Alejandro Escovedo. In addition to having a serious wealth of music knowledge and songwriting chops, the one-time No Depression Artist of the Decade is also one of the most approachable, friendly and laid-back interviews we've had the pleasure of conducting. Having just released his newest record, Big Station, he spoke with Aquarium Drunkard via phone about the new album, working yet again with Chuck Prophet and Tony Visconti, the new record's outward look and how knowing Ian Hunter personally doesn't make you any less of a Mott the Hoople fanboy.
Aquarium Drunkard: The last time you and I talked was when you had put out Real Animal, which was your first full record co-writing with Chuck Prophet and using Tony Visconti as your producer. Now, four years later, the new album is your third working with that pairing. So I was wondering what has inspired you to keep working with them and how that working relationship has developed over the years.
Alejandro Escovedo: Well, obviously for me, when I realized Chuck and I had such a strong relationship and we were producing great songs and having a great time doing, it became nothing less than a pleasure to spend time with Chuck and write with him. And it's developed to a point where we can work under any condition and come up with some really great stuff. Like you said, this is our third project and I love the songs we've come up with and they're very different than what we've done in the past, so I'm very happy with the result.
The same thing applies to Tony [Visconti]. Tony was fresh on Real Animal and that relationship turned out so well that it just seemed natural for us to do another record together. We did Street Songs of Love and I thought that was a great sounding record. I loved the way he produced it and the way he accepted the band and everything that we had done in order to prepare for that record. And with this one, Big Station, I really needed him to be the Tony Visconti producer that I'd known in the past with [David] Bowie - especially with Bowie, that type of production. So I think it was a very artistic production. He mixed it in a really beautiful way. We had tracks that had 70 overdubs or tracks on them, so there was a lot of mixing to do and I thought he did an amazing job. I love the way the record sounds and how he crafted it. I would love to make more records with Tony.
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