{"id":16431,"date":"2019-06-04T05:30:46","date_gmt":"2019-06-04T09:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=16431"},"modified":"2019-07-02T16:54:53","modified_gmt":"2019-07-02T20:54:53","slug":"what-is-drunken-prayer-leader-morgan-geer-is-open-to-suggestions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2019\/06\/04\/what-is-drunken-prayer-leader-morgan-geer-is-open-to-suggestions\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Drunken Prayer? Leader Morgan Geer is Open to Suggestions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"With one foot in honky-tonk and the other in straight-ahead rock \u2018n\u2019 roll, Morgan Geer\u2019s Drunken Prayer is Americana for people who don\u2019t like Americana, rock for those who don\u2019t mind a bit of singer-songwriter introspection. But there\u2019s music more to the man who writes the songs than simply penning crying-in-your-beer laments. Cordelia Elsewhere<\/i>, the latest album from Drunken Prayer, may well be one of 2019\u2019s most impressive musical releases. I chatted recently with Geer, who splits his time between Asheville, North Carolina and Portland, Oregon; he\u2019s a noted part of both cities\u2019 music scenes.<\/p>\n

Because you often build songs out of bits and pieces of music and lyrics, you\u2019ve described your songwriting process as collaborating with yourself. How does that work?<\/b><\/p>\n

It\u2019s almost like I\u2019m putting on another hat and bringing that guy to the table: \u201cWell, I\u2019ve got a bridge to this song. Do you have anything I can use it for?\u201d There are a lot of interesting, unintended consequences from that; it\u2019s a lot like collaborating, because it will come from two different head spaces. I\u2019ll put them together and it\u2019s like, \u201cYou know what? I\u2019ll be damned. I wouldn\u2019t have written this this way if I had set off to finish the song today!\u201d There\u2019s a lot of magic in that kind of serendipity. When I\u2019m needing a chorus, it\u2019s like, \u201cWell, I have<\/i> a chorus. We\u2019ll see how that works.\u201d <\/p>\n

So you don\u2019t actually collaborate with other songwriters \u2026 ?<\/b><\/p>\n

I would love to collaborate with someone. I just never have, really. Of course I collaborate whenever I have a band,; that\u2019s a type of collaboration. But as far as really writing a song, I don\u2019t have any that are me writing with someone else. I would welcome that in a heartbeat. I\u2019m a huge Beatles fan, like lots of people, and what always interested me was how one would have three-quarters of a song finished, and then someone else would come in. \u201cWell, I\u2019ve got this part that goes \u2018Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head.\u2019\u201d If you look at it, it\u2019s like, \u201cHow does this fit in \u2018A Day in the Life\u2019?\u201d But you can\u2019t imagine the song without that part now, even though it\u2019s completely different. It adds a dimension to that song that puts the listener into a kind of cinematic frame of mind. I love that kind of stuff.<\/p>\n

What led you to have Mitch Easter do the final mix for <\/b>Cordelia Elsewhere<\/b><\/i>?<\/b><\/p>\n

The songs on this album were so strong that I figured, \u201cIf not now, when?\u201d It was a real roll of the dice getting anyone else to do it besides me; I\u2019ve always mixed my own records. Why am I going to pay someone for something that, technically, I can do? <\/p>\n

You learn a lot when you go and you work with someone like him. I wanted someone who had no history with me or my music, who was just coming into it cold, and whose ears have already been vetted. He\u2019s already worked with plenty of people that I trust. <\/p>\n

I really liked this collection of songs so much that I wanted to treat them with kid gloves, and I didn\u2019t want to let any of my baggage get in the way of having a great sounding record. They\u2019re all fairly accessible songs, too; there\u2019s nothing particularly weird. There\u2019s no song over 5 minutes. Most of them are between 2 and 3\u00bd, like they\u2019re supposed to be on a pop record. Which is also a new thing for me. <\/p>\n

