“I just let it all puke out of me,” says the thick-accented, New York-based rock veteran Jesse Malin on his songwriting procedure for his latest release, Glitter In The Gutter (Adeline/EastWest).
“I’m constantly taking notes and jabbering into a voicemail or tape recorder. But I do tend to have little gap areas where I look back at notebooks for words, notes or ideas, or little things scrawled on the popcorn bag from the theater. Stuff like that come to mind that are later catalysts to songs.”
Self-described as an “upbeat, pop, tough, fighting kind of record,” Glitter In The Gutter finds Malin at his finest hour and his most diverse musically, even if it meant corralling a support team of A-list musicians, including Bruce Springsteen, Jakob Dylan, Chris Shiflett, Josh Homme and Ryan Adams.
“The big thread in this record is about defiance, hope, and survival, and those moments are little things that we use to get by, whether it be a movie, a dance, a kiss, a record, a song, listening to the radio, whatever you find and the kind of ammunition you have to keep going.”
We caught Malin the day before his shoot for the video for the album’s first single (and arguably its best track), “Don’t Let ‘Em Take You Down.”
When did you start getting this album together?
Two years before, I was on a label called Artemis in the States. I wrote some thirty songs; it was in a period where I did some touring and I was on the road. I did a lot of writing in hotels and places where you’re kind of transient and not comfortable in your set room and more of a spectator.
I came home and we were deciding to find a new home for a record company deal. We were playing for a few different labels, and we were given some money from a couple majors to record. So every time I got money to make demos, I’d started writing more and more songs. I ended up at five different studios and with thirty songs.
That’s opposed to The Heat; I wrote it really quickly. But this one, I’ve been home and I had time, I was playing with different musicians, and I wrote it on the electric guitar. I guess there was a period of about two years, which is a long time for me to not have a record out because to me it’s about keeping that connection to the fans.
The album was cut in a few different locations.
We pretty much knocked out the basic tracks in Millbrook, New York and then we did the overdubs, vocals, and guitars in Los Angeles. “Aftermath” was done live in a big room, so we came back to Electric Lady in New York and did that one there. Maybe we did Bruce [Springsteen’s] vocals at his house or we added backing vocals in Queens in my manager’s apartment, but for the most part it was Millbrook, New York, up in the woods, “Blair Witch” style and then L.A., North Hollywood in air-conditioned isolation.
What was it like coordinating all the guests for this record?
I had no intention to have any real guests on a record, but I guess a part of being a solo artist [is that] you could pretty much do anything and not offend your bass player – or your lead singer – since it’s me. You can pretty much do whatever you like, and I felt that these things just happened.
I was in L.A., and my only friends in L.A. are musicians. Josh (Homme) is someone I’ve known from Queens of the Stone Age, and I recently was pretty friendly with Jakob (Dylan), talking music and went to the only barbecue I went to in L.A. at his house.
With Bruce, we’d played together around my first album. I saw him a couple years later, and went to see him at a show and told him that I’d started recording. He said that if anything came up, he’d like to be a part of it. I had this song “Broken Radio” which was about my mom, a song that we weren’t sure was going to make the record, and I thought that would work good for Bruce, if he could sing on it.
I put down the vocal. I sent it to him with a letter. I didn’t hear from him for like two weeks and figured he didn’t like it. One day, the phone rang and it was Bruce and he said he would love to be on it. So we went to Jersey.
“Tomorrow Tonight” doesn’t sound like a song Josh would play on.
We were trying to do a Clash or Culture Club thing, and I wanted him to come in and fuck it up. I wanted to add a wacky element and I love his guitar playing. He’s a real musical guy and it’s cool to get him out of character.
Tell us about the documentary that you’re filming.
It’s done by JoJo Pennebaker, son of filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker (Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix), and he was following me around with a camera in my face. I lost my apartment making this record, and then we left for L.A. I got evicted, I had to pack everything up in a suitcase and put everything in storage at Long Island City, and boom, you know, went to L.A.
Thought maybe I’d move out there, decided that making a right turn on a red light wasn’t a reason to do it, and I just came back, got served, and there are actually some songs in the middle of that too. But they filmed four months and when we edit it down to this movie thing, it’s like watching the “what I did last summer,” you know? I made a record, lost my apartment, had a couple rocky relationship deals and figured it out in a piece of that time period. Hopefully someone will find it interesting.
– Interview by Waleed Rashidi, photo by Noah Kalina