{"id":4592,"date":"2025-08-19T10:04:25","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T10:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/cass-mccombs-music-should-be-personal-150882\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T10:04:25","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T10:04:25","slug":"cass-mccombs-music-should-be-personal-150882","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/cass-mccombs-music-should-be-personal-150882\/","title":{"rendered":"Cass McCombs: \u201cMusic should be personal\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In the run-up to Interior Live Oak<\/strong>, his alchemically melodious new LP, Cass McCombs<\/strong>\u2019 plan was to strip the songs\u2019 arrangements to their communicative basics. \u201cWhen you do that,\u201d he says, \u201cit\u2019s amazing how swift everything moves. Choice can often be a burden so when you\u2019re working with the essentials, it can be exhilarating. If the song is written well enough it really doesn\u2019t need very much except to be understood in a very rudimentary way. Jason [Quever<\/strong>, co-producer] and I fell back into our approach from years ago, him on drums, me on guitar. Plenty of dust ripping through time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cPlenty of dust rippling through time\u2026\u201d<\/h2>\n

In the run-up to Interior Live Oak<\/strong>, his alchemically melodious new LP, Cass McCombs<\/strong>\u2019 plan was to strip the songs\u2019 arrangements to their communicative basics. \u201cWhen you do that,\u201d he says, \u201cit\u2019s amazing how swift everything moves. Choice can often be a burden so when you\u2019re working with the essentials, it can be exhilarating. If the song is written well enough it really doesn\u2019t need very much except to be understood in a very rudimentary way. Jason [Quever<\/strong>, co-producer] and I fell back into our approach from years ago, him on drums, me on guitar. Plenty of dust ripping through time.\u201d<\/p>\n

That reconnection with the past shows in the set\u2019s contemplative, at times elegiac mood: \u201cMusic should be personal, it should speak from the soul. I don\u2019t think the slickness of session musicians can hold a candle to what friends can do \u2013 that\u2019s what lasts, this personal connection.\u201d<\/p>\n

As with 2022\u2019s Heartmind<\/strong><\/a>, some of Interior Live Oak<\/strong> deals with the deaths of close friends; yet McCombs has no advice on how to tackle those experiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve lost some close people but I have no profound insight on how to grieve. Actually, I found that I have a capacity towards rage and anger and music is my outlet. I don\u2019t think music needs to be fluffy 100% of the time \u2013 sometimes it needs to be nasty, digging in the mud and muck, as long as it\u2019s real. My friend who is the subject of \u2018Priestess\u2019 was like that. She always spoke her mind and if the darkness surrounded her, she embraced it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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