Caffeine and Chords: The Brothers Comatose Spill the Beans
From the Country Fried Rock archives in 2012:
Ben Morrison of Brothers Comatose dives into the vibrant world of creativity and music in this laid-back chat on Country Fried Rock. The conversation kicks off with a breezy exploration of his roots in music, growing up in a household filled with jamming parents and a brother who keeps the rhythm alive with his banjo skills. They reminisce about those early days of acoustic living room concerts, where classic rock legends like Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones were their guiding stars, before shifting gears to discuss how they’ve evolved as a band into a unique blend of genres that keeps audiences on their toes. Ben shares the nitty-gritty of their recording process, emphasizing the importance of capturing the raw energy of live performances and the joy of collaborating with fellow artists, including a heartwarming story about discovering Nikki Bloom and the Gramblers at a festival. With some witty banter sprinkled throughout, they keep the vibe fun and relatable, making it clear that while the road to success can be rocky, it's all about enjoying the ride and creating music that resonates.
Takeaways
- Ben Morrison of Brothers Comatose reminisces about growing up surrounded by music, thanks to his musician parents and lively music parties at home, which sparked his passion for playing.
- The band evolved from jamming in their living room to performing live, booking gigs, and developing their unique sound through collaborative songwriting.
- Morrison highlights the importance of live performance preparation, especially for a string band, to capture energy and engagement during shows without a drummer.
- Festival performances present unique challenges for string bands, requiring them to impress new audiences who are often sitting in lawn chairs, making energy and effort crucial to winning over crowds.
- Brothers Comatose embraces a variety of musical influences, blending traditional string band sounds with modern genres to create a more diverse and exciting live experience.
- The band's recording process has shifted to a more collaborative approach, allowing members to contribute to the songwriting and arrangement of new tunes before hitting the studio.
Mentioned in this Episode
- Brothers Comatose
- Weezer
- Led Zeppelin
- The Rolling Stones
- The Kinks
- California Honey Drops
- Nikki Bloom and the Gramblers
- iTunes
- Nucci's Space
- Lily Pad productions
- Full Tones
- Steve Soto in the Twisted Hearts
Recommended If You Like
Country Fried Rock, Ben Morrison interview, Brothers Comatose, country rock music, musician creativity, acoustic arrangements, live music performance, music inspiration, songwriting process, festival performances, San Francisco music scene, string band music, music collaboration, influences in music, coffee and music, music industry insights, recording process, band dynamics, music festivals, Americana music
Mentioned in this episode:
Don't Click Those Old Links!
These podcast episodes are from 2009-2020. Links are probably dead. Half these places do not exist any more.
Transcript
Welcome to Country Fried Rock, where we talk with musicians to find out what inspires their creativity.
Speaker A:Country Fried rock music uncovered.
Speaker A:My guest today on Country Fried Rock is Ben Morrison of the band Brothers Comatose.
Speaker A:Welcome.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:Thanks for having me.
Speaker A:Appreciate you being with us.
Speaker A:Is it early for rock and roll hours?
Speaker B:A little bit.
Speaker B:I am drinking my first cup of coffee, though, already, so I'm good to go.
Speaker A:Are you a coffee person?
Speaker B:I am a major coffee person.
Speaker B:I drink lots of it, speaking my language, perhaps unhealthy amounts, but whatever.
Speaker B:There are worse drugs out there than caffeine, that's for sure.
Speaker A:For sure.
Speaker A:So how'd you get into playing music originally?
Speaker B:Well, my parents are musicians, actually.
Speaker B:My brother's in the band also.
Speaker B:He plays banjo and sings a little bit.
Speaker B:When we were growing up, parents were in bands and they would rehearse around the house, and they kind of had these music parties every once in a while, like living room music parties where they'd invite all their musician friends over and everybody would just pass around songs and play songs, and we would just sit there and haw.
Speaker B:From, like, an early age.
Speaker B:Eventually, you know, we kind of started playing guitar and, like, singing a little bit here and there, just shyly, I guess, like around these, like, major awesome players around town.
