No Place Like Home

Alex Ebert and his ten(ish)-piece band of merry minstrels spend so much of their lives on tour these days that Ebert has trouble recalling where he's touched down recently. “Um, Michigan and then before that, where was I? Ah, Chicago I guess,” he laughs. “It's a little difficult to keep track.” When it's suggested he should keep a journal, Ebert ponders, “I don't tend to keep steady journals, unfortunately. It's sometimes boring to recount what you just did, but in some ways, like, my dad journalled all throughout his life and it's kinda cool because he can go back and tell you exactly what happened on a certain day. It may be interesting to you later on or maybe there's some cathartic happening just by writing it down that unravels the spool and helps you out in some spiritual way. I've heard that before, that writing at the end of each day sort of unravels the day for you.”

Has Ebert ever tried stream of consciousness writing? “I have. I love stream of consciousness, it's one of my favourite ways to write [and] certainly how I sometimes start writing lyrics. Lyrics have definitely come out of that kinda thing, absolutely.”

In between Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros releases, bandleader Alex Ebert also released his debut solo album, simply titled Alexander, which would suggest inspiration often strikes. How on earth did he have enough material left in the tank? “Ah, I just love writing,” Ebert offers, “and also on this album – and the next one, 'cause it's sort of a double album split into two – there was a lot of input from other people as well. But speaking for myself, I just love writing. I'm itching already to be writing again so, yeah! I just love it.”

On whether the companion piece to Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros' Here (will it be called There, perhaps?) is almost ready to go, Ebert clarifies, “There's another one that's basically ready to go, yeah. It's been almost entirely recorded but not entirely mixed. We recorded it at the same time as Here, but it was just a different sort of album and so we broke it into two albums, is part of the reason.” Sounds like the background to Prince's Sign O' The Times double album, originally intended to be a triple album, which Warner refused to release fearing the collection would undersell if the market was already flooded by material from the prolific artist. So Ebert is dangerously prolific, like Prince. “Right,” Ebert chuckles, “yeah well, you know, I can relate.” Did Ebert's label similarly warn him against releasing all of his band's material at once? “We scared them off by saying that we wanted to do a double album and they were like, 'Woah,' so then when we said we wanted to break it into two albums they were relieved in a way,” Ebert explains. “So it was like a bargaining tool. It would've been four pieces of vinyl I think. But, I mean, in some ways it makes sense because we're playing catch-up, because the first album came out three-and-a-half years ago or something now. It's been quite a while.”

Here was recorded in the Ed Shed, which we definitely need to hear more about. “Haha, the Ed Shed is the studio that we put together about an hour and a half north of LA, in the – well, compared to LA it's definitely the country, it's sort of a town,” Ebert informs. “It's just got all our stuff in it, you know: a mixing board and a recording board and a giant live room for us. It used to be the town printing press so there's a giant inkwell under the floor, and it's a unique space. The good thing about being outside of LA was that there were very little distractions and everything closes at like eight or 9pm. It just forces a simplification of life and focusing on music, which is kinda what you need, and it's also clean air and it's beautiful up in the hills. We just kinda went to town and got our first studio together and it sort of got us together in a lot of ways. Like a lot of things in this band, we found it on Craigslist.”

The big, white, converted school bus the band use for touring purposes was another of Ebert's Craigslist finds. He purchased it for “$8,500 or something”. “I have it in a parking lot in Burbank, California and I just don't know what to do with that thing at the moment,” Ebert laments. “Ugh, god, it's been sitting there for, like, two-and-a-half years and I tried to put bunks into it – in it – but I haven't finished the bunking process yet, so it's just kinda sitting there half done right now. Actually the city came and whacked a thing on it that said that it's no longer functional, someone had taken all the trouble to put a sticker on it!” Did they actually test out whether or not it was functional first? “No, that's why I was sort of miffed by it,” Ebert admits.

This scribe's favourite track from Here is That's What's Up, complete with out-there keys that follow the vocal melody. “It's called a clav, it's a clavenet,” Ebert enlightens. “You know what's very famous for the clav? Superstition.” By Stevie Wonder? “Yeah, I love that song.” Plenty of unexpected and interesting instrumental touches are scattered throughout this latest offering by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. What other secrets can Ebert share? “The last song, All Wash Out – in order to get the thunder, I just dropped an amp with reverb on it. So that was an interesting thing to play, so to speak. As opposed to finding ourselves in a real thunderstorm and trying to mic it up.”

Didgeridoo also makes an appearance on Man On Fire, a track you may have heard when Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros last toured our shores on the 2011 Big Day Out roster. Back then it was introduced as Come Dance With Me, however. “Man On Fire is a song that's gone through both those titles,” Ebert confirms, “but, yeah! The first time I played that, or showed that to the band – actually we even have the video of it – was about three-and-a-half years ago. So I had demoed up that song and it was maybe gonna be an Alexander song, but it just felt so right to do with Edward Sharpe: it felt like such a band statement. I did a demo and instead of trying to beat the demo we just built off of the demo for this album.”

During this Australian tour, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros took time out to visit a fan in hospital. “There was a guy – I think he was bicycling and he'd been hit by a car or something,” Ebert remembers. “He was in great spirits, a very great guy, and we played him a song. I can't remember which song we played him, but it was a great experience for us as a band to go do that. At first it seemed presumptuous of us to think that it would be of any service, but then you realise that it is and it's a really deep experience.”