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HOMECOMING: AMERICA’S GERRY BECKLEY TELLS HOME AND ROAD TALES ON SOLO ROUND TRIP CAROUSEL
Posted On 01 Sep 2016
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BY: JIM VILLANUEVA
PHOTOS: JOE BECKLEY
The never-ending balancing act musicians navigate of home and road, family and fans, head and heart, success and struggle is masterfully portrayed by founding member of America Gerry Beckley on his new solo sonic journal Carousel. “Here I am on the phone; will this bring us together? There you are, all alone, could you love me forever?” he sings inquiringly on “Tokyo,” the opening track of the 12-song cycle scheduled to be released on September 9 via Blue Élan Records.
Along with nine original compositions, Beckley rounds out Carousel with his homage to three of his favorite artists and songs by putting his spin on Spirit’s “Nature’s Way,” Gerry & The Pacemakers’ “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying,” and Gerry Rafferty’s “To Each and Everyone.” So why inhabit someone else’s sonic space when you’re a first-class songwriter in your own right? As Beckley explains, “I’m never really short of inspiration, but I also have a very long list of favorite tunes, so whenever you have an afternoon and nothing else is coming up originally, you can always go to that list of covers.”
Beckley covers all bases on Carousel. Whether its conjuring up the unmatchable harmonies of the Beach Boys, incorporating the invaluable studio production tips learned from the late “fifth Beatle” George Martin, or tapping into the unmistakable horn sounds of Chicago, Carousel is a fun, full circle ride into the past, present and future of a songsmith whose musical wheels will never stop turning.
Gerry, it’s a pleasure and an honor to speak with you today. Let me just tell you that when your publicist Mike Gowen at MSO PR asked me if I’d be interested in speaking with you about your album Carousel, I answered him by sharing a story that I’ve told a hundred times – at least! The first album I ever bought with my own money was America’s Homecoming. So I said, ‘YES! YES! So thank you for at least 44 years of music, and I’d love to dive into this conversation that was 44 years in the making.
(Laughs) Well that wasn’t a bad album for your first choice. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it.
No it wasn’t! Let’s talk about your album, but before we do, let me ask you – I guess – an obvious question. What was the first album you purchased?
The first album was Surfin’ Safari by The Beach Boys.
Wow, talk about homecomings! I graduated from Hawthorne High School, which is the home of The Beach Boys.
Ah, well, there you go. You know, my brother and sister had albums, and I think my sister probably bought a lot of the music that was in the early 60s leading up to this, but I remember The Beach Boys’ Surfin’ Safari as being my first purchase. And it’s ironic that we (America) ended up working with them more than any other act, and, well, that’s a whole other chapter of stories.
Yeah. A quick side note: we were originally scheduled to have this conversation a couple of weeks ago (August 10) and it would have fallen a day before my 40th high school reunion. So this conversation is very much a full-circle thing. One more thing before we jump onto Carousel: did you have that proverbial Beatles On Ed Sullivan moment that I often refer to?
Yeah, we all did; my generation. I have a dear friend of mine who tours with The Beach Boys now, and when we’re sitting in an airport and delayed for six hours or something, trying to get from one gig to the next, we jokingly say it’s all Ed Sullivan’s fault.
(Laughs) Yes! Okay, let’s jump into Carousel now. How – if anything – does your approach to songwriting and recording differ when you sort of temporarily secede from America – if you will – and do a solo album?
Well I love working with America and Dewey (Bunnell) is the best of partners, but it is a democracy, you have to make sure and pick the right material that makes the best album and stuff, but when I’m doing a solo project I’m kind of the head of a committee of one. So it’s a bit of a blessing and a curse. You only have yourself to answer to, but it also gives you the opportunity to do a few things that might’ve been a little bit outside of the parameters of an America project. I don’t really cherry pick tunes one way or the other; you just write to make the best song possible, and then when it comes time for a project – at least for me – you kind of go through and see which ones seem right.
