How climbing into Jim Keltner’s drum kit as a child set him on a career as a drummer and percussionist.
Joachim Cooder may have had a privileged view of the music industry as a child, but while he has certainly learnt things from his dad Ryland Peter Cooder, he has managed to carve out a successful career as a producer, session musician and recording artist who manages to mix American roots music, world music that also has the ambient washes pioneered by Brian Eno. Americana UK’s Martin Johnson caught up with him at home in Los Angeles to discuss “Dreamer’s Motel” and his career as a session musician. He explains that playing sessions and producing is his only real source of income because recording his own albums is “Like taking a suitcase full of money and throwing it off the Grand Canyon”. While drums and percussion aren’t for everyone, he explains how his childhood exposure to Jim Keltner playing and working with his dad made taking them up as a career seem perfectly natural. Finally, he shares the importance of the Bloke to his own songwriting, something that he learnt from Nick Lowe.
You have a new album “Dreamer’s Motel”. Is there any link with your last record “Over That Road I’m Bound” that celebrated Uncle Dave Macon?
There is a link, a few of the songs were started during that recording. As I worked on the Uncle Dave songs some of them started to go out of the Uncle Dave umbrella, if you like, and I’d gone too far and technically they couldn’t be Uncle Dave songs anymore so I saved them. Some of them started with the same people, Rayna Gellert the wonderful fiddle player I play with, my dad and some of the people who were in on the Uncle Dave thing. I also think it was a sonically jumping-off point, as I finished the Uncle Dave thing I wanted to keep going but just doing my own songs.
You have a significant career as a session musician and producer, are you now looking to concentrate more on a solo career?
I like to keep all the plates in the air because you never know what anything leads to, and session work is the only way to make money for me. So, I definitely always say yes to doing those jobs, because doing your own music is just like taking a briefcase of money and throwing it off the Grand Canyon, and if I can do it in town or at my house as a remote session I’m there, I don’t have to go anywhere.
How easy did you find the songwriting for the album?
That’s the thing. When they come to me they can come from anywhere. I’m always listening to what people are saying, especially my kids I have a six-year-old and a nine-year-old, and they say things that are really out there like somebody on psychedelics. On this record I have a song called ‘Down To The Blood’ and my daughter came home one day a few years ago after she’d been playing at a friend’s house and said, “Daddy, Weston bit Eleanor and it was almost down to the blood”. I thought, oh yes “down to the blood” is the most spooky blues line, it’s almost like English was your second language and you were trying to convey something, and it made me come up with this whole narrative that I wanted for this haunting blues New Orleans marching Dr John type thing.
It kind of just all unfolded, and I just think if the antennae of your mind is open and you are looking around, these things come to you, you just have to be able to receive it. Some people I know just go and write every day, and I think they hone that muscle but I’m not able to do that. Nick Lowe calls it the Bloke, when he gets an inspiration that just comes down to him, and when that happens he calls it the Bloke visiting him and every other time it’s him trying to copy that. I think that’s so true, I’m doing the same thing I’m like trying to force the Bloke to come back, and you know instantly what’s not real.
What were the dynamics during the recording, how much creativity was there between the musicians?
Each one came about in its own way, ‘Dreamer’s Mote’ itself is based on a guitar loop. My dad and I had been on tour with Rosanne Cash, and it was the two of them doing Johnny Cash songs, and we were in these really big concert halls, and I always think the best stuff happens at soundcheck when nobody is thinking about anything. I’d record the piano player, Glenn Patscha who was on my last record and this one, and I’d record my dad, essentially people just playing something. You’d get this big sound being in these concert halls, and then one day I looped his guitar from one of those soundchecks and that became the bed for ‘Dreamer’s Motel’. So then I would just let it play, then I would make a verse and a chorus out of it, and then just start singing over it. Once there was an arrangement I’d play drums on it, or have him come back and boost the chorus a little bit. Each song has its own little story of how it was created, they are all different.
You work closely with your wife Juliette Commagere, how much did she influence the vocals on the new record?
When she comes in to sing harmony I’m not even there. She goes to Martin Pradler’s house, our engineer, who co-produced this record with me, and the two of them do the vocal arrangements. I don’t even like to be there because I just love to come in the next day and listen to what they have done, it is just so satisfying. So, I’m not just sitting there being another cook in the kitchen with like, can you try the third part a little more blah, blah, blah, I don’t even want to do that because whatever they come up with is so good. I sing alone, and then she sings alone.
Sounds like a perfect marriage.
Yeah babe, as long as we sing alone, this will work out just fine.
You have been surrounded by music and musicians all your life, why were you drawn to drums and percussion?
