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Interview: Bill Payne of Little Feat
As Little Feat prepares to the celebrate their 40th anniversary together in 2009, the group has just put an extraordinary new album that pays tribute to the band’s past, present and future. It’s hard to classify Join The Band, as the disc is equal parts tribute, cover and reworked greatest hits album. A number of legendary performers who have either influenced or been influenced by Little Feat including Emmylou Harris, Bob Seger, Dave Matthews and Jimmy Buffett, have joined the septet on their best release in years.
We spoke with Little Feat keyboardist Bill Payne, who also co-produced Join The Band, about how this collection of memorable tunes came together, the dark days of Little Feat and many other topics. Also, be sure to check out Glide’s main site for an interview with drummer Richie Hayward and keep your eyes out later this week for our interview with co-producer, special guest and Coral Reefer Band member Mac McAnally. Here’s our talk with Bill…
Scott Bernstein: I’ve been listening to Join The Band for the last couple of weeks now and I really dig the album. It’s an album that flows nicely from the first track to the last. I don’t know what you’d call it…
Bill Payne: I was hoping you’d say that!
SB: It’s certainly not a tribute album or a straight greatest hits album. How did this album come about? I know it’s been four years in the making, can you take us through the timeline?
BP: Let’s go back about four or five years before that even. I tried to bring some people to the Fox Theater in St. Louis to play a large Little Feat show with a buncha different artists. That proved to be too complicated, but Dave Matthews actually signed on to do it. So, four or five years later when (Jimmy) Buffett’s people called him, Dave’s people they said “we told Billy we’d do it way back then and we’ll do it now.” So he was on both times.
But really what brought it together, honestly, was Jimmy Buffett. He more or less helped not only finance the album but really brought this thing into reality in terms of giving us an actual platform to do something. He provided his studio down in Key West. It was amazing to get a chance to work in the studio with Mac McAnally who produced that album and then work with Alan Schulman who was the engineer and Mike Utley of Jimmy’s band. When the idea for this album was born, I called Mac up and asked him if he would produce something with me for this record and he said sure. Then Jimmy came onboard and everything kinda fell together.
It took a long time from that point, because of not only the shifting stance of the guest list, but later the normal push and pull from record label, managers and lawyers getting into the mix which they invitiably have to do. So, that took some time as well. But the music, which is really the centerpiece of any endeavor of this sort, is the thing that was real solid. We got great performances down.
Just giving Dave Matthews the hard drives to his engineers and saying “do what you want to do.” Well, his idea on Fatman on the Bathtub was to overlay 18 vocals. We listened to it and we realized “oh my god this guy is incredible.” You know also with the recent loss of LeRoi Moore, every band is kinda on this journey together. We swim in different schools with each other. So that kinda hit home last month when we heard of his passing. We don’t know Dave all that well to be honest with you, but this album was also about influences that go back and forth. Anytime you can say that you were part of band it’s a different kinda world. It was really sad to hear of the guys loss.
more http://www.glidemagazine.com/hiddentrack/interview-bill-payne-of-little-feat/
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