David Mayfield Parade: Full Album Stream & Q&A

With David Mayfield Parade, how did you decide on that name?

You know, I’m not sure when that name came into play but after going through a painful breakup with Cadillac Sky, I knew I had to put my name out there, because two years investing your art and time and efforts into a band and see it go away was hard to do, so I knew I had to put my name on it. The joke is David Mayfield can’t breakup. So the Parade can change and come and go and it has as the last couple years I’ve gone through several different lineups of musicians. But it’s always the David Mayfield Parade because I’m always there.

I wanted the show to be more about moments and less about standing up there and playing songs and serving my ego. I wanted it to be about entertaining and creating moments people would remember. A parade seemed like a good thing to call it. This is more than just a band.

You have a pretty lively stage presence, so that name fits with the upbeat meaning of parade.

Yeah. When you say David Mayfield Parade people in some way will think there’s some aspect of jovial enjoyment about it than just the David Mayfield Band, which sounds more like a jam band.

What got you thinking of making a new record?

I just knew I had to make another one. When I made the first one it was more ‘Should I do this? Do I need to do this? Is anybody going to care?’ I didn’t know if anyone would listen. I thought maybe some old Cadillac Sky fans would want to hear what I’m doing but I had no idea it would blow up into what it’s become. Now I feel it doesn’t belong to me anymore. The David Mayfield Parade consists of me and the four or five other people that are with me on stage but it’s also all the people that are listening and coming to shows. I did a Kickstarter and all these people were part of that. It just feels like unity has spawned out of this one album and live show. So now it feels like I owe these people another record. I have to. They demand it. It’s not up to me, I have to do it and hope that I don’t let them down. It’s scary and exciting at the same time. It’s a completely different mindset . . . The scary part is delivering because there are expectations.

I feel this record is different and I took chances. I didn’t want to stick to some formula and make another record that sounded like the last one. I took chances and went strange places. It’s a darker record, it’s more mature. I compare my musical career to Indiana Jones trilogy so the first album was like Raiders of the Lost Ark and this one was my Temple of Doom record that’s kind of dark and weird and a lot of people won’t like it. Eventually I’ll make my Last Crusade album with Sean Connery in it and everyone will be happy.

There’s a pretty diverse collection of songs on this new one musically. It sounds like you’re drawing from a lot of different influences.

I recorded the first one with my dear friend Bob Cesare up here in Ohio; he was the guy who helped build Dan Auerbach’s studio and helped Dan with some of the earlier records he was producing. He has a great feel for the Beatles and AM radio kind of feel and that’s naturally how the first record turned out. But the live show is a lot more ambitious. There’s a lot more bluegrass influence with fiddle and standup bass and more freedom where to go with the songs. And I wanted to capture that on the new record. So there’s a lot more chances taken and bluegrass influence with more banjos and fiddles and things. People who are a fan of the live show will be happy with this record. It’s more true to that than the first one.

“Another Year” seems to venture a bit into outlaw country.

I’ve never been a big outlaw country fan, but I tend to get in that spirit sometimes, probably because of my rock and bluegrass influences coming together. But that was a fun song because I got to have my favorite bluegrass gospel band from when I was a kid, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver. I met them over the last few years at festivals and became friends. They’re the ones singing harmonies on “Another One.” So it was cool to have my childhood idol singing on my record. That’s one of those things that you put on the record that nobody’s going to get more enjoyment on him being on my record than me.

There are a lot of influences on the record because I have lots of influences. There are two schools of thought with making a record. You can make it unified so every song sounds in the same vein like they exist completely together. It would be on radio and can’t be too big that you can’t reproduce live. The other thing is do whatever the fuck you want to do. And let the live show be its own thing and let the record be its own thing and go wherever you want to go. I’m not trying to have every song played on the same radio station. It doesn’t need to be unified. My fans they come to the show and like the country song and the crazy stuff and comedy so why not give them that on a disc. Let them take an experience similar to that one and have it in their car on their way to work.

On the song “Tempted,” you were able to get Dierks Bentley to sing on it.

