Tedeschi Trucks Band- Still Making A Joyful Noise
by Matteo Bossi
For some reason we already felt it, back in 2011, while listening to “Revelator”, the very first Tedeschi Trucks studio album, that this band was bound to be different. And time rolled by only strengthening that feeling, on every step of the way. Their journey is firmly anchored by respect, sharing, trust in the higher power of music, like the band means something more the the sum of its parts. Derek and Susan have stirred the TTB ship through countless concerts, six studio albums, a couple of great Live ones, plus the landmark “Layla Revisited” and “Mad Dogs Revisited”, both sonic (and visual, for latter) snapshots of memorable nights at Lock’n Festival. Simply put, this band is unlike any other on the scene and they have become a reference for many others; “Future Soul”(Fantasy Records), the upcoming record is yet another bright chapter in the longer book they keep on writing. We had the chance to talk about that with Derek Trucks, just ahead a very busy schedule, the launching of the album, the annual run of shows at the Beacon, a long established tradition, and the release of “The Garden Party” a documentary filmed during their sold out debut in 2023 at another historic New York venue, Madison Square Garden.
“This record is certainly different, When we did I Am The Moon it was kind of the changing of the guards of the band, it was the first record with Gabe (Dixon), Isaac (Eady) and Brandon (Boone), so the rhythm section had pretty drastically changed and we lost Kofi…and we were in the middle of a global pandemic. It was a heavy time all the way around for everybody. It was still a fun record to make, there was a lot of joy in it, but a heavier thing from top to bottom. And then when the world opened back up we hit the road really hard with this band, trying to keep it together and make it up for lost time, which is impossible…but we toured harder than we had in many years. So we didn’t have a chance to start writing and thinking about a record until this go round. And when we did, we realized we had a lot, this band is well oiled machine!
And we learned a lot about each other musically, in a way we’re a completely different band than we were when we recorded I Am The Moon. Which is great, there’s a beauty in that. This is a much more confident band. The new guys knew their roles and they knew it was theirs. They knew I could do my thing but I don’t think they were thinking about two worlds at that point. And many times, since we had written all these tunes, everybody rolled in with a lot of fresh ideas. This was a really fun record to make. I don’t wanna say it was easy, but everyone was intently focused, there was a lot of energy put into it, the songs and the performances came quickly…it felt right. I enjoyed the whole process.”
– The new album
Like every recording since “Already Free” (the last studio album by the Derek Trucks Band), “Future Soul” was recorded in their own Swamp Raga studio, which went through a recent renovation. “We doubled the footprint in the studio. The playing room before was pretty big but the control room was just tiny…and we have this 14 foot lead console from the Seventies in there. You can get two or three other people in the room and we have a big band, so it wasn’t ideal for that. Maybe it was in the early years because you don’t want too many cooks in the kitchen! But now we trust everybody and so the control room was an addition, it sound incredible, an amazing listening room. This was the first project we have done in here and it felt really good.”
Tedeschi Trucks Band
– A new producer
Another significant addition is Mike Elizondo who came on board as a co-producer. It was maybe the first time in years that somebody non in the inner circle of the band was involved in the making of one of their records. Elizondo’s resume includes hundreds of collaborations both as a producer and sessionman with artists as diverse as Dr.Dre, Ry Cooder, Mavis Staples, Gary Clark Jr, Sheryl Crow, Eli “Paperboy” Reed, Lake Street Dive and many more.
“It was awesome. We felt it was time to maybe shake it up…have an outside voice listening, just kind of chiming in. Jim Scott did a couple of our records but he was very much en extension of the band. “says Derek, right away. “Mike Elizondo came in and we had been circling each other for maybe twenty or twenty five years, we had met each other and talked about working together, then life happens and you forget about things…but we ran into him again and we realized a lot of people in the band were fans of his work, either as a bass player or producer, or all the things he had done. He really seemed like the right guy.
I talked to my buddy Doyle Bramhall and he said nothing but great things about him. I think Susan ran into Sheryl Crow somewhere and she was – I heard you might be working with Mike, he’s the best, you gotta do it!-. Everyone that knew him was singing his praises. So we met and we could feel immediately like this would be a good thing. It’s rare with this band to have someone producing who is as good as a musician as anybody in the band. Or better, he can hear it all and he has great ideas. His engineer came over working with our engineer, Bobby Tis. And really quickly they had unique sonic things going on, like for the drums…and when you hear those things in your headphones it makes you play a little bit differently. It gave the band new ground to explore together, in real time. No one had worked with him before, so we were all on the same boat, which I think is a nice thing.”
