On April 26 of this year, Iron & Wine, aka Sam Beam, released his seventh full-length studio album, Light Verse. In a bit of a departure from his previous works, Beam recorded this album in Los Angeles with producer Dave Way.

The album itself presents Iron & Wine in a creative, playful space. While on tour in support of the record, Beam visited The Current studio to perform solo versions of some songs from Light Verse. Afterwards, he spent some time visiting and sharing a few laughs with host Mac Wilson. Watch the performance above and the video below … and below that, you can read a full transcript of the interview.

Interview Transcript

Mac Wilson: Hello friends, I'm Mac Wilson from The Current from Minnesota Public Radio. I am joined in The Current studio by Iron & Wine. Sam, thanks for stopping in today.

Sam Beam: Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. 

Mac Wilson: I want to go back in time a minute: 2004 at my college radio station, we've got your record [Our Endless Numbered Days] in rotation, it's Iron & Wine. And my buddy goes to me, he goes, "Iron & Wine? It's just one guy, like Nine Inch Nails." And I'm like, "Well..."

Sam Beam: Exactly like Nine Inch Nails.

Mac Wilson: This is how I learned that Nine Inch Nails is one guy, and that was sort of my introduction to you as an artist, but sort of similar to the way that Trent Reznor has introduced various folks into the Nine Inch Nails fold over time, Sam, that you work with different people in different capacities. So who are some of the people that you've worked with, whether on the record or you've got out on the road with you at this particular time?

Sam Beam: Oh, right now, I have a longtime collaborator named Rob Burger, he's a keyboard player and arranger. And then also Beth Goodfellow is playing drums with me again, she's been playing with me off and on for a long time. And then a lot of new people. Lauren Baba is a violin player from L.A., and Katie Ernst is a bass player from Chicago.

Iron & Wine touring musicians

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Mac Wilson: And that's the crew that you've got out on the road with you. So with the setup that you've got, like, even when you're in The Current studio just now, you were going over different songs that you wanted to play. Is it a little less malleable when you've got that much more people out on stage with you? Or can you change things up on the fly?

Sam Beam: Yeah. And Rhea Fowler's there, too, as an extra violin, too. Oh, yeah, we can change pretty easily. I mean, you know, you do have to, you know, give people a heads up. It's not totally improvisational music, but everybody knows the form. It's just sort of a matter of finding like a vibe, if you will.

Mac Wilson: One of the songs that you play on the new record and that you played in the studio just now, "All in Good Time," you collaborated on the record with Fiona Apple.

Sam Beam: Right.

Mac Wilson: Now, is Fiona Apple one of those people who you can just dial up on your phone or what? I was thinking about it and I'm like, "If you're in the know, she probably seems pretty approachable." But how did that collaboration come across?

Sam Beam: We share a couple band members, especially the people that ... One of the reasons I went, the last record that we recorded called Light Verse, we recorded in L.A. at a friend, Dave Way, his house, he has a studio called the Waystation. And they, Fiona and her band, had recorded the last couple records there, and the guys that we share in common in our bands, they were like, "Man, you gotta go to Dave's place," and turns out they were right. It was really great. So one of the reasons that I was there was because they had been recording there. And so it was kind of a family affair.

Mac Wilson: That's gotta be nice to have a last name that you can work in as a pun to your recording studio. Like that's, that's one in a million, the Waystation.

Sam Beam: What's your last name?

Mac Wilson: Wilson.

Sam Beam: Aw, man.

Mac Wilson: My first name is Mac, like the burger, so I think that you could probably do that.

Sam Beam: You've got a lot of options.

Mac Wilson: One of the funny things, there's a road here in town called Beam Avenue, so I was thinking about you, like, driving home, I'm like, "This is a sign for the session that we're going to do, this is going to be great."

Sam Beam: It's totally a sign.

Mac Wilson: One of the songs on the record that we, the first one that we played, is called "You Never Know." And that just as a simple saying, it's sort of like a mantra over the last couple of years, like you truly don't know what any one day is going to bring. You never know. So I felt like that was a, that's a really good way to ease into the record and the first one to hear from. Did you have a similar experience when you were putting that song together? 

Sam Beam: Yeah, I mean, you know, when you didn't really have an idea what song was going to be first in the sequence when you're making them, but you know, it has a nice, just sort of easing into it. I thought that was appropriate for that. Some records you like to have a loud punch in the face at the beginning. This one seemed like more of a, like a warm handshake. Like, "Let's all sit down and take a listen."

Mac Wilson: What was the last show...? OK, so I might be wrong when I'm saying this. So I'm sort of thinking out loud. But what was the last time you played in town? Was it with Calexico back in 2019?

Sam Beam: I think so yeah, that was the last time.

