Finally, A Jars of Clay Christmas
10-12-2007
by Kevan Breitinger

My conversation with Jars of Clay lead guitarist Stephen Mason covered the ins and outs of Christmas music, just in time for the Oct. 16^th drop of Christmas Songs, the first release from their new label imprint, Gray Matters.

CMCentral (Kevan Breitinger): Hey Steven, thanks for calling, I appreciate you making the time. I’ll start with the most obvious question first: what compelled you to kick off the new label with a Christmas project?

Jars of Clay (Stephen Mason): Well, that is a good question. It was something we wanted to do for such a long time, and, well, frankly, were told we couldn’t (laughs). Part of enjoying the unfettered nature of what we do now as independent musicians is to move right into what stirs us and gets us excited.

That makes sense. I spent a lot of time last night with the album, and I love the way you come at the music from two different perspectives. You bring a lot of nostalgia and respect, but you also take a fresh look at the classics, especially that smokin’ take on “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” I gotta tell you how much I liked that one.

Oh, thank you.

Were you happy with the balance you came to while covering these familiar songs?

That was a hard process; it actually got really philosophical really early (laughing). We bounced around back and forth on a lot of points, knowing the Christmas music opportunity is a small one. Because most folks have grown up with the soundtrack to their Christmas, and it’s based largely on the nostalgia of their childhood. So to add something new to that meant re-visiting even our own musical preferences and trying to modernize them in a certain way, but definitely finding a way to keep it classic as well. It was a tall order, and we probably did more talking than we should have about it (laughing).

But at the end of it I think the conversation was honored in the way that it came together. It renewed our enjoyment of a lot of old songs and also gave us the freedom to break some new ground with some originals.

Yeah, those originals were breath-taking, really. You guys know how to set a mood like I don’t know who. It’s like you’re there, like you wanna go get a coat or something (laughing)!

Oh gosh, that’s great, that’s really good to hear. Yeah, doing the record in May, we really got into the Christmas spirit much earlier than intended (laughing).

And I read that you did the whole thing in a one-take approach. What was the reason for that?

We’ve discovered that there are a lot of intangibles that you get when a band is playing together, rather than the whole music-lab approach. But it hearkens back to the beginnings of the music industry, when you’d get a band in the studio that knew their songs and they would record the whole band, including the singer. Honestly, I think that it also helps in the discovery process. We find that there’s an intuitive nature to the process that happens when we’re all listening to each other and we see where a song can develop further or we stumble upon good things together. It’s very collaborative and very exciting to record it all together. And sometimes a mess as well (laughing), a complete and utter mess.

But an honest mess.

Yeah, that’s another truth. It gets to another level of authenticity as well. You don’t feel like it’s pre-fabricated.

Yes, it seemed like on “Drummer Boy” especially that you were just having a wonderful time and followed it.

Yeah, “Drummer Boy” was curious, especially in regard to our inability to get back to what we originally did in 1995 when we covered it. That was actually one of the harder works on the record, trying to breathe new life into it. We didn’t want to re-invent the wheel, but at the same time we knew that there was a way it could put on the skin of this record, and that it that would serve the song even better.

I thought that I heard a lot of jazz references on the album. Do any of you have any jazz background?

Ha! I certainly wish! (laughing). I wasn’t cut out for the 8 hours of practice every day, but boy, we do love it. The Vince Garibaldi stuff, from Peanuts, is now a part of the American lexicon of Christmas music. They took a risk a long time ago, and that allowed a lot of folks who didn’t know jazz to finally appreciate it, especially in a holiday manner. So yeah, especially with songs like “Hibernation Day,” we wanted to inject some of that.

Yeah, and “Love Came Down.”

Yeah, absolutely. I believe it was Dan who said we need a Chet Atkins kind of solo here in the middle (laughing), so we tried to come back with something that kind of sounded like it. I tell you, we were stretched musically in ways we haven’t been before and that was even more exciting, and really, really encouraging to the process because you know, 13 years in we’re still being surprised by one another, and staying excited.

Wow, that’s cool. Now I read that the CD is coming out with a book of reflections attached. Are you hoping to explore new avenues of expression with the new opportunity you have?

Definitely. One of the things we see is that Christmas can be a pretty introspective time. We wanted the music to have a certain weight to it, but also stay pretty light and lively, social background music if it needed to be (laughing).  We felt like the book gave us the opportunity to explore the season in a more serious manner. The work around Christmas comes down to believing that the story of Christmas is true, and simple, and believing that it can be good again, which requires a child-like approach. And that is not a naïve notion, but actually a very mature process that we go through to reconcile ourselves to our stories and once again rediscover how our lives can be changed to find simple faith once again.

That sounds like a book I definitely want to read.

Thank you. We’re really excited about it. There’s a couple of whimsical Griswold moments in it (laughing), but we wanted to explore more what Christmas meant to us and we haven’t really offered a lot of that to fans before. So we thought the opportunity to give our voices beyond the music would be pretty cool.

The new label sounds like it’s gonna be good all the way around for everybody.

I don’t know that we intended on being publishers (laughing) but depending on how this goes there’s always more to be said about it. Terry McBride, the head over at Nettwerk, told us that in this place and time, we’re only limited by our imaginations. And that’s inspiring and incredibly scary (laughing), but there’s a lot of excitement for what’s to come for us, and it’s a win-win for everybody.

I’m excited for you, Steven, and thanks for taking the time to talk with us.

Oh, absolutely, Kevan.

And have a great Christmas, brother.

Alright, you too.