As a collective listening community, we seldom acknowledge the fact that the attention and imposition we offer to our favorite artists can often have a great impact on their work. Remaining humble and maintaining a healthy artistic process can seem unnatural in the spotlight. Luckily, a few artists are mature enough in their passion to sustain their particular vision throughout the circus atmosphere we tend to generate.
Sam Beam is amongst these few. As privately as he can manage, Beam lives on a quiet ranch with his wife and five daughters, the latest of which arrived only a few weeks ago. His latest and best received LP, “Kiss Each Other Clean”, pushes the instrumentation from the bedroom to the living room, filling previous sonic gaps with jazzy arrangements and welcome harmonies. The transition and growth of each effort has proven to be pleasurable for some, and jarring for the rest, but that won’t change the nature of his production.
After an understandably arduous goose chase, I caught Sam a mere fifteen minutes before a sound check for a show in London. His seemingly ever-present placidity set the tone right away, and left me with the impression that he could feel at home wherever he was given the opportunity to do what he loves, playing music.
Dailyer: You’re in the midst of some serious promotion for Iron and Wine, directly after the birth of your fifth child. What’s different about the experience this time around?
Beam: Well, now that there’s more of ‘em, it doesn’t stop at home. It gets harder and harder to leave when they’re young. I don’t wanna leave and miss them being young, but at the same time we don’t go out for very long; we only usually go out for about two weeks at a time.
Dailyer: Describe your occupation before starting to make music under the moniker “Iron and Wine”.
Beam: I’d gone to a film school for production. Sometimes I did some lighting, as an engineer. When my kids came along I started teaching as a film instructor, and I was just teaching and making music and it all kind of came together after that.
Dailyer: “Kiss Each Other Clean” showcases a full band and a brand new sound; did it feel more like a risk or a natural progression to move in this direction?
Beam: I didn’t feel like it was particularly risky. We’ve been doing that all along, and some steps are bigger than others, but it’s always a step in the right direction. Sometimes at the end of the day you may not get it. Sometimes you can sound like it’s just a big ‘noise,’ and other times it sounds like a piece of shit. You just have to kind of put your neck down and do your own work, and follow your own creative process. So we had a great time making it.
Dailyer: Many of your songs have a strong storytelling foundation. Where do you draw your lyrical inspiration? Who’s your favorite storytelling song writer?
Beam: There’s a long list of songwriters, from all over the place. For me, it may have come from an exchange, or a story somebody told me. A lot of it is just pure imagination. I like all the great story-telling songwriters, even the country singers and the R&B singers. There’s so many good writers.
Dailyer: Have you learned to play new instruments in the process of making the past few albums?
Beam: Yeah, I mean, I’ve dabbled in a few new instruments for awhile. I play a lot of keyboards and synth for stuff from almost all the records. I play around with lots of stuff that never makes it there.
Dailyer: When you first covered Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights,” did you ever expect it to be received the way it was? Do you still play it live?
Beam: No, I didn’t. Every now and then I’ll play it. Yeah, I had no idea. I just did it as a favor, then he was, of course, putting out his new record and he wanted to do a single or some B-sides. Instead of B-sides, he decided he wanted other people to cover his songs. So I met with him, it seemed nice, and the song was good. When we put it out, it just came the way it came. I never expected it.
Dailyer: How much influence did the incoming band members have on the shaping of “Kiss Each Other Clean?” Also, did any particular music/artist inspire the new sound?
Beam: The players on the record were playing a lot. You know, I’ll come in with the melody and a basic arrangement, and we’ll just jam on it and kind of push it to where we want to go. We try to come up with a couple different versions of each tune. Yeah, the people in the room make a big difference on how it turned out. As far as bands, there’s a lot. It’s like your own brand of potpourri; there’s African bands and Jamaican bands, a lot of singer-songwriter stuff from the 70’s, Elton John and the like. All that stuff comes together in a mixture.
Dailyer: What do you look forward to the most after all the touring and press has run its course?
Beam: To be honest, it kind of goes on and on. We sort of always end up touring. I’m always looking forward to the next trip. We try to be an optimistic band as far as the next songs and the next thing that we make. It’s a good experience, and it’s always good to come home.