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Claudio Sanchez

Photo by Miikka Skaffari/Getty Images

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Coheed And Cambria's Claudio Sanchez Talks Comics, Kurt Vonnegut & What's Next For 'The Amory Wars'

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The hard-rocking frontman goes deep on Coheed's multi-dimensional storytelling, attempting to play D&D, his first-ever live music experiences and more
Katherine Turman
GRAMMYs
Sep 11, 2019 - 11:32 am

Coheed and Cambria don't simply make albums, they create musical and lyrical universes. Specifically surrounding the story of The Amory Wars—sci-fi-ish storylines that mesh with comics, books, videos and visuals to create a linear through-line among nearly all the band's albums. If that sounds like a Pink Floyd or RUSH fan's dream, maybe; but it’s also captivating for the everyperson who likes their rock heady and multi-dimensional. As evidenced on nine albums since 2002's The Second Stage Turbine Blade debut, Coheed and Cambria's unique conceptual approach can be grandiose but never pompous; poppy but never lightweight, creative but never unwieldy.

Comprised of Claudio Sanchez (vocals/guitar), Travis Stever (guitar), Josh Eppard (drums) and Zach Cooper (bass), the band began in Nyack, New York in 1995. Driven by Sanchez's fully realized tales, CandC's latest album, 2018's cinematic Vaxis—Act I: The Unheavenly Creatures, debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Hard Rock Albums chart and Top 15 on the Billboard 200 chart. The record kicks off with a spare piano and a spooky spoken-word "Prologue" that sets up the chant-along rocker "The Dark Sentencer," delving into gems like the pop-tastic "Old Flames" before concluding its 78-minute journey with the gentle guitar/vocals/strings "Lucky Stars."

The Recording Academy caught up with down-to-earth frontman via phone from the Brooklyn apartment he shares with his wife (and frequent collaborator) Chondra Echert and son Atlas Hendrix. The conversation ranged from his 100-year-old grandfather (a.k.a. Beep Beep) to Kraftwerk to Dio to co-sleeping. And, drum roll, please—Sanchez also revealed a brand-new CandC endeavor that will thrill fans.

Since all your songs and albums have such storylines, as a kid in school, what kind of writing were you doing; was English your best subject?

No, not really. It wasn't until I picked up a guitar that I actually started to write. My imagination was always very alive. Certainly when music was acting as the soundtrack to [words], whether it was like a mundane car ride with my mother or father, whatever was playing on the radio would conjure up visuals in my mind, whether superheroes or science fiction characters, I would always pictures, scenes, as long as the song was really strong, you know?

At that age, what were you reading?

I think it was mostly comic books. I wasn't the most active participant in school, putting it nicely. I did well, though; I did enough to, to pacify my parents. I wasn't a bad kid or anything. But for the most part I liked the story telling told in other mediums, whether it was movies, video games, or the ones that I would construct with action figures. Comics were a big one. I would frequent shops on the Wednesdays when new things would come out, Batman or whatever. When I got into high school, Kurt Vonnegut was a big one. I actually remember when I bought my first edition, at the used book store in Nyack. Slaughterhouse Five. I remember looking at the cover and seeing that it had two titles and being totally intrigued by that. I forget… the First Crusade or something? It was like Slaughterhouse Five or Dah, Dah, Dah, Dah, Dah. [The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance With Death.] So from there to Breakfast Of Champions [(or Goodbye Blue Mondays)].

The two-title thing explains a lot about you now in Coheed! No one-word titles!

[Laughs.] No way!

You mentioned that a job you had as a teen really spurred the music and lyrics of what became Coheed and Cambria.

Yes, my pet store job, just 'cause the guys there allowed me to do what I needed to do to allow the band to grow. You know, they gave me the weekends off when I needed them. Working in that store inspired a lot of like little details within the Amory Wars, the Coheed story. Like the name of the solar system that the actual story takes place on is called the Keywork after the guys that own the store. I named the solar system after them. I chose the color of the interlocking theme of Keywork to be blue because I worked on fish tanks, and they'd have these blue backdrops. The main villain I named after one of the managers because he actually said, "Hey, if you ever do make this story, I want to be your villain." The fact that he sort of believed in me, that I would actually make this thing … So I named the character after him.

I know it was in Paris where you first created the Coheed and Cambria characters and more. Was it the city itself that that was influential or was it just being out of your normal environment?

I think it was a little bit of both. I went to Paris for about a month to visit a girlfriend at the time. I had never been that far away from home. Jersey was probably the furthest distance I'd traveled, literally, and here I was at 18, ready to hit Europe, with really no idea what to expect. Once I got there, the architecture had a lot to do with maybe feeling like I was in an alien environment. Originally the story with the title The Bag On Line Adventures Adventures of Coheed and Cambria after the bag shop I was living across the street from. I thought that that was appropriate because I was traveling and, you know, sort of the wild things that would come out of your bag.

Even though the bags had nothing to do with the story, there was just something about the shop that made sense to me. I loosely based the characters of Coheed and Cambria after myself and my significant other at that moment. But as I started to really write songs and flesh out the ideas of the story, Coheed and Cambria really started to take on the likenesses of my mother and father. And it really became like a science fiction story about my family; that's where all the little details from life started to spill into it. Like the pet store stuff. The Amory Wars; Amory is actually the road I lived on. And 78 planets of Heaven's Fence was actually taken from the year I was born, 1978. There's a lot of symbolism in the real story that sort of resides behind the science fiction.

Claudio Sanchez's Songwriting Changed

As so much of your art is interconnected; is it possible for people to just listen to the music and not even be aware of the books and comics, and vice versa?

I love that it can be consumed in any way; the consumer can choose how to ingest it. When it comes to the music side of things, I try not to force the concept. The themes are there. But I also want it to feel universal because it is, it's coming from someplace very, very deep, very real. I want it to feel in a way separate, but if you were to conjoin it with the comics, then there's a whole other experience. And vice-versa. It does happen at comic conventions where someone will come to the booth and say something like, "I really enjoy this story." And then wonder what the T-shirts are. Then they’re like, "Oh, wait a second, this is a band?" Sometimes that'll happen. You know, clearly the band is definitely the fuel for everything, but it does have its own legs in the other sort of dimension of the whole thing. I'm really all for however you want to perceive it. It's totally fine.

So releasing a single from the middle of an album is OK by you?

I don't think there's anything wrong with listening to the one song outside of the context of the whole. I've had a magic of watching MTV as a kid; the television that you would like turn the dial and instead of the remote! I remember seeing Madonna's "Material Girl." Michael Jackson's "Beat It." I didn't need to know that there was anything else. That was enough for me and I wanted to hear it over and over again! I get that sort of that method of consuming music.

Of course, Pink Floyd's The Wall and Queensryche's Operation: Mindcrime are conceptual landmarks. What did you dig?

My first year of high school, that's when I started to go to concerts. My first two concerts were really, I think, what cemented me into the idea of this much bigger story in terms of music. The first one was Sabbath at the Beacon Theater with Dio fronting. This is my first concert. I didn't even know that the live sort of thing… I mean, I think I even know that was a thing! I went and I was like, "Wow, this is amazing the way the lights are interacting with the band." Then my second one was Pink Floyd on the Division Bell tour. That's when I started to fall down the rabbit hole of progressive rock and conceptual albums and things like that. ‘Cause after that it was The Wall, Dark Side [of the Moon], Animals. Again, just watching the visuals and music interact with each live, but even the myth of playing Wizard Of Oz against Dark Side, you know. Of course I tried it!

