Technology Tell
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Dear Mr. Fantasy: Entertainment Tell Interviews Dave Mason
by Howard Whitman on May 21, 2014 at 9:57 am
“Feeling alright? I’m not feeling too good myself …”
Many a musical jam has cooked along to those words, and the absolutely classic song that goes with them. That’s the work of Dave Mason, the legendary English guitarist/singer/songwriter who began his professional career with the band Traffic in 1966 but went on to a successful solo career in the 1970s.
In 2014, Mason is looking back on his Traffic and solo days with his Traffic Jam tour—as well as looking forward with a new CD, Future’s Past.
When we spoke to Mason (who was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Traffic in 2004), he was resting up after his first swing of Traffic Jam shows, and prepping for the release of the new album (funded in part by his fans online).
In the following interview, Mason discusses these projects, as well as his celebrity-created album art, future plans, his feelings on new tech, and his little-known stint as a member of Fleetwood Mac.
Howard Whitman: I listened to a download of your new album Future’s Past, which was sent to me. Very good work—I really enjoyed it.
Dave Mason: Thank you.
Whitman: Tell me about the content behind this album—it sounds like a mix between old and new, some Traffic stuff …
Mason: Yeah, well, there was no real specific plan to put a CD out or put one together, frankly, since something I put out about seven years ago. But I started doing this Traffic Jam tour this year and revisiting that stuff, and I suppose along with it there are just things that I have in my own studio. And since I was doing Traffic, I wanted to do something that kind of embraced some of my older material, but do it in a slightly different way. For instance, “Sad And Deep As You” to me turned out to be such a beautiful piece—in fact, to me, just heads and tails better than the original off Alone Together. I just thought, “This is a great piece of music. I want to include this.” The other thing about a lot of my stuff is that most of my things are written about timeless themes, so to me they become somewhat timeless songs.
For “Dear Mr. Fantasy,” I rewrote the chords, put them in a minor key and put more chords to it, an adaptation of it. So they’re more or less timeless themes a lot of my songs so I think they’re adaptable. “You Can All Join In”—it’s a live version that we blew out in a couple of takes in the studio. It sounded really good, so I kept it, which is great and it’s timely because we’re doing the Traffic stuff. And then there’s stuff on there that’s frankly from an album I did about seven or eight years ago that really didn’t get a lot of exposure, and they were great songs so I included those. Really, the only brand new thing on there—“World In Changes” of course is from Alone Together and that was me really playing around with some of my songs and its about 180 degrees from what the original was, but it was kind of cool—and then the only new thing in there is “That’s Freedom.”
Whitman: I see that Graham Nash did the cover art for the album. How did that come about?
Mason: Well, Graham has his art show that he does—he does some art, and he’s been doing this in photography and then transforming it into artwork. And he’s been doing an exhibition, he sent me some of his stuff, and he happened to have this in there, and it was like “Oh my God, it’s a picture of me in his house in Kuwai in 1977!” It’s a photograph, but he does it as his art. I saw the picture and I was like, “Oh, this is cool, man. You know what, can I use this?” And he was “Yeah, absolutely, go ahead.” And then it was a question of trying to fit in something … originally I had a title, it was the only thing I could come up with, from the movie I was going to call it Back to the Future. And then it just hit me, I just shrunk it down to Future’s Past because it’s all part of the thing. It’s saying these songs are just as good now as they were then, in my opinion. Not everybody’s going to like it. But that’s what makes a horse race—everybody’s got their take.
But there’s still a collection of very cool little tracks on there, plus my history with music is that … one of the problems is that the media or press can’t pigeonhole it. “There’s a new blues album by Dave Mason” … or a new rock album. I kind of incorporate it all, because mostly I’m more about the song, so I always approach it as … I’d like to hear this song done in this flavor, either it was a rock thing or a blues thing or whatever. But I try to approach the song in a way that will bring the song to life.
Whitman: So you didn’t set out to say, “I’m going to do an album of Traffic stuff, or older compositions?” Just making some music?
Mason: Yeah, exactly. That’s what this piece is. I’m already working on something for maybe later in the year, which will be all-new, brand-new original stuff.
Whitman: The Traffic Jam tour, tell me about that show. Is it a good deal of Traffic material that you’re revisiting?
Mason: It’s a two-part show. It runs about two hours with a little break in the middle. Most of the stuff, of course, we take from my time with them, which was basically the original two albums, so most of it’s from that era, although I have included a version of “The Low Spark Of High-Heeled Boys” because it’s just a classic Traffic thing even though I wasn’t there [when it was recorded]. But the way I’m doing it is nothing like they did it.
Whitman: Sounds really interesting. Different feel to that?
Mason: I’ve kind of turned that into a blues song. It lends itself [to that], it works well.
Whitman: So a lot of guitar exploration on that one?
Mason: (Laughs) Yeah. Yeah, we’re playing.
Whitman: What kind of band do you have on this run?
Mason: We’re four-piece. My keyboard player is playing keyboards and organ and also he’s playing bass, except we play it on keyboards …
Whitman: A pedal bass thing?
Mason: No, no—left hand. He’s really good.
Whitman: Doors-style, right?
Mason: Even better than that. You’ve got real bass sounds to work with, as opposed to back then, when one just used the low end of the keyboard. Now you’ve got real basses to trigger, so even though there’s nobody up there playing a bass guitar, there’s bass. And Alvino Bennett’s on drums, and John Sambatero, who just got back with the band—he played with me on and off for a long time—is the other guitar player and singer. There are four of us.
Whitman: Four of you—and you’re making a lot of sound, right?
Mason: We are, yeah.
