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Jesse and Noah - Leave Love Alone |
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Jesse and Noah Bellamy who perform and record simply and Jesse and Noah,
visited with Riveting Riffs Magazine recently to talk about their new EP
Leave Love Alone, which derives its name from the titular song
and to ring in the holiday season with two Christmas songs, one a cover
tune and the other an original.
We jokingly asked them about the song “Leave Love Alone,” and if it was
a reference to a relationship that went sideways.
Jesse replied, “That is an older song, so I don’t even remember. I
started that song with Simon Bruce, an Australian singer and songwriter
who lived here in Nashville for a while. We halfway finished it and he
and Daniel Tashian finished it and then it came back to me. Daniel was
going to put it out and then I didn’t hear anything for a while and so I
thought I would just throw it into this mix of songs that we were doing
for our next session. We thought we could do a pretty good job on it. We
recorded it, got it ready to go and he ended up putting his out around
the same time or maybe a couple of weeks before or something like that.
He released it mostly in Australia. I guess it is worldwide, because of
streaming.
The songs ended up being so different and with different audiences, so
they didn’t really clash.”
Produced by Pino Squillace, engineered by Brandon Henegar and recorded
at the House Of David Studios in Nashville the song is a Country song,
with Rock influences and excellent musicianship. Those who have followed
Jesse and Noah over the years, should not be surprised that Noah serves
up some incredible electric guitar licks, while being joined by Lorenzo
Piccone and Steve Cirvencik (also on guitars).
They laugh simultaneously, and Noah finally says, “We just got bogged
down,” while Jesse adds, “Some of these songs we were producing and had
versions of them, and we just couldn’t finish them being at home. It
took a long time to get everything out. We started working on some of
them in 2020 and we did some sessions at the ranch down in Florida. It
seemed like it would be easier to go in (to the studio) and recut them
from the ground up rather than trying to finish the versions that we
had.”
As for drummer Herschel VanDyke, Jesse says, “He has been playing with
us for seven or eight years or something like that. He is pretty key to
our sound at this point. Jarred Harris, our bass player started playing
with us a couple of years ago,” to which Noah adds, “When we started the
project, he was the new guy.”
You may recognize
keyboardist Michael Klooster from Smash Mouth and Jesse explains how he
came to be on this album, “We met him through Pino, and he is great.
This new music that we are cutting is just the four of us, plus Michael
Klooster. We love playing with him. He is great. We play a lot with him
when we can get him, but of course Smash Mouth still plays a lot of
gigs. At first Pino said we can get Peter Keys from Lynyrd Skynyrd and I
said that sounds like a good fit, but Peter wasn’t available, so then he
said well how about Michael Klooster from Smash Mouth? I said well that
sounds interesting, but he turned out to be the best guy. He’s got a
quirky sense of humor about the way that he plays.”
“When we play
gigs, it is the four of us (Jesse, Noah, Herschel and Jarred). It is
more economical for the four of us just to jump in the van and go. We
can pretty much play and kind of a gig and any scale (of venue)
including festivals,” explains Jesse.
In addition to the vocals of Jesse and Noah, background vocals are
courtesy of Shawn Mayer and Chris Hatfield.
The second song,
“Too Much,” is beautiful, and is a song of
gratitude for the love that two people share. The elegant guitar solo by
Noah Bellamy takes this song to another level and he says, “I am pretty
sure I was thinking George Benson the guitar.”
Jesse talks about the song, “There were quite a few different versions
and it changed quite a bit. Originally, when I wrote it the sound was a
little more like a Fleetwood Mac song. We are going to go back and do
that version of it also, probably on the next album. For this one when
we got together with our producer Pino and he had the idea to make this
a little funkier. The song works really well both ways. I just wanted to
write something very straightforward, simple and Pop.
For the lyrics I went with my ear. It was more about how the lyrics
sounded. One thing I remember is that I was back and forth on it. I
wanted that kind of chorus that was over and over again, so I was back
and forth whether it should be, “You’re Too Much To Me or You’re So
Good To Me.” Then I realized oh I have room to do both, and that is
what it became.”
