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#617: Patrick Sansone of the Autumn Defense on music outside Wilco, balancing bands, and the golden age of rock and roll

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Yeah, kind of like a trial by fire kind of thing, something needs to happen so you have to pick it up and figure it out pretty quick, especially in an environment like that.

Yeah, and also that experience of growing up and working at that studio also, I think, taught me how to be flexible in the studio and be adaptable to different kinds of musicians, different styles of music, different personalities. I think that’s helped me to apply that to working in a lot of different situations now.

You’re obviously touring and recording with Wilco and you have the Autumn Defense at the same time; how do you strike a balance between those two, in terms of being on the road with Wilco promoting a new record, then going back and writing another Autumn Defense record, releasing that, and going back on the road to promote it; it seems like you’re constantly in motion with either writing, touring, recording, and just kind of running the whole gamut of having multiple projects and bands. Is it tough getting that balance right, or do they complement each other?

Well there’s really not a set formula to it, we just kind of roll with it. Wilco had a very busy couple of years from 2012 to 2013, and somehow we were able to find windows of time to make this record happen, and it all happened in spurts; a couple of weeks here, a couple weeks there, several sessions like that, and then when we did have some significant time off in the spring of last year we were able to block out about a month to mix and finish the record.

We just kind of have to work with what we have. And the timing for the release of this record has actually been really good, because Wilco is sort of taking a break and taking some time off and everybody’s sort of doing their own thing, so it’s good. The record came out just at the right time for us to be able to dig in and get out there and promote it.

I know we were talking about that kind of mid-’60s-ish vibe on your records, and I personally hear a lot of Beach Boys, the Turtles, the Hollies, stuff like that. What was it about that era of early rock and roll, when it was a lot more pop-oriented, music that people could actually dance to, unlike most stuff today, that you guys really enjoyed and wanted to take a snapshot of and put out as the Autumn Defense?

Well that period of music is just so rich with creativity and innovation, and there’s a sophistication to even some of what would be considered just simple pop music at the time. There was an elegance to a lot of the arrangements and harmonic structures of that music, and it was just a very rich period. I guess it would take more of a musicologist to analyze why. Of course the Beatles were sort of the touchstone of all of it. But a lot of those musicians, they were all coming from influences when they were being first exposed to music, which was the music of the 40s, a lot of the great songwriters of the ’40s, and jazz, and really sophisticated music that found its way into the way those bands started creating their own music. I think that’s a lot of it. And a lot of it is so harmony-based, which is what John and I wanted to emphasize when we started putting our music together. We wanted to make music that would emphasize the strength of our harmony singing. It’s not easy to do that over super-loud rock and roll, so it just makes sense that we’re going to use these mellower textures so that we could emphasize the harmony.

Yeah, you really see that with a lot of the arrangement on the records, a lot of acoustic guitars, horns, I definitely get that. Is it tough to keep the Wilco vibe out of it? That’s clearly really more on the indie, alternative, occasionally country side, but definitely in that louder rock mindset. It seems like you have this really cool dynamic of doing your Wilco stuff and rocking out, but then you’re able to take a breath and come down with the Autumn Defense stuff. It just seems like a pretty easy, natural relationship between the two.

Yeah, I think so. We don’t really have to think about it too heavily, too consciously. There’s a lot of stuff about Wilco that’s on the softer side; certainly with a record like Sky Blue Sky, which isn’t too far off from the Autumn Defense sound, and vice-versa. I think the Autumn Defense is just those textures and sounds and harmonies that John and I bring to Wilco, it’s just more amplified in the Autumn Defense because we’re going deeper into that particular feel, whereas it’s just one element of the Wilco sound. So they’re definitely connected.

It’s hard for me to really be able to say, it’s probably easier for someone from the outside to be able to say what the differences are. Like I was saying before, it’s all part of one musical experience. But the main difference is with TAD, John and I have a direct forum for our own music. We’re singing our own songs. That’s really the difference.

How about the name? Where did that come from?

Well it doesn’t really have any specific origin, it’s not referencing anything specific. It was just, John, I think, in the early days of the band, he was just drawn to the word “defense” as part of the title for the project, and I think a couple of different things had been thrown around for names; I think the first name that was suggested for the band was the April Defense, but as we were making the music it seemed like it was taking on more of an autumnal sort of feel. So “Autumn Defense” seemed more appropriate and it just kind of stuck. For a while, I like to say, someone actually asked me this at a show, like “Oh, I figured out what ‘the Autumn Defense is’ — it’s an obscure chess move,” which I always thought was a cool take on it, so I used to use that in interviews.

:: ONE RECOMMENDATION

Since it’s snowing like crazy right now, and it’s probably not going to be gone by the time you guys get here, and since we’ll more than likely get even more snow by then, what’s one thing you love doing on a snow day?

Staying inside and listening to records.

:: SEVEN THINGS

What are your seven favorite records from the 1960s?

Oh my gosh. I’ll just quickly list off a few.

Revolver, the Beatles
The Kinks are: The Village Green Preservation Society, The Kinks
Odyssey & Oracle, the Zombies
Forever Changes, Love
Pet Sounds, the Beach Boys
Notorious Byrd Brothers, the Byrds
Bookends, Simon & Garfunkel

THE AUTUMN DEFENSE + T. HARDY MORRIS :: Wednesday, February 12 @ Great Scott, 1222 Commonwealth Ave., Allston :: 9 p.m., 18-plus, $15.00, 617.566.9014 :: advance tickets :: facebook event page


Autumn Defense Flyer

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