interview: Trace Mountains

words: sean fennell
photos: daniel dorsa

Trace Mountains’ Lost in the Country (out now via Lame-O Records) feels much more like a first record than a second. While technically a follow-up to 2018’s A Partner To Lean On, this is a reintroduction, a laminated portrait of an artist who’s found comfort within a world of constant fluctuation. The record that results is one of the best of the year. Like a meandering midnight hike, Lost in the Country is a record of time and space, where each idea is given room to breathe and judgement is reserved. In many ways it plays like the journal many of you are surely now vowing to start, a chance to turn isolation into introspection. 

I recently got a chance to talk with Trace Mountains’ songwriter Dave Benton about Lost in the Country and, among other things, looking inward, the beauty of collaboration, and what music means to him. 

I found it interesting that Lost in the Country is your most intricate, polished record while containing some of your most introspective lyrics, was this juxtaposition a conscious decision?

I would take each word of “conscious” and “decision” separately. I don’t really think that it was intentional in the big picture sense of things but I have been going that way in terms of production and technical things and lyrically it was my intention to go a little deeper if I could. So both of those things were intentional moves, but I don’t think either of them really informed the other. 

Is there a difference in process when trying to write about more personal, inward subject matter than creating fictional worlds? 

I don’t really think so. I think a lot of my songs have elements of both; the fictional, I wouldn’t necessarily say storytelling, but the made-up, poem story kind of thing and also the more feelings based stuff. I just go at everything pretty much the same way but I guess this time I wanted, if I could, to strip down a little bit of the walls and try not to complicate it so much. I think that it maybe led to less of the cryptic story vibes of my earlier stuff. 

Was there ever a time where you wrote a song that didn’t feel right thematically for Lost in the Country?

I definitely rewrote stuff and with those, for sure, there was that type of editing. But it all sort of comes out the same way, where if I get on a roll with the lyrics I will just keep it going and it will all pretty much get written in the same sitting. That song “Rock and Roll”, I wrote that about a year ago and it was all completely different lyrics. When we tracked the instrumental of the song in the studio, I had the old lyrics in mind but when I took it home and finished it, I rewrote all the words on top and there is a completely different melody. That is the type of rewriting I do. I don’t really change small parts all that much.

With this, I just wanted to write a lot and not filter or judge it a lot. I think that is my process, just write it and get it out and decide later whether this is something I am going to show people. They do get small edits but not really that much. It’s kind of just a barf and if I can allow myself to do that and not impede the barf then that’s the goal. 

With that process, would you say the songs’ meaning is something that becomes more clear as you get further away from writing them?

I think so. I really just write it and don’t really worry about the meaning. I don’t think I really know what the song’s about till my publicist tells me I have to write out what all the songs are about. I probably wouldn’t think about it until somebody told me that I had to. I do care about whether the words are good, but it is more of a feeling than a rational look at whether it is exactly what I want it to be. It’s less about specific things and more about moods and feelings. I won't really move forward with a song unless there is that little kernel of specificity. I want there to be something for people to identify with.

You’ve talked about having a very collaborative process, what about that process do you think enhances the song’s final forms?

I think it is mostly the technical abilities of my bandmates and collaborators and their ability to interpret the moods of the songs and add their parts that enhance the song. The collaboration is in the arranging and the nitty gritty of the songs themselves and the recording specifically. That is one of the most important parts of making a record. I think that is why I think of it more as a band than a collaborative thing because it wouldn’t be what it is without those contributions. I’m not really one of those people who goes in and knows exactly what they want it to be. It is very much just a figure it out as you go type thing. 

I will write the songs and have the basic chord structures and major melodic themes and vocals and stuff and then I’ll take it to the band where we figure out the rhythm section. Then I’ll take it to my studio and I will flesh out all the arrangements that go on top, all the keyboards and leads and that type of thing. Me and Jim, my guitar player, are the ones who do a lot of that extra stuff.

 How did you assemble the team around you when it came time to record?

We tried out a new engineer this time, Matt Labozza. He has done a few of the indie-rock records in NYC, like Palm and stuff like that, and he is a really great engineer. I had never met him before so that was kind of new, but everyone else was very familiar. The band, we all either went to school together or have been friends for a while now and met in Brooklyn and the person who mixed the record (Mike Ditrio) is someone I went to school with. I like being in my comfort zone when working with people so it is nice to work with people I click with on a personal level and have a history with.

It seems to me that “Rock & Roll”, “Lost in the Country” and “Cooper’s Dream”, are all kind of mining the same emotional place, where you kind of take stock of the relationship you’ve had with music and the way it has affected your life, how has that relationship changed over the years?

It has changed a lot. It almost feels like too much to get into. “Cooper’s Dream” is an old song that I finished for this record, so it comes from more of a fresh, innocent place and the other ones are newer. Music used to be this really community based thing in my life. I have my community now, but it’s gotten a lot smaller and it’s my close friends and not this whole scene, which I like a lot better. I think music and performing shows used to give me so much anxiety because it was all this stuff. The community around Brooklyn is great but I think I've come to this place where all that is extra and it’s not really why I do this. I have my friends and I love them but they aren’t all part of the music scene or whatever. It is just a lot smaller now and feels good that way because I feel like I am doing it more for me. I don’t want to sound jaded about the music scene. It feels like it is getting closer to home. Partly because I am spending more time at home and don’t involve myself with being out there and all that. I was also running a record label and was super involved. I loved doing that and it was super cool to help people with their records and whatnot but I’ve since pulled back and been a little more focused on making my music and art and just focusing on that more. I think I would get a little more involved eventually in the music world but more on my terms. You learn from doing so I definitely learned a lot about what I want from doing this which is overall a good thing.