So I had this collection of really, really hot songs that I liked, and I was working with Brian Landrum \u2013 he recorded this stuff in his one-room studio. He can get the sounds in a single room, and he\u2019d worked with Mitch Easter, North Carolina. So Mitch was Brian\u2019s suggestion, and since he had already worked with him, he knew Mitch knew how to deliver what he needed in the most efficient way possible. And Mitch\u2019s studio in Kernersville is right outside of Winston-Salem, where my mom and stepdad live. <\/p>\n

Much of this record is just clicking and working out. There are things I worry about and brood over, but with Cordelia Elsewhere<\/i>, everything so far has been easy. <\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t hurt from a publicity stance that people know who Mitch Easter is, but that\u2019s not the reason I got him to do it. He was a pleasure to work with; just a really lovely person. I had to make sure not just to dominate the conversation. \u201cOkay, I can\u2019t just sit here and talk to you the whole time, as much as I want to.\u201d Because he\u2019s been a real eyewitness to rock and roll history.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re writing, how important is it to you to engage in wordplay?<\/b><\/p>\n

It\u2019s mostly<\/i> wordplay, honestly. Then, out of that, you\u2019ll get some kind of other meaning. Which to me, is the exciting part of songwriting. Because most of the time, when I\u2019m writing, I\u2019m going for what syllable works best, which one has consonants I\u2019m looking for, and then I\u2019ll find words that kind of match that. <\/p>\n

So, maybe I need something that has an \u201cooh\u201d sound and then the letter P or letter C just because it fits better with the rhythm and the cadence. Then, \u201cOkay, that word fits well with the rest of the words that are in there that are kind of placeholders for the syllables,\u201d and out of that, you\u2019ll find yourself with some kind of meaning. I think the human brain wants to find that connection in the puzzle, whether the intention was there or not. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve got people in my life whom I often use as muses. I often go back to first loves and that kind of thing, because those feelings are always there. Oftentimes, I\u2019ll change the gender to where it\u2019s not just about me, because that goes back to the fact that I want people to take these songs as personally as they want to. If they know it\u2019s about me or they know it\u2019s about someone else, it\u2019s a little bit harder. Like, if I\u2019m singing about Teddy Roosevelt, it\u2019s hard to make someone cry that way.<\/p>\n

With regard to music, what\u2019s the best advice you ever got?<\/b><\/p>\n

It\u2019s funny; I\u2019ve just been thinking about this. Maybe it\u2019s the best and<\/i> the worst \u2026 you hear it a lot: \u201cNever give up.\u201d <\/p>\n

I always love musicians\u2019 biographies, whether I like their music or not. I think they\u2019re fascinating. And across the board, people will say, \u201cJust don\u2019t give up. Don\u2019t stop doing it.\u201d And it works for me because I\u2019ve kind of engineered my life where there\u2019s nothing else to go to. I\u2019ve already sacrificed everything. I\u2019m not going to law school. <\/p>\n

But I wonder if that\u2019s really great advice for people. Somewhere, someone is going to have that on their tombstone, \u201cDon\u2019t give up. I never did.\u201d I don\u2019t know. Maybe for that guy it would have been okay. But I think that\u2019s dangerous advice.<\/p>\n

In this download era \u2013 a time that some people characterize as \u201cpost-album\u201d \u2013 where do you see your music fitting on the musical landscape?<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure. I only think about it when I\u2019m listening randomly in the van or something. It\u2019s like, \u201cWell, I fit in here.\u201d I don\u2019t necessarily fit into traditional outlaw or Americana or anything. I guess Americana would be closer. I\u2019m open to suggestions!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With one foot in honky-tonk and the other in straight-ahead rock \u2018n\u2019 roll, Morgan Geer\u2019s Drunken Prayer is Americana for people who don\u2019t like Americana, rock for those who don\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16432,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,41,49,62],"tags":[725,3777],"class_list":["post-16431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alt-country","category-americana","category-interview","category-new-release","category-rawk","tag-drunken-prayer","tag-morgan-geer","cat-4-id","cat-6-id","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16431"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17109,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16431\/revisions\/17109"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}