Little Orange Room Sessions is a one-take, one-shot, “living-room”-style performance video series recorded in Eugene, Oregon. Each two-song session is recorded in the 125 square feet that I use for mixing, producing, and sometimes even recording entire albums. Little Orange Room Sessions grew out of my crazy love of music and mixing, a growing curiosity about film and cameras, and a deep-seated passion for performance and the art of song.
*photo by Molly McCormick
Session #10: Fruition
Fruition is a Portland, Oregon based harmony driven folk/rock/Americana band composed of Jay Cobb Anderson (electric guitar, vocals), Kellen Asebroek (piano, acoustic guitar, vocals), Jeff Leonard (bass), Mimi Naja (mandolin, electric guitar, vocals), and Tyler Thompson (drums). Broken at the Break of Day (released Jan 17th, 2020) comes just months after their eclectic 2019 release Wild As the Night. Both seven-song albums were released digitally but are now available on vinyl as one album, Wild As the Night, Broken at the Break of Day. While the band was here in late December I had a microphone stop working, a faulty memory card in the camera, and a time crunch due to a live radio performance the band had scheduled. Thankfully all this resulted in a beautiful stripped down performance with Jay, Kellen, and Mimi around one microphone with Jeff later joining them on bass. Thank you to the whole band for rolling with those punches with me. Jay Cobb Anderson recently took the time to answer some questions via email.
LORS: This seems like a prolific last few years for you guys. How is the songwriting divided up within the band? Is there a tried and true method of how a Fruition song gets written?
JCA: There are three songwriters in the band, and we just kind of try to find what songs would compliment each other when gathering them for a release. It’s kind of like a farm to table meal… we grow all these songs and harvest them, then take what we got and start figuring out what we kind of meal we could make with the ingredients we have. Then we get to cookin, and hope that in the end we made something tasty:) When it comes to a tried and true method, there is not one, and that always keeps it interesting.
LORS: Once you have the song, do you find yourselves building it out/getting to know it in the studio through the recording process or does that happen out on the road through playing the song live?
JCA: We have done both ways. Learning a brand new song and cutting it in the studio is exhilarating, but sometimes after the song is out and you start playing out, you wish you would’ve done things differently. And then the song becomes a whole different thing live. Which is fine. Songs are very independent And are gonna do whatever they want. It’s best to just let em. We’ve also had great times touring new songs and then cutting them once we know who they are. But you can get easily bored if you do it that way cause you can play the song out before it’s even been released.
LORS: The sound is so eclectic on these last couple releases. It’s fantastic. Is everyone bringing their own influences to put their own stamp on it? I’m just wondering if there have been times a song has been written as an acoustic folk driven piece but then ends up turning out like…let’s say, “Forget About You” (the opening track off Wild As the Night) which has more of a head bopping, gritty rock groove?
JCA: That’s funny you mention “Forget About You”! That song I wrote originally as a straight up folk song. And then when we were doing demos for these releases, we were in Denver and heard that a band we all LOVE called Bahamas were playing at red rocks, so we took a break and went to the show. When we got back to the demo sessions, we were joking about “bahamafying” the song. So we kind of did our best impression which in turn evolved into what the song is now. So we did lots of fucking with the songs:)
LORS: Guy Clark sings, “Some days you write the song / some days the song writes you.” Which line best describes you?
JCA: To me personally, I read that as one line. And I would say, yes it does describe me:)
LORS: Any music you’re listening to (old or new) that I should put in my ear holes? Or any good books you’re currently reading or just finished?
JCA: Yup. Anything by JJ Cale is always good. Everyone should listen to Danny Barnes. I play in another band called TK and The Holy Know Nothings (shameless self promotion), and anything Taylor Kingman(TK) writes is pure gold in my opinion. His solo album is amazing also. Along with that stuff I have so many talented friends and I love their music too.. Brad Parsons, John Craigie, the Shook Twins, Mama Magnolia, Kassi Valazza, Cyber Camel, Handmade Moments, and Rayland Baxter to name a few:) They are all phenomenal in their own ways, and have been pumping out beautiful music. On books, any and all things by Vonnegut, Kerouac, Twain, or Steinbeck gets me goin. Just finished Big Sur not too long ago and it was brilliant:)