I read a while ago where Mark Wahlberg and his production company had interest in Amory Wars as a live-action film. What happened with that? Are there any other projects related to that universe?

Yeah, the Mark Wahlberg agreement expired, so nothing really happened with it. But at the moment we are working with an animation company on turning the Amory Wars into either a full-length animation or sort of a serial animation. We're in the process of that, as well as looking to adapt the stories into board games.

Wow! That's exciting.

You know, I notice our fanbase will sometimes come to the shows early, and I wanted like to do something that will get them involved with each other in these moments. I thought board games was an interesting thing, or even card games, these legacy card games a la Magic [The Gathering], you know? At the moment that's what we're in the middle of.

Did you play Dungeons and Dragons?

I tried. I did. The thing is, I played it a couple of times before I moved, and really enjoyed it, but then I could never find people to play with again. Like I'm pretty socially awkward. I have a hard time meeting people. I really do. I'm really horrible at that.

Aww. Well, any Coheed and Cambria game endeavor has so many ways it could go…

I'd want to do something really cool like either being part of the events of the story or maybe multiple games that are the events of the story. But I'm very excited. I think it's a really cool time to be a Coheed fan ‘cause all of these sort of things are percolating. I know that the fan base really desired something on another platform. I'm really excited for the animation. I think it could be really cool. So we're just sort of working our way through all the details and trying to put together the team that makes the most sense to really bring it to life.

Do you think it could be out as early 2020?

Oh, that might be a little too early. We haven't announced the actual partner, so we're just still trying to get that piece in place before we actually announce.

Alice In Chains' Jerry Cantrell Is Just Happy To Be Nominated (For The Ninth Time)

Scott Mickelson, producer on Blanket The Homeless

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On 'Blanket The Homeless,' Bay Area Artists Join Together To Raise Money For Those In Need

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The new album of original songs, produced by Scott Mickelson and featuring contributions from Fantastic Negrito, The Stone Foxes, Con Brio, Rainbow Girls and more, is out on Nov. 8
Adrian Spinelli
GRAMMYs
Nov 6, 2019 - 11:44 am

Beneath the Highway 101 overpass, the scene is bleak. Scattered rows of tents create multiple encampments that continue for several blocks from one neighborhood to the other. On some sidewalks, barricades have been placed against the walls to prevent tents from being laid up against them, but it doesn’t stop people from putting them up closer to the street instead. Some suffer from substance abuse issues or mental illness, though others don't. Regardless of backstory, they all just want somewhere to rest or simply have privacy from the world outside of the zipped-up nylon. 

In other parts of San Francisco, the scenes are similar: the city's homeless population counts over 8,000 people in 2019, a nearly 20% increase from two years ago. It’s a miserable sight, one that dehumanizes people who can't afford housing among the city's growing real estate prices.

Local politicians campaign on solutions for the growing homeless population in S.F., but the political will to find a long-term solution to the problem seems flimsy at best. It's in stark contrast to the amount of money flowing into the city's thriving tech companies. The rich are getting richer and the unfathomably poor are growing in numbers. And when political activity is lacking in dire times, it takes independent philanthropists and other local community activists to make a visible difference—anything to help rally a city. 

Enter artists: the ones who made San Francisco a haven for free-spirited creatives 50 years ago have also risen to the occasion over the years by any means necessary when faced with how to help the city’s homeless population. Comedian and S.F. resident Robin Williams led the charge over two decades through the Comic Relief series of events, raising over $50 million for homeless services in the process. After his death in 2014, comedian and S.F. native Margaret Cho coped with her grief by staging a series of busking performances throughout the city to raise money for the homeless population, coining the hashtag #BeRobin.

"It was a way for us to be charitable, but also bring a sense of comic relief and performance. Very Robin Williams," Cho tells the Recording Academy. "And calling attention to it, really ignites people’s humanity. It shows that we’re not going to ignore this problem."

A co-founder of the #BeRobin movement, Ken Newman is a San Francisco singer/songwriter and philanthropist, who has kept the efforts of Cho and others going. In 2016, Newman founded Blanket The Homeless, a local charity that has partnered with the St. Vincent DePaul Society Of San Francisco (SVDP-SF) by seeking to improve the day-to-day lives of people living on the streets. In short, they raise money and donate packages that include blankets, socks, toiletries and any other day-to-day supplies that the homeless population might need. 

To call further attention to the issue and continue to raise money, Newman's latest effort sees him partnering with producer Scott Mickelson to put out a compilation benefit album entitled Blanket The Homeless. Out Nov. 8, Blanket The Homeless features music from 15 Bay Area artists, each of whom contributed an original song to the album, including two-time GRAMMY winner Fantastic Negrito, Tim Bluhm of The Mother Hips, Con Brio, Rainbow Girls, The Brothers Comatose, The Stone Foxes, The Coffis Brothers, Seattle's Tobias The Owl (who lived on the streets as a teenager himself), Goodnight, Texas, King Dream, Whiskerman, John Craigie, The Old Soul Orchestra and tracks by Newman and Mickelson as well. The day before the album's release, many of the artists involved will be playing a benefit show for the project at San Francisco venue The Independent. All proceeds from the show and album sales will go directly to Blanket The Homeless. 

"Regardless of the title, I wanted this to be a strong musical statement that stood on it’s own," Mickelson says of the album. While most of the songs do touch on the album's titular theme, Mickelson (who also produced 2017’s After The Fire Vol. 1, a benefit album for victims of Northern California's devastating fires) let the artists know that the songs didn't necessarily need to be directly about being homeless. It just had to be a song they’d be excited to release. 

As San Francisco and Bay Area artists themselves continue to grapple with the ever-inflating cost of living, coming into Mickelson's Marin studio ready to record a song that speaks to the larger issue at hand came naturally. On "American Dream," a spiritual folk number by Rainbow Girls, the band reflects on the concept of self-worth when compassion might not be present. 

"When you listen to it deeply, it's for obvious reasons that this was our song,” singer Vanessa May says. "It's musing on this ideal that we're all seeking 'Americanness.' That we’re all just trying to find ourselves and exist as healthy selves and family. It talks about how easy it is for your carefully laid plans to be blown by the wind."

When May sings, "Everyone is worth something and it's not their weight in gold," one can't help but think about how invisible San Francisco's homeless population has become to many, let alone to themselves. This speaks to the heart of Blanket The Homeless: displaying compassion for human beings who are suffering every day without a place to call home. 

"It takes greater creativity to get people to care again," May says. "It's a different age, where we live in an attention economy and most of our attention is very much occupied." 

Meanwhile, "Working Poor," Fantastic Negrito's impeccable Delta blues track (and the only non-original song on Blanket The Homeless, having appeared on his 2016 The Last Days Of Oakland album), tells the tale of people being pushed out of the city and into the heartland; their home has new tenants as they’re forced to the sidelines. Similarly, on "Odd Man Out," Mickelson, who wrote the song during the process of producing the album, sings of the feeling of becoming invisible, like you don't fit in anymore, a relatable perspective whether you have a roof or a rainfly over your head at night. 

