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Rick Shea grew up in California, influenced by various forms of California music from folk to
the exciting sounds of Bakersfield country. Brantley Kearns is from the great tradition of
Carolina fiddle players and he's certainly become one of the very best of them. Either of these
guys on his own is an outstanding artist capable of playing in just about anybody's band, as
evidenced by the fact that both have played in numerous top shelf outfits over the years. Put
the two of them together and it's pure magic. Their brand new album could have been titled
after the opening track, "Carolina, California," but instead they went with the title of another
track, a cover of Harlan Howard's "Trouble and Me." You can bet there was a reason, as Rick
Shea is a man who is always true to his vision. As this album was just releasing, we talked
about exactly what staying true to your vision can require, his partnership with Kearns, the
contributions of producer Dave Alvin (of The Blasters), and all aspects of Trouble & Me.
Cosmik: This album seems to cover a lot of ground stylistically, and I keep reading about
"California music," but it seems a whole lot broader than that, don't you think?
Rick: Yeah, the concept of "Carolina, California" was even being talked about at one time as
a title for the album, but it just seemed a little bit too much for a title, a few too many
syllables. I always try to look for something as simple as possible in a title. But as a concept
for an album, just in a general sort of way, we wanted to have something to focus the songs
and have a focus for the album. Yeah, I wanted to have a broad variety of styles because
that's kind of what we do when we have the opportunity, depending on how we're performing;
If it's just Brantley and I as a duo, we're certainly limited in what we can do that way.
But we just want to represent what we do.
Cosmik: There's an easy feeling to the music here. What was the atmosphere in the studio and the
circumstances while you were recording?
Rick: Generally pretty relaxed. The studio we worked in is actually pretty small, so there
were some space considerations, but those are just things you work around, and the important
thing is just how it sounds and it's a great sounding little room. Paul de Gre is just a
wonderful engineer. The songs were just kind of worked up here in my living room in about
half a dozen or so rehearsals, and we pretty much stuck to those arrangements. Brantley and
I worked on our own a lot, then we would get together with Dave Alvin and he'd start to provide
input. Dave actually provided a lot of input on song selection, and the general concept of
the album was basically his, you know... the idea the Carolina, California. But it was generally
pretty relaxed in the studio. Two or three of the songs are entirely live cuts, the ones that
Brantley's performing. I can't say "entirely live," because there are some background vocals
that are overdubbed and a few added parts, but not a lot. It's basically the band playing
live, and that's what we tried to capture as much as possible. On some of the songs it was
more possible than others, but to me it's just the way the music seems to go, or the feeling
you want to create with it.
Cosmik: Right, and the spontaneity keeps it all fresh. Not an assembly line thing.
Rick: Yeah, you know, and it's acoustic instruments and sort of relaxed, and I don't feel,
at least with this particular album and this particular batch of songs, that any of it needed
to get particularly dark.
Cosmik: You get the real chemistry between the players that way, too.
Rick: And there is a real chemistry between Brantley and I.
Cosmik: Oh, that chemistry between you and Brantley is magic, and it translates to tape well, too.
I wonder what it's like for you as a player, because I know you play with a lot of people,
successfully, but what is the difference between that and playing with Brantley Kearns?
[Pictured: Brantley Kearns]
 Rick: There's some real communication on a non-verbal level that we've developed over the
years of playing together. We're familiar with a lot of different styles of music between
us, and have done a lot of performing where it's just been he and I. To me, playing music
is just a form of communication, the music itself is just another language, and once you
learn that language you respond to it that way. We actually do make a very good combination
and there's a lot of communication between us. It's a true mutual collaboration, a 50/50
collaboration, so it's real enjoyable for me.
Cosmik: Aside from your... what I'd call your fun songs, the kickin' songs... there's such a
personal feeling to your songs, like you're really opening up. It's easy to relate to.
Is it easy to let anyone add to songs like that as far as writing pieces here and there, or is
it just too personal?
