Driftwood photo by Bella Seastrand
Driftwood Brings Clarity and Warmth To December Last Call
Americana band Driftwood has recently released an album, December Last Call, an effort several years in the making punctuated by a nearly two-year period apart during the pandemic. Known as a prolific touring band, this was a particularly unusual time for them, but coming back together again was a reorientation to their key musical relationships and friendships.
Driftwood recorded and produced their album in a slightly less formal way, pursuing organic developments, but a sense of focus naturally arose from their song selections, encouraging their natural trend toward honesty with audiences to even further directness. What we hear is abundantly creative, but also conversational and idionsyncratic, allowing their various musical influences and tastes to shine. The songs have all the clarity and confidentiality one might feel around a fire on a winter’s night, which makes for a very welcoming album. I spoke with Dan Forsyth (guitar/vocals), Claire Byrne (violin/vocals), and Joe Kollar (guitar/vocals) about their experiences making December Last Call.
Americana Highways: I feel like this particular album covers a lot of time and experiences for you. Does it feel like a coming of age album, or a landmark for you?
Dan: It definitely has. We were waiting to put something out because Covid threw us for a loop. There was a long period where we weren’t touring or recording, and coming back together was a reset button. We also had situations that made it harder to get together so to actually get it together, have the album coming out, and touring coming up, felt like a big coming of age thing.
Claire: I think Dan said it really well.
Joe: It definitely had that feeling.
AH: I think there’s an intentionality behind these songs that goes in with what you have been through. It feels like it has extra energy and determination to it. That comes out in the quality and directness to the music, and I think that’s a positive thing.
Claire: Definitely. I think it’s obvious. People write songs about their lives, or about a topic, but these songs are very honest songs, a little raw even. While I think most of the songs on our albums are honest, and we’re an honest bunch, I think there’s an extra layer of that with this particular collection of songs.
AH: I’ve been talking lately with people about the pressure that people feel to create a certain image and present that to the world, whether it’s by social media or through creative work. It then becomes something that they have to conform to. I feel like this album doesn’t put that first. I think that kind of glitz is not important here on this album, but the most important thing here is the direct communication.
Claire: Thank you so much for saying that. I feel that and think about that a lot these days. Because we are an honest bunch, that process of picking an image and maintaining it on social media, or when we are out playing, is something we have a hard time doing. It’s exhausting to continue to try to make sure that you’re always staying in the lines of that image that you’re trying to create. I, personally, have let that go a little bit, and I appreciate you pointing that out.
AH: I think a lot of people are coming to terms with that feeling of exhaustion. For Driftwood, it would be particularly difficult because you are all songwriters, and you have different influences and ideas. Having said all that, I do want to say that I love the artwork and images associated with this album.
Joe: I give props to John Daly, the artist. I know that he enjoyed working on it, and it was a little outside of his box. He always had amazing explanations of where these images were coming from. He always had some sort of representative idea or metaphor in there that gave it a little more depth. It was amazing to work with him. Every time we saw something, we said, “Wow!”
AH: Because of the decision to call the album December Last Call and the role of the title track, it was really cool that he went with nighttime wintery imagery. But also, there’s an Americana and natural world feel. A song like “Stardust” also contributes to that feeling, too. It really works.
Claire: It did. I really agree with you. With a title like December Last Call, we were hoping it wouldn’t be too obviously holiday or winter, but the direction of the night sky, the wolves, and the trick were great. When you think of winter nights, you think of being present with yourself, taking time for yourself, and I think that goes along with the theme of the album, which is honesty and being open.
AH: Winter nights really remind me of clarity, too, and having clarity with yourself, and that’s the spark or the light in a lot of these songs. Can you tell me a little bit about what it was like when you were able to work together again? Did it take some refocusing?
Dan: For us, being separated came so quick, as a classic Covid story. We had a touring schedule, and all of the sudden, we didn’t. We’d been hitting it pretty hard for a while, then we got a break that turned into a longer one, and a longer one. By the time we got back together, it seemed like it was going to be really foreign,and was going to take a while. We had a new drummer, Sam Fishman, who joined during Covid, so when we got together to practice, I think we expected it to feel different.
But we fell into it pretty quick. Sam’s very experienced, and it made it super-easy to start getting things down on tape. I think every Driftwood session or album, everybody’s got songs, so there’s no shortage to pass around. We went through different songs, making demos in the live room of the studio. Then we just picked them out in the Driftwood fashion of going back and forth. It was kind of nice not to have a Producer making the picks. It felt very organic, and it felt really good. It was what we all needed, in that moment, having been blind-sided and not knowing if we’d have a path forward in music. It was a good feeling to all of the sudden have that purpose back. That definitely went into everything, and we’re still riding on that.
