[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC studios in Soho. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. Hey, the Screen Actors Guild Award nominations were announced this week, and if you want to catch up on some of the films that made the list, check out some of our recent conversations. Earlier this week, I spoke with Jeffrey Wright, the lead of the film American Fiction, which is up for three awards.

We recently spoke to Carrie Coon who joined me. She's the star of the HBO series The Gilded Age, which is up for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble. Also nominated, Director Blitz Bazawule and Daniel Brooks from The Color Purple, the movie musical. They received a pair of nominations. You can find those conversations wherever you get your podcasts or head to our show page at wnyc.org/allofit. Let's get this hour started with The Milk Carton Kids.

[MUSIC - The Milk Carton Kids: When You're Gone]

That's When You're Gone from the duo, The Milk Carton Kids off their 2023 album, I Only See the Moon. It's nominated for the Grammy for Best Folk Album, the duo's second time in the category, which is a double accomplishment because they spent three weeks recording the whole thing, then tossed most of it and started again. The Grammys will be awarded on February 4th in LA, the same city where the band began more than a decade ago and where they recorded their nominated album I Only See the Moon. Before the award show though, they'll be in our area stopping at the Music Hall of Williamsburg on January 27th. Joining us now for a Grammy listening party and a preview of this show is Joey Ryan. Hi, Joey.

Joey Ryan: Hi.

Alison Stewart: Hi, and Kenneth Pattengale. Hi, Kenneth.

Kenneth Pattengale: Hey. How brave of you to play the banjo while people are trying to get their culture and get their news. You just broadcasted the banjo.

Alison Stewart: We do it like that. It's public radio. You know where you are. Don't pretend like you don't know where you are. Kenneth, you served as a producer on the album and we checked our notes, the music nerds that we are, the last time a Milk Carton Kids album was self-produced was about a decade ago. What was the appeal of taking on the role?

Kenneth Pattengale: Well, we needed a fresh look at things. Honestly, it didn't change much. It was still just me doing all of the work. Now, it's just me getting credit for that. No, in seriousness, it was just a little tweak on we were trying to get back to what it felt like making music 10 years ago. That was a point of departure when Joey and I had just met each other and things were fresh and things were alive and not overthought and they were in motion and very present.

We've spent a decade traversing the depths of modern folk music as it were and that can become a sticky proposition at times. I thought I would take the reins and try to lead us back to this place where maybe we were able to rediscover what was that spark a decade ago. It's really just functionally just a little perspective shift that helped take us both out of our skin for a minute.

Alison Stewart: Joey, what's a strong suit as a producer?

Joey Ryan: Oh, strong suit as a producer, I would say letting the artist pursue his vision without getting in the way too much. You know what I mean? I really felt like I was able to finally express myself once Kenneth got out of the way as producer.

Alison Stewart: How about as a performer? How did Kenneth's performer factor into that?

Joey Ryan: No. I will say I think Kenneth is a wonderful producer who's produced records for a bunch of other artists, who I love, and sometimes the producer's job is to get out of the way. Kenneth is obviously also the artist on this project, but the huge point of departure that you mentioned for us was when we finished, we thought we finished the album and it came down to Kenneth as the producer to say, "Hey, I don't think this is actually good. I don't think this is what we were aiming for. I think we should basically scrap all of this and start again."

I think if there was an outside producer or even if we were making that decision by committee, the both of us, I don't think maybe either of us would have had the ownership over the process to be able to say that. That is what made all the difference because we went back and wrote a new batch of songs that we really are proud of and became this record, and we didn't have that when we first finished the recordings.

Alison Stewart: Kenneth, how did you know you'd miss the mark? That you hadn't quite gotten the album that you'd hoped?

Kenneth Pattengale: That sounded bad. [laughs] No, it's not that. Making art is a complicated thing, especially when you're doing it with your best friend and your partner of many years. What's the common goal? Like I said earlier, if we've had these nebulous moving targets or shifting goals as we've aged over 10 years and worked together, it really was clarifying, just trying to come back to the thing that, what lights us up, what feels like what we want to sing and what we want to talk about and turn off the rest of the world and look inward. What is that thing that made us move to begin with?

One of the biggest litmus tests as it were, in our band anyway, is that you go through this whole process and then inevitably, you have to go take it to the people. That's another important part of that communion and that exchange of energy. You really know that you've done a thing when that song goes seamlessly into your setlist and becomes part of your live extension and becomes a part of the thing that you want to do with an audience.

