TAS in Session: The Poison Tree

The Poison Tree is the new musical project from ex-King of France frontman Steve Salett. As the work in his previous band became less fulfilling, Salett started over. He began writing songs that were more in line with the type of material that first led him to becoming a songwriter. Those songs would become the album, and soon the band, The Poison Tree.

The record was born from sessions at Salett's studio in DUMBO known as Saltlands. The Poison Tree stopped by The Alternate Side studios recently to talk about the new record, Salett's Leonard Cohen-like baritone and more. Catch the band at Joe's Pub this Wednesday, March 23:

Russ: Steve Salett, you are the main man behind The Poison Tree, you want to introduce the rest of the musicians?

Steve: Yes, today on vocals and a little bit of drums and good feelings is Lauren Balthrop and we’ve got Josh Kaufman on the guitar.

Russ: So you want to talk a little about the making of this record? I heard that it’s something that evolved over some time.

Steve: It did, I worked on it for a while, for a couple of years and some of the songs I worked on for longer than that. It was the first record that I started to make all by myself without being in a band. I guess I focused on trying to write songs that I first started to write when I was in high school, when I first picked up guitar. I think over the years I started to chase some sounds, playing in bands, trying to do things that felt fun, but maybe less natural. This was a very focused attempt to get back to what made me start wanting to be a songwriter in the first place.

Russ: You mention other bands that you were in, like King of France. That eventually made its way out and this project came together and this was more of feeling like going in another direction? Did you feel like you were getting pulled to places you didn’t want to go?

Steve: I think I willingly went to places that I didn’t end up liking, but not that I had any issue with the band. It was more about character and me being the singer of the band. It didn’t feel as sincere. I felt like somebody else by the end of it which was great and fun for a while but at the end of that project, my new idea was to try to be me.

Russ: So you come back and you try to give yourself a labor of love and what I found listening to this record - and I’m not a musician - is that it sounds like a record that musicians would love to play. There’s something very musical about it. Natural and fun where everybody gets to explore their parts, airy and open-ended.

Steve: Well, it’s great that you hear it that way. I think the way the project came about. Around the same time I began the record in earnest, I began building a studio in DUMBO and that studio, the Saltlands, grew out of a music collective that’s down there. A bunch of studios, rehearsal rooms and a lot of making this record was literally pulling someone who was down the hall and dragging them into the studio and seeing what they wanted to do. So there was a little bit of that open feeling. Certainly when Josh got involved in the record that was also part of the approach. Josh plays all sorts of instruments on the record and it’s fun to let him loose in the studio to do his thing. I’m glad that you hear that it has this playful part of it even though you hear a very serious vibe to this record.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7WNd5zsvLY]

Russ: I think I read that there was a specific person that song was inspired by?

Steve: Oh yeah. Mr. Bread. When I first started playing music in DUMBO, about ten years ago, DUMBO was a very different place than it is now. Ten years ago you couldn’t buy a bottle of water; there was nothing out there and it was pretty sketchy. But there was one bar that’s still there called Pedro’s and a lot of artists would hang out there. This guy named Mr. Bread would hang out there and he was a very troubled guy. He was homeless in part by his own design and in part because of his mental illness, but he was a great guy to hang out with. Some close friends worked really hard to get him some help and to no avail, unfortunately. But yeah, it’s about Mr. Bread and his lively conversation.

Russ: Did you ever get the reasoning behind Mr. Bread?

Steve: I never did, but it’s kind of an awesome name.

Josh Kaufman: Maybe it’s a funny name. He’s not a rich guy, but he’s Mr. Bread?

Lauren Balthrop: Maybe that’s what he ate?

Josh: My wife and I have this tortoise who doesn’t do much and her name is Showboat.

Steve: I think Showboat is saying to herself, “Damn him! I do so much!”

Josh: Small movements. Just lots of them.

Steve: There’s a lot going on inside.

Russ: I love on this album that the lyrics are so clear. They’re not buried in the mix or muddied for one reason or another. You can understand what’s going on and grasp it. In the song “Caught,” the line, “You’re so smart, but you’re not that bright.” Great line.

