The Two Of Us

Double bassist Vanessa McGowan loves a chat. She loves the fact that touring means checking out op shops all over America too, but just ask her a question about how things have been going with the duo, Tattletale Saints, she shares with singer, songwriter and guitarist Cy Winstanley, and her enthusiasm is barely contained.

“Cy had been living in London for seven years and I was there for four,” McGowan begins breathlessly. “We started playing together in London and moved back to New Zealand for three years before we went to the States, and I guess the main reason that we wanted to go to America was the touring ability. We wanted to eventually achieve a sustainable touring career where we could tour for as much of the year as we wanted. We could only really tour in New Zealand for a month every year and then you kind of run out of towns and you have to do something else.”

Winstanley had only been writing for a little while when he met former jazz musician McGowan. They ended up forming Her Make Believe Band and recording an album, but when the pair decided to return to New Zealand, that folded. Having for practical reasons often played as a duo and realising they enjoyed that format best, the pair became Tattletale Saints, who are coming to join JamGrass 2014 fresh off a 50-date tour of the US with another duo, Ten String Symphony. Then thoughts turned to recording an album.

“We were talking about where we would do it, who we’d like to work with and the first two people we thought of were David Rawlings, Gillian Welch’s musical partner, and [Grammy Award-winning producer and multi-instrumentalist] Tim O’Brien, and I originally thought ‘That’s never going to happen.’ But we wanted to make an acoustic-based album that was very much like what we sounded like live. The next thing we’re working on in the next six months is going to be quite different but the focus of this record [2013’s How Red Is The Blood] was to make it sound like what we actually sound like.

“Tim is a brilliant songwriter and such a great acoustic musician, so he just seemed like the perfect choice for so many reasons. We were lucky that we had this mutual friend, a guitarist based out of Wellington and Ireland, who had toured with him, so we used him as a go-between and emailed Tim, through Jerry, a showreel that was basically a video of us saying, ‘Hey Tim, we’d love to work with you on our next record – here are some songs.’ I still didn’t really think it was going to happen. Tim was on tour so it took a little while to hear back from him, but he was, like, ‘I like your songs, I like your sound – how do you feel about coming to Nashville to record?’” McGowan giggles. “Aside from the fact that it’s the music capital, it’s just so fun.”