The MUSE spoke to Cris Jacobs of The Bridge who called to talk about new album National Bohemian, working with producer Steve Berlin and not shortchanging the epicness.
Things are different for The Bridge these days. After years of grinding out gigs along the Eastern seaboard and trying to branch out from their beloved Baltimore roots, they are finally ready to break out of their Chesapeake Bay-shaped cocoon and gain some national recognition. With a new album, National Bohemian (Woodberry) and a just-announced American tour supporting the likes of Tea Leaf Green and Galactic before heading out on their own in the Spring, the band is well-poised to finally crack the mainstream.
But to do that, The Bridge needed a product to give to the masses. While earlier albums The Bridge (Hyena) and Blind Man’s Hill (Hyena) were outstanding efforts that stand on their own as testaments to the band’s genre-encompassing style and diverse ability, they decided to make a statement this time around with National Bohemian.
“The recording process was way different [than earlier records]” said Cris Jacobs, guitarist, singer and one of the two principal songwriters of The Bridge. “We did a lot of preparation and pre-production beforehand so we could just go into the studio and bang it out in ten days.”
Throwing down eleven tracks in ten days doesn’t seem like the sort of well-rounded and well-crafted output that would put a hard-working band on the map, but that’s where the differences lie. “In the past we’d gone into the studio and started everything on the clock there with no specific deadlines and produced everything ourselves,” said Jacobs. “It took a lot longer and was a lot more nerve-wracking.”
This time around The Bridge signed on Steve Berlin, best known as the keyboardist and one of the founding members of the Mexican rock group Los Lobos, to handle production duties, and the process was started months before the group ever saw the inside of the studio.
“We had been in contact with Steve and were bouncing ideas back and forth with him, sending him rough demos, having him critique and edit them,” said Jacobs. “He basically pared down a crop of 25, 30 songs from Kenny [Liner, mandolinist] and myself down to the eleven we recorded for the album.”
With Berlin on board, The Bridge had an outsider directing the project and getting involved in the creative process in a way the band had never allowed before. Yet ceding creative control was easier than it seemed for Jacobs and the crew.
“We had never really had anybody critique or edit our songs before, but after we met Steve we could just tell right away that we had a great personal report with him,” said Jacobs. “It was kind of nice to have an outside opinion of somebody who has the experience and musical knowledge that he does being able to create his own vision based on what he thought of us. We really loved the end result.”
And that end result, National Bohemian, both updates and expands upon the canon that the band has already cultivated. The Bridge and Blind Man’s Hill showed their excellence in the laid back funk, blistering bluegrass and powerful Southern-tinged rock and roll that The Bridge was able to master and convene, but this latest effort goes a step further. Tracks like “Chavez” and “Stranger In My Own Home” go places that The Bridge has never really explored on record before, showcasing sides to the band that had previously remained hidden and opening up a Pandora’s Box of possibilities for the future.
“A lot of that had to do with Steve, as well,” said Jacobs. “We were working on some of the arrangements to those songs and he really wanted to explore them to the fullest. I think I can quote him directly; he said to us “Why shortchange the epicness?””
Many of Berlin’s ideas are evident on National Bohemian, including the range of styles that are portrayed in some of the songs; for a group that has always been known as a melting pot, as a group where easy categorization goes to die, The Bridge has managed to broaden that scope even further.
“Some of the songs [we had] I hadn’t thought were songs The Bridge would want to play, but those were the ones [Berlin] picked to record,” said Jacobs. “That kind of opened the door for Kenny and I as songwriters to come up with any song that we wanted to write and know that the band was going to back us up and pull it off no matter what, 100 per cent. We look at this album as an open door to the possibility of a future for the band and evolution allowing us to go anywhere we want.”
It’s a door that The Bridge are practically bursting through with this album, and with hopes for this just-underway tour sky high it’s getting easier for the band to venture outside the cozy confines of Baltimore. But if anything, life on the road makes coming back home that much sweeter.
“When we go out and play months on the road to half empty or empty rooms and then we come back home and play a huge show, the momentum really carries us for months on end,” said Jacobs. “Now things are starting to catch on outside of Baltimore but it was that initial love that we received there that encouraged us to continue as a band.”
And continue they will, testing out this new material in the only way a touring band can – by taking it on the road. This time, however, with National Bohemian and a growing level of support in tow, The Bridge are packing a bigger punch than ever before.
“It just feels like we’re really coming into our own as a band and establishing our identity, and we really feel like we’ve found our sound,” said Jacobs. “We’re just going to go out there and do what we’ve always done, but with a clearer vision and with even better songs this time.”
Hopefully, America is listening this time.
The Bridge opens for Tea Leaf Green at the Paradise this Friday, Feb. 11
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