Speaker B:Eventually they started letting us fit in with them and play along all the songs.
Speaker B:So I guess that's kind of where it all got started.
Speaker A:What kind of stuff were y' all playing for your.
Speaker A:Yourselves when you were sitting in early on?
Speaker B:We were like, way in the classic rock at the time, like Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones and the Kinks.
Speaker B:We still are.
Speaker B:We would play, like, a lot of those songs, and then, you know, some of the stuff, you know, when we were a kid that was, like, coming out on the radio or whatever, like Weezer or something like that, play those kind of tunes, you know.
Speaker B:Everybody was like a willing participant, would play along with whatever we would go for.
Speaker B:It was pretty cool.
Speaker A:So you had your own acoustic arrangements of these?
Speaker B:Yeah, basically kind of figure out the chords and go for it.
Speaker A:And so at what point did you all expand into choosing to play music that you wanted to play, not just, like within the realm of your home?
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker B:I had been in a couple other bands, like some rock bands, and my brother and I, you know, we kind of always just played music, wrote some songs, and eventually, you know, we kind of teamed up with a friend of ours who played mandolin, and then asked a really good friend of ours who plays bass who's now in the band.
Speaker B:And he would jump in and play some tunes with us.
Speaker B:And he was into it.
Speaker B:He was in a couple bands as well.
Speaker B:And you know, they were kind of like petering off and it's kind of like looking for something new.
Speaker B:And this was totally different than other stuff that he had done.
Speaker B:And he was into it.
Speaker B:And so we recorded a demo, just a super basic demo, like four songs or at least like badly recorded.
Speaker B:And like our Friend's Garage, which was pretty fun.
Speaker B:But, you know, eventually we just started booking some gigs around San Francisco and it kept going from there.
Speaker B:We just played as much as we possibly could.
Speaker B:And then somewhere along the way we picked up Fiddler.
Speaker B:And that's kind of how it all came together.
Speaker A:No punk stage.
Speaker B:Our bass player, he was in like a punk band for a while.
Speaker B:Like I was in like a couple like heavier rock bands.
Speaker B:He was in a punk band.
Speaker B:So that's kind of where that comes from.
Speaker B:So yeah, we all played in completely different bands for a while there.
Speaker B:Never in a punk band, but, you know, I appreciate that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:Well, the only reason I ask is I don't think we've had a string band of any sort yet that did not have someone with a punk past.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's pretty funny.
Speaker B:Like it's kind of amazing like how that's all happening.
Speaker B:Like there are a lot of people that.
Speaker B:That were in those heavier bands.
Speaker B:And I don't know what the gave it up for.
Speaker B:Maybe just the acoustic instruments are easier to carry around.
Speaker B:No need for drums or huge amps or anything like that.
Speaker B:You can still kind of get the same energy behind it.
Speaker A:That's the thing that connects.
Speaker A:It is the energy behind the music more than anything.
Speaker B:Hey, this is Ben Morrison from the Brothers Comatose, and you're listening to Country Fried Rock.
Speaker A:So as you all then formed the original core of.
Speaker B:So there were four originally, and then we added a fifth.
Speaker A:So as that was evolving for you all, what then changed for you as you started having more opportunity to play out?
Speaker B:When we first got together, we didn't have that many songs.
Speaker B:We were booking our first gig and we only had maybe five songs or something like that.
Speaker B:And we'd have to fill up the rest of the time with covers.
Speaker B:Some of those old songs that we had grown up listening to kind of started going down our path of just writing our own tunes.
Speaker B:We're not really, you know, very traditional.
Speaker B:We have a couple of songs that are a little bit traditional, but there's a lot of different aspects to the tunes.
Speaker B:I Guess that took us away from
Speaker A:those early beginnings in the writing that has developed for you all as a band.
Speaker A:What has changed?
Speaker B:Well, that's interesting.
Speaker B:I mean, I guess it was a longer process, but, you know, we'd always, like, get together and create them that way.
Speaker B:But now it's more of, like, somebody will write a song and, like, have the bare bones of it and then bring it to the group, and then we'll arrange it from there as a group.
