Justin Roberts: Kid Rock
Hearing a Difference
The batch of 13 new songs in “Meltdown!” includes a rock-and-roll ode to the creative wonders of chalk, a free-verse paean to Paul Simon’s “Graceland” in a song about time, and tracks rooted in bluegrass, jazz, country western, even South African pop.
In “Get Me Some Glasses,” Roberts points out: “They don’t understand that there wouldn’t be a Superman/Without Clark Kent/To an extent.” In “My Brother Did It” — a bull’s eye shot at the classic sibling rat-out, Roberts croons:
Mama wants to know who spilt the milk
And who left the cereal box out
Mama wants to know about that train track route
That runs up and down the stairs, all around the house
Well, I stand here all the while
A full-grown kid on trial
And I would be the first one to admit it
My brother did it.
“You can clearly hear the difference if you listen to ‘Great Big Sun’ up to ‘Meltdown,’” Roberts points out. “The music definitely has gotten more complex, and I think the main reason for that is both Liam and I are constantly trying to keep ourselves entertained and make records that we would want to hear as adults. I still love the simplicity of ‘Great Big Sun,’ but I can’t write a song like that right now. Whatever comes out comes out, and lately it’s been songs with a lot more key changes and a lot more vocal parts.”
Instantaneous Back and Forth
After Roberts finished writing demo versions of the songs for “Meltdown” in GarageBand, he turned to Davis — producer master of electric and acoustic guitars, keyboards, percussion, Hammond organ, ukelele, mellotron, and, yes, candles — and the rest of the band to record the final versions. Then Davis took the recordings to the final level by mixing them in Pro Tools on his Mac.
“The other new thing we did this time is email mp3s back and forth,” says Roberts. “Liam and I have a really collaborative interaction in our relationship, me as writer-performer and Liam as producer-multi-instumentalist. For ‘Meltdown!’ Liam sent me early rough mixes of the final songs, and I’d listen to them in iTunes and email them back with my suggestions for minor changes.
Udo, Roberts's briard, is featured in the song "D-O-G," from the album “Not Naptime.” Photo ©Todd Rosenberg, 2006
“With Liam, the songs usually don’t need any changes at all. But email was still a great way to work song by song. We used to go into the studio for several days on end and mix and listen to everything at once. This way, we get to take it piece by piece, and the easy, instantaneous back and forth — ‘Here, listen to this’ — was great.”
Sanskrit to Silverstein
Roberts grew up in Iowa on clarinet, piano, and poetry, including Shel Silverstein’s. “Shel Silverstein is definitely a big influence in my music,” Roberts says. “He was always siding with the kids’ points of view.”
It wasn’t until Roberts picked up a guitar in high school and sang with a rock band that music caught his full attention. Even when he was studying Sanskrit at graduate school, Roberts wrote children’s songs — such as the absurd “Willy Was a Whale” — when he wanted to procrastinate.
”You never know what kids are going to respond to,” Roberts muses. “When you start thinking, ‘Kids are going to like this,’ that’s when you get into the area of annoying, talking-down types of material for kids. Because it’s adults trying to imagine what kids would want. I try to write what I would like to listen to personally, which is everything from manic and melodic punk rock to melancholy ballads. Luckily for me, kids seem to get it as well.”
