After he graduated last May, Dan Sheron ’10 packed up and left the States to spend some time in Russia. He ended up writing a set of songs that would become the forthcoming album October’s Road, performed by a newly-formed group they dubbed Balto. We talked to him about writing music in Russia, recording an album with friends and the genre he’s calling “TransSiberian Americana.”
MC: Could you start out by talking about the origins of the album? How did you find yourself in Russia?
Well, I moved to Russia after I graduated for a number of reasons, the main one becomes pretty apparent when you start the record so I won’t go into it. After a long dry spell I suddenly found myself writing a lot of music and, surprisingly, feeling pretty good about it. I went through a couple jobs — I had short stints as a copy-editor for the Moscow Times and as a generic “sales consultant” before my life really fell apart and I realized I needed to come home. But I had a lot on my mind and wasn’t quite done yet, so I bought a train ticket and went to Siberia with my guitar and one change of socks. I was constantly having my mind blown by the people I was running across, and all the while writing down a lot of what was happening in notes and songs.
MC: So how did the “concept” for the record emerge?
By the time I made it back to Moscow a month later, I had most of what became the record written, and what I realized was that it really followed a story — more of what I guess is called a song cycle. I guess it’s a terrific act of narcissism to be like, “This is my story,” so I hope it managed to reach something concrete, at least amongst my friends’ own experiences, and at some point it really did take on a life of its own. Without going too far into it, it’s about finding a kind of love that is impossible to contain, that is all-consuming, and what happens when you surrender to it — perhaps self-realization, but also danger and harm to yourself and those around you.
When I got back to New York, I started recording demos with the help of Charlie [Freundlich ’10] and John [Glouchevich ’10.5], and my half-nephew (easier to just say brother) Andrew [Sheron, Berklee ’10], but was really dissatisfied with how piecemeal the whole thing was. I figured that the way to unify the record was to use a constant instrumentation, play only with men that I trusted with my life (who understood the place where these songs came from), and to record the thing in a proper studio in a single day. With almost no rehearsal, I went with Charlie (Double Bass), John (Banjo),
Philippe [Bronchtein ’10] (Piano, Accordion), Andrew (Mandolin) and Jake [Nussbaum, Wesleyan ’10] (drums) to a studio in Brooklyn, and we did all 10 songs live in one day. I did some overdubbing in Middlebury, but the whole record is pretty much a live performance, including almost all of the vocals. What was so incredible is the voice that everybody brought to the record, and in the process created a piece of music that was totally different from its original conception, but completely in step with what I thought it all meant.
Andrew produced the damn thing — besides being an unreal multi-instrumentalist and my flesh and blood, he’s got a great, discerning ear, a great sensibility and the technical knowledge that I’d be lost without. In the early stages I bounced ideas off of him and he gave me really honest answers, tightened the songs up; and when all was said and done he was hearing stuff in the different takes that was lost on me, doing really subtle work to make the thing presentable.
MC: How did you come up with that genre tag, “TransSiberian Americana?” It’s clever.
I called the sound “TransSiberian Americana” because the songs all have a pretty traditional string band/alt. country instrumentation, but are sort of twisted, I think because of the themes that ended up in the lyrics and melodies while I was out in Russia.
I feel like the genre got created accidentally — we threw everyone into a room together with almost no rehearsal, and everyone understood each other so well (not to mention are great players all), that each song assembled itself naturally, and after about four takes we’d be in a completely new place with it — and these formerly guitar-driven songs ate the guitar alive and became so much more than that. I came to the table with a lot of really moody, dark songs that follow this story arc of going nuts and being essentially alone in it — with all the associated come-ups and come-downs, but when five other guys weighed in, added their voices, the highs got higher and the lows more devastating. The core instrumentation is acoustic guitar, mandolin, banjo, upright bass, piano/rhodes and drums, which gives a great, full sound with a lot of texture. There’s a lot of flexibility in that configuration of instruments — you can have a really traditional sound or something super modern depending on how you play them.
MC: You mentioned that the producer for the Felice Brothers, a group with a pretty devoted following, had mixed the album. How did that wind up happening?
After the recording sessions we needed someone to mix the thing and I started looking around for someone who really knew how to do folk music with the sort of gritty honesty that we were hoping to achieve. I had been listening to a lot of the Felice Brothers, and figured, “hey, they’re pretty local, I wonder who their mix engineer is.” The answer was a Paul-Bunyan-like dude named Jeremy Backofen. Bright blue cow and all. Kind of reminded me of what Martin Box [’10.5] is going to look like in about 10 years. Turns out, he’s their engineer, producer, occasional drummer, and runs a full-scale recording studio out of an abandoned high school in upstate New York. I sent him some demos and gave him the rundown of the project, and after a couple calls and emails it looked like we’d found our man. And that was it — having his ear on these songs was absolutely essential — he’d have ideas for subtleties like, “what if we pull the bottom end out for a verse so you get the full underside of the banjo, mandolin and guitar?” A lot of little things that made... the whole thing so much stronger. I had a great couple days up in the high school hanging out and seeing him work; he’s king of the 13-hour, marathon mixing sessions.
MC: What’s your musical resumé, so to speak; have you ever recorded a record like this? And how did the Balto group come together — other than most of you being Midd albums and close friends?
I was always in one band or another, from early high school onward; a lot of punk rock, post-rock, alternative. Since the very beginning of freshman year I’ve been in groups with Charlie. Our longest lived project was The Dead Jettsons with Charlie Henschen ’10 on drums. We released an EP of original material called What Future? in our sophomore year. It’s still on iTunes.
The roots of the Balto group is in a group that used to gather outside the library and play for hours. It was usually me, John, Charlie and Eamon Fogarty [’11] with friends, and we called ourselves “the assholes outside the library.” Played a lot of Neil [Young], Stones, Beatles, Dylan traditonals — annoyed a lot of people, may or may not have ended up in the calendar. Charlie and I also played with the Scrambled Legs Jazz group.
MC: Finally, what are your plans for promoting/releasing/distributing this album? Will there be shows in the future? Perhaps one at Middlebury?
We played our first shows in February and have several more in the next few weeks. We’re playing at Bar 4 in Brooklyn on Feb. 18, Cafe Vivaldi in Manhattan on Feb. 26, and Pete’s Candy Store on March 3. I’d like to play in Middlebury in the spring, but don’t have anything in the books yet. As far as promoting the record, I really haven’t thought about where we should take this — I thought it would detract from the process, so I was afraid to bring up the subject. We’re going to make the album available online immediately. But really, at this point all we hope is that people hear the record and they play it for their friends, that we can play some good shows, and that maybe we can get enough momentum to go on tour.
The album was pre-released online on Wednesday, February 16th. Sheron shared an almost-done version of the album with me and I recommend checking it out. The digital download will be available through Bandcamp if you visit www.baltoamerica.com.
Spotlight On...Dan Sheron '10
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