"I find it difficult to understand that in a city where we lead the world to believe that we're so liberal, diverse and the most conscious of the environment and rights, that we literally and figuratively step over the homeless," Mickelson says. "They’ve become such a fabric of the city that they won't be acknowledged."

True to his word, Mickelson has put together an album of songs that can indeed stand alone. While the message is clear throughout the journey of Blanket The Homeless, the mighty talent on the album is just as evident. The stripped-down bluegrass vibe of "Angeline" by The Brothers Comatose and the sultry groove of "Body Language" by Con Brio are two love songs that shine especially bright. For Con Brio lead singer Ziek McCarter, who lives in San Francisco’s Fillmore district, being a part of Blanket The Homeless is in line with his and the band’s ethos. They recently put out a single, "Living In The City," that sent all proceeds to San Francisco's Coalition on Homelessness, and have worked with Bread & Roses, an organization that brings music to institutionalized people. 

"We love to give back to the community," McCarter says. "But the condition within the city itself is tough. It's treacherous to walk through the heart of downtown and the Tenderloin. So any way we can contribute and have a positive influence, we’re there. We’re not just in it for the music."

It can be frustrating to think about how a lack of a concrete solutions from city officials is not only not solving San Francisco's homeless problem, it's making it worse. It can be even more frustrating to think that artists, who are becoming increasingly pushed out of the city because of similar economic mechanisms, are the ones left staging effective ways to help. But their efforts are inspiring nonetheless: The money raised will go directly to help S.F.'s homeless population, effectively continuing the great philanthropic work Williams did when he was still alive.

"He was endlessly generous with his time and his comedy," Cho says of Williams. "You know...the original spirit that the city used to stand for something, a great spirit of independence and DIY...it doesn't have to go away."

And for some, like the 15 artists involved in Blanket The Homeless, it hasn't. 

"To be an artist and to make a living in San Francisco...it's a grind," McCarter says. "But it’s a great honor to say that we're part of the legacy and history of artists that have thrived in the Bay and stood up for just cause and stood up for the people." 

For more info on Blanket The Homeless, and to purchase the album, click here.

Purchase tickets to the November 7th Release show at The Independent here.

Historic Berkeley Folk Venue Freight & Salvage Welcomes A New Generation Of Music Fans

Jimmy Eat World 

Photo: Oliver Halfin

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Jimmy Eat World Are 'Surviving': "At The End Of The Day, We're Fighting For The Same Thing"

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The Recording Academy speaks to frontman Jim Adkins about where 'Surviving' fits in the emo stalwarts' extensive catalog
Jennifer Velez
GRAMMYs
Oct 28, 2019 - 2:19 pm

25 years and 10 albums into his career, Jim Adkins, frontman of emo mainstays Jimmy Eat World, says one of the key factors for keeping a band together this long comes down to a choice made every day.

"We all realize, at the end of the day, that we're fighting for the same thing," he says on the phone from Arizona.

The band's latest album, Surviving, out now, comes after the band's 25th anniversary in February and 20 years after making their third album, Clarity, which, at the time, they thought would be their last. "It was like a last meal on death row. We loaded up our plate with string sections, timpanis, mallet instruments and dream machines," a post reads on the band's Instagram reflecting back during the album's anniversary date.

Surviving has Adkins in a different headspace than 20 years ago. Not that Adkins isn't aware that it could all end ("Your career is finite," he says). But lately he's much more focused on reflecting on the self. 

"What's been fascinating me lately [are] the blocks you put in your own way that prevent you from experiencing growth. That keep you in a state of fear or depression, or self-pity, or a lack of self-worth," he says. " What evolutionary advantage possibly could there be for the levels of self-sabotage we think we need?" 

The band's newer music still features the hard-rocking melodies fans have come to love and revere, and Adkins admits that the pressure to live up to his own expectations has grown over the years. "You're not just making albums, you're not just releasing singles," he says. "You're building your catalog. And everything that you do lives right next to everything you've ever done."

The Recording Academy spoke with Adkins about where Surviving fits in Jimmy Eat World's extensive catalog (Surviving is their 10th studio album), the challenging aspects of making a record, what he's the most proud to have accomplished with the band and more. 

Surviving is album number 10. How does it feel to be 10 albums in?

Pretty crazy. We don't take any of this for granted and there's a finite amount of opportunities that you get. It could be one album, it could be 15 albums. I think on page one of [Donald] Passman's book [All You Need to Know About the Music Business] he says it a couple times, your career is finite. And I take that to heart so you have to appreciate everything that comes your way. And we've been really, really fortunate that we've been able to do this for as long as we have.

You recently celebrated an anniversary as a band. What, in your opinion, has been the glue that has kept you guys together for so long?

That's a good question. I think it's a couple of factors. There's a level of respect for each other, especially creatively. I think that the idea of how many bands break up because of quote, unquote creative differences, which I know is kind of a cover for some extra other deep stuff. But it's true. I can see how that derails a lot of people and as heated as an argument might be when we're working on material, we all realize at the end of the day that we're fighting for the same thing.

It's not like you don't take any of that stuff personally. I wouldn't want to work with people that didn't have passionate ideas and envisions for the creative direction. Of course, it's not going to be exactly the same [as mine]. That's why you work with other people. If you want to just do your thing, you just do your thing. [If you want a collaborative environment], you're going to get things that aren't your idea. But hopefully in the end ... it'll make for an idea that nobody had on their own. They'll be something collaborative. It's something that none of you had thought of on your own and couldn't have thought on your own.

Some artists have told me it's basically like marriage, being in a group for so long.

Yeah, yeah. I can see that. It's a relationship on a level ... Any relationship that's going to last is, it's a partnership first. A band is a partnership first.

This album explores how you deal with ego. Tell me more about that.

Yeah, roughly. Every song has its own little thing, but roughly what's been fascinating me lately [are] the blocks you put in your own way that prevent you from experiencing growth. That keeps you in a state of fear or depression, or self-pity, or a lack of self-worth. A lot of those things are really your own fault. The crazy thing is I put this stuff there, but yet I'm so afraid to take it away. Why? Why is that? What evolutionary advantage possibly could there be for the levels of self-sabotage we think we need? 

It's crazy. "I really don't like where I am right now. I'm not happy with my job. I'm not happy with the relationship I'm in. I live in constant fear of finances or whatever." But to change or do anything different, that's just too scary. I don't know if I want to do that. Why? Why is that? It's kind of fascinating to me. So, that's what a lot of Surviving is about. 

I've read stuff about the ego and sometimes what happens is that we're not living in the moment. Like you said, we're thinking about the future, we're thinking about how we're not happy. Do you feel like you were in the moment creating this album?

Yeah, I can see why there are people who check out of society and dedicate their entire being to inner work of removing the self. Eckhart Tolle has a great book [on that], The Power Of Now.

It really changed a lot of stuff for me. But yeah, that's true. We future trip, we hold onto guilt. We choose to re-live pain that doesn't exist. I don't know if this kind of gets at your question at all, but it's like something I used to find myself doing is catch myself in this state of anxiousness, or I basically work myself up into a really not great place. And that's the thing, I took 15 minutes out of the day and nothing else in the world had changed, but I had gone and chosen to re-live pain in my head. 

