A week before M. Ward’s Midwest tour in support of his new album, More Rain, he is in good spirits. “We’re excited to go to a lot of places we haven’t been in a while,” Ward says. “Our keyboard player has a lot of family in Wisconsin so it will be a sort of homecoming for her, so it’s going to be special.”
The upcoming months will see three week-long jaunts, in contrast to the typical months-on-a-bus style of touring that often follows a new album. “I don’t enjoy being on a bus for months at a time,” Ward says, casually. “It’s been a great system for me so far so I’m sticking with it.” In the week before departure, it is the last chance for Ward and his band to fine tune their repertoire. “I make a set list of a couple dozen songs; it’s good to have a healthy stockpile,” Ward says. “The most important thing is just finding the time to rehearse and make sure the laundry’s clean.”
In the four years that have passed since his previous solo effort, A Wasteland Companion, Ward has remained busy. Along with releasing two albums with She & Him and guesting on Neko Case’s album The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You, Ward has continuously worked on solo compositions. “I’m playing guitar pretty much every day, since I was 15,” he says, “so the writing never really stops.” Ward has a clear understanding of his writing process. With 25-plus years of experience writing and demoing, he knows his strengths and weaknesses. “I have to write about 10 pretty bad songs before there’s one song that is worth keeping around,” Ward says. “I was lucky enough to learn that at an early age. If you realize that the process is slow, sometimes you’re going to end up with songs that go straight to the recycling bin.”
The songs of More Rain were all born of this writing process. “As far as composing the songs, it’s all a blur,” Ward says. “I’m using songs from 10, 15 years ago and I’m also using songs I wrote a year ago.” Regardless of when written, the songs gel as if composed in one marathon session. There are outliers, but the album features the sound longtime fans have grown to expect from Ward. “I wanted to push myself further,” he says, “keep the sound expanding without giving up some of the sounds I grew up with, four-tracking songs in my bedroom in high school, which I will always be married to.”
The pre-release press often referred to the album as a doo-wop based concept. But Ward doesn’t fully agree with that notion. “Doo wop is the best term I could find to explain what I was looking for,” he explains. “The whole record started out with the idea of relying more heavily on background vocals.” Amid the layered vocals and soothing vibes are some of Ward’s most rocking songs to date. In particular, “Time Won’t Wait” and “I’m Going Higher” recall the swagger of T-Rex. “I love T-Rex, so there’s nothing wrong with that,” Ward says.
Steering away from the technicalities of songwriting, the conversation turns to collaborations. Ward says, “I got the opportunity to work with Brian Wilson on his last record, and he’s been such a big inspiration ever since I was a kid.” That inspiration played a major part in the composition of More Rain. “For a record that was designed to lean heavily on background vocals, I see him as the ultimate master,” Ward notes. To further illustrate this point, Ward included his cover of the Beach Boys deep cut “You’re So Good To Me” on the album. When asked about dream collaborations, Ward says that it’s a question he fields often, but answers with little hesitation. “The first name that comes to mind is Tony Bennett,” Ward says. “I’m such a huge fan of his. But it’s not something I think about much because I keep my calendar pleasantly full with current projects and current songs that I’m working on.”
M. Ward plays The Pabst Theater on Friday, June 17 with Big Thief and Nice as Fuck (Jenny Lewis’s new band) at 8 p.m.
