ORGANIC MUSIC
Slaid Cleaves tries to ‘articulate what the listener feels’
Slaid Cleaves lets all his music come about organically.
It can be a good thing and a bad one; his last album was 2017’s “Ghost on the Car Radio.”
“I’m way behind,” he says of working on a new album. “I finished the last batch of songs to make the record about three years ago. The record came out, and I continued to write. There’s nothing that I’m ready to record.”
Cleaves, born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Maine, is based in Austin, Texas. He will perform at the ABQ BioPark Botanic Garden on Thursday, June 27.
He studied at Tufts University, in Massachusetts, where he majored in English and philosophy.
Through all that time, Cleaves says, music remained at the forefront.
“My parents were big music fans, and I grew up in the late ’60s and I was fascinated with the Beatles,” he says. “It was a big influence. I took piano lessons in grade school. By high school, I was in a cover band and eventually moved from playing keyboards to singing. I ended up kind of liking it.”
Cleaves is a do-it-yourself artist these days.
He and his wife, Karen, set up gigs for the year and handle day-to-day business.
Cleaves says his writing process has evolved a little over time.
“It’s always a struggle to get the juice flowing and the process started,” he says. “In the old days, I could write at night after my wife went to bed.” Today his setup is pretty simple. There’s a guest house on his property that he uses to write music.
“I’ve graduated from hanging out in my car and writing,” he quips.
When it’s time to go to the guesthouse, Cleaves will pack his suitcase and hole up in the space.
“Karen will bring me meals,” he says. “She has her space and does what she needs to do in the main house. I’ll be able to open myself more when writing and get those juices flowing.”
Cleaves says the material of the songs has also evolved.
“In my early years, (the writing) was mostly personal,” he says. “I grew out of that. It’s not my job to express how I feel. It’s my job to articulate what the listener feels.”
With his most recent album, “Ghost on the Car Radio,” he was trying to find another aspect of his life.
It turned out to be a life-changing album.
As Cleaves continues to tour and his catalog grows, he finds a joy in putting together shows.
“The songs I wrote in the first five years of my career, those are songs that I don’t perform anymore,” he says. “I’m not that person anymore, and to sing them would feel not genuine. When I am planning the sets, I will reach out to the fans to hear what’s on their minds.”