Steve: I worked a lot on the lyrics. I’m pretty picky as far as what makes me feel good about a song; I can’t speak for other folks and what they might feel about it. “Caught” is a song I wrote over five years and it was about something else completely and I kind of transformed it. But I will get stuck on a word for about ten years. I’ll change a word and all of a sudden, the song is done. It takes me a while to figure out what isn’t quite right.

Russ: Does that drive you crazy?

Steve: Yes. I actually re-recorded “Caught” four times.

Russ: That’s interesting because saying that a song is recorded - does that mean it’s actually done? Or does it live on in performance? You hear that artists will change the words to a song years after writing it. Is a song ever finished?

Steve: I think it is an evolving process, whether you open that door or not. I certainly do. There’s this painter, Whistler, amazing painter. He was crazy about that and realized what was bugging him about one of his paintings, call the owner of the painting and ask them if he could change it and fix the painting. I think there was some incident where he broke into someone’s house because he wanted to fix his painting.

Lauren: That’s intense.

Steve: So anyone who listens to my music … I need their name and address. Not asking for much.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GelB_PCtc6c]

Russ: The band name comes from William Blake. It’s a great poem.

Steve: A kind of confusing poem. When I first started writing songs I was around 13 or 14 and I was taking some sort of English poetry class and we studied that poem. That was the first thing that I put to music, that poem, and it was probably terrible. I played it by myself in my room and it was a leaping off point for writing more songs. I played that and I played “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll”, which is a Dylan song, which was very easy to play on guitar. The chords kind of cluster together so it was an easy first song.

Russ: Does that remain “the” Dylan song for you? Or the starting point?

Steve: I love that song, but that’s not “the” Dylan song. Right now the Dylan song for me is “Went To See The Gypsy.” I guess I named this record first, The Poison Tree, because I think there are some concepts that are similar in the record to those groups of William Blake poems which are Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience. On the record there are those themes which are sometimes about an old dude telling some kid to learn their way around. Then again there are these songs that have this very innocent, naive perspective. I think that’s what turned on the light for naming the record and eventually the project, The Poison Tree.

Russ: The album has some jazz elements, heartbreak, a little bit of Leonard Cohen in there as well. Is he an influence too?

Steve: I call him Lenny. Yeah, he’s definitely in there. I just love his writing. Also, I have a very low voice and he has a low voice and I realized I could learn a lot from him. He uses his voice so well that he can get away with writing things that someone with a higher voice can’t get away with [writing].

Russ: Well, that’s good. Recognizing how the voice can work with the lyrics. You create something pretty special.

Steve: Yes, that’s something I’ve come to pretty recently. I always wished that I had a high voice when I first started writing songs. It’s easier to play in a band with a higher voice; it cuts through a little better. But I had to come to terms with playing very quietly and singing very low.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQKjJ5lldmE]

Russ: I was seeing something online - there’s a lot of blog interest in the band - but one fan had made a video of one of the songs on the album?

Steve: Yeah, they put together this song “My Only Friend” on the record and the opening scene of “Touch of Evil” which is a 1958 Orson Welles film and it’s just an incredible scene. It was the longest shot of its time and it was a crane shot. It’s weird how it goes together.

Lauren: It’s amazing. It’s so beautiful.

Russ: It’s weird how someone had that perception of listening to the music and that’s where it went with them.

Steve: I think there are different ways that artists connect with people. I’m probably more of the world of connecting to some people, hopefully some more deeply. That’s my intention certainly; I’m not planning on eight million people running out and buying the record. I think the music industry is very arbitrary. You can work really hard and have nothing happen or do nothing and have something happen. So I guess my plan is to do something that I feel good about and enjoy and add some meaning to my life. And I don’t have to worry about whether there’s some outside force telling me that I’m great. Ultimately, I’m hoping that doing it this way will connect more with people. But it’s certainly not the main thrust of it.

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEIAFp69lsg]

(a brand new song)