Rick: Sometimes... no. I mean, sometimes some of these are songs I see pretty clearly from
beginning to end, but it really just depends on the song. There are some where it does
become clear to me that I'm really not completing this well, and usually at that point I'll
have a good idea of who could look at this and see the direction I'm trying to go and bring
something complimentary to it. Then it works well. I'll be able to take it to this person
or that person and get some worthwhile input.
Cosmik: But on a purely emotional level, is there ever a time when it feels like the song is
just too personal, like too much a part of you, to let anyone else in?
Rick: Absolutely. I wouldn't say personal as much as much as... it's a personal sort of
vision, maybe. You're right, on the one hand, because some of them really are very personal
statements and they just really need to be completed by you.
Cosmik: I just know if I was writing some of your songs, I'd have a very hard time trusting
anyone to get it right, or wanting them to even be part of it.
Rick: The co-writing thing has a tendency to surprise you with a left turn, even when you
think you've explained it well and the person you're working with understands your idea
and vision, and then what they come up with shows that they obviously had a different
perspective on it. Which is not always bad. Sometimes it's tremendously worthwhile and
can really bring a song to life. But yeah, you have to be prepared for that, that it's
certainly possible.
Cosmik: For better or for worse.
Rick: Sometimes, yeah. But I've never been in a situation where I've lost a song. Sometimes
I've gotten someone else to contribute, then I've taken it back and worked with that and gotten
it to work in the way that I'd thought it should.
Cosmik: Reworking it until it fits, but it's still a contribution.
 Rick: I do tend to kind of dominate the process on some of these songs.
Cosmik: Well, you've had a lot of experience at this point. One might wonder why someone
with such clear vision would want a producer in the studio. Of course they might not know
it's Dave Alvin, but I'm saving that for the next question, so talk a bit about why you'd
choose to have a producer instead of running the show yourself.
Rick: Well there's always a point where you just run out of ideas. I feel like I've basically
produced all of my albums myself, but only up to a certain point. Which basically makes my
producer's job a little more difficult, because I'll have a pretty clear idea and vision of
what I want and what I want everything to sound like, with arrangements and parts pretty well
mapped out, but when you do get in there and start recording and you hear it, then you know
what it really sounds like and you'll know if something's missing and it needs a little more.
And on all of these projects I've come up on a certain point on certain songs where I've gotten
it there but it's not complete and I just don't know what else to contribute to it. Then
whoever's with me has the pretty tough job of having been along for the ride up to that point
and then suddenly having to go to work and come up with something good. It actually makes it
difficult, I think. The other thing is when you're playing these parts, and especially singing,
it's really pretty difficult to know when you're getting a good performance, and having another
set of ears in there listening, somebody that knows what your style is and what you're trying
to accomplish and appreciates what you're doing, to tell you "yeah, you did it well that time"
just simplifies things and moves the process along a lot faster. It's really hard to always
know when you've done your best performance.
Cosmik: I'd hate to produce myself. You can't concentrate on your performance. I couldn't
even imagine being in that position.
Rick: There's a lot of walking back and forth to the control room, because you really do have
to take off the headphones and walk in to listen to it in context. And not just once, but two
or three times in a row, and it can get pretty time consuming. Everybody who has worked with me
as a producer has had some tremendous contributions, I feel, but to a certain extent it's been
sort of limited, so I admire and appreciate all of their efforts because I think I make it more
of a job.
Cosmik: There are a lot of top notch producers out there, each of them capable of making a great
album with you. Why Dave Alvin? What does Dave give you, specifically, that makes the
difference?
[Pictured: Dave Alvin]
 Rick: I've had the opportunity to work with Dave so much over the past four years on a lot of
projects that he's been the producer on, so we're real familiar with each other's styles of
working in the studio, so that made it feel real natural. He's also a big fan of Brantley's
and has a certain sympathetic ear to Brantley's approach that was worthwhile to have, and
Dave's real big talent, on these projects and in the studio, and what I really hoped to get
out of him and I believe he did for us, is he can just look at the project and what
we're trying to create and get a vision for it, just an idea of what it really means as far
as this group of songs and these two guys working together. Like I said earlier, the whole
idea of Carolina, California, being Brantley's background in the Appalachian fiddle music in
Carolina and both of us having spent our lives playing various forms of California folk music,
that's all a concept Dave saw, a vision he had for the album. He had a lot to do with
the selection of songs, too. I'm tremendously happy with his involvement and contributions.