It's crazy. I'm not being present. I'm not interacting with people around me. I'm not experiencing a connection to people 'cause I'm in my own head. Either future tripping or reliving guilt I guess would be the fear of the past, I suppose you could call it. So, it's a constant quest to be present, and it's a longer answer than maybe you intended. But it's sort of the trick, with creation, with writing, with music. You got to turn off somewhat because I think writer's block is essentially not being able to shut off the inner critique.

But music is like you're responding to something. You're also creating something. You're responsible for the momentum and the direction. And you're also listening, and you're responding to that at the same time. And if your inner critic is constantly chiming into naysaying something, you're not going to get anywhere. So you got to turn that off. It's a real trick to be present, but also to turn that voice off is a real trick. And that's why this is so hard.

Have you always been this aware?

No. No. [Laughs.] Not at all. It's a newer thing, I guess.

Did anything else inspire this album?

Well, I mean everything. I think our albums are time capsules. These sort of encompass everything that's been happening, everything that I am curious about, everything that floats to the surface of life and living in the timeframe since our last thing that we did, which was about three years ago, Integrity Blues, came out three years ago. So yeah, it's basically a time capsule of the last three years. 

Was there something about making this album that was different from the rest?

Hmm. I think the longer that we do this, the more pressure there is to live up to our own expectations, our own standards. Increasingly, the way people consume music now... You're not just making albums, you're not just releasing singles. You're building your catalog. And everything that you do lives right next to everything you've ever done. It's right next to it. And then that lives right next to the Library of Congress and anybody can take whatever they want out of that. So, what you're doing has to feel... there has to be a reason for it. If anything, that might be the difference is if we're going to take the time to add to our catalog, it better be something we feel is meaningful. It better be something we feel like there's a reason that we're doing it in the first place.

So what do you feel was the reason you made Surviving?

In the past, I think when you're starting out and especially us, when we were younger, you just do something. You don't know why. You just feel it. You have to, we have to do it. Here's my idea, I just have to get this out. You don't question it. You don't analyze it. You just do it cause you have to. Not like someone's making you do it. You have to otherwise, you'll just explode. You will die, you'll die unless you can get this thing thinking out.

That's how it feels when you're younger. But as you get older, I think this is a quest to know yourself. The more you learn doing that, you find reasons there. You find things that are important to you. And that's the thing that you choose to talk about. So, I guess that's just the reason now. I don't know. We feel like our ideas are good enough to live next to everything else we've ever done.

Is there a part of the album-making process that you enjoy the most?

I think there are two thoughts really. When the first draft demo, when you get the initial idea and you take your stab at hearing that happen in real life and if something comes out of it, that's great. And then I think the next phase is probably listening back to it. Listening back to the master copy for the first time. Yeah, it'll never quite sound that way again, ever. So, it's nice to take a second and play that once.

Was there a challenging aspect in making Surviving?

I think it's all pretty challenging. I think the most challenging aspect of it is that simple thing that confronts you every time sit down to work. It's just finding the balance of not... I'm trying to be present with whatever is happening and also silencing the inner critic. Because there's an awareness and then there's a complete subconscious that you have to kind of balance. That's always harder.

What is one thing that you are really proud to have accomplished all these years later?

I guess I could say I'm proud that we've always been honest with what we've put out. We're always been honest with the music we put our name on is material we feel is fun to play [and] had been rewarding to create. We've never made something to chase the approval of some imaginary listener.

People really pick up on that. There's nothing more of a turnoff and someone trying to chase your approval. So I think that we've done a good job in disregarding that. Not everyone's going to like what we do, but I think if you put out something honest, I think the right people will find it.

Behind The Record Celebrates Behind-The-Scenes Creators Of Your Favorite Albums

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Ryan Cassata

Photo credit: David Yerby

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Trans Artist And Activist Ryan Cassata Opens Up About Sobriety, Living With Hearing Loss & Love At First Sight

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Five years sober and just a few months shy of 26, the Long Island-born, L.A.-based folk-pop performer understands perseverance like no other
Crystal A. Frost
GRAMMYs
Oct 3, 2019 - 11:10 am

Be resilient and persevere. These are the messages that transgender singer-songwriter Ryan Cassata resonates, not only through the lense of his storytelling alternative folk/rock songs, which span four LPs and six EPs, but also in the way he lives his life. Five years sober and just a few months shy of 26, Cassata understands perseverance like no other; his entire life has been riddled with curveballs and roadblocks. From Bay Shore, New York, Cassata experienced his first of many obstacles before he was even born.

On December 13, 1993, Cassata's mother was in her third trimester. Already sick with Lupus, she suffered a severe allergic reaction to pine in the early days of the Christmas season. While a blizzard roared outside, doctors urged her to abort the baby, arguing that its additional strain on her body could end both of their lives. Refusing, she instead insisted on inducing labor six weeks early. It was on that day that Francine, a.k.a. "Fran," gave birth to Cassata. The doctors said it was a miracle they both survived. 

This was only the first of many tests of Cassata's resilience. His parents split up when he was five years old, and it wasn't long after that this middle child among brothers began begging for guitar lessons. Fran remembers him being around six when he started asking to play the red guitar that always sat in the corner of the living room in silence. "It was mostly just collecting dust, and I was drawn to it," Cassata says of that crimson guitar his older brother Vincent used to play. "I begged them for a long time to sign me up. They said I was too small and young, but I kept asking and eventually they let me."

Cassata's other primary interest also rose to the surface before grade school when he successfully convinced his parents to sign him up for another extracurricular activity: Little League. Although beyond disappointed when he learned he'd have to play softball instead of baseball on account of his sex, he was still elated to be part of a team.

Though he rarely speaks of it today for reasons that will become clear later, baseball was almost as important as music when it came to the core passions of pre-adolescent Cassata. In fact, by age 10, scattered among his Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen posters were newspaper clippings, memorabilia and souvenirs related to baseball—the Red Sox in particular. 

"I would stay up past my bedtime and sneak downstairs to watch their games at night. I had every player's name memorized," Cassata explains. Despite the fact that he was a New Yorker in a family of Mets fans, The Red Sox fascinated him. "I was transfixed. I started watching when they were underdogs. I liked their handshakes and the overall chemistry of the team. I felt a part of it in some way."

He didn't have many friends at school, but he had baseball, music, and by this point, a close relationship with his stepbrother Mike, or "The King Of Cool," as Cassata called him, who instantly became his role model when Fran remarried. Though he always knew he was different, the excitement and confidence brought on by music lessons, Little League and strong family bonds enabled Cassata to be a happy kid.

When middle school rolled around, however, Cassata's world turned upside down in a whirlwind of back-to-back tragedies. Seventh and eighth grade were two years that would prove to be the greatest testament to Cassata's resilience.

In 2006, Cassata's guitar teacher, Lou Parasimo, lost his life to Crohn's disease, plunging 12-year-old Cassata into his first-ever experience with death. These new feelings of devastation left Cassata stunned. Thankfully, Parasimo had been a major source of inspiration to young Cassata, thus enabling him to turn to music for comfort. Shortly after the tragedy, Cassata wrote his first song, "Wonderful, Beautiful," which appears on his first EP, Distraction.

Lou Parasimo & Ryan Cassata, 2006

"I wrote it on the piano," Cassata says of this early creation. "My mom came home and [asked], 'Who wrote that song?' I said, 'I did.' She couldn’t believe I wrote it because I’d just started piano lessons."