Speaker B:Like, the chorus, I would say, is written individually more often now.
Speaker A:Are you all working up songs and developing them prior to recording them?
Speaker B:Yeah, definitely.
Speaker B:I mean, Gio, the bass player, write the majority of the songs and we'll bring them in and just, you know, work them out.
Speaker B:We're playing a lot these days, so we get a chance to work on stuff and try to, like, slip it in the live set.
Speaker B:Hopefully long before, like, we record it so we can work out all those parts and stuff.
Speaker B:It's kind of funny, like, once you record a song, like, right after you've written it, how much it changes.
Speaker B:Like, once you have to play it live a bunch, the arrangements and, like, how you sing, it can change a whole.
Speaker A:What does change for you over time prior to taking them to record?
Speaker B:The thing is, with a band, like a string band, for instance, it's really hard.
Speaker B:There's no drums, and you want to have this energy, you want to have this power live feel like, you know, when there's an audience and there's clapping and singing and people are dancing.
Speaker B:So I guess it's kind of like trying to prepare for that.
Speaker B:But I think we've gotten closer on this album than we did on our previous album.
Speaker B:Pretty much live in the studio, like, standing around a bunch of microphones and then just playing them all.
Speaker B:No overdubs or anything like that.
Speaker A:It doesn't translate the same way.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:It's funny, in order to get those, like, the bigger sounds and, like, the tower, I think, behind it a little bit, we still did the majority of the songs, like the rhythm tracks and all that, like, live together in a room.
Speaker B:But then some of them, we did vocals separately, and some of them, we did some solos separately.
Speaker B:And that just allowed us to put a lot of focus into the rhythm, like, the recording, just the groove and the rhythm of it, you know?
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:I have to think too much about, like, singing and stuff, like, while we're trying to, like, just nail that solid chugging feel to the song.
Speaker B:And I think that came across a little better time around than it did last time.
Speaker B:As far as, like, the energy behind
Speaker A:it, Is there anything that you were able to bring to the recording process that helped you all achieve that sound?
Speaker B:Practice?
Speaker B:I think we practiced a lot more for this one.
Speaker B:And we'd just been playing like non stop, like playing a lot live.
Speaker B:Like I was saying was a major, major difference.
Speaker B:We had the same engineer, we recorded in the same studio.
Speaker B:Methodology was just a little, slightly different.
Speaker B:Like going into it even, you know, knowing, like, all right, this is kind of what we want to do.
Speaker B:We want.
Speaker B:We want it to sound a little bit bigger.
Speaker B:We didn't quite want it to sound like live album, you know, because you can do that, you know, at a show.
Speaker B:And we wanted to like, focus on trying to get like the sounds that we were, you know, we were going for and spend a little bit more time, I think, on that.
Speaker B:So we had a couple more days in the studio to be able to work all those problems out.
Speaker B:Hey, this is Ben Morrison from the Brothers Comatose.
Speaker B:You can buy our album on itunes, or if you want to say itunes, you can always go to our website@thebrotherscomatose.com and get yourself some music there.
Speaker A:Y' all have been on the road quite a bit for the last bit of time.
Speaker A:Have you had a chance to line up some of your bills in a way that you're getting to hear anyone else's music?
Speaker B:I mean, before we would just try to get on as many shows as we could.
Speaker B:And you know, now it's great.
Speaker B:You know, we're trying to line up a bunch of California shows right now, and we can finally like, pick other bands that we really want to play with.
Speaker B:It's really exciting and it's.
Speaker B:And it's really fun, especially because we're not having to stay in the realm of like string band music either.
Speaker B:Like we're getting R and B, like soul, you know, old, like throwback soul bands and stuff.
Speaker B:You know, some like roots rock bands and take a little bit from a broader spectrum, I guess, to make the shows a little more varied and exciting
Speaker A:to the audience, I think, who's been fun for you all to get to
Speaker B:play along with all sorts of bands.
Speaker B:As far as like the non string bands go.