Cosmik: So you're writing the songs but he's able to see a bigger picture.
Rick: Exactly. I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to do when we first went into this,
and I approached the project with the idea that I would be the sole producer. If I had done
that, I think it would have been a good album and I would have been happy with it, but bringing
Dave into it brought it up to a whole 'nother level. Brought it up quite a bit.
Cosmik: He even got in the act. Hell of a guitar player, and you got him playing National steel
guitar on Black Snake Moan.
Rick: I actually wanted him contributing a lot more, musically.
Cosmik: I was wondering about that. I have Dave Alvin in the studio, I'm handing him a guitar
every few minutes. Why didn't he play more?
Rick: Just circumstances and schedules. Dave actually was only there for the initial
recording sessions, and then he actually got started working on the live album of his
own that we're putting out, or just came out. So there was a certain period of time
that he was sort of in and out. With all the scheduling problems, that ending up being
all we could work out for him to play on. But there was some background singing that
we started working on with him, and there was actually another whole song that didn't
get completed, a Leroy Carr song, "Papa's On The Rooftop," and it's Dave playing guitar
on all of it and me just playing mandolin, but we never got a good basic track of it so
we didn't get around to finish it. We did our best, but that's just what we came up with.
Cosmik: From the other side, too, you know, as a guitarist I can't imagine Dave sitting
there while all that great music is being played and not just aching to jump in and play.
Rick: Dave does that, though. When he produces, generally it's me playing acoustic guitar and bass and drums, and then possibly one or two other musicians on the tracking sessions.
Then whatever he's going to add he usually does after the fact in overdubs. That's kind
of his approach, so when we were recording he was sitting in the producer's chair.
Cosmik: Ah, I see, so by the time he would have been getting into putting down parts he
was elsewhere. Makes sense now. I've been wondering about the trad tunes, because they're
unusual and, in professional journalist jargon, really really cool. Was there a process to
choosing the traditional songs for the album?
Rick: This time we just started with a long list of songs that we like and perform, then
we tried to narrow it down to what we thought was the best. There was a version of "Diamond
Jim" that I really wanted to include, but Dave pointed out that it was a song that's been
recorded a fair amount. We wanted to present songs that hadn't been too much or hadn't
been done in this format to kind of keep the interest up.
Cosmik: I have to confess, I'd never heard Cane on the Brazos. I love that song. Brantley
arranged and sang that one. Was that a song you had known and played before?
[Pictured: Brantley Kearns]
 Rick: Oh yeah. In fact, that was basically the starting point of the album. I knew I wanted
to include that song, so that was the first definite one, and I had several songs of my own
and ideas of what I wanted to write. Parish Road was the other definite. But yeah, that
version of "Cane On The Brazos" we've done with Brantley like that for a dozen years or more,
but it's not been done too much. It's on Northern Lights, Southern Cross, The Band album.
It's been done a little bit, but never that arrangement, never as a waltz. It's just such
a great performance, he really got everything out of it.
Cosmik: Was the original bluegrass?
Rick: That was an old convict song from the 1880s or so. It kind of pre-dates everything.
Cosmik: That one really had me stumped. I love it. I read "Traditional" and was surprised.
I was looking for references to it, but I was looking in bluegrass circles.
Rick: When I've heard it it's usually been done as a kind of dirge, with the lines broken
up. Brantley's version really nails it for me.
Cosmik: Let My Horses Run Free seems to be about passage of time, but a little bit about
the modern world encroaching on nature, the interstate cutting across the field, about
change. The storyteller's viewpoint is accepting the inevitable, which is really all you
can do in the long run, so "Let My Horses Run Free" is a sad song that has a calm wisdom
to it. Do you know where that comes from within you?
Rick: Ah, I think just the age that I am. I've been in this area of Southern California for
a long time, and it's changed so dramatically from when I was younger, and as I travel
around and see these areas that I knew earlier in my life, places I haven't been in a little
while, it's always a shock to see because development has moved in, but it's really
everywhere.