Parasimo's passing had quickly opened a door for Cassata to begin taking piano lessons from Lou’s friend, Dave Defeis, of the rock band Virgin Steele. Dave was instantly invested in Cassata's talent. "He believed in me from the very start," Cassata recalls. It was Dave who recorded this first-ever song of Cassata's, and it wouldn't be the last.

Though Parasimo would never be able to hear it, his death unlocked a new level of musicality and creativity in Cassata. This was only the beginning of songwriting serving as a coping mechanism for Cassata during hard times.

Ryan Cassata and Dave Defeis, The Village Club, 2009

In early 2007, Cassata suffered another emotional blow when his stepbrother Mike died of a heroin overdose at just 16 years old. "I thought of him as the coolest person ever," Cassata reflects on his beloved stepbrother, whose memory he wears proudly as a tattoo of a skateboard gravestone that reads "King Of Cool." 

Topics of drug addiction and substance abuse are scattered throughout Cassata's music, sometimes in reference to his own struggles with drugs and alcohol, which plagued him until his early 20s. The song "Sobering Up," though, tells Mike’s story in Cassata's raw, lyric-dominant style. No one could or would ever replace Mike, but Cassata would soon find that the gaping hole this loss created in his heart could, in fact, be filled by something else. 

Cassata's mom had surprised him with Spring Training tickets for his birthday a couple months earlier, and the tickets were coming up. "It was only a week after my stepbrother had died," Cassata explains. After some discussion, Cassata and his mom decided they should still go and make the most of it. 
"We went on a tour of the ballpark, and this man [in Red Sox colors] noticed me, this really sad kid, and asked, 'Hey, do you want to wear my World Series ring?" It turns out this man was Carl Beane, the announcer for the Red Sox. Cassata's spirits were lifted in that moment, and thus began a life-changing friendship.

"One day, you’re going to see that all of this hard stuff you’re going through will be worth it because you’ll have the ability, then, to help others through their struggles." 

Cassata and Beane became pen pals after that, and their friendship steadily grew into something truly earnest. A few times each year, Fran would drive Cassata to meet Beane for dinner at Perkins Restaurant and Bakery, where Beane would ask to hear Cassata's newest songs. This man appreciated Cassata for who he was and remained one of his greatest supporters through each milestone and hurdle, including Cassata coming out as transgender. "Everyone always asks, 'Why the Red Sox?' The Red Sox saved my life. It sounds corny but it’s true," he says. "I was on a path to eventually meet Carl."

Beane would later die in a car accident, shortly after Cassata's top surgery in early 2012, and the young musician's heart would break once again. But as he had learned time and time again through the losses he already had to endure, the only answer was to be resilient and persevere. Cassata again harnessed this willpower in the form of artistic expression. The acoustic elegy he wrote for his beloved friend entitled "Mr. Beane (Fenway Park)" is rich with imagery of Fenway Park and revealing of Beane's impact. Cassata also wrote two poems, one of which is published on his blog. The unpublished poem contains a moving foreword from which the following quote is extracted:

"The impact that [Carl Beane] left on my life continues to live on. He [was] the angel that [got] me through some of the hardest moments in my life, and he was essential in my upbringing and survival."

Ryan Cassata and Carl Beane, Fort Myers Florida, 2007 

Another moment Cassata refers to here is when he lost his hearing. Although the majority of the general public is unaware, Cassata has suffered from profound deafness in his left ear since the age of 14. Cassata remembers that winter day in 2008 vividly. It was the day after the Superbowl when he awoke, head spinning in a hellscape of endless vertigo. "I couldn’t stop throwing up," Cassata recalls. "Imagine being on a rollercoaster that never stops."

But, as with every other curveball life has thrown at Cassata, he found ways to cope. Relearning to walk within three weeks, Cassata refused to let this new disability destroy everything he had been working so hard for. He also remains good-humored about it. "Sometimes people shove me at the grocery store because I didn’t hear them say 'excuse me,'" he laughs. "It also sucks that people say 'never mind' when I didn’t hear what they said to me. Now I’ll never know what they said!" Cassata smiles, shaking his head, clearly of the mind that there is no use in being exasperated by this type of ignorance.

While Cassata never specifically avoided going public about his hearing loss, he hasn't exactly been vocal about it either. In his experience, people simply do not understand. He suspects it has something to do with the fact that the term "deafness" is applied to a vast range of hearing loss, and rarely are there cases as extreme as this—especially in someone so young. "My left ear is so deaf that hearing aid is useless," he explains. "Hearing aids are for people who still have some nerves working in there."

When asked how this disability affects his music, Cassata explains that it is the worst during live performances. Without a functioning left ear, the ability to stay synchronized with the band is extremely difficult. "We have to strategically place Kyle," Cassata says of his drummer Kyle Dombroski, a Los Angeles local. He goes on to explain how, while he can't always hear his whole band clearly, he can always feel those drums. Thankfully, Kyle, who holds a Master’s degree in percussion performance from UCLA, is always up to the task.

To this day, Cassata's sudden deafness remains a mystery. All doctors were able to determine was that it was an unidentifiable virus.

Cassata, who suffers from an anxiety disorder, often feels like he carries the weight of the world on his shoulders on behalf of the whole trans community. As one of the first and youngest openly trans artists ever to take center stage, both on the "Larry King Live Show" (2008) and the Vans Warped Tour (2013), he felt thrust into a position to represent an entire generation of trans youth, which was a lot for someone who first and foremost identified as a musician. 

"A fan once told me, 'Your success with your career shows me that being trans doesn’t have to hold me back,'" Cassata shares. Sentiments like this, while touching, seem to unintentionally place a burden on Cassata to deliver content and work endlessly in order to succeed. The pressure reached a tipping point last year when Cassata completed a new album that he never ended up releasing and that no one has heard. At some point during the post-production phase, it occurred to Cassata that he wasn’t being himself. The pressure had become so intense that his anxiety took the lead instead of his artistry. "I was feeling so pushed to create that I almost forgot what my fans really want to hear. People don’t listen to my music to have something to work out to. They listen because they want to feel something."

That weight was also noticeably lifted when the real reason for hiding this album came up. "I fell in love," Cassata says. In January of this year, Cassata met someone who, he says, guided him back to who he really is. Jeni, a Hollywood native who has been living substance free for 13 years, initially bonded with Cassata over their shared sobriety. However, it soon became clear on their first date that their journey had only just begun.

"I've been in love before, but this was on another level. The stars were aligning that night," Cassata says in attempts to elucidate the magic of the night they met. Jeni had no web presence or interest in social media, which enabled him to open up much faster. "She didn't want anything from me other than [for us] to love each other, and that was so freeing."

On paper, Jeni's life couldn’t possibly appear more different than his. "I work with veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan with traumatic brain injuries and PTSD," she explains. Before meeting Cassata, Jeni, who studied neuroscience in school, limited her time on the music scene to part-time DJing. 
Still, the overlapping passions between these two creative counterparts go beyond what could be simplified on paper. Within a few days, they were writing music together. To inquiries about Jeni’s lack of experience, Cassata simply replies, "She’s just lyrical." Despite Jeni’s lack of songwriting experience, their combined passions and skills were like perfect-fit puzzle pieces for music creation. 

"While I may not be fluent in the hand-eye coordination of playing instruments, to me music is a language that I feel like I can hear and understand," Jeni explains. "I have always been musically vibrational."