I met Dierks when we were opening for Mumford & Sons in Nashville. Dierks came out to the show and got to talking. It was funny because he said, “I figured out who you are. I used to see you play at the Station Inn when you were like 17 years old with your family bluegrass band.” And I was like, “Yeah that was me.” And this was before Dierks became the big country star he is now; he was in Nashville trying to get a record deal and he would go watch our family bluegrass band. We connected in that way and he said ‘Hey if you ever want to do something I would love to do something sometime.’ So I was thinking that would be a bizarre and unexpected thing to do. A lot of people wouldn’t expect a man duet but it was a lot of fun and we decided on “Tempted” which is a Marty Stuart song. We met up in Nashville and had a lot of fun recording it.

With the title Good Man Down, how does it relates to the songs on the record? You mentioned it was a darker record but there seems to be some sense of hope.

I think it’s a good representation of the story the songs tell collectively. It was just one of those things that just popped out one day and it made a lot of sense. To me it feels more real. The last record had some sincere moments but sometimes they were glossed over a little bit with a movie sense of hope where this new one seemed more realistic. “Was it Only Me” and “Little Blue Car” are songs that come from a darker place where I’m a little less hopeful. It’s hard to be hopeful when you’re in the thick of things. Maybe if I wrote a song about how I was feeling when I wrote those in the future it would more hopeful because it’ll be behind me. I made it so I can write from past experience. I’ll be able to say, “It’s okay everybody.” When I’m in the moments it’s like, “I’m not going to make it.” That’s why I think it has a hopeful but realistically hopeful tendency.

How has your songwriting process changed over the years?

I think the biggest thing is that I’ve become more of an editor. I used to write songs and they would just spew out and I wouldn’t have to really think about it. I wrote some songs that way that were good. Some of the songs on my first album were older ones. “Dorm Room Wall” was one I wrote in 15 minutes. Over the years I’ve become more critical and realize that even though I’m writing from a personal place doesn’t mean I have to stifle myself and not allow myself to make each line as good as it can be and help convey that emotion as best as I can. I’m really editing things and hashing them out a lot. There’s a song I’m working on that’s a year and a half old. But I know it’s going to be good when it’s done. I’m trying to work on things like that but not be too precious about it either. That’s something I learned recently. On “Little Blue Car” it had a completely different chorus and worked on it and decided one day to start over. And the song opened up from there and I threw that old chorus away.

You recorded the album in two famous studios, RCA Studio B and the Quonset Hut. What was that like?

They were both the original Nashville sound studios where Patsy Cline and Roy Orbison and Elvis and Dolly Parton and you can name anyone that’s had a hit in Nashville between the late ‘50s and late ‘70s they’ve recorded in one of these two studios. The cool thing about it is that they have all the gear still. So it’s not like you go in Sun Studios in Memphis and all the gear is gone but the room is there. The great thing with RCA Studio B is that everything is still there. I sang into the same microphone that Patsy Cline sang “Crazy” into. It’s an incredible history and it’s really truly inspiring.

Were you able to do more there than you were on first album with the better studios?

Yeah. Though I think the first album sounded great. It was done in Bob’s basement and it was done in a short amount of time without a whole lot of preparation. It was a simple, straight-forward type of thing. I loved that and I’ll do another record like that. But for this one, especially when the Kickstarter was so successful and all that, I felt I really wanted to make something big and epic and explore every whim that we had. If someone said how about a trumpet part in this part and I would go ‘Do we know any trumpet players?’ Let’s have fun.

Like I said, the album can be its own experience. People will say ‘how will you do this live?’ Well I’m not. I’m going to do what I do live. I’m going to do this song live the way that I do it live and the album version can be its own unique experience. Going at it with that mentality gives you a lot of opportunity to be wacky and go wherever you want to go.

The Kickstarter page mentioned you recording live to capture the live feeling and urgency. Did that come to play out?

At both of those places, they both have one big tracking room. As opposed to other studios where they put people in a little booth and separate them. We sat in the big room and didn’t wear headphones to each other. And we got a live take for each song and embellished it and edited on some little things.

Are you starting to do that method more, recording live?

Yeah, absolutely. I produce a lot of records for a lot of bands. I’ve done four in the last two months. I feel like I can hear it. When I put a record in and it’s been pieced together one at a time and everyone plays to a metronome and everyone’s isolated there’s a lot of things that sound good but it definitely feels like it was done in that process, almost a sterile nature to it. There’s some intangible magic that happens from people just playing together and reacting off each other and making eye contact. That’s the way I like to do it.