A Rustic Overtones album is an auditory journey with numerous sonic side trips onto Latin, jazz, and New Wave side streets. Take a turn and you’re in the realm of heavy metal jams with hints of Red Hot Chili Peppers. Other sonic forays lead the listener into the realm of Parliament-infused funk. Just when you think you have them figured out, they hit you with a stark, personal song such as 2008’s “Letter to the President.”
RUSTIC OVERTONES, seen here in a publicity photo, will perform a sold-out show Saturday at Wolfe’s Neck Farm in Freeport. Dave Gutter, pictured at the top of the page in a contributed photo, is Rustic Overtone’s frontman, guitarist, and songwriter. He has worked with numerous artists as a lyricist, musician, and producer.
Ahead of Rustic Overtone’s sold-out appearance at Wolfe’s Neck Farm’s 21st Annual Harvest Dance Saturday in Freeport, Gutter spoke with The Times Record about Rustic’s 27-year staying power, his song writing process and working with a legend.
The Times Record: Rustic Overtones is so ubiquitous in the southern Maine music scene — I feel like in order to obtain Maine residency you must be required to attend at least one Rustic Overtones show. How do you explain the band’s staying power after all these years?
Dave Gutter: It comes down to the music. You have a whole bunch of different dudes from different backgrounds playing together. Everyone is equally excited about music every day. We’re always showing each other new music, always trying to push in a different direction to try something new.
That’s the essence of Rustic and why we’ve stayed together. We bounce ideas and inspiration off each other. I have all these other projects and done all these other things, but Rustic is really the meat and potatoes of everything that I’ve learned about music.
TR: Rustic’s genre is hard to define — is that by design or did that evolve on its own?
DG: It’s a melting pot of a bunch of different people. I came from a punk rock background — that raw, fiery energy. And then you have other guys that have extensive knowledge in arrangements that I don’t have. With every member of the band, there’s a yin and yang. Songs can go in so many different directions. I compare it to being a chef. You can be a fan of a chef or you can be a fan of a particular dish a chef makes. But if you’re a fan of the chef, you want him to expand your palette and show you something new. That’s the way Rustic has always been. Let’s take it someplace new and not feel like a cover band of ourselves.
TR: So what do you do to expand your own sonic palette?
DG: We listen to different music. Dave Noyes, our trombone player and one of the longest-standing member of Rustic Overtones, can show you something you’ve never heard before. To me, he’s the closest thing to a musicologist.
John Roots produces all our stuff in the studio and he’s always searching for weird, different sounds, different ways to use the seven pieces that we have. Sometimes it’s a song like “Letter to the President,” where most of the people in the band are not playing, and then, other times, it’s everybody all at once. But it has to get intricate to get all those voices and not have us step on each other.
TR: Break down your song writing process for me. What do you start with and how do you get to the finished product?
DG: Sometimes it starts with music — a really infectious groove that we come up with and I’ll go from there with the lyrics and a concept. I don’t like to write songs that are an ambiguous interpretation. I’m a little bit more literal. I use turn of phrase and I use metaphors, but I like it for people to understand what I’m trying to convey.
There’s a new song on the next Rustic record — we did a psychedelic Brazilian samba thing. We did the music first and I didn’t know what to go for, lyrically. Most Brazilian music I’ve been exposed to is in Portuguese. I Googled Brazil and looked at images — whether I understood them or not — I described the scenery in Rio de Janeiro.
The music and the lyrics have to be married. They can’t be random.
TR: Shifting gears — why stay in Maine? There are larger music communities in New York, Chicago, LA.
DG: It’s probably detrimental to our career to stay in Maine. But, it is a positive influence to have the seasons. I’m very much in a cycle that has been going for 20-plus years, where the winter is solitude and writing and recording. The spring and summer is when we release material and we play live. That’s why I stay in Maine. I’m very much a slave to that process. I live on the ocean in Portland. I wake up in the morning, I drink coffee and smoke and look outside and come up with ideas. I don’t think I could do that in other cities. And it’s not as expensive.
In 2001, we recorded a song with Imogen Heap who was in London. We had to snail-mail all these tapes to London and then have her send them back. The whole process took about a month. Now, I can email a song to an artist in Iceland. They can record a part, email it back to me and we mix it. I don’t want to leave (Maine). I don’t have to.
TR: How else has the internet changed the music landscape?
DG: Before 2008, music was very convoluted by the middle man, which was the record label that you needed. The label had all kinds of opinions on what your record should sound like. You look at a band like Rustic that is very focused on what it should sound like — then you have a label trying to get between you and your fans. Now that doesn’t exist as much.
Some guys in their bedroom with a YouTube channel can have 5 million fans. It’s evened the playing field. I don’t think you could leverage an artist like Britney Spears now, because it goes directly from the artist to the fans, and the fans are looking for something that is, if not extraordinary, at least original.
I like the new paradigm much better. I like going straight to the fans, and we’ve always been like that. We like talking with the fans, talking to them about music and taking their suggestions about our set.
TR: You’ve seen a lot of changes in the southern Maine music scene in the past 20 years. What’s been the biggest?
DG: I stand by our scene so hard. You can go to any major city and people are like, “Dude, the band you’re playing with tonight are the best rock band in Detroit right now.” And we’d play with them, and I’d think, “They’re like 10 bands in Portland who would blow these guys off the stage.”
Maine has always had this thing based around everybody as peers, showing each other music and trying to raise the bar. That comes first, in Maine. Making music that is going to blow the doors off your comrades.
TR: You’ve collaborated with a number of well-known artists. Who was the most rewarding to work with?
DG: The David Bowie experience was very rewarding. I’m a producer now, and that’s all from studying with Tony Visconti, when we did the ¡Viva Nueva! record (in 1999). Tony Visconti has been David Bowie’s band mate and producer. We just got to look over his shoulder and learn how he made those amazing David Bowie records. If we were eager to learn, he was eager to show us. I came out of that experience with a lot of knowledge. (Note: Bowie ended up collaborating on vocals on two tracks for ¡Viva Nueva!: “Sector Z” and “Man Without a Face.” – ED.)
I have to work hard, and there’s days when I’m just discouraged, when I wish I was at a higher level. When I get to that point, when I feel like, “I’m not a real musician,” I think, “David Bowie said I was. David Bowie thought my lyrics where good enough.” That does help. Bowie knows what’s f—ing cool. That gives me a push when I need it. He treated us as an equal. He has that same fire for learning and breaking new ground. He took us to space, lyrically. Before that, you had “Purple People Eater” in the ’50s, but no one was talking about being in space over psychedelic rock before Bowie.
“Black Star” — the last thing he did — he was still trying to take music to some black hole. That’s what all of us want. He was in it for music. The Bowie collaboration was life-changing. It was like we went from being kids to being somewhat seasoned.
TR: When can we expect the new Rustic album?
DG: When it’s done. That’s the good part about not having a label. We’re the painters that work on the picture a little every day. Sometimes we rip the canvas in half and light the whole thing on fire. We’ll put it out when we’re completely happy with it.
For more information on Rustic Overtones, including other upcoming shows, visit therusticovertones.com.
jswinconeck@timesrecord.com
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