Cassata's fifth LP is set to be released in March, 2020, and he seems both private and eager to talk about what fans can expect to hear. "You can expect deeper lyrics, piano solos, dark subjects and lots of romantic topics too." He also discloses that topics surrounding the Catholic Church's suppression of alternative forms of love are woven throughout.

As for the hidden album? Cassata is careful in his reply. "Maybe someday I’ll release it as a surprise," he says with a shy smile.

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Yesterday Once More (Twice Over): An Oral History Of The 1994 Carpenters Tribute Album, 'If I Were A Carpenter'

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25 years after the release of Carpenters tribute album 'If I Were A Carpenter', the Recording Academy speaks to those involved about the project's legacy
Will Hodge
GRAMMYs
Sep 13, 2019 - 9:26 am

In popular culture, the cyclical adage "Everything old is new again" is often embodied in the form of the tribute album—an unwieldy vehicle of veneration whose success lies as much with the source material as with those interpreting it. A tribute album’s chances of hitting that sonic sweet spot are also enhanced when it follows the loosely structured (and hotly debated) 20-year nostalgia cycle—the idea that one’s generational fads of music, fashion, technology, books, slang and other cultural touchstones resurface after a couple decades (give or take) of mainstream dormancy. With its roster of 1990s alternative music rabble-rousers celebrating the 1970s clean-cut, musical prodigy duo The Carpenters, the left-of-center tribute album If I Were A Carpenter wonderfully delivers on these concepts in spades.    

This month marks 25 years since the release of If I Were A Carpenter, providing a nice echo of its origins, as the tribute album was initially conceived as a commemoration of the 25th anniversary of The Carpenters' debut album, Offering. On its surface, the idea of rowdy alt-rockers running bubbly Carpenters songs through cranked guitars and buzzy amplifiers might've seemed like nothing more than a tongue-in-cheek goof. As KROQ’s music director Darcy Fulmer said of the album at the time, "It shows that people who like alternative music liked dork music when they were little, too."

However, the story behind If I Were A Carpenter involves no winks or chuckles. In fact, it's downright irony-free. It was a labor of love hatched by two longtime friends, Matt Wallace and Dave Konjoyan, who bonded over their love of the exemplary music crafted by the sibling duo of Karen and Richard Carpenter. Both ended up working in the music industry—Dave as a music journalist and Matt as a record producer—and when they first started working on the idea for a Carpenters tribute album, they ended up wrangling a disparate group of alternative artists, punk bands and college-rock crooners who all seemed to share in their genuine affinity for The Carpenters' inescapably infectious pop perfection.

To salute two-and-a-half decades of the If I Were A Carpenter tribute album (as well as 50 years of The Carpenters' own musical magic), the Recording Academy conducted an oral history featuring the album's co-producers Matt Wallace and Dave Konjoyan, legendary songwriter (and Carpenters collaborator) Paul Williams, and many of the artists involved, including Matthew Sweet, Johnette Napolitano, Grant-Lee Phillips, members of The Cranberries, Cracker, Dishwalla and more.

Matt Wallace (co-producer): Dave and I met in Physical Education class in high school and became friends after we bonded over singing Carpenters songs in the locker room one day. It wasn’t the smartest thing to do at that moment in time because there was probably no quicker way to get your ass kicked in high school during the 1970s, other than to maybe sing Barry Manilow songs. Fast forward to the early '90s, Dave brought up the idea of this tribute record to me because I had produced some big records for Faith No More and The Replacements, as well as a few bands on A&M Records, which The Carpenters had been on. We pitched it to A&M and thankfully got the greenlight.

Dave Konjoyan (co-producer): I was doing some music journalism at the time and I was noticing a lot of artists were expressing appreciation for The Carpenters, especially for Karen's voice. It was artists like Chrissie Hynde, k.d. lang, Sonic Youth, Babes In Toyland and a few others. Tribute albums were also starting to really become a bigger thing, so I thought there might be enough artists interested in doing one dedicated to The Carpenters.

Matt Wallace (co-producer): The contrast of the impeccably arranged, glossy pop of The Carpenters with bands that were a little scrappier and less refined is what made it so interesting. You look at "Goodbye to Love" by American Music Club or "Superstar" by Sonic Youth or "Rainy Days And Mondays" by Cracker and you get these dark readings of the songs that feel really aligned with how Karen was singing them and how she was probably feeling at the time. Though, to flip that, some of the bands also did really well at turning in brighter versions of what The Carpenters did, like the beautiful version of "Close To You" by The Cranberries and "Top of the World" by Shonen Knife. 

Dave Konjoyan (co-producer): A&M might've been interested in us pursuing a more mainstream group of artists, but from the beginning the concept for Matt and I was always the alternative band route. A lot of bands on the record—Sonic Youth, Sheryl Crow, The Cranberries, Babes In Toyland—are ones that we really targeted right from the beginning. We got a lot of artists agreeing to it right of the bat.

Matt Wallace (co-producer): We also had a couple bands—Smashing Pumpkins, Paul Westerberg, Stone Temple Pilots—that were really on board but just didn't work out due to scheduling conflicts or various other reasons. But I'm super pleased with all of the bands who participated and how it all turned out. I mean, Sonic Youth liking The Carpenters? That was mind-blowing to most people at the time.

All throughout the 1990s, there was a seemingly constant rotation of alt-friendly tribute albums dedicated to popular '70s artists: Kiss (1994's Kiss My Ass), Led Zeppelin (1995's Encomium), John Lennon (1995's Working Class Hero) and The Clash (1999's Burning London), just to name a few. There were even a couple alt-heavy tribute albums playfully dedicated to 1970s television, including 1995's Saturday Morning: Cartoons' Greatest Hits and 1996's Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks. Released in the fall of 1994, If I Were A Carpenter was certainly on the front end of that wave, an important note that helps contextualize the album's peculiar subject matter, its assorted roster and its unquestionably raucous-yet-reverent tone.

David Lowery (Cracker): When I first heard about the opportunity of being a part of a Carpenters tribute album, I thought it was kind of odd and cool. Like, who is thinking about The Carpenters right now? Stacked up against some of the other tribute records of the time, The Carpenters seemed like a much less obvious choice and that made it more interesting to us. They were one of my guilty pleasures that weren't exactly in vogue in the early '90s.

Matthew Sweet: The Carpenters were kind of omnipresent when I was a kid. You heard them whether you were seeking them out or not. Both Karen and Richard were so talented and their catalog provided such a wealth of material for this tribute record to pull from.

Fergal Lawler (The Cranberries): I thought The Carpenters were great. They made fantastic, heartfelt songs that still sound great today. They were actually really big in Ireland. We definitely heard them on the radio all the time, especially "Close To You."

Naoko Yamano (Shonen Knife): Since I'm Japanese and can't understand their English lyrics very well, it was their sound that really reached my mind. But that was enough because their melody lines and Karen's vocals were so attractive to me. Their song "Sing" was in one of our school textbooks, so I thought that their music was only for good children. My friends liked them, though.

Johnette Napolitano (Concrete Blonde): I was so happy to be able to be a part of this record because The Carpenters absolutely owned AM radio during my junior high and high school years. Richard's certainly a talented arranger, but for me it was really all about Karen. Karen’s voice was so incredibly soulful and totally made for radio. You hear a hundred voices when you hear her sing. Plus, she could really play the drums, which is not something you saw women doing at the time.