Mac Wilson: I remember we live streamed that one, I think was at the Palace Theatre, where The Current, we had a live stream of it where I was able to sit at home and watch the whole thing. So that was cool.

Sam Beam: So cool!

Mac Wilson: Did you do any similar, like, live streams of that over the last couple of years during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Sam Beam: You know, I didn't really do any of that. I kind of hibernated away. I hermitted myself away and worked. I was having trouble writing, you know, just my creative stuff doesn't come from chaos. Unlike most artists! And so I worked on other stuff; I just did, I worked on paintings and some, I played a lot of guitar, but just sort of put the songwriting stuff away. Yeah, I mean, I enjoyed other people doing it. I'm not sure, I just felt a little selfish and kind of enjoyed it.

Mac Wilson: Were there any good ones that you tuned into that you remember?

Sam Beam: Yeah, that's a good question.

Mac Wilson: Well, it all truly blurs together time. Like, where I was coming into the session. I'm like, "Did I do it as Zoom chat with Sam at any point during the pandemic? I don't know." Sorry, go ahead.

Sam Beam: I was saying, yeah, there was a lot of material out there, because we were all sitting right in front of our computers.

Mac Wilson: And one of the questions that I find myself asking musicians is like, "Hey, are there any, like hobbies or new things that you took up over the last couple of years?" But you mentioned painting; you had your first art installation.

Sam Beam: That's right!

Mac Wilson: Earlier this year. I know nothing about beginning an art installation. So like, mentally, what's the process of rolling that out, as opposed to rolling out a new record?

Sam Beam: They're not terribly dissimilar, honestly. I mean, I'm always working on this visual material. And then I have a friend who has a gallery in town. I live in North Carolina, and she had somebody, something fell through, like something, somebody who was supposed to put up a show. Something happened. So she called me up and said, "Do you want to do a show?" And I was like, "I don't know. I've never done a show before." But yeah, it was fun.

Mac Wilson: It'd be fun to do something like that. So here we are, we're in The Current studio with Sam Beam, aka Iron & Wine. Is that still something where you're like, "OK, Sam Beam and Iron & Wine. It's the same sort of thing." But there's — who is the musician that it's coming off? — it's Sturgill Simpson, he's switching to a pseudonym from now on.

Sam Beam: It's sorta late!

Mac Wilson: It's sort of the reverse, though, of what Bill Callahan did with Smog, where he was Smog for a long time, and he's like, "All right, I'm done with that. We're going to do it as Bill Callahan now," and Sturgill's doing it sort of the opposite way. So like, mentally, do you think of it like, "OK, this is a Sam Beam record, this is an Iron & Wine record." Because the one that you did with Jesca Hoop that was under your name, too, right?

Sam Beam: It was, yeah. You know, it was a, it was a way, I felt like, yeah, it was just a way to sort of make that project a little unique, where it was just me, yeah, me, writing instead of like a musical project. You know, she was using her name, so I was like, "F*** it, I'll use my name." Oh, sorry, I'm not supposed to say that.

Mac Wilson: It's all right. We'll make it work, like the magic of radio.

Sam Beam: We have the technology. But yeah, I mean, I originally, you know, the idea was to have a sort of a theatrical mask on, you know, where you could, you didn't have to, I mean, most of my songs, they have autobiographical elements, but they're not like diary entries by any means. And so it's a nice way to go. I think, you know, a lot of people just think because you wrote this thing, that's exactly how you feel, or some, you know, snapshot on your life. And it's also, it just looks better on a marquee.

Mac Wilson: Sam, Iron & Wine, thank you for stopping in today. And this is, like, as I said, at the beginning of the interview, where it's 20 years' worth of memories of your music to the point where I'll get done with this, and I'll be like, "Oh, there's 25 questions that I should have asked Sam." But I want to thank you for taking the time out today. And I just remembered now when I saw Ben Gibbard doing a solo set years ago at First Avenue in Minneapolis, he said, "This is an Iron & Wine song." And then he played "Such Great Heights." So that's one of the ways that your music resonates out continually.

So, Sam, thank you again for stopping in today.

Sam Beam: Oh, thank you, man. It's great to be here. Thanks so much.

Mac Wilson: Thank you.

Gallery: Iron & Wine in studio

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Songs Performed in Video

00:00:00 All In Good Time
00:04:11 Cutting It Close
00:06:53 Yellow Jacket

Musician

Sam Beam – vocals and guitar

Credits

Guest – Iron & Wine
Host – Mac Wilson
Producer – Derrick Stevens
Video – Josh Sauvageau
Audio – Eric Xu Romani
Graphics – Natalia Toledo
Digital Producer – Luke Taylor

External Link

Iron & Wine – official site