I think probably Jim Keltner, who’s the incredible drummer my dad played with when I was young and throughout my teens. I was just so obsessed with him as a little boy, it was the 80s and he had these massive drum kits with little electronic lights going back and forth, and electronic Simmons drum pads which were like octagonal black things and all this hardware. I would climb into his drum kit and just stare at them. Then it just came naturally to me, I was never drawn to the guitar, and still to this day, I couldn’t fathom what was going on with that. It also enabled me and my dad to play together, even when I was four years old I could play along with him, and I wouldn’t have been able to do that if I was struggling with a guitar.
Your dad’s music can be very rhythmic, did he influence your approach to rhythm as well?
I think so. He loves the drums and I would listen to music with him, and I would listen to him and Jim Keltner talking in the studio about stuff they were trying to do. It always comes down to having your ears open to whatever is going on in the room, never go into a room and just pound away always listen, and that’s what allows you to go into a room with Cubans, Africans, and people who you don’t speak the same language with, but you see what’s going on and figure out a way to fit in and make it better, hopefully, or you wait and sit it out. I think being a good listener to the thing you are doing is what a musician should be doing, whether it’s drums or anything.
What did it feel like recording the Buena Vista Social Club when you were a teenager?
That was a complete fluke. It was an accident because the record was supposed to be made with the West Africans coming there, but the Africans didn’t get their visas, and we were sitting there at the studio on day one, and my dad asked if anyone could find some pre-revolutionary 1940s era musicians and they all walked up out of obscurity. You never know the significance of what you are doing in the moment because you are just in the room and it’s like, does this wire work, is that plugged in, does this tape machine not work, is there food? That’s how things are, and as good as it was there, the grand scope of it was not revealed at that moment, only later, and it kept getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger.
You mentioned you are also a touring musician, and you toured very successfully with your dad and Ricky Skaggs, but there has been no record or DVD released from the tour. What’s going on?
I know, that comes up every few years, the live record, because every show was recorded. That was probably the most musical fun I’ve ever had in my entire life, playing with those players was completely life-changing. After we get off the phone I’m going to call my dad and ask him to call Ricky and find out why we can’t put out a live record. It is such a good idea.
What can concertgoers expect on your November UK tour?
I’m coming out as a duo with Rayna Gellert, who’s my long-term fiddle companion who makes all my Uncle Dave songs, and the new ones, come alive. So, I’m really excited I’m coming with her. We do stuff from all three records, I never toured the Uncle Dave record in the UK because of COVID and one thing and another, and I’m really looking forward to coming and playing many, many songs.
You’ve managed to carve out your own very successful musical career. What is the biggest lesson you learnt from your dad?
Working with him in all these different situations, whether it is with Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, or the Buena Vista guys, or Ali Farka Touré, I think it is to be a sympathetic human being. Connecting with other people is the great thing we can do, and the musicians who are celebrities, the people with the big egos, they don’t get to experience that truly. They maybe get the big money, but they don’t get this other thing, and I truly feel that is the most important thing. I’ve been really fortunate to be in situations with these people and have been able to interact with them, and that is the truest thing I’ve gotten from my dad.
At AUK, we like to share music with our readers, so can you share which artists, albums, or tracks are currently top three on your personal playlist?
I got the opportunity to tour with Catlin Canty, and she’s made a beautiful record I’ve been listening to called “Quiet Flame” which I’ve been loving. When you tour with somebody their songs get stuck in your head, so you hope they’re good songs, and in this case, they are truly good songs. We’ve been listening to some old records around the house, we’ve been listening to Brian Eno and Harold Budd’s “The Pearl”, we’ve been listening to that in the house and car just nonstop, just on repeat. The third thing I’ve been playing is the Louvin Brothers’ “Satan Is Real”.
That’s a great record with a great cover.
Nobody has just quite nailed it with calling your record “Satan Is Real”.
Finally, do you want to say anything to our UK readers?
I’d love you to come to the show, and say hi after the show. Let’s have a pint or two, we shouldn’t just have one pint.
Joachim Cooder’s “Dreamer’s Motel” is released on 1st November as an independent release.
Joachim Cooder with Rayna Gellert UK Tour
Thu Nov 7th The Greystones, Sheffield
Fri Nov 8th The Hive, Shrewsbury
Sat 9th Nov Ferguson Fawsitt, Walkington
Sun 10th Nov Caroline Social Club, Saltaire, Shipley
Mon 11th Nov Kitchen Garden Café, Kings Heath, Birmingham
Tue 12th Nov Acapela, Cardiff
Tue 13th Nov Pound Art Centre, Corsham
Thu 14th Nov Metronome, London