The imagery that a carousel conjures up is of course going around and around. What thematic or sonic imagery did you have in mind when you settled on this song cycle’s title?
Well, that’s obviously the image, but I think an equal element is time. It wasn’t something that I kind of focused on until I started to listen to the selection of tunes in a row – when I started to mess with the sequence. I realized that it’s always been a challenge. When you’re 18 to 25 and your part of a rock and roll situation, there’s all these elements that are like, rebellion, that are part of the rock myth. But as you get a little bit older the challenge is to convey all of these other new elements of your life, like growing up and being a father, and put it into a commercial context. One of the things that’s inevitable when you start to log decades is that you start to address the passage of time. That’s not really something that you do when you’re 18 or 19 and putting out your second album.
At 18 you think you’ve got all the time in the world.
There’s a famous quote of Mick Jagger saying, “Well I can’t really be doing this when I’m 40, can I?”
And we can quote The Who: “Hope I die before I get old,” and on and on. Let me quote a couple of standout lines from the title track: “It’s not so easy to get off this thing/so I sit forever ‘til the motion subsides” and “Soon the morning sun will set on everyone.” Is this song an enjoy-the-ride-while-you-can song, or a the-end-is-near refrain – or both?
You know I learned many things from working with George Martin, and of course most of them are in the recording and elements of how to make a good record and stuff, but he was also a wonderful mentor in many other ways. As George got older and his hearing started to go, he was just as much an inspiration. I remember one of the last talks I had with him he said what a gift it is to be 80-something years old and to experience things. He looked at every chapter (in life) as being a valuable element. There was no longing for a previous time, or wasn’t it much better back then. And I thought, my god, I suppose I will always learn from this man, and so that’s really what I’m trying to say is that all of our time is finite – none of us get out alive, sorta speak – but yet it is a wonderful journey and I think that every chapter of that journey has the potential to really be lived in a fulfilling way.
The title track closes the album, and the song “Tokyo” kicks the record off. In your experience does distance make the heart grow fonder, or just further apart?
It is definitely at least what I would call a challenge. Maintaining relationships and living the kind of existence that we have – I’m sure Dewey would agree – that it’s very difficult to be a parent from 3,000 or 6,000 miles away. It’s very difficult to be a partner from that distance, but it is one of the inherent ingredients of the lifestyle that we chose. It’s always gonna be a challenge. I don’t think I’ve met anybody who has some kind of magic formula. “Tokyo” is a song I wrote years ago, but the ingredients are still very valid. And I love to start with an upbeat tune, you know, a good tempoed song, so I thought it was just a nice way to start the album.
And was that written in Tokyo, in the States, on an airplane, or what?
I wrote it in a lounge in Tokyo while I was waiting for a plane. You never know where creativity is gonna come, but in this case I almost missed the flight. I got started scribbling and stuff and of course lost track of time, and then I looked up and saw that, jeez, it’s been boarding for 20 minutes (laughs). So I got a great song out of it, and I guess the other bit of good news is that I didn’t miss the flight.
(Laughs) Alright! I was gonna follow up with, I hope you made your flight! So you put your spin on three classic tracks on Carousel: Spirit’s “Nature’s Way,” Gerry & The Pacemakers’ “Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Crying,” and Gerry Rafferty’s “To Each And Everyone.” Now to the best of my knowledge Spirit never included a member who shared the spelling of your first name…
(Laughs) Yeah! I know! Almost! Yeah, I got the other two Gerrys.
(Laughs) Exactly! So, we can throw out that criteria for why you picked these three songs. So why these songs? Why are these three special to you?
Well we’ve always loved doing a cover. I think we’ve established ourselves as original songwriters enough that nobody’s really gonna question if you wanna do one of your favorite tunes. I use as an example James Taylor, who is clearly one of our most wonderful living singer-songwriters, but nobody would ever give him flak for doing “Up On The Roof” or, in fact, one of his earliest hits was a Carole King song. So I kinda come from that school in that I have a lot of songs that influenced me over the years. And you know, when you’re in a studio – and in my case I had a studio at the house – I’m never really short of inspiration, but I also have a very long list of favorite tunes so whenever you have an afternoon and nothing else is coming up originally, you can always go to that list of covers. And so on this album there are three of those examples; those are songs that have always been favorites of mine.