The last couple of records that we made, they never really got reflected in our live show the way that our first couple of records did. It was very clear to me after that first go around that none of the songs that we recorded, we gave it our best, it's a pretty decent thing, but if you're lying in bed late at night listening to it trying to be transported to a different world, it didn't feel like that. It felt like maybe a songwriting exercise. It felt like another meandering trip a little bit away from home and I wanted to get to the stuff that felt like it felt 10 years ago where it was the core of our identity and it's what we wanted to spend our time basking in and spend our time trying to communicate.

Sure enough, after this record, all these shows that we got to do, most of the records represented in our live set and it fits in seamlessly and it feels like it's connected to our audience and tapped back into our audience who's been faithfully with us for the better part of 10 years, which is a hell of a long time, especially in contemporary music. That's not lost on us. How lucky are we?

Alison Stewart: My guests are, The Milk Carton Kids, Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale. The name of the album is I Only See the Moon, nominated for Best Folk Album for the Grammy this year. Let's listen to a song. We can talk about it on the other side. This is Running on Sweet Smile.

[MUSIC - The Milk Carton Kids: Running on Sweet Smile]

Alison Stewart: That's Running on Sweet Smile from The Milk Carton Kids. So Joey, what was a choice or a decision y'all made in that track that you remember really having to think about, having to mull over, having to work on?

Joey Ryan: The main thing is that that track is kind of the first one that Kenneth showed up-- That song is the first one that Kenneth showed up with after we decided to redo the whole thing. That was the first one that I think achieved what we were going for in terms of reflecting something very true personally and emotionally, something a bit autobiographical from Kenneth's perspective. Also, to be honest, it felt like the first one that we knew that's going to be one that we play every night in our shows.

It was the first single that we put out, which as you can hear from the song, reflects our lack of business sense because it's not exactly a mainstream club hit, but that's not, I guess, ever been what we've been going for. We just wanted something with a really true emotional center that felt very much like us. That was the first one that showed up and gave the second half of this process a clear direction.

Alison Stewart: Kenneth, and hearing you guys talk about the record, it seems like you just really like this record. You maybe like it more than other records?

Kenneth Pattengale: Yes, definitely. Well, it's also the real exciting thing artistically is that we've always been a minimalist folk duo is kind of what it is, and I think the implications of that are, there's a bit of a novelty. We get to stand up on stage and perform this magic trick that's just two guitars and two voices. There's only one microphone on stage and the thing that comes out when we play is a little bit inconceivable from the audience because it feels like more than that.

We've always relied on that pretty heavily to frame the presentation of our band. One of the things that happens 10, 12 years into that relationship, is we get bored of that magic trick and we yearn for different tools, and we yearn for different forms of expression. The 2018 record that we put out wherein there were 15 musicians on it and far more complex arrangements, our fans, I think as history teases it out, will appreciate that phase, but it definitely was not utilizing those tools that feel really natural and feel basic to our project.

This record was, I think, the smartest time we ever approached a happy middle ground there, which was to retain that magic, but also have the freedom to push out a little bit, to paint the scene a little bit differently, to be a little more intentional so that we don't have to-- Our third record fully embraced that magic trick wherein we recorded it live around the country at soundchecks. It is essentially the best-sounding version of our live show and our magic trick that could happen.

This one also, all of those rules went out the window and it's like, it had to feel that way, but we could put it together in different ways or we could experiment putting it together in different ways. That was a really nice process that felt like baby steps forward into our evolution and tapped into different sides of his and my artistic expression that we hadn't before.

Alison Stewart: There were two songs from that first round that made it, One True Love and Wheels & Levers. We're going to listen to a little bit of Wheels & Levers. Let's play it and we can talk about it on the other side. This is The Milk Carton Kids.

[MUSIC - The Milk Carton Kids: Wheels & Levers]

Alison Stewart: I love how forward the vocals are on so many of the songs. Joey, what was different? Did anything change between the version that was on, we'll call it, I Only See the Moon 1 and I Only See the Moon 2?

Joey Ryan: I think we rewrote the second verse and then there's a big beautiful arrangement in the guitar solo and outro. I think it's the fourth song on the album and it leads right into the midpoint where there's a marked emotional and tonal shift through the outro of this song, which leads seamlessly into the next song. I think one thing we've always strived for, and it's tough to do in a minimalist instrumentation that we've usually confined ourselves to, is we wanted to create a narrative arc and an emotional journey across the album to make it feel really like an album.

I think once we figured out the outro to this song and how it led into the intro for the title track, I Only See the Moon, it really felt like a demarcation point where act one of the album is over and this is ushering you into a darker act two more orchestral moment.

Alison Stewart: Well, let's hear that segue into I Only See the Moon.