Once again Shawn Mayer and Chris Hatfield provide background vocals and
Jesse takes time to talk about them, “Chris is a friend of Pino
Squillace who produced (the album). Pino brought him in to sing backup.
He could hear really cool parts, and he has a really good ear. I really
like working with him a lot.”
Noah provides some additional insights about Chris Hatfield, “He is
mainly a piano player and does dueling pianos and stuff, but he is a
great singer.”
As far as Shawn Mayer is concerned, Jesse says, “She (performs) in a duo
with Pino on drums and Shawn on electric guitar and vocals. She has that
raspy, cool, Rock and Roll voice that you hear at the very end of “Leave
Love Alone.”
Now can we get to the Christmas songs? Not yet! I am going to pout.
The songs “Let Me Roll Away,” and “Imagine the Stars,” were both written
by Noah.
He talks about the song, “Let Me Roll Away,” and explains the song’s
evolution, “It was too long for the longest time. We had four choruses
every time. It wasn’t until we were in pre-production that we decided to
chop it up, a little bit and just kept what needed to be in there,”
(they both laugh when we ask what is too long?), and Noah continues, “It
was six minutes. Some things were just redundant. I didn’t want to cut
any verses out, because I didn’t think it made any sense without all of
those.”
As for the song, “Imagine the Stars,” Noah says, “This is one of the
ones that we recorded the basic tracks down at the ranch. I ended up
playing Fender Rhodes on it, instead of playing guitar, while tracking
it.”
Now can we talk about the Christmas songs? No.
Okay, tell us about the song, “Crown Victoria.”
That was the one that we cut at the Cash Cabin. That was Johnny Cash’s
studio (now owned and operated by John Carter Cash). The cabin is
separate from the house. It is on the property out there. It was
literally just a cabin, and it was converted into a studio where he
recorded all of those final sessions. That was recorded at the very end
of 2019, and we probably would have gone back to the Cash Cabin and
worked on a complete album, but then COVID hit and that didn’t really
happen. We wanted to put the song on this EP, so we could get it out.
The cabin is in Hendersonville, and we are recording in Hendersonville
right now. We have another studio up there that we really like. The next
album will all be recorded in Hendersonville.
“Heather played slide guitar on “Crown Victoria,” and she played twelve
strings on “Williamsburg.” She grew up near our hometown, but we didn’t
meet her until she got to Nashville. She went to the same guitar teacher
that we did in Florida, but she is younger than us. We never met until
she was here. She has a bunch of thins going on. She has a band called
Wolf Twin and she plays with a bunch of artists as well,” says Jesse.
Rorey Caroll plays electric bass on “Crown Victoria.”
Now? Yes now.
You covered Chris Rea’s “Driving Home for Christmas,” how come?
Jesse says, “It is my favorite Christmas song. It is not as well known
in the U.S., but it is probably better known in the rest of the world.
It is a classic song, but not well known here. I have always loved Chris
Rea, and I always wanted to cover it. We wanted to put out a Christmas
song, because we knew we were putting out the EP and we are working on
an album for maybe in March. We knew we needed something in between to
put out. With Christmas falling in between we went in and decided to cut
that. We have another Christmas song coming out that Noah wrote (it has
now been released and you can listen on YouTube here.” Noah, picks up the conversation here, “It is called, “A Little Thing Called Christmas.” It is kind of an old-fashioned type of song and it takes a humorous look at Christmas and traditions. Everybody has their own Christmas traditions, some of them are silly. They are great and fun, but it is funny to me how everybody has their own Christmas traditions. We released it as an A side B side Christmas record.”
Please visit
the website for Jesse and Noah or follow them on
their Instagram.
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Jesse
and Noah are talented producers and sound engineers in their own right,
so we wondered why they chose to have other people produce and engineer
the album Leave Love Alone.