Speaker B:There's some good friends of ours, the California Honey Drops from out here.
Speaker B:We've been trying to set up a show with them for a while and they're a super fun band.
Speaker B:And we finally set one up in the North Bay in a place called Petaluma in the town that we're from.
Speaker B:So that's really cool.
Speaker B:I think that's kind of like the furthest genre wise that we've played with, which is, you know, it's gonna be kind of exciting.
Speaker B:They're like, super danceable and really fun, and so I'm really looking forward to that one.
Speaker B:That should be pretty exciting.
Speaker A:So are you all intentionally seeking out, like, bands that you're friends with so that you get to be on a
Speaker B:bill together Always, Yeah.
Speaker B:And plus all our friends are always bugging us to play shows and stuff.
Speaker B:And it feels good because now we can, like.
Speaker B:We like, are given, like a little bit of control now to put together a bill.
Speaker B:So it's like, awesome.
Speaker B:We can finally do a show, whereas before we're the opening band, we.
Speaker B:We don't have any say as to who else is put on the bill or anything like that.
Speaker B:It's exciting, for sure.
Speaker B:It's pretty fun.
Speaker A:Is there a particular venue where you all really like the sound of the room?
Speaker B:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:There's this spot in San Francisco here called the Great American Music Hall.
Speaker B:It's probably like the most beautiful venue that I've ever gotten to play, ever.
Speaker B:It's just this really cool old, small showroom with like a little over 100 years old.
Speaker B:It's one of the oldest in San Francisco and it's got all this beautiful gold leafing and everything inside with this incredible balcony.
Speaker B:The sound there is amazing, and it's just a really fun atmosphere too.
Speaker B:Like, people go there to see shows and they're really excited to see shows.
Speaker B:Isn't always the case in San Francisco because, you know, sometimes people, like, will go to shows, just want to watch and not participate, get rowdy or anything like that.
Speaker B:And that doesn't seem to be the case in this particular spot.
Speaker B:But I just really like it for a lot of different reasons, I guess.
Speaker A:Several great musician friends of Country Fried rock generously donated songs for a free music sampler.
Speaker A:Download it@noisetrade.com countryfriderock 19 songs to help raise awareness and money for Nucci's Space, a nonprofit serving the mental health needs of musicians in the Athens, Georgia area.
Speaker A:Find out more about Nucci's at n u c I.org have you all done a lot on the festival circuit?
Speaker B:Played a good handful of festivals.
Speaker B:I love them.
Speaker B:I think it's.
Speaker B:It's great.
Speaker B:The only time that it gets a little difficult is when it's people just sitting in lawn chairs and you're not quite sure if they're paying attention or Liking you or whatever, you know, like a small club or whatever, can tell pretty quickly if people are digging what you're doing.
Speaker B:They're, like, dancing or clapping.
Speaker B:They're getting into it.
Speaker B:I love festival.
Speaker B:It's a great excuse to play in front of a lot of people that haven't seen you before.
Speaker B:So you have this challenge of winning over new people.
Speaker B:And it's totally different being out in this open outdoor scenario.
Speaker B:Sometimes when we're playing live in, like, a club or something, you know, we can forego perfect playing for, like, good playing sometimes even for rowdiness and energy and stuff.
Speaker B:But you can't really get away with that in a festival setting.
Speaker B:You have to play really well and put a lot of effort and energy into it in order to impress people.
Speaker B:Especially if you don't have a drummer.
Speaker B:It's crazy.
Speaker B:There's a whole, like, chunk of sound missing there from what people are used to.
Speaker A:So another bonus of festivals a lot of times is the chance to catch a band that either you haven't had a chance to see or that you didn't even know you wanted to see.
Speaker A:Have you all had someone that really was a good surprise that y' all ended up really digging?
Speaker B:Oh, totally.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:There's been a bunch.
Speaker B:But one in particular was the last year we're playing this festival called High Sierra.
Speaker B:It's outside of the Bay Area, but in Northern California.
Speaker B:You know, I heard about this band, Nikki Bloom and the Gramblers, for a little while from sf.