J. R. Richards (Dishwalla): The Carpenters were cool because there was such a weird, darker tinge underneath all of the beautiful background vocals and lovely sentiments. I really liked the juxtaposition they brought to their songs.

Mark Eitzel (American Music Club): When we first got asked to be involved, I was like "Absolutely, I love The Carpenters!" They made incredible records. For all the schlock that you would hear on the radio at the time, they never offended me. Their songs were so well written, perfectly arranged, and just sung so beautifully.

Grant-Lee Phillips (Grant Lee Buffalo): For me and for so many other bands of that era, The Carpenters were the music of our childhood. The '70s were a mixed bag. It was the age of the superstar and it was gaudy. There was a strange patriotic flair juxtaposed against scandal and violence. Yet, here was this duo trying to breakthrough with some light in a very bizarre and clouded era. I vividly remember being a kid and riding around in the car with my mom singing along to The Carpenters. They were really close to me, no pun intended.     

On the combined strength of Richard's instrumental prowess and Karen's soulful three-octave contralto (as well as her complex, skilled drumming), The Carpenters released 14 studio albums and over 40 singles—many of which attained platinum-selling status and reached the top of the charts in multiple countries. Their biggest Billboard Hot 100 hit singles—"(They Long To Be) Close To You," "We’ve Only Just Begun," "Rainy Days And Mondays," "Superstar," "Top of the World," "Please Mr. Postman"—charted in the early '70s, but the sibling duo released albums, produced television specials, and remained a fixture on Top 40 radio all the way up until Karen’s untimely death in 1983 from anorexia-induced heart failure. As The Carpenters legacy has continually been reassessed over the years, it is Karen’s emotionally resonant vocals that remain the summit of their many creative talents.  

Johnette Napolitano (Concrete Blonde): Karen was really something special and she just gave everything she had. She was a fragile wick that just burned herself all the way down and didn’t say no to anything. She was almost sacrificed in a way, but out of that came some of the most beautiful music to ever be recorded. 

Paul Williams (songwriter): The wonderful thing about the way Richard produced their albums was that with everything going on in the track—instrumentation, orchestration, the background harmonies—there was never anything that threw a shadow on Karen. Her vocals were kept front and center so you could experience the emotion they carried and the elegance of her voice that was such a hybrid of melancholy, sensuality and sadness.

Grant-Lee Phillips (Grant Lee Buffalo): Karen's voice was so gorgeously unique, the way she sang in that lower register. This tribute album is interesting because Karen had died just a little over a decade before and that strange grief was still somewhat in the air. It actually gave me some pause because I didn’t want to be disrespectful in any way.

Matt Wallace (co-producer): Karen's voice was one of the most incredible instruments of pop music ever. Her tone and her control were incredible, but it was also the subtext—that anybody who has ever had any feelings of melancholy or has been down, can really connect to it. As much as Richard tried to polish and create so much gloss and sheen to the instrumentation, the emotional resonance in her voice hit so deep and would not be denied.

When it came time for the bands involved to pick which Carpenters song they were going to perform, there was surprisingly little drama. While this could be somewhat expected from an artist's catalog as deep and rich as The Carpenters, it also speaks to the varied musical tastes of the bands paying tribute. Some artists like Matthew Sweet, Grant-Lee Phillips and The Cranberries delivered performances fairly true to the originals, while other artists like 4 Non Blondes, Babes In Toyland, Bettie Serveert and Sonic Youth took decidedly broader creative liberties. Others found a contrasting middle ground between the slick pop craftsmanship of the originals and their own sonic predilections.

Paul Williams (songwriter): Songs are not written in cement. They're just a starting place to bring your own emotions and express your own feelings through your own interpretations.             

Matt Wallace (co-producer): I love that most of the bands shifted towards the brooding, melancholy side of what The Carpenters did. Richard and Karen were more than just the bright, shiny, effervescent side of what they are sometimes most remembered for. Most of the bands were pretty flexible because we asked everyone to pick two or three songs. That way we could make sure to hopefully get at least one of their picks. Some of the bigger artists like Sheryl Crow or The Cranberries might’ve been able to pick theirs a little earlier.  

David Lowery (Cracker): I knew everyone was going to want to do "Superstar," but I've always loved "Rainy Days And Mondays." I’d like to say we were musical geniuses by discovering the beauty in giving it an even more down tempo groove, but what you hear on the recording is actually a take where we’re still learning the song. Bob Rupe, who was playing bass for us then, was walking us through the chord progression really slowly as we figured everything out. Mark Linkous from Sparklehorse was sitting in with us, just listening along and throwing a couple guitar lines in here and there. I think we also tried a more upbeat, alternative take on it that didn’t work as well. So, we went back to this warm-up take, added some strings and background vocals to it a couple weeks later, and it became this weird accidental hybrid that we just loved.

Naoko Yamano (Shonen Knife): We were shown two or three songs to cover and I firmly picked "Top of the World." There was no other choice for me. I really love that song and the melody lines are perfect.

"Songs are not written in cement. They're just a starting place to bring your own emotions and express your own feelings through your own interpretations."           

Fergal Lawler (The Cranberries): We picked "Close To You" and we were delighted when they said it was still available. I remember I had just heard a cover version of Smashing Pumpkins doing Thin Lizzy's "Dancing In The Moonlight" and I really loved their slowed down version of it, so I suggested we try it that way. I remember when Dolores [O'Riordan] was recording her vocals, she didn’t want to sing the line "They sprinkled moondust in your hair" because she thought it sounded a bit spacey. She felt a bit embarrassed about it, so she wanted to just kind of mumble her way through that part.

Johnette Napolitano (Concrete Blonde): I was really hoping to get "Superstar" because I was really close with Leon Russell, who was one of the song's co-writers. I was pissed when Thurston [Moore] got it because it's a singer's song and he blows. But Marc Moreland and I had a lot of fun recording "Hurting Each Other." All the girls wore "Karen" nametags and all the guys wore "Richard" nametags. We rented concert chimes—the huge, six-foot tall brass tube kind that you hit with a hammer. That was when you could still smoke indoors, so I have this vivid memory of Marc Moreland in a cloud of smoke just banging on the concert chimes through all the guitar craziness at the end of the song. 

Matt Wallace (co-producer): I recorded Sheryl Crow doing "Solitaire" in Los Angeles because I was having to catch her between shows while she was touring in and out of Europe. I remember it took us three different studio sessions to get the exact vocals we wanted for her. For one of those sessions, she flew in from Germany, threw her bags down in her apartment, and came directly to the studio to sing. She's probably the hardest working person I've run into in this business and I’m such a fan of what she did on that somber version of "Solitaire."

Peter Visser (Bettie Serveert): We did "For All We Know" and in retrospect, I think my guitar is a bit over the top, too desperate to make a "rock song" out of it. For the ending, I thought the song could use some cowbells, so in the lobby of the studio we found an aluminum lemon squeezer, put it on a piece of rope, and beat it with a fork. I think Carol did a great job with the singing. Her voice sounds really close and warm in the verses and goes full on in the choruses. 

Carol van Dyk (Bettie Serveert): After recording all the music, we came up with the idea to have me lying flat on my back on the floor in the middle of the studio. They hung the microphone right above my face and the guys placed little tea lights around me and turned off the studio lamps to create a nice soft atmosphere. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a camera with us, so no pictures.

