Ray of Light

Ray LaMontagne isn’t exactly regarded as an easy man to interview, but after half an hour on the phone with the Maine native, one gets the impression the bad rep is a tad unfair. Certainly this is a man who takes his work seriously, but such seriousness can be a tonic in an age of pop-star-as-personality-pimp. Plus, he’s not without a gentle sense of humour (as is borne out by the paean to Meg White on his latest album Gossip in the Grain). Put simply, LaMontagne considers himself a craftsman, a private citizen in a public business.

“I realise that every time you talk to somebody, you never know what they’re gonna write,” he says at the end of our conversation. “Some people are very negative, even though they sound very positive when they’re talking to you on the phone, and you have that right to do whatever you want to do. But even if you do slam me, thanks for at least asking interesting questions. I’ve had eight previous phone calls and I just wanted to throw the phone across the room.”
Over the last five years LaMontagne has released three albums, all produced by Ethan Johns (Kings of Leon, Ryan Adams, Rufus Wainwright), that mine American soul, folk, blues, bluegrass and even space-rock. His career has been a slow-burn but a steadily growing one: Gossip In the Grain entered the Billboard chart at number 3 when it was released last October. The reference points are traditionalist – Tim Hardin, Van Morrison, Arthur Lee, Tim Buckley, Otis Redding, The Band, even Canned Heat – but LaMontagne blends these elements into a stew of music that way predates standard rock roots.
“I really became passionate about music in my early 20s,” he says. “As soon as I was out of work I was throwing on a record at home in my apartment. All I did was listen to records. And really listened, y’know? Completely let them take me wherever they wanted to take me, for hours. And y’know, I feel this is what I’m supposed to be doing, so it felt very natural for me, I felt like a sponge, soaking up everything from Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin to Dylan and Leadbelly, Otis Redding, anything. I think for a long time there in the beginning it was just dissecting everything and figuring out that thing that makes a song work, trying to figure out, ‘Why does this song work versus this song that doesn’t?’
“It’s a fascinating artform,” he continues, “and I just really enjoy it, and that magic is still there. I recently got a bunch of Paul Butterfield Blues Band records, and was sort of digging into that a little bit, and bluegrass stuff as well. There’s always something out there that you haven’t heard. I still have a stereo, a Technics record player, I just got Dan Auerbach’s new record on vinyl. I still listen in the same way, a sort of intense concentration, but at the same time you’re just letting the record take you where it wants to take you. I really like that.”
So, LaMontagne learned his song well before he started singing, and it shows. Ethereal reveries like ‘Sarah’, ‘I Still Care For You’ and ‘Gossip in the Grain’ contrast beautifully with earthenware production and low key but elaborate arrangements.
LaMontagne’s also an extraordinary singer, possessing a gravelly and magnetic white soul voice.

“I don’t practice,” he admits, “and I don’t warm up, which I’ve been told that I should, by singers older than myself. It’s just the way I sing.”
What’s his first memory of being moved by a piece of music?
“Hmmm. It’s hard to say. I know the first time I listened to Blonde On Blonde I was really amazed. The first time I listened to the (Stephen Stills) Manasses record as well, that’s an amazing rock ‘n’ roll record. It’s sort of an out of body experience, really uplifting.”
Get Montagne talking about the craft of writing songs, and he becomes quietly animated.
“I try to catch them,” he says. “The melodies will come in pieces or sometimes entirely, but that’s rare. I don’t sit down every day and write. I run though melodies in my head, one by one, all the things that I need to work on or that need to stew. And when I feel they’ve gotten to a certain point where it’s drastic, where there’s enough changes that I could forget something, then I start to write them down and piece them together and make sure that I’ve got everything. And then there’s the revision process, revising the lines. It’s trial and error.
“In the beginning I tried to write every day, I tried to have some kind of discipline where I made myself write for two or three hours every day, and it didn’t work, it was counter productive, and over time I realised that it’s just my pattern. I describe it to friends, it’s like I can hear the train coming, all these little bits of melody. And if you don’t catch them, they’re gone. It’s a strange thing, it’s like they come knocking, but if you don’t answer the door they just leave.”
LaMontagne’s best songs have a timeless feeling, as though they could have been written at any point over the last century. One thinks of Music From Big Pink, or Tupelo Honey, or in his more impressionistic moments, Deserter’s Songs.
“I just hope that when I look back 30 years from now that I’ll be proud of what I’ve done,” he says. “The only reason I’m doing this is because I love to do it. I think of it like building a nice piece of furniture or something, you want to build something that lasts, you don’t want to just throw it together. It’s the craft that I’ve chosen to dedicate myself to, so I take it seriously. There are a lot of other aspects to being a performer that some guys do a lot better than I do, so I just don’t do it. I just concentrate on my strengths, which are writing a compelling melody, I hope, and performing it well.”
How important is his relationship with Ethan Johns?
“Gosh, I don’t know ‘cos I don’t have a lot of experience to draw on, I’ve only worked with Ethan so, y’know, I think it’s gotten to a point where we’re a lot like brothers: we like to be around each other but we need space from each other as well. We’re both very opinionated about what we like and what we don’t like, and sometimes we’re on the same page and sometimes we’re just not, so then there’s this struggle of who’s gonna back down, who’s gonna compromise. But all in all it’s been healthy. Y’know, sometimes I can look back and see things we missed, we just couldn’t get it right, but some things we did. I think we’ve done good work together.”
LaMontagne’s live shows are regarded as intense affairs, and he’s been known to perform in darkness in order to enhance the atmosphere and concentration. What is it that he requires from an audience?
“Nothing really! Some nights are better than others, but I think the best shows are when the audience is responsive, but not distractingly so. Every once in a while you play some shows where requests are flying in between every song, always the same ones, always ‘Jolene’ or something, but it doesn’t stop no matter how many times you tell them, ‘It’s coming! We’ll play it eventually!’ That can be distracting. I feel like on our end we put on a consistently good show, I’m just being honest about it, we’re all really dedicated, but the audience can vary from night to night drastically.”
Can he feel it when they’re listening? Really listening?
“Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And you can feel it when they’re not! There are certain songs that I just don’t sing because I just don’t want to go back to that place. You can kind of get outside of it as well, and think of it as a melody. I need time away from them first before I start touring, and then I can sort of come back to them in a slightly different perspective, they’re not so close to you. I think that’s helpful, to think of them like somebody else wrote them. But also, y’know, I’m sort of moving towards the less visceral songs in general. I used to place a lot of importance on those songs, but I don’t necessarily think they are the better song.”
So what inspired his almost Victorian courtly hymn (with a dash of Lovin’ Spoonful) to Meg White?
“Well, it really just kinda happened like all songs happen.”
But he chose not to censor it.
“Yeah! Do you think I should’ve?”
I don’t actually. It’s a fine upstanding tune.
“Okay, good! For a while there I wasn’t sure, but it’s a fun song, it’s playful, I like the melody, I like some of the changes, and y’know, I thought it was a good song. I still do.”