Whitman: So besides the Traffic material, what other kind of things are you doing?
Mason: Well, the first half is the Traffic stuff, take a break, and then we come back and do Dave. I do Dave.
Whitman: There’s plenty of Dave to play!
Mason: So you get a bit of everything. And on my thing, there are a couple of the new songs off the new CD, and pieces off my other albums.
Whitman: Very cool! You’re hitting “Feeling Alright?” and songs like that?
Mason: Oh yeah, we do “Feeling Alright?,” absolutely.
Whitman: “We Just Disagree,” I’m sure?
Mason: Yeah.
Whitman: Your other solo hits as well?
Mason: “Let It Go, Let It Flow.” Then we do “World In Changes,” “Just A Song” … I mix it up with my set, what I’m doing for my stuff. All Along The Watchtower”—we have to do “All Along The Watchtower,” otherwise they won’t let us out of the building.
Whitman: One interesting chapter in your history that I haven’t heard much about and was curious about was … you were in Fleetwood Mac for a time?
Mason: For two years.
Whitman: How did that come about, and how was that experience for you?
Mason: Well, they weren’t together. Mick was calling me one day and said, “Hey man, can we meet? I want to talk to you about something.” He asked me, would I be interested in being part of reforming Fleetwood Mac? It was in a period where I was still working solo but I was free enough to say, “Well yeah, OK. Let’s give it a shot.” And we did an album called Time (1995), which unfortunately never really got promoted by Warner Bros. at all, they let it sort of die. And it lasted two years and it was over. They went back to the original lineup … well, not the original lineup.
Whitman: But the one everybody knows (with Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham). Not the Peter Green version.
Mason: No.
Whitman: But I thought it was very cool when you were in the band, what you brought to it was very interesting.
Mason: Well, yeah. It had the potential to be there. It was a little hard, because Christine (McVie) did the album, but she wouldn’t go on the road, so it was like “OK.” And you’ve got three or four different managers, everybody’s got a manager … that part was a little [difficult]. But otherwise, we did some touring, we went to Europe—and it was fun while it lasted, but it just sort of ended very abruptly.
Whitman: So that was that. Another one I wanted to ask you, someone asked me to put this one to you on Facebook … there’s a rumor that you actually sang backup on Frampton Comes Alive!. Is there any truth to that?
Mason: No. I’m not on that album. That’s the kind of nonsense that comes from Wikipedia.
Whitman: Right. People believe that stuff …
Mason: I wish people knew, with Wikipedia, what’s really going on there.
Whitman: Anybody can write that, right?
Mason: Yeah! I mean, I’ve got people who’ve gone in my stuff about Alone Together—there are people[listed as] playing on Alone Together that I’ve never heard of, and Eric Clapton is [supposedly] playing the solo on “Look at You, Look at Me.” I mean, it’s ridiculous.
Whitman: What’s the craziest rumor you’ve heard about yourself?
Mason: You know what? Frankly, I don’t really plug into that kind of thing or pay attention to it, so, nothing really, other than the usual stuff.
Whitman: Probably a good plan. … Dave, what is next for you? You mentioned that you’re looking to do an album of all-new material?
Mason: Yeah. Well, I’m pretty much working on stuff constantly when I’m home, but yeah, the next thing probably will be all-new, original material.
Whitman: These days, people are making albums in their hotel rooms with laptops, things like that. Are you of that mind, or do you like getting into the studio?
Mason: Well, I have my own little studio here at home. All the tools are available.
Whitman: How do you feel about how the modern technology has influenced how music gets made, and how you make it?
Mason: I do it no differently from how I did it when it was just two-track. It’s the same principle; it’s just that there’s more stuff there, which is nice, but it’s still basically the same thing as it’s always been: It’s about the song. The song, the song, the song—and the performance. And the only thing is that the new technology—it’s allowed people to do stuff that they probably could never pull off live. Whether that’s good or bad, I don’t know.
Whitman: Do you still record live in the studio, just set it up and go?
Mason: No, no, no … I do that, but sometimes I program stuff. That’s the only other thing—the ability it’s given me to do that. For basically drums, and then the other stuff I can do—I’m still playing.
Whitman: So you build tracks, you’re putting down different parts?
Mason: Yeah.
Whitman: Any of that on this current CD, or is it more of a band project?
Mason: Well, yeah, “Dear Mr. Fantasy” is built that way. So is “That’s Freedom.” “Good 2 U” was recorded as a track with a drummer. “You Can All Join In” is live. “El Toro” was built from a live track. But “That’s Freedom,” “Dear Mr. Fantasy” … those are definitely built up in the studio.
Whitman: Very cool. How is the tour going so far? How has the response been to the Traffic Jam set?
Mason: It’s been great. It’s been very good, better than I expected. And we were out from the third of January for about five to six weeks, and I’ve been off for most of (March) and we start again in April.
Whitman: Great! So another good swing is coming up?
Mason: Yes! We’ll be out even though a lot of the dates are not posted, we’re pretty much booked through December. And we also have—just so that your readers know—if they want to go to Pledgemusic.com, we have a pledge program going on there. Since I’m really financing the album and making that myself—there’s no label involved—people can go there and if they want to do something, help us promote the album, they can help with their pledges to promote the album.
Whitman: We’ll definitely send people there. (Check out Dave’s PledgeMusic page here.) Do you see doing any kind of live recording—DVD or CD set—from this current tour?
Mason: Yes, at some point I think it would be good to do that, probably later in the year—and hopefully we can attract some other guest stars to join us in Traffic Jam. It would be cool.
Whitman: Any guests you have in mind?
Mason: Yeah, there’s a list, but the question is, are they going to do it or not?