piece by Sam Hastings • photo by Alysse Gafkjen
The Wood Brothers guitarist talks new solo record
Fresh off dates with The Wood Brothers, a band he helped co-found, Oliver Wood is taking some time to himself.
“I have been doing, you know, 99% Wood Brothers stuff,” explains Wood. “It’s really hard to find little windows to do songs from the solo records.”
Fat Cat Silhouette, Wood’s newest solo record, released in June. In light of its release, he added some dates to his trek of shows this fall. Knoxville was one of the cities included.
“I’m really glad it worked out as sort of a late notice kind of booking because I love playing Knoxville. I’m so excited to be able to come through. I’ve been coming to Knoxville for 20 years.”
The Wood Brothers played two nights at the Bijou Theatre in April 2022 and for this one, Oliver Wood comes back to Knoxville to play at Barley’s in the Old City. The contrast between the spacious stages that The Wood Brothers play and the settings of his solo performances is something Wood embraces.
“We’re [The Wood Brothers] doing larger venues. When I do these solo shows, they’re in smaller venues, and I actually really like it because a smaller venue tends to be a little more intimate.” Wood will be bringing two other musicians with him when he comes to Knoxville. “It will be a trio,” he explains.
He sees value in playing in a self-contained unit one night and then in a solo setting the next. “I like the variety,” he says about that experience. “I think it’s good for me to be exercising all those muscles playing different situations and with different people.”
Wood likes to hold onto that feeling in the studio, too.
“Ideally, as an artist of any kind, I think we’re trying to do something different each time and not repeat things too much. That’s what I was trying to do with this record.”
Fat Cat Silhouette is Wood’s second solo record. It includes a collaboration with singer Katie Pruitt, co-writing from Sean McConnell and Ric Robertson, and it was recorded with Steve Berlin from Los Lobos and Wood Brothers bandmate Jano Rix.
“It’s familiar in that regard,” Wood said about collaborating with people whom he is acquainted with. “It’s on me to get the songs up and going, but I also make it a point to collaborate with people in the studio or as writers who I really admire and who help me.”
In the end, Wood was able to create a nine-track LP where each song holds its own meaning. “In each song, [I’m] writing about something that is going on in my life or in the world. It’s emotional stuff sometimes.” He shares that, while there were no specific concepts pre-planned, the themes he was writing about at the time became clear to him afterwards.
“Oftentimes, we see the theme of an album after; we look back and say, ‘Oh, weird. I wrote several songs that used this concept,’ so I don’t think the whole album is about one thing, but I do know that I was thinking a lot about anxiety and how to fix it.”
He also wrote about connection. “I think that’s a big one. Just types of connection, the importance of connection and longing for connection. Those are themes that I feel like kept coming up in the songs and in the back of my mind.”
Like songwriting, the recording process behind a song can be just as interesting. An idea comes to you and, without acting on it then and there, that idea could slowly fade away. Wood knows that well in relation to this particular record.
Track nine, called “Fortune Drives The Bus,” was recorded on an iPhone. “It was during the winter, and we had a little fire pit in our backyard,” clarifies Wood. “A few days later, I had a full song.”
“I had a crappy little acoustic guitar and I wrote this idea on a voice memo just to remember it. It sounded so cool to me and it was windy and also you hear the crackling of the fire. A couple nights later, we [Wood and his wife] went out and sat out there again and I just recorded it. I think iPhone recordings are a little underrated. Sometimes it’s nice to do something more spontaneous and lo-fi, and that’s just what that one is. It’s not going to be better than that if I go in the studio. In fact, it might be more boring.”
Using this mindset, whether in the studio or on an iPhone, is a productive method for Wood. “That’s a technique that we do a lot in our studio, whether it’s with The Wood Brothers or anything else so there’s no pressure.”
“I’m a huge fan of capturing things that were not intended to be heard necessarily. You’re not self-conscious at all and you’re not thinking. Thinking about something is what kind of ruins it,” he explains.
“When you’re jamming, improvising or hanging out with your friends and you just turn on record and see what happens; if you can capture something in that frame of mind, you’re getting something special.”
They won’t be doing any touring together until November, but The Wood Brothers do have something special that they will be working on soon. “We’re about to get in the studio to record a new album. There’s going to be a new Wood Brothers album coming out sometime next year,” Wood says.
With all the talk surrounding his return, Wood did note one particular memory he has associated with Knoxville over the years. “I know some nice people there [in Knoxville]. In the 90s, we used to play at a cool little venue called Sassy Ann’s in my old band King Johnson; it was really cool and we used to play there every couple months and I just remember how nice everyone was.”
He continued, “I also remember that place was haunted. Doors would just close on you and you kind of got this chill like something was going on there. That ghost is still around there, I’m sure.”
Oliver Wood will be performing at Barley’s on September 19.