Joe: It felt, I think, more foreign to me, and more peculiar not to be around Driftwood playing and doing shows. It was the strangest thing to be home for that length of time. A lot of good things came out of that, like I ended up finishing a solo record that I’d been working on forever, spending time with my family, and embracing home life. But it felt very strange not to be doing what we’ve been doing for as long as I can remember. When we did finally get back, it was like a sense of home in another way. It was eerie because we didn’t know if we’d be touring and there was a lot of speculation about the industry, but it came together very seamlessly to make the record.
Claire: As Joe said, we really didn’t get together much for close to two years. Then, when things were starting to open up, we thought we’d dip our toe in the water with a couple of shows coming up. So we thought that we’d just get together and play some tunes, and this was before we had Sam. I had everyone come over, and we had a little bonfire. I thought we’d play some songs, but instead we just sat there for four hours and talked. It was amazing. It was great. It was like picking up where you left off with a dear friend. With a close friend, time apart is so telling of a friendship, because when you get back together, it’s like nothing has happened in between. That was really awesome. I remember that night really well. I thought, “Wow! We’re going to do this again!” There was a lot of fear of the unknown out there, but that felt great.
AH: I know that you produced this album yourself, and that makes perfect sense to take it easier and be informal about it. Had you produced albums in the past?
Joe: The first record of ours, we produced ourselves. The second album was a series of demos live in a room, so we produced it, in a way, though we didn’t know that we were making one! There’s always been a big element of our own stamp in the production process. We know when we’ve hit something, and we know when we’re onto something, and when we’re not. There was a certain casual vibe to things this time, which is good, but also the reason that it can take two years to make something!
But I’m glad about where it landed. It can be a different process every time, but I think now there’s a new sense of clarity and confidence in knowing what we think is good. I think that’s what it takes to make a record. Some songs that didn’t make the record were completely rewritten or written on the way to the studio. Then again, “December Last Call” has been around a long time, six or seven years at this point, we just never really played it that much or got a chance to record it. The songs came from all over the place.
AH: I really appreciated “Up All Night Blues” as a very honest, personal track to include on the album, too. The sense of change, maybe unwilling change, is something people can relate to.
Claire: I think when we feel lost, we don’t really feel very confident, and that’s not something that anyone wants to share, necessarily. You don’t look very strong. But I’ve had multiple people thank us for having that song on there because everybody feels that way. Even if you’re not feeling that now, you’ll feel it at some point. It’s a part of life.
AH: I noticed that you allowed a wide range of genre feels on the songs, like “Continental Lincoln.” I really appreciate that you show off that variety on the album. It is more of an outlier.
Joe: This speaks to what we’ve been talking about, about a letting go of expectations and an embracing of who and what we are. The general consensus, when making a studio, is to keep the songs short and punchy. Knowing we can stretch songs out live but we should keep them more condensed. But here, we did what we do live. That middle section which is kind of layered was originally an extended bass solo. In a live context, that song is incredible. Our bass player, Joey Arteri is a phenomenal upright bass player, and it’s completely improvised. In the studio, the feeling of the bass didn’t have the grandeur of being on the stage.
With Joey’s permission, I tried something else, and I wanted to capture the idea of being extremely high or stoned for the first time. I added a lot of textural things and had a lot of fun with mixing it. I just threw caution to the wind and had a lot of fun making it. It’s an extended jam, and “Stardust” is maybe 12 minutes long. This stuff is unheard of on Driftwood records! It feels really go. That’s what we are, that’s what we do.
AH: “Stardust” really so expansive. It’s almost stream-of-consciousness. The last section really changes and opens out in a cinematic way. It’s not a traditional structure at all, but more like a journey or a movement. How did it develop?
Dan: It really was almost stream-of-consciousness when I wrote the lyrics. When I brought it to the band and we went into the studio to do it, we were laying down drums first. Joe, Sam, and I were working one night. We had jammed it a little and Sam took a liking to it. We were in separate rooms playing, and we just got to this moment when it was supposed to be over, and we just kept playing.
Someone said, “Wow, we should just keep doing this” So the next take, we went one minute longer. Then, the next take, we went two minutes longer. [Laughs] That last take, that you hear, was like 12 minutes. I never planned for that, saying, “I want this song to be more like a movement,” but we were just having a fun, free night. There was a vibe in the air. We thought the whole time, “We’re going to cut that.” We thought it would be four minutes. Never did we think, “We gotta keep that.” But eventually we went in and fleshed it out. We had to figure out what everyone should do instrumentally. But that was the most adventurous, fun, and super-interactive studio songs that I’ve had a chance to work on. It was cool to watch it grow like that. Once we accepted the big instrumental was going to stay in, we knew it was going to be the last song on the album.
Thanks very much for chatting with us, Driftwood! Find more details and information on their website here: https://www.driftwoodtheband.com/