[MUSIC - The Milk Carton Kids: I Only See the Moon]

Alison Stewart: Kenneth, the strings.

Kenneth Pattengale: Oh yes.

Alison Stewart: The strings. Tell us about the strings.

Kenneth Pattengale: Well, we had a budget to invite a bunch of our friends around all year to contribute to our album because we really yearned that connection. Then we finished the album just the two of us, so I had this pile of money around and I thought, "Well, I'll just hire a giant orchestra."

Joey Ryan: You didn't tell me there was a pile of money lying around.

Kenneth Pattengale: Well, that was the purview of the producer.

Joey Ryan: Well, you don't downplay it either, but this is like a decade-long dream of Kenneth. He'd been working on this song and writing it and rewriting it, literally for seven or eight years, maybe more. I remember you talking since years ago about wanting to record it with an orchestra. This seemed like the realization from my perspective of a long-held dream for you on what this song would become.

Kenneth Pattengale: Yes, we recorded this song for three other of our records and they never made it. I remember that 2018 record. It was a real last minute. I pulled it off the album literally as the sequence was happening because it didn't feel right. I wrote this song in 2014, and then rewrote it in 2016, all of the words. It's been coming into focus for quite a while, and every time we tried it, we'd put down a version that was compelling and nice but didn't feel like the thing that I wanted to shake from my head.

Again, yes, fast forward to when we're finishing this record and just about the money, but also it's totally true. Had we gotten to the end of the record and we used the budget on other things, I don't feel like I would've had the latitude to even endeavor that, but when we reached to that point, I thought, "Well, maybe the universe is saying now's the time." As it turns out, people from a former era of my life, dear friends from 15 years ago, one of them happens to be the foremost violin session player in the Southland and my other friend Whitney contracts all the strings for every Hollywood production around and it was sort of a funny phone call to friends I hadn't spoken to in a decade to say, "Hey, I want to do this thing and I want to do it like next Tuesday, can we pull it off?"

They said, "Yes, cool. Let me see if I can slot it in around the recording," of whatever it was. I think it was-- Oh, I don't know, they moved some big Hollywood movie session so that we could carve out two hours in the studio beforehand.

Alison Stewart: That's a good friend.

Joey Ryan: Is that true? It doesn't matter if that's true.

Kenneth Pattengale: Joey didn't show up. It was Avatar: The Way of Water. They bumped that back. [chuckles] Yes.

Alison Stewart: Hey Cameron, have a seat. Just have a seat, James. [chuckles]

Joey Ryan: The Milk Carton Kids need to come in, can we push this?

Kenneth Pattengale: Yes. It all worked out. Everybody got what they wanted.

Joey Ryan: Yes. That's a fantastic movie.

Kenneth Pattengale: Joey didn't even show up that day. He stayed home. He's not on that song. It's just me playing with the orchestra in Glendale. I gave him the option. He was invited, but I can't remember. Maybe somebody in your kids' preschool had a positive COVID test or something, so you're steering clear of people-

Joey Ryan: No.

Kenneth Pattengale: -or you just had laundry to pick up?

Joey Ryan: I just had to go to Costco that day.

Alison Stewart: [chuckles] My guests are The Milk Carton Kids, Joey Ryan and Kenneth Pattengale. The track One True Love features the banjo again, we talked about that, and it's got this the blues AAB pattern with the lyrics. I actually scrolled up to see if it was an old song, [unintelligible 00:21:43]. What do you keep in mind when you're writing a blues song? What's the challenge?

Kenneth Pattengale: That was the first song that I wrote on the banjo, I think. The first song I ever wrote with the banjo as the guide, so I sort of fell in love with old-time banjo and clawhammer style banjo playing like seven or eight years ago. I've been working on it for this moment, for the moment of One True Love. All of the banjo songs I've learned are kind of old-time banjo songs, so I thought I want to write a modern, somewhat autobiographical story, but it's obviously going to follow that form.

Where you're singing along, the banjo plays the melody essentially and then that same structure is just common amongst a lot of the first 20 songs I learned on the banjo. I just wanted to write a modern autobiographical old-time banjo song, and that was what came out.

Alison Stewart: The name of the album is I Only See The Moon. It is nominated for Best Folk Album. The Milk Carton Kids will be at Music Hall of Williamsburg on January 27th. My guests have been Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan. So nice to see you guys.

Joey Ryan: Alison, great to see you. Thanks for talking.

Kenneth Pattengale: Thank you.

Alison Stewart: Let's go out on One True Love.

[MUSIC - The Milk Carton Kids: One True Love]

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