J. R. Richards (Dishwalla): Recording "It's Going to Take Some Time" was officially the very first thing we did after getting signed to A&M. The tribute album was already in motion, like most of the bands had already picked songs and were in the process of recording them. In fact, we actually recorded a full demo of "Close To You" to show them that we wouldn’t do a sh*tty job. When we took it to A&M to show them, we were told it had already been picked by another band. So, we took a shot at "It’s Going To Take Some Time" and tried to take it to a different rhythmic place. We speed it up quite a bit because we didn’t want it to sound too sweet. I played the original keyboard intro on a Wurlitzer right at the beginning and then we took it off into its own journey.   

Mark Eitzel (American Music Club): We just wanted to approach "Goodbye To Love" really simply with no key changes and no orchestration or anything. Just a simple band vibe. All the way up until the final mixes our producer was trying to get me to re-record my vocals because he thought Richard wasn’t excited about the idea of people recording his songs in a bastardized way. Like, Richard’s already made them perfect, so why would you want these messy rockers to spoil the perfection? Nowadays I would’ve worked my ass off to make it perfect, but back then I was just a young idiot. I think the track turned out really great though.

Grant-Lee Phillips (Grant Lee Buffalo): Our version of "We've Only Just Begun" is a little more reverent to the original because we were really struck by the musical architecture of the song. We studied how it was put together and tried to be true to it. It was a natural thing for me to interpret it by singing it a bit higher and trying to meet Karen's vocal in the middle.

Dave Konjoyan (co-producer): I remember there being such a sense of excitement about every track as they came in. From our conversations with the bands, my impression was that they were all doing it from a heartfelt place. They certainly all brought their personalities to their tracks and they all seemed to have some affinity for the music and for The Carpenters as artists.

Deep into the project, Wallace and Konjoyan ended up getting the ultimate seal of approval, as Richard Carpenter agreed to sing and play on one of the tracks. Matthew Sweet had requested Richard’s participation on his true-to-form adaptation of "Let Me Be The One" (a syrupy ballad from the quadruple-platinum Carpenters album from 1971) and somewhat surprisingly to most everyone involved, he agreed.

Matthew Sweet: It was my request to see if we could find him and get him to play on it. At the time, I had this 1970s Dodge Challenger and he had a huge car collection that was in a big building in an office park. He took me out there to see it, which was really cool. He was super nice to me and seemed really supportive of doing the track.

Matt Wallace (co-producer): From the beginning, we knew we wanted to get Richard on board, but we also knew we were limited in regards to which artists he would fit with and feel comfortable. I think he wanted to make sure he wasn't straying too far from the legacy of The Carpenters and he didn't want to do a disservice to what he and Karen had so carefully built.

Dave Konjoyan (co-producer): I was there at the studio the day Matthew and Richard recorded "Let Me Be The One" and I remember them having a great time doing it. I think Richard felt appreciated. It was a really great moment for Matt and I to get to bring these different musical worlds together on the album and it really came together in that moment in the studio.

If I Were A Carpenter was officially released on September 13, 1994. A split single between Redd Kross's "Yesterday Once More" and Sonic Youth's "Superstar" was released to radio, and the music videos of both tracks got substantial airplay on MTV. Dishwalla even got to perform "It's Going To Take Some Time" on the short-lived late-night talk show The Jon Stewart Show. Rolling Stone called the album "affectionate, almost reverent" and Entertainment Weekly had a listening party with Richard to get his thoughts, from Sonic Youth ("I love it. From the heart. It's quite haunting") to Shonen Knife ("I like the energy, but they've left out a couple of chord changes"). But what did those involved with the project think about each other's tracks?     

Grant-Lee Phillips: Reverence can come in many packages.

Matt Wallace (co-producer): Once we got all of the tracks back and heard that the arc of the record was leaning a little more somber, we knew that we wanted to start the record off with American Music Club's "Goodbye To Love." Then, Shonen Knife's "Top of the World" became the perfect follow-up track because it's so upbeat and effervescent. They beat The Carpenters at their own game on that one.

Naoko Yamano (Shonen Knife): I love Redd Kross so much and Jeff McDonald's vocals on "Yesterday Once More" are really great!

Dave Konjoyan (co-producer): I really liked what Cracker did with "Rainy Days And Mondays." It was certainly a different interpretation than the original, but it was very fitting for who they are as a band.        

Grant-Lee Phillips (Grant Lee Buffalo): I most enjoyed The Cranberries take on "Close To You" and the way Dolores delivered the lyrics in her way of bending the notes and just wrapping them around her finger.     

Paul Williams: I love David Lowery's singing on "Rainy Days And Mondays" and the way those strings roll in about midway through. Initially I thought it may have been a little tongue-in-cheek, but I love how they totally made it their own. I really believe him when he sings "What I got they used to call the blues."

J. R. Richards (Dishwalla): Shonen Knife's "Top Of The World" is just completely out there and fun. Sonic Youth's "Superstar" is also amazing. It's just so harrowing. 

Fergal Lawler (The Cranberries): I really enjoyed the Sonic Youth track. That one stood out the most to me when we listened to the whole thing.

Peter Visser (Bettie Serveert): My favorite is "Superstar" by Sonic Youth because Thurston Moore sings it so beautifully. I really liked the music video with the golden microphone as well.

Paul Williams (songwriter): The wonderful thing about listening to Thurston sing "Superstar" is that it's totally believable. That one feels so much like it's about Karen. You really get the sense of remembering her and missing her in his performance. It's just marvelous.

Matt Wallace (co-producer): At the time, the most forward-leaning track was Dishwalla's "It's Going To Take Some Time" because of that blending of loops and real drums. It feels like five years ahead of its time. They were the only band on the tribute that hadn’t already released an album but we just really liked them.

While the last 25 years has seen If I Were A Carpenter serving double duty as an authentically celebratory tribute to the legacy of The Carpenters and also a telling sonic snapshot into the unaffected, unpretentious side of '90s alternative music, the album does have one nagging (albeit trivial) piece of unfinished business: as of yet, there's no 12" LP vinyl version of the record. Although the tribute did get an original-run vinyl release as a boxset of seven 7" singles (a very nostalgically appropriate approach in itself), vinyl collectors have been clamoring for a full-size 12" LP for years, hoping for either a label-sponsored vinyl debut reissue or even a limited-run Record Store Day exclusive offering.   

Matthew Sweet: I remember they did a bunch of 7" singles but it never got the full 12" record treatment. In the '90s, you weren’t guaranteed vinyl at all. So that was kind of a special and unusually cool way to release it.  

Carol van Dyk (Bettie Serveert): A while back somebody asked us if we had a spare Carpenters tribute vinyl boxset. We had to disappoint them, but I totally understand why they wanted one, it’s such a cool thing to have as a fan.

David Lowery: When I became a thrift store loving college kid in the '80s, Carpenters records were always an interesting novelty to come across. It’d be nice to see this album get that treatment too.

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Dave Konjoyan (co-producer): That’s a little bit of a sore spot. Physically, the record's been out of print for years but I think it would be really great if they ever put out a full vinyl version. I'd really love to see it.

Matthew Sweet: To finally get a full vinyl pressing of it would be a no-brainer for something like Record Store Day. Somebody's got to make that happen! That would really bring the whole tribute full circle.