Oliver Wood, one third of The Wood Brothers trio, just dropped his new solo album, Fat Cat Silhouette, featuring nine tracks each with their own distinctive vibe. We caught up with Wood, who graciously agreed to go through and answer some questions about the album and discuss the inspiration and intent behind each piece.
1. “Light And Sweet” – What inspired you to anthropomorphize/humanize a bird, and tell this story from its point of view?
Oliver Wood: The best case scenario for me when writing a song is to just start it without a plan… just curiosity. Sometimes what that looks like is finding an image that grabs me and let my imagination play around with it. In this case it was an actual sparrow outside my window. And then I imagined a human-like story for him. Ultimately the song isn’t about the sparrow but more about human nature, the way people are judgmental, and the way people all have issues and can change.
Oliver Wood – “Light And Sweet”
2. “Whom I Adore” – Like a few of the tracks on Fat Cat Silhouette, the music and the lyrical message are totally at odds. Were you intending to consistently juxtapose these elements so decidedly on these tunes or was that just a coincidence.
Oliver Wood: Definitely not intentional. Again I prefer curiosity rather than intention. I had a seed for the lyrical idea and combined it with a fun and experimental musical collaboration with a pseudo fife and drum ensemble. This is the music and groove that came out of a fife riff by Marcus Henderson. Percussionists Jano Rix (The Wood Brothers) and Rob Crawford just started playing and it quickly came together. The song was a real group effort born in the studio. Brook Sutton added tuba and Steve Berlin added baritone sax. I guess in most cases the intention becomes trusting the process and not trying to control it. I’d rather be surprised at the result than feel like I knew what I was doing all along… if that makes sense.
Oliver Wood – “Whom I Adore”
3. “Little Worries” – The world is so full of stress right now and the subject of your third track, the smaller difficulties, seem to be falling to the wayside in the face of more constant, larger concerns. As an artist, do you ever wonder whether you should be working to alleviate and distract your audience, face these issues head on, or just write the songs you write without concerning yourself with either side of the coin?
Oliver Wood: I feel like we often write to alleviate our own issues—and our favorite songs by other artists are relatable because most of us have these issues and connect to them if they’re presented in an interesting way. In this case, “little worries” can quickly stack up and become major anxieties or depression, and personally, I’m always looking for ways to cope with those things. So maybe that was my inspiration, and hopefully a few people will relate to that and find their own relief. The image and early inspiration that grabbed me for this song was my cat sitting in the window (and later frolicking outside). He didn’t seem to have any worries at all.
Oliver Wood – “Little Worries”
4. “Grab Ahold” – We ALL want to give up sometimes. Is there any internal mantra or thought you turn to in those moments for inspiration or hope?
Oliver Wood: I have a few go-to things for those times, and in this case it’s about connection versus isolation. Oftentimes when we feel lost and want to give up we’re feeling isolated and trapped with those feelings. I’ve learned to reach out to people and make connections when I’m leaning that way (or when a friend or family member needs connection too). I should mention that my good friend Seth Walker and I wrote this together—and he’s one of those guys I call when I need to ground and connect.
5. “Yo I Surrender” – Given the melancholy vibe of some of the earlier tracks, listeners who see this song title might expect something a bit darker than the positive message of accepting the will of the universe. Was this upbeat tune written earlier than the others, later, or in response to the way the other tracks were turning out?
Oliver Wood: This was another example of just rolling the dice in the studio and seeing what happens. Jano Rix, Ted Pecchio, Steve Berlin, and I wrote and recorded the music in the studio in just a couple hours. The words started coming that same day, but were finished and recorded later. No conscious decision to be light and positive, but it was one of the last songs to be written, so it’s possible there was a subconscious urge to get fun and weird.
Oliver Wood – “Yo I Surrender”
6. “Somebody Blues” – The sense of loss, symbolic or not, in this track is palpable. Was it inspired by any one fallen friend or loved one, or just the general state of the world these days?
Oliver Wood: Ric Robertson and I wrote this one together, and I feel like we were both experiencing and feeling different kinds of losses at the time. So this collaboration was a nice way for us to process and deal with things. Turning those feelings into sound and images with a like-minded commiserator is really cathartic. Something I love about songs is the way they change and apply to different parts of your life—past and future. I recently lost my dad and I can hear this song in a new way now.
7. “Star In The Corner” – Just when the album and the listener most need a bit of uplifting energy, you have the most fun, upbeat, and hopeful track on the collection. In these days of single tune sales and playlists, curating entire albums is becoming a lost art. How much effort went into the song placement on the tracklist?
Oliver Wood: You’re so right about the lost art of curating an album. There’s a lot of pressure to “front load” the record because now we figure nobody will listen to more than the first couple songs. But you still never know who will connect with what song. The album was sequenced mostly by feel and with the help of some patient friends who took time to listen and make suggestions.
8. “Have You No Shame” – This track seems to be a timeless song of lost relationships. Was the universal nature of the song by Donnie McCormick part of its appeal to you?
Oliver Wood: The big appeal for me was Donnie McCormick himself. He was a mostly unknown hero for me and a lot of the friends I came up playing with around Atlanta. Just the memory I have of hearing him sing this song (and often playing and singing it with him) makes me love and miss him and want to keep his spirit around forever. This song became a standard for me and my friends who adored him.
Oliver Wood – “Have You No Shame”
9. “Fortune Drives The Bus” – The quirky vibe of this tune is a wonderful way to send listeners back out into the real world after such a compelling listen, and it’s the sparsest production of any of the tracks. Was this a conscious decision and, for the record, is this an actual demo or did you use a bit of studio trickery to evoke that vibe?
Oliver Wood: This one was recorded on an iPhone, sitting by the fire pit in my backyard with my wife. This was the last song recorded for the album, and I knew I wanted a completely sparse solo acoustic track to round out the collection of songs. Quite intentionally low-fi and intimate.
10. Is the sparse openness of these solo tunes, as is the case of most of The Wood Brothers material, a conscious decision by you as a songwriter, just a function of being a trio, or just a quirk of happenstance?
Oliver Wood: I guess it’s just a love of space and simplicity in the music. It’s fun to have limitations and be forced to be innovative as a trio. I also feel like the space in the music usually serves the song.
Fat Cat Silhouette, the new album from Oliver Wood, is out now on all streaming platforms and to order here. The Wood Brothers are about to embark on another leg of summer tour dates and just announced a run of shows this fall. Click here for more details and visit the band’s website for tickets.
The post Oliver Wood Talks Curiosity, Collaboration, & Inspiration Behind New Solo Album, ‘Fat Cat Silhouette’ [Interview] appeared first on L4LM.
