A.A. Bondy

Being so close to year’s end, I’m fairly confident in making the statement that Scott Bondy’s latest album will make my Top 10 list for the year. If you’ve yet to hear When The Devil’s Loose, you’re missing one of most affecting albums to come around in a long time and it’s clear from this collection that Bondy’s one of our finest songwriters today.

So it’s interesting to hear Bondy discussing the fears and nerves around making this album – the weight of following up American Hearts, his first solo disc, and his work with former rock band, Verbena. In this SSv interview, the ‘Bama native tells us about the recording process and what it’s like to wait for the music.

SSv: Did you feel a certain comfort level in the studio this time around since you had some solo work under your belt already?

Scott Bondy: Well, I think there’s just more expectations.

SSv: Really?

Scott: Yeah, because I made the last effort and recorded it not even knowing for sure that it would come out. So I made it for the most part with only two pairs of eyes on it at all. This time people are like, ‘Okay we did this on the last one, so we need to see where we can take it to.’ It becomes more pressurized I feel like. I spend a little bit of time just trying to remind myself that people having opinions or expectations about it isn’t going to make it any better.

SSv: So does it feel the first album holds a sense of innocence?

Scott: In a few ways it does. I mean, a lot of times, I was the only person in the room while making it. So there’s a quality on that first record of being more isolated. I don’t know what the exact word is, but there’s a slowness and quietness to that first record. I also think there’s a sense of discovery on that one and to the way that record was done. A lot of those forms were new to me at the time, so there’s that aspect that made it exciting as well.

SSv: What moves you now that didn’t move you back then?

Scott: I don’t know. I was just waiting for things to sound right and feel right on this one. I heard Tom Petty say this one time and he was dead right about it. He said that sometimes you pick your guitar up and play a C chord and it just sounds like nothing. Then other days you pick it up and it’s like, ‘Wow, a fuckin’ C chord.’ [Laughs] You know? That’s just the way it works.

SSv: How many of those days did you have for the new release? Did it feel inspired most of the time?

Scott: I wrote way more songs and worked way harder making this record than I did last time. Last time I had a lot of front work that was done over the years where all of this sudden this thing fell on me eventually. This time you had to go in and work and it would be boring as shit for an hour and a half and then for 10 minutes, something really great would happen and you had to be ready for those 10 minutes.

SSv: When you have to work harder, what does that mean? Why was it more difficult?

Scott: Like I said, the last record was something that I’d saved up over time. It was this seven-year locust cycle or something, you know? All of a sudden they just come out of the ground and they’re everywhere. This time, I just had to push to be in that spot longer in order to catch the same things. It’s like fishing in the morning and you catch 20 and other times you fish all day without getting many bites at all.

SSv: Do you feel you’ve learned some lessons when mining for the material?

Scott: Yeah, I have all of these stupid metaphors that I use. [Laughs] But you have to wait on the train in order to catch the train. That’s really the only thing that I know. As long as I constantly change at least one factor – whether that’s instruments, environment, all of that stuff – to get back to the thing that started it in the first place, which was just being excited about the music.

SSv: Yeah, that’s what I was wondering. Various artists have different ideas of waiting and how that works.

Scott: Yeah, while I’m waiting I’m just playing an instrument generally.

SSv: Even if you’re not feeling like it?

Scott: Yeah, pretty much. It’s never a question of whether I feel like it or not usually. I’m not forcing myself to write something. I’m just getting up in the morning and go to play the piano and just see what happens. And if I don’t feel like anything’s good happening, then I just don’t do it. You just walk away from it a bit and it’s still there when you come back. Some days you can go for 8 hours and other days you just go 10 minutes.

SSv: Do you see some unifying themes lyrically between both records?

Scott: I think this one is right on. The last one is a little didactic. I mean, you can find religious themes on the last record, but there’s not any on this record.

SSv: Was that purposeful to leave that off?

Scott: [Pause] I try pretty hard to affect any kind of change in what I’m doing. I don’t know if I was or not. I don’t remember writing anything that was overtly religious and then going back and then crossing it out.

SSv: That’s just an interesting statement referencing an album titled When The Devil’s Loose.

Scott: Well, I learned that on the last record. First, people don’t realize that some of the songs could be character driven. Or on the other hand, they think that just because you sing about something means that you are something. And also, in the South, people talk about religious stuff all the time and that doesn’t necessarily make you religious. The devil, I don’t even think I’m  talking about the fucking devil. That’s just an expression to me. I mean, Jesus H. Christ. That’s what I should have called the record. Jesus H. Christ. [Laughs]

SSv: Then you’d get endless questions about what the ‘H’ stands for. [Laughs]

Scott: Harold.