Speaker B:I never heard them play.
Speaker B:We were camped in the artist camp pretty close to the main stage, and they were playing and she started singing.
Speaker B:I'm like, oh, my God, she is awesome.
Speaker B:She's got a beautiful voice.
Speaker B:And so we went to go check them out, and since they've become good friends of ours, we even got her to sing on our new album.
Speaker B:We do a duet called Morning Time, and it's been great.
Speaker B:Been really good reception from that.
Speaker B:And we're going on tour with her band in October across the country.
Speaker B:That was kind of cool, like, discovering them for the first time at a festival.
Speaker B:You know, go to Northern California to go see a band that we're, like, neighbors with, pretty much.
Speaker B:So it worked out great.
Speaker B:Yeah, it was awesome.
Speaker A:That car video that just went crazy.
Speaker B:Oh, the van session.
Speaker A:The van session, yeah.
Speaker B:That's nuts.
Speaker B:It's amazing.
Speaker A:Hollow notes or something.
Speaker B:Yeah, the hollow notes one has blown up.
Speaker B:It's awesome.
Speaker B:So many of my friends, even, like, outside of the Bay Area and stuff, have already seen that video.
Speaker B:And they're like, oh, yeah, Nikki Bloom.
Speaker B:I'm like, yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker B:All right, cool.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's really cool, though, what they got going on there.
Speaker B:Way to pass time in a van when you're driving, like, eight hours between gigs, too.
Speaker A:So it brings out some stuff that you can do now that wasn't doable with technology not even that long ago.
Speaker A:What works for you all either connecting with people or with each other or with your friends while you're on the road as much as you are.
Speaker B:I mean, I know that some of the guys do, like, FaceTime with their friends back home, but I'm kind of curious to try out the chats, the chat rooms and everything to give it a go.
Speaker B:But we haven't done it quite yet.
Speaker B:I mean, we've delved into, like, social media, and we've got the Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr and all those sort of things.
Speaker A:Who's in charge?
Speaker B:We split it up.
Speaker B:It's, like, way too much ground to cover with just one person.
Speaker B:I think it would drive any one person crazy.
Speaker B:It's so much stuff.
Speaker B:People, like, eat up information these days.
Speaker B:We just need so much input.
Speaker B:And as a band, it's kind of crazy because, like, bands have to put so much energy and effort into that to, like, keep people updated, which is really fun, actually.
Speaker B:But it's.
Speaker B:It is very time consuming to all, like, do the mailing list and Facebook while Geo, our bass player, does Twitter and Pinterest, Tumblr and our blog on our website.
Speaker B:Crazy.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's.
Speaker B:And it's funny, like.
Speaker B:Cause, like, you hear about, like, a new social media site cracking open, and then you're like, all right, well, Pinterest, you just put pictures up.
Speaker B:I've finally, like, got Facebook down now.
Speaker B:It's pretty funny.
Speaker B:Funny also because so many of my friends don't even have a Facebook page.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And if you want to get word out about and you want to tell your friends about it, it's like, you have to do it or else they'll be like, hey, how come you didn't tell me?
Speaker B:Tell me about it.
Speaker B:Hey, this is Ben Morrison from the Brothers Comatose.
Speaker B:You can check out our stuff@thebrotherscomatose.com.
Speaker A:as much time as y' all spend together when you're on the road, what can you agree on to listen to?
Speaker B:Oh, man.
Speaker B:Oh, this is a funny.
Speaker B:This is funny.
Speaker B:We drive each other crazy with music in the band.
Speaker B:Sometimes.
Speaker B:We all have our slightly different tastes.
Speaker B:There's definitely stuff that we Agree on.
Speaker B:We all like love listening to like old country and stuff.
Speaker B:Some old school bluegrass and classic rock is never going to be tossed aside.
Speaker B:But Phil, our fiddler likes to throw on some modern country every once in a while and it drives everybody else nuts.
Speaker B:We all joke about it and we all.
Speaker B:Because nobody else in the band is into it, he likes to listen to it.