Cosmik: That was such an effective way of commenting on it, what you did with "Let My
Horses Run Free." Just a simple line, but it stands out. I consider Trouble and Me to
be a storyteller's record. Just out of curiosity, why did you kick it off with an
instrumental, Carolina, CA?
Rick: That was actually Dave Alvin's call. He pretty much called the sequencing of the
record, and I was happy to let him do that. He's got pretty great instincts as far as
that goes. I think he was just looking for something dynamic, and he really liked that
song. That's just his approach, you know, just something real dynamic to kick it off and
then ease into it with the songs. It seems to have worked. It's gotten a pretty good
response so far with that sequencing.
Cosmik: When I first put it on I was surprised. I was expecting something very different
from that, but it sure got my attention.
Rick: Thanks. That was something that was created for the album that was really just barely...
It was just that mandolin part in January, and I knew I liked it and wanted to do something
with it, and over the course of about half a dozen rehearsals we just sort of banged it into
shape and it became what it is.
[Pictured: Dick Fegy]
 Cosmik: You dedicate the album to the memory of Dick Fegy, who died on December 21st...
Rick: It was just tragic!
Cosmik: What happened?
Rick: Well, Dick was diabetic, he lived by himself... This is as much as I understand of the story, but I think he came down with a bad case of the flu and went home and went into
diabetic shock. It was right at the time of Christmas vacation. You know, Dick had a
lot of friends and a lot of people around him, but it was just the circumstances of
the vacation that he was there alone for those two or three days.
Cosmik: The wrong two or three days.
Rick: Oh, it was absolutely tragic. It just tore me up. He and Brantley were tremendously
close friends. They'd been in the David Bromberg band together, and in fact that's how I
met Brantley, was through Dick. They were very much alike and very close friends. Dick
was intended to be a big part of this album, you know. We'd been talking about this for
a number of years, and he would have been deeply involved in this on a musical level, and
the whole thing kind of came together shortly after he died, sometime around the beginning
of January.
Cosmik: I've seen his name in liner notes so many times and then listened for him on the albums and always came away impressed, especially by the warmth of his style, and by how
many instruments he played so well. It shocks me that his name isn't real well known,
considering his work.
Rick: He was just amazing, and I think he was perfectly happy working at the level he
was working at. I don't think he ever wanted to change anything. I think he was one
of those people who just did not want to do the touring. When we were at the memorial
service they were saying that shortly after the David Bromberg band, he'd been asked to
be in Emmylou Harris' band and had turned it down because he didn't want to do the touring.
Cosmik: This guy was so good everybody wanted to play with him. As I understand it, you even took a 5-night per week job playing in a honky-tonk called The Nashville West, which
is no fun and games gig, just because he was in the house band and you wanted to play with
the guy.
Rick: Oh absolutely, yeah, it was Dave Karp's band. At that time I used to work with a lot
of different people, which made that sort of playing, in honky-tonks, a lot more enjoyable,
you know? Different places, different people night to night. They wanted to do this job
that was five nights a week where that was the only place you worked, and you wouldn't
sub in and out of it, so that was a big decision for me.
Cosmik: You gave up a lot to play with the guy, then.
Rick: Well, the rest of the band was real good, too, and I just thought "well, this'll be
a good musical experience for me," and it was. We got to be real good friends during that
time. He produced the first stuff I ever recorded, and then we just continued the friendship
after that.
Cosmik: Again, he's one of those people who almost everybody has heard and really loved his
playing without knowing who they were hearing, because he's played with everyone. Bromberg,
Katy Moffatt, Ringo, Zappa... What would you like people to know about him?
 Rick: I don't know if I can make it too short. He could play almost any style on several
instruments. He was a tremendous guitar player, great fiddle player, just tremendous mandolin
player, I believe he had a pedal steel, though I don't know how much he played it, and he was
a fantastic banjo player. He could go into any music situation, any group, any studio...
any performing situation and bring something wonderful and complimentary to it with
little or no effort. He never looked like he was working hard at it. He was one of the most
naturally talented musicians I've ever known.
