‘Mere Survival’ by Joe Wong
‘Mere Survival’ by Joe Wong
Joe Wong’s musical evolution has taken him from the streets of Milwaukee to composing the music for the Netflix series “The Russian Doll” to having legendary drummer Jim Keltner play on his album, Mere Survival, which was released in February.
Wong’s podcast “The Trap Set” began with a focus on drummers but has expanded to include singers, guitarists, bassists, keyboardists and harpists. The series has aired over 300 episodes—conversations really—with Wong using music as a springboard to detour into the backroads that make creative people tick.
Mere Survival
The blurb on Wong’s new album reads, “Wong finds wonder in the muck, spinning rare beauty into outsized songs of redemption and reconciliation.”Chock full of tasteful Zombies-inspired orchestrated pop, standout track “Ordinary Light” suggests a collaboration of Harry Nilsson and Beach Boys. He cites Love and The Walker Brothers as favorites as well.
Wong took time recently to chat. He broached the task of taking his band on the road. “The challenge with me is that I have 20 people in my band (laughs), the drummer is also in Pearl Jam, the guitar player Mary Timony has a busy career, the harpist Mary Lattimore has a busy career. So, we have to plan stuff pretty far out. But I’ve tried to figure out how to put together different bands for different types of shows, so I don’t need to play with the same folks or as many folks.”
The first time he sang was at the end of 2019; Wong had finished his first album, but it hadn’t been released. “I wanted to play a show to see how the songs translated live. After soundcheck I was sitting behind the drums, which belonged to Matt Cameron, I was feeling comfortable and then remembered I wasn’t going to be playing drums and that I had to go out and sing.”
Wong says he got so nervous he blacked out and doesn’t recall much of the show other than it felt really good. “I think my conscious mind had to just shut down and let my subconscious drive the bus.”
In the time since, Wong has gotten more comfortable as a singer, some of it from rehearsing for tours that kept getting cancelled during Covid; not to mention the thousands of shows he has played as a drummer. He says the nervousness before each show is a healthy sign that he is pushing himself into a period of growth.
"Dreams Wash Away" by Joe Wong + Nite Creatures
The Trap Set
With over 300 episodes and counting, it is safe to say Wong has engaged some legendary musicians. He relates to them on a personal level as well as a musical one.
He began the podcast about a decade ago because he was touring and not feeling the visceral joy he associated with playing music. “I was trying to figure out what was going on and thought maybe I was stuck in a loveless marriage with music.”
Listening to podcasts instead of music, he was drawn to the longform detailed conversations. He used Marc Maron’s podcast as a template. The feeling Wong had lost re-emerged and importantly, he figured out a lot of people go through similar periods of ennui.
He has spoken to “genre-defining geniuses,” but Wong’s own brilliance was the initial focus on drummers. “Drummers are often the least interviewed members of any band. Even if they are great. There is a lot of untapped gold there.”
He said the Keltner recording session came about when the legendary drummer, who had been a podcast guest, offered his services. Wong didn’t have anything written but he thought “it would be stupid not to write songs for him to play on. So, I wrote a couple songs with him in mind.”
The session was booked at the studio owned by Foo Fighters. “It was easy get other musicians to play on that session because everyone wants to play with Jim.” That session was recorded live to tape to capture Keltner’s innate groove.
Back to his idea for the podcast, Wong says he wanted to strike a balance between Maron’s freewheeling non-agenda and the preparedness of Terry Gross, host of NPR’s Fresh Air. “I was desperate to know the information I was asking people anyway.” As a fan and music geek he gets to ask questions many of us have itched to delve into.
The Writing Process
Wong’s day job is writing music for film and television. Over the 20 years he has gotten comfortable staring at a blank screen knowing something will come by the time it is due.
When he began working on material for his first album, 2021’s Nite Creatures, he struggled with drowning in his own neuroses and “couldn’t finish anything.”
Before the era of smart phones, he would call his own answering machine to leave ideas. Writing both albums was a blend of spontaneous ideas but also setting aside time every day to sit and let something happen.
He began using the tools he learned as a composer and applied them to his songwriting. “Even if that was just five or 10 minutes in the morning. You can write a song in five minutes—or at least the basic idea of the song. The person who writes the song and the person who decides to develop, and record it are two different versions of yourself. The editor is one aspect, and the creator is another aspect of yourself.”