Speaker B:You know, he comes from central Pennsylvania and kind grew up listening to it.
Speaker B:But he'll throw on some of that and drives everybody else nuts.
Speaker B:So we let him go for it.
Speaker B:And our mandolin player Ryan likes all sorts of stuff.
Speaker B:Crazy spaced out progressive rock, mellow down tempo kind of stuff.
Speaker B:It's hard sometimes, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:Basically it comes down to the driver.
Speaker B:Whoever's driving gets say of what goes on in the van and that usually, you know, stops any kind of arguments.
Speaker B:What was funny is, you know, we were hanging out with Nikki Bloom and the Gramblers last week and like so what do you guys listen to in the van?
Speaker B:They're like, we don't listen to music in the van.
Speaker B:They like read and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker B:They said it just saves them all sorts of arguments from band members.
Speaker B:But I don't know how you're going to pass that much time in the van without having any music.
Speaker B:I think I would go nuts personally.
Speaker B:We do listen to this comedy albums that we have on our ipods and stuff.
Speaker B:But we do listen to NPR stuff too, like Radiolab, like this American Life.
Speaker B:It's great because they're like hour long programs.
Speaker B:Just like a chunk of time that you know that are really interesting.
Speaker B:You're like, all right, that was an hour like and you click another one on and you're almost at the next
Speaker A:gig when you're driving.
Speaker A:What do you pick?
Speaker B:I do like the podcast, do them at night and that's like a great time passer.
Speaker B:I love the Kinks.
Speaker B:I put on the Kinks a lot.
Speaker B:I've been putting on some Justin Towns Earl lately.
Speaker B:Definitely like Hank Williams, a lot of old country stuff.
Speaker B:And for something completely different, I love Amy Winehouse and I'll put on Amy Winehouse, something like that I guess.
Speaker B:Not all over the map, but you know, definitely changes depending on the mood.
Speaker B:Lake Street Dive.
Speaker A:So you like that soulful female vocal?
Speaker B:Totally.
Speaker B:I don't know, you know what's gotten into me, but I like, I can't get enough of that, you know.
Speaker B:Soulful, yeah.
Speaker B:Female vocal.
Speaker A:For some reason There is this one cover of a 70 soul song, but the original guy was William devon, and it's called be thankful for what you got.
Speaker A:I don't know her at all, but unbelievable, fabulous vocal.
Speaker A:Her name's Emily gimble, and apparently she's from texas.
Speaker A:Are y' all working on new stuff all the time, or is it something that you wait and you say, all right, we're ready to record a record.
Speaker A:Let's write a bunch of stuff?
Speaker B:Well, I don't think it's a conscious decision to, like, wait.
Speaker B:We're trying to work on new tunes, but it's just way easier when you can, like, just focus on that.
Speaker B:Just set aside, come in and hash out ideas.
Speaker B:And we've got a couple new ones in the bag right now.
Speaker B:We're not really, like, on the road.
Speaker B:We're just doing a lot of weekend stuff around California and some states around here.
Speaker B:So I think we're going to add a bunch of new stuff so we can get back in the studio pretty soon.
Speaker A:Well, cool.
Speaker A:Well, so what's on tap for you all through the fall?
Speaker B:We've got a bunch of headlining shows around here, a couple festivals, and we're going on tour with nikki bloom and the ramblers in October from Chicago all the way back to San Francisco.
Speaker A:Some exciting times then.
Speaker A:And on tap for you.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Well, safe travels to you all.
Speaker B:Thanks so much.
Speaker B:Really appreciate that.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:Take it easy.
Speaker B:You too.
Speaker A:Bye.
Speaker A:Bye.
Speaker B:Bye.
Speaker A:Country fried rock Find the full playlist from this episode on countryfriedrock.org check us out on itunes.
Speaker A:No music, just talk.
Speaker A:Our theme music is from the full tones.
Speaker A:Our country fried rock stinger is from Steve soto in the twisted hearts.
Speaker A:Country fried rock.
Speaker A: Copyright: Speaker A:All rights reserved.
