A Tour Inside David Wax Museum

After David Wax traveled down to Mexico on an academic fellowship to study folk music, the songwriter formed David Wax Museum, who were voted Boston’s Americana Artist of the Year in 2010, as a vehicle for his continued folk explorations. Combining both his Midwestern roots along with his passionate insight into Mexican music traditions, the group’s newest album Everything Is Saved warmly resonates as a successful lesson in multi-cultural immersion. American Songwriter spoke with Wax over the phone about how his live shows influence his songwriting process, the group’s new album Everything Is Saved and his incorporation of Mexican and American folk into his songs.

Last year, David Wax Museum played over 200 shows. How did that experience affect the group?

I think we’ve always been geared to play as much as possible. Over 200 gigs… it felt like a lot. It’s hard to imagine we can really sustain that. A lot of those shows were house concerts, which is really where we’ve developed the most in a certain sense because there’s such a clear give-and-take between you and the audience in a house concert setting.

Sometimes there’s people seated and listening, but it can sometimes get really rowdy–so there’s a lot of controlling the flow of the room and you can see everyone’s face. There’s no hiding behind the lights in that kind of setting. Now when we play on a bigger stage or at festivals, we always play in the audience some point in the show–it’s a really natural thing for us.

Do you still find that at larger shows that people gravitate to that kind of performance as opposed to the house shows?

I think at a big show when you [play in the audience], it catches people a little more off-guard. So that can sometimes be more effective in creating a real connection with the audience. It can be a bit jarring for the audience, because they’re not used to it. So they’re kind of adjusting to it, but in a way can make it a lot more exciting for them. Our house concert audiences are ready and geared for that experience.

Over the course of the past year, had you already written the songs for Everything Is Saved or were those penned throughout the year as you performed all those shows?

The bulk of it we recorded last February. It went through a lot of work in terms of adding horn arrangements in April. We scrapped some of those and then added some guitar in July. We were touring so hard and our producer was touring very hard with Josh Ritter. He was mixing on the road and sending us stuff–we were going back and forth. It was basically all recorded then.

My cousin Jordan [Wax] and Suz [Slezak] and I were up at the studio for 11 days in February doing the whole recording. That really informed the shows and the songs more than anything. A lot of the songs changed in the recording [process] and a lot of the experience of working with [producer] Sam Kassirer changed a lot about what we thought of the band. We thought about a lot of the songs at a fast rate and then they changed after the recording session actually.

What do you think the biggest difference is between your first album Carpenter Bird and Everything Is Saved?

We took a lot more risks. I feel like with Carpenter Bird, it wasn’t event a conscious decision, but I think looking back we really played it safe.

In what way?

I think that we had a sense of what we were as a band when we made Carpenter Bird–all acoustic instruments, and it would be kind of clean, organized in a way. I think with Everything Is Saved we let loose a lot more. Part of it was that we had the time. We had 11 days in the studio to experiment and 11 days to go down some dead ends and turn up with some surprising things. But it was a different spirit that we approached it with–more like anything was fair game.

There was no “let’s drop all ideas about what this band does or doesn’t do.” At the same time, we were clarifying for ourselves who we were in terms of our relationship to Mexican music. And the band [was] to develop as a duo with a supporting cast. So those things were all happening at the same time. We really tried to focus the record on our voices, Suz’s voice and my voice together, with that at the center.

Much of your Mexican folk influence has been credited toward your academic background as you completed a fellowship in Mexico. Did your interest in Mexican folk music initially come from an academic perspective studying the culture or as a musician?

Definitely as a musician. I think it’s inevitable that just because of my background that some sort of academic approach informs it. But I wouldn’t say I have an academic understanding of Mexican folk music. When I went down there to learn, to play the music, I went as a student–as a musician who found teachers. All the teaching is very informal down there–people playing and you play along. A lot of the music teachers don’t read music, all of them learn by ear–so that’s how I learned, that’s how I studied the music.

But as an outsider, you’re inevitably observing in a sense and are aware. The interest to some degree is the same interest an academic would bring to it, but I went down with a passion for the music, wanting to learn it as a musician.

Did you originally go to Mexico for that interest or were you down there at first for another reason?

I was down there for another reason initially in 2001, and then the interest arose. But when I graduated from college and went back to Mexico on a fellowship, that fellowship was specifically to go down there and play Mexican music.

Since starting David Wax Museum and incorporating Mexican folk into your sound, what has been the response of Mexican folk musicians? Are you concerned with portraying a certain sense of cultural authenticity in your work?

That’s a good question. Most of what I found is that people think it’s great that there’s someone outside of the culture interested in the music. I think in a way it can be a validating thing that someone cares enough about the music that someone wants to study it. There’s been a lot of people who have done it over the years that have come in and taken the music really seriously and contributed a lot to Mexican folk music from the outside.

I don’t strive to make our music culturally authentic in a Mexican sense. Mexican music is something I love and something I’m passionate about. It inspires me. So it’s really important inspiration to what we’re doing, but we’re not trying to play Son Jarocho. We’re not trying to play Mexican son–we don’t have the skills for that. It’s music that would take a lifetime of studying to play it right and with integrity. So we’re drawing inspiration from it and ideas. It’s a starting point for some of our songs. That’s how we approach it and we try [to do it] thoughtfully and sensitively. So far I think the reaction has been pretty positive.

Moving forward, do you plan on keeping the Mexican folk influence as an integral part of David Wax Museum or have you started to immerse yourself in other types of ethnic folk music and expand your sound?

That’s something we’re in the middle of figuring out now. I think [Mexican and American folk music] will remain at the center of the music…It’s kind of hard to imagine incorporating anything else–we feel like we already have our hands full with what we’re trying to do right now. Some of the most recent stuff is rooted in the Americana tradition than the Mexican tradition. There’s still a lot of things that are in the works, so it’s hard to say what the [future] will hold.

I don’t have a clear sense of it. Sometimes it’s just whatever instrument I have in hand. What stuff I am listening to the most that week…But I think the songs call for different things. It’s a good question, but I think it’s something that’s not very conscience.