I hearken back to our mutual love of The Beatles and the fact that they certainly got started doing a whole bunch of covers that became their own, as it were.
Well you know you can redefine (a song), but in this case that wasn’t really my motive. In fact, as far as I can recall, the Gerry Rafferty song comes from a very early solo album of his called Can I Have My Money Back? I loved the entire album, but that was my favorite track from the album and I think I basically cloned it, as I recall.
Yeah, it is pretty close to the original. Now, speaking of The Beatles, I hear a hint of “You Never Give Me Your Money” running through the song “Lifeline.”
Yeah, yeah.
Am I off track on that?
You know the ooh la la la’s I think are from “You Won’t See Me.” There’s obviously a bit of “Saturday In The Park” by my dear friend Robert Lamm (of Chicago) in that one. I love horns. You know that’s another thing: In America we’re a bit more of a guitar band, so anytime I get on my own I tend to lean towards horns for some reason, and Robert and all the guys in Chicago are dear friends, so I don’t think they would mind.
I’m so glad you brought up Chicago because in my notes here, Gerry, I was gonna tell you that I nicknamed that song the “A-B-C Song” because it certainly blends the essence of America, The Beatles and Chicago.
Well there you go! I hadn’t thought of it that way, but my sound guy who was getting ready for a rehearsal, he goes, ‘What’s the one that’s kinda like “You Won’t See Me” and “Saturday In The Park?’ And I thought, yeah, he’s actually right. At this point in my life you can very openly pull from all your heroes.
Absolutely! One of my favorite lines on the album is: “Cause I know life is a river we must go, flow, all in the same boat.”
Yeah.
I hope I got that right, and if so, what does that line mean to you?
Yeah, yeah, you did. Well, you know, at least in our world – in this music world – where I spend 200 days of each and every year touring and performing with other bands…we live in this common world where half the time we’re at O’Hare (Airport in Chicago) connecting, or Dallas-Fort Worth, and it really is somewhat of a bubble. In that case, I know that when I talk to friends and fellow musicians that we’ve toured with over the years, you don’t have to play too much catch-up because we all know the story, we all know the drill. So it’s a lovely camaraderie.
I hope I got that right, and if so, what does that line mean to you?
Yeah, yeah, you did. Well, you know, at least in our world – in this music world – where I spend 200 days of each and every year touring and performing with other bands…we live in this common world where half the time we’re at O’Hare (Airport in Chicago) connecting, or Dallas-Fort Worth, and it really is somewhat of a bubble. In that case, I know that when I talk to friends and fellow musicians that we’ve toured with over the years, you don’t have to play too much catch-up because we all know the story, we all know the drill. So it’s a lovely camaraderie.
The last song I wanted to ask you about is “Fly,” which I think ends with the very beautiful Beach Boy-esque harmony vocals. Can you talk a little bit about that song?
Well it’s a personal story, and I love that by using the name Robin it could be a man or a woman, so I’m trying to make it as universal as possible. It’s a bit of a challenge to sing; it’s very long, slow phrases, and so I envisioned it as a very tight three-part harmony kind of tune, and it took a little while to get it right, but I’m happy with how it turned out.
It’s beautiful. Gerry, before we wrap here, is there anything else that you’d like to discuss? Anything else that we haven’t touch on in the conversation?
No, I think you’ve hit on all of the good points. I’m looking forward to getting people’s reaction and hope they’ll give Carousel a listen, and thanks for your time. I appreciate it.
It’s my absolute pleasure. As you can imagine, for me, this conversation was at least 44 years in the making, so it’s more than my pleasure and honor. Thank you very much.
Alright, man. Thanks for your time. It was nice talking with you.