Cosmik: There's a memorial web site set up with a chat board where people are still leaving
remembrances of their friendships with him - of course you know this because I saw your post
there. There are so many! And all such warm memories, too. There was one where
someone was talking about him playing banjo for her and her husband and how it was so beautiful
they had tears in their eyes. Says a lot. So many nice things on that chat board.
Rick: It's heartbreaking for me to look at it. I've looked at it a couple of times, but it's
hard for me. There are actually three guys from that band who have passed away now, which is
kind of frightening to me.
Cosmik: Yeah, I saw a message from the wife of one of them. Dennis Jefferies.
Rick: Dennis Jefferies, yeah, and that was another tragic thing. A brain tumor or something
like that. [Ed.Note: Bandleader Dave Karp is the other member of the band who has passed
away.] And as much as I love those other guys, Dick's death is the one that I took the
hardest.
Cosmik: I wasn't sure how long you'd played with that band or how close you'd gotten to the
them.
Rick: I was there for about a year and a half, and beyond that those were a lot of the guys
who were in the scene that I played in at that time at a lot of those different places, most
of which are gone now.
Cosmik: "Places That Are Gone." Sorry, made me think of a song, and some of your songs like
we talked about. Time marching on, change, all that.
Rick: Yeah, there's not much of the scene that was around... well that's almost 20 years ago
now, but it's just sort of changed, the live music thing.
Cosmik: The people and the venues both. I think the reason your album means so much to me
is that I can relate to the underlying feelings and observations on life and change. I
can headbang with the best of 'em, but I feel this, too.
Rick: A lot of it's just this time of life. I don't know what your situation is with your
parents, but I think we reach this point where we face their... either they're not around
or they won't be around much longer. In fact, it's not anything we were intentionally going
for on the record, but I think it's just a change in the way you look at things at this point
in your life.
Cosmik: So how did the record come out for you? Listening to it, do you feel satisfied?
 Rick: I am VERY happy with this album. I'm probably the happiest with this album that I
ever have been. I think working in a studio is just something else to learn, you know?
Learn how to accomplish what you're going for. And if you keep working at it you learn a
little more. It's come out the best and the closest to the original vision of anything that
I've done. It really does sound like what I hoped it would sound like, and even better, and
I'm really happy with it.
Cosmik: I think it's fantastic, but I thought Sawbones was fantastic and I just don't understand
how you didn't get a ton of airplay. Does that matter in the long run? What are you after,
ultimately?
Rick: I'm also happy with Sawbones. I certainly don't mean to slight anything else. I'm
real happy with all the albums and I've been progressively happier with each one. Sawbones,
though, was a bit of a struggle. It was recorded at different studios, different formats
over a long period of time, so just the fact that I was able to accomplish that and get it
to sound cohesive made me tremendously happy, and I like the songs on it a lot. I still
play most of those all the time. But I think it's just a struggle for independent records
on this level, with this kind of music. There's a market and there's radio for it, but
it's kind of tough to get to these places, and being an independent project we have limited
resources to do these things. Ultimately, I'd just like to continue doing this, and as much
as I love playing in Dave's band and it's been tremendously worth while and I love working
there, I would like to be doing more of this on my own. And he certainly understands that.
Cosmik: Touring?
Rick: Yes, I'd like to because I haven't been able to play too much outside of California.
I open a lot of the shows when we [Dave Alvin's band] go on tour, and so that's been a great
opportunity for me, and I've made a few trips to Nashville and a couple of other places like
that, but never been able to get out and do a national tour. I think that would be a great
step.
Cosmik: You must be a little tired by the end of the night.
Rick: (Laughing) Yeeeah, it's a long day. It's hard work out there. We get to these places
early, and we're there until two, three o'clock in the morning. We're there until it's done.
It's tough, it's hard work, but I think I'm very fortunate to be able to do it. It's very
energizing. The work part of it can be a little grueling, but playing this music for an
audience that's really appreciating it, that's a great kick.
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