Elizondo being a musician himself was probably helpful in this process and Derek’s words sounds as further confrimation. “Yes, everyone respected him enough that if he had an idea they would try it without any reservation before they made up their mind about it. Everybody went into it cleared head and nine times out of ten when he would bring an arrangement idea we would try it and everybody was -Oh, yeah, that was better, let’s do that. It was fun having somebody contribute something that was not necessarily a thing we would have come up with, but it felt natural and it felt comfortable. Something we can all believe in and it was super efficient.
One of the things I enjoyed about that is sometimes you work with producers that maybe are not musicians so they ask you to try something that’s kind of vague…and you spend a lot of times trying to figure out what that is. With Mike he would say- this is what I’m looking for. He would give you very specific answers. Everyone could understand that so we would get that in the first or second take because the mission was clear. A lot of the takes on the record were very early in the game. I always feel it is better, the first two or three times you set up and track a tune there is usually the best energy and the best ideas”.
Derek and Susan
We suspected, as it happened in previous projects, the band had recorded more songs than the ones that actually ended up on the final cut. “This one was tough, we ended up recording seventeen songs and on the record we have eleven. We wanted to make sure to sort every song through the finish line before we sequenced what was going to be on the record and what wasn’t. I think we have six songs EP that will probably come out, I don’t know when, possibly not long after the record. It really came down to this, there’s a few songs that we knew would be the heart of the record, Future Soul being one of them and then sequencing the rest of the record around them. Not the best eleven but the ones that would make the record feel like one piece. We sequenced both at the same time, the EP is kind of a stand alone record. There were a lot of good songs, it was hard to figure out what would make it. The outtakaes are pretty exceptional. I mean some of my favorite moments somehow didn’t make the record, that’s the way it went, but that’s a good problem”.
– A joyful noise
The vibe of the album is certainly different compared to “I Am The Moon”, more upbeat, maybe it is a reflection of these darker days, as if, to quote Alice Walker, “hard times require furious dancing” and even a band like Tedeschi Trucks would consciously or not, work on something uplifting to counterbalance the bleakness out there. And Derek seems to agree with that. “ Totally, I think it’s so true. And that’s exactly what our band and this record is all about. It’s an insane time to be alive, the world is a mess right now. For us, I think we realized our role is to bring a little bit of joy and try to dig in. Not bury our head in the sand, but point things out while not preaching people, bring a little happiness, a little relief. I think that’s music’s role a lot of times.
I know in the Sixties music used to point out the problems, but I don’t think you need right now, it’s all pretty obvious! You know, I think every one knows what the score is, everyone is just trying to survive the best they can…part of our duty is to outlast the madness right now. I also think about the biblical quote of Sun Ra about making “a joyful noise”. Yet at the same time you are being self-reflective and a little furious about it. A song like Future Soul is tongue in cheek but it’s pointing out… whatever happens I hope your future got soul in it. A simple message but with a lot of meaning. Mike’s (Mattison) writing is like that, it’s under the surface, it looks simple but there’s a lot more. And I love the record for that, when I put it on it takes me to a lot of places, and when it’s over I feel a little glimmer of hope. Sometimes it’s all you need, you see the light break through a little bit.”
When we ask him to ponder about the ongoing journey of the band it’s no wonder his answer is one of wisdom and wit. “I think the younger guys have revitalized the band and keeping it fresh…just last week I was thinking about this quite a bit, because we haven’t had this time off in a while and we’re all about to get back together. I don’t often pull the winds back and think back at the big picture in our career but I was thinking about this band, I was thinking about when I joined The Allman Brothers and I was a little bit younger than some of the guys in the band. I think my uncle and Gregg and those guys were about between me and Sue’s age! So I’m thinking this band is a little bit of an institution at this point and it feels good. I remember when I joined The Allman Brothers to feel their energy, their excitement…this band hasn’t been around as long as they have but you start to feel these things, it starts to mean something a bit differently.
You do realize that it becomes bigger than the parts and it’s an honor to be a part of it. I think it’s exciting to put records out and this is probably our best from top to bottom. I feel the songwriters in the band, Gabe, Mike and Falcon and everybody keep stepping up their games.” It might even be considered a responsibility to keep up that level of commitment and artistry, but it is a thing that Derek and the band had set for themselves very early on.“Yes, I think we’ve always felt that, even when it wasn’t true! Even at the beginning when we were playing for thirty people we felt we needed to keep it up to a certain standard. We have really high standards ourselves when we have a bad night we are more furious about it than anyone else. So I don’t think that changed much, we naturally do that. If anything, I think it gave us a certain sense of peace that we were able to maintain that level of musicianship and inspiration. I feel very lucky with this band.
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