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Ted's cousin Vaughn Montgomery
Q&A with ted lennon: your japanese debut album 'water & bones' was released in 2006 by universal music japan. the record is a compilation of your self-titled album, two songs from your latest EP 'overtime', plus a live bonus track of 'face up' featuring jack johnson. how has the japanese audience responded? the response has been really positive. the single 'face up' reached # 3 on the radio charts, which was surprising considering we recorded it in our living room, and it was just my dad and i. the video for 'face up' appeared on mtv in japan. tell us a little about the making of the video... my childhood friend, dan malloy, filmed it on 16 mm. there is a homemade quality to it, which i think captures the feeling of the song and the way it was recorded. basically we walked from town down to the beach, where we grew up surfing together. it started raining when we were walking down the train tracks. my wife called to tell us a train was coming around the bend. we ran across the tracks so that dan could get a shot of the train passing behind me. it was the first time that either of us had made a video. it was a lot of work, but we had fun with it. did you do any live performances in japan to promote 'water & bones'? i was in japan in march of 2006 for promotion and was amazed by what good listerners the japanese are. because the songs were performed acoustic with my dad on ukulele, a quiet audience is ideal. it was mostly radio performances and showcases for the media. we were invited back to play a festival called 'summersonic' in august. i brought my new band members with me: henry schroy on bass and carter mclean on drums. my dad also backed me up on ukulele and harmonies. it felt good to have their support on stage. your latest album 'the taste of time' was just released on april 25th in japan. your new sound is much more dynamic with the inclusion of drums and bass. tell us about the recordings. 'the taste of time' was recorded in my home studio, the birdhouse, in january 2007. henry and carter came to california from new york, and we finished the recordings in 10 days. the songs were all recorded live, so that the feeling of making music together is present. yes, i can feel that presence you speak of. who helped you achieve such a quality recording? taylor quinn fulton engineered and co-produced the album. engineering is in his family--his uncle, ken caillat, produced fleetwood mac's 'rumors' album, and his great-grandfather even engineered the steam engine. colbie caillat, who sings harmony on two tracks, is actually ken caillat's daughter. she's an upcoming singer-songwriter with an amazing voice. jack johnson also appears on two tracks. how did you decide which songs he would sing on? i let him choose. why did he choose 'no more wastin' time' and 'so in love'? his response was actually kind of funny. he gave 'no more wastin' time' an A+ and said there wasn't anything he would change about it. and 'so in love' is a song he always liked. your video for 'so in love' is currently airing on mtv japan. tell us about the video... it was shot by imre juhasz, using both high definition and 8 mm cameras. he used an underwater housing unit for some of the shots, which gave the video some texture. the theme of the video is the search for love and the feeling of falling when you finally make the jump. more from ted: i love the sound on your first album (self-titled ). it has such a warm, intimate feeling that a lot of artists strive for in their studios. how did you go about recording it? it was recorded in our living room which has doug fir floors, pine walls and redwood ceilings (older wood from the early 50s), so it acts as a natural speaker box...really warm acoustics. we made this record with a 1970's Teac analog four-track-everything recorded live. people are buying your album in the united states, australia, canada and europe. any plans for a tour? it's pretty crazy how in the olden days, if your music got somewhere its cuz you brought it there yourself...so it's kinda surreal to me that my songs are circulating in these different countries that i have yet to make it to. but to answer the question~yes we are trying to pull together some kind of tour. things take time when you want to do them right. there has got to be a demand. i am watching and learning...my goal is to reach people on a personal level. a lot of artists who are trying to get their stuff out there in a less commercial way are saying that the grass roots fan base is essential. have you found that to be true? yeah, i read an article about you in the ventura county star recently, how your family and where you grew up significantly influenced your sound. Can you tell us little bit about that? i come from a long line of musicians and entertainers. my grandpa and his brothers were in a singing quartet called the lennon brothers in the 1940s. then the lennon sisters, who were regular guests on the lawrence welk show back in the day. and then more closely is my dad who was in a band called the other half in the 60s; they opened for van morrisson, the doors, the yardbirds and made a tv appearance with james brown...then my uncles and cousins have a band called 'venice' that is popular right now in holland. so i grew up with a lot of music around me and just singing along with my dad at home. when you grow up in a musical family its part of the daily bread. growing up in foster park, which is a woodsy area, gives my music a bit of the folk feeling. the history of country music in foster park brought together performances by johnny cash, buck owens, lefty frizelle and other greats. but the town of foster park was torn out in 1968 to make highway 33 which ends at the pacific ocean, which is ten minutes down the road. the mellowness of that environment and growing up surfing brings the ocean into my songs as well. you've had really unique encounters with people as diverse as ramblin jack elliot(early dylan influence and friend of woody guthrie), fiona apple, jack johnson, minnie driver, the malloy brothers (professional surfers) and elvis costello. how did these experiences help to shape you as an artist? well the malloys and i grew up going to the beach together almost as brothers, so it was interesting to watch them make the transition from surfing for fun to being on the covers of surfing magazines...when my childhood friends began making a living at surfing, it was over in hawaii, where jack grew up, and it didn't take long for them to cross paths. so when jack and i met at an art show at ucsb, we figured out that we both knew the malloys, which is interesting because i also got to watch jack transition from playing music for fun to making a living onstage. so it's been a huge learning experience to have my friends enter the public arena and to witness the amount of responsibility that comes with fame... and what about ramblin jack? ...ramblin jack elliot seemed to connect me to my artistic ancestry. he influenced so many of my musical influences, a living legend, and he had such cool stories about hanging out in alley ways in new york city~greenwich village~playing songs for james dean; touring in england with dylan in the 60s...mick jagger went out and bought his first guitar after hearing ramblin jack play in london in the late fifties. just classic stuff... so to get to spend an evening swapping songs with a man who influenced my influences was so inspiring...i remember he said, "well, if you want to do music you got what it takes kid, but you might want to save yourself and just clean carpets" or something like that. he was commenting on how demanding and unconventional the life of an artist can be... how did that happen? ...the way that all of life's situations come together and unfold are pretty amazing. it wasn't through the industry that any of these people came into my life....just there in the day to day world. it's not like elvis costello is quoted in the rolling stone saying, "i dig ted lennon's music..." but i think i'd rather have the kind of personal interaction that i had with him, which was on a sidewalk in new york. he listened intently to a song i had recorded the night before and the fact that he took the time not only to listen but then commented on my voice and the production valueand said he would keep an eye out for my name. i told him that my dad had his albums when i was a kid and that we used to listen to him all the time, so to have his input was a key moment in my knowing that i was on the right path... i am a big fan of jack johnson's music and i saw a link to your web site on his. did you guys ever do any shows together? well we were both going to college in santa barbara and lived close to one another, so we would surf and play small shows in town together, trading off sets. then when his music started to take off, i opened for him at soho...nowadays his schedule is pretty busy, but we still find time to hang out, surf and share songs. like a lot of your fans i can't seem to get your album out of my cd player. any plans for another one? i'm still working on getting this first one out there and just planting a seed...i like things to occur naturally, so it may take a little time for the right group of songs to find each other for the next album.
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