
musicians separately over the weeks before the sessions-taught
them the songs, ran through them one-on-one, but never brought
the band together until the first day of recording. This
made for a great vibe, because the songs were very familiar,
but the musicians' ideas were new to each other. And I think
that led to a certain sound of the album-the songs are really
about an experience of a bunch of people together in a room.
I think that communicates on a more soulful level."
After hearing what Wilson had done on his
own, Rick Rubin enthusiastically agreed to help him complete
the project. "When Rick and I started working together,
eight of the songs were already recorded, and several of
them needed only a little thing here or there," Wilson
recalls. "Some of his prescriptions were really subtle
and helpful. On the other hand, several songs that had puzzled
me-'Cry,' 'Free Life,' 'Come Home Angel' and a few others-were
either re-recorded with Rick or completely revamped with
his help."
When asked about his favorite songs on Free
Life, Wilson immediately names "Sugar." "Writing
'Sugar' was everything I love about songwriting - making
something profound and emotionally affecting out of almost
nothing," he explains. "That song was the starting
point, the song that told me I had to let go of all my assumptions
and methods from my bands and do something completely unfamiliar."
Opening with mournful and wide-open chords from Wilson's
piano and guitarist Bleu's rolling acoustic, the recorded
version of the song slowly rises to a glorious bridge. The
performance defines a loose, intuitively American sound
that is somehow not Americana. It's a far cry from the tightly
structured pop-rock that Wilson has been known for in the
past.
The recording of the song "All Kinds"
exemplified the change to an open and unpredictable recording
process. "That track happened so fast, I didn't know
what hit me. One night, after a long day in the ballroom,
I told the remaining three musicians that tomorrow first
thing we'd record 'All Kinds,' and I sang them the song.
Bleu, who'd played guitar that day, got a wild-eyed look
and announced that we were going to record the song right
now. It was late, but we ran back upstairs and put on our
headphones. Ken Chastain, our percussionist, picked up a
Fender bass. We did three takes of the song, everyone ran
out to their cars and the day was done. I didn't know that
anything special had happened until the next morning when
I listened back and discovered we'd nailed the perfect version.
And we'd done it with the spontaneous, free methods I'd
read about in Shakey."
While Free Life is in some ways a departure
from Wilson's previous work, it also perpetuates certain
of his tendencies-the elevated, chill-inducing melodies,
the thoughtful yet straightforward lyrics, the striving
for honesty of expression. "I've always loved songwriting
that sounded like truth," says Wilson, "like first-person
confessions, like confidences whispered in your ear. Even
if I'm willing to tinker with reality and my own history,
I want the song to feel true."
More than ever before, Wilson has achieved
this goal on Free Life, which serves to culminate one stage
of his career and initiate the next, as if he were living
out the memorable payoff of his song "Closing Time"
- "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's
end." There's no doubting the truth of that.
Official
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