Pat Metheny – An Xperience Monthly Interview with Liam Sweeny

Pat Metheny is a musician that musicians want to have on speed dial. Acclaimed, versatile, and with a career spanning five decades, Metheny redefines genres like it’s his job. It kind of is.

I reached out to Pat, and below is the ol’ razzle dazzle.

RRX: As of this writing, you’re launching into a U.S. Fall Tour, a solo tour. You’re going to be stopping at or have stopped at (depending on when this hits) at The Troy Savings Bank music hall, which is reputed to be one of the most acoustically perfect concert halls in the country. When you play, how do you take the concert space acoustics into consideration?

PM: It has been pretty normal for me across the years to play in places that hold 100 or 200 people one night, and a stadium of 10 or 15 thousand people the next night. I am used to adjusting to pretty extreme circumstances from day to day – it kind of comes with the territory to the point where any adjustments are almost subconscious. It is less about the acoustics for me than the proximity of the audience – if there are people listening who are half a football field away, there is a sense of projection that needs to be there that is different than playing in small club for instance.

RRX: You are doing this tour to promote your latest album, “Dream Box.” This album is unique because it’s a bringing up of inspired bits from a stash folder that found the light. When you were picking out bits, did you go by purely what inspired you most, or did you have an eye to overall composition?

PM: It really began when after a while I found myself wanting to listen to the things that wound up on the record over and over again.  That is usually a sign of something for me. But certainly for all the different ways that I have released music over the years, this one stands apart for the process involved. I am really gratified that folks seem to be liking it so much.

RRX: Jazz is tough. It’s something of a learning curve. You were on it from basically year one. By fifteen you were tearing up Kansas City. Asking this by your experience with other musicians, does it matter when you start learning? Do you think you have a different hold on the music because it’s been a constant in your life?

PM: Music in general feels infinite to me. there are no set ways that I think about it and I think it has been that way right from the start. It contains possibilities that extend outward in a kind of 360 degree spread. I try remain open to whatever direction seems interesting and viable, and that can change both by the year, but also by the millisecond. But the impulse to understand music in a deep way has been a great way to go through life

RRX: Jazz fusion. Love it. Big Mahavishnu Orchestra fan. I interviewed Billy Cobham a while back. But I think a band like Mahavishnu would almost be considered classic rock if, say, McLaughlin sang (big stretch). How does a Beatles or Rolling Stones fan get to a place where they can appreciate a Mahavishnu or a Pat Metheny fusion? Are there intermediaries?

PM: The “f” word only came along after I had been at it for 5 years or so. I don’t really know any musicians who use that word. I am not a huge fan of the whole idea of “genre” or styles of music. To me, music is one big thing. The musicians who I have admired the most are the ones who have a deep reservoir of knowledge and insight not just about music, but about life in general and are able to illuminate the things that they love in sound. When it is a musician who can do that on the spot, as an improviser, that is usually my favorite kind of player.

Regarding fans, I think there are as many “fan bases” as there are individuals. As far as my thing goes, I notice is that there is no consensus – literally every record I have made seems to be someone’s favorite and might be someone else’s least favorite. And this is equally distributed among virtually all the recordings and projects I have ever done. The main thing I notice is that people tend to be most attached to whatever record or period that was happening on their radar when they first got interested. But my thing is that they are all one really long single record. It is the way it all goes together that probably defines whatever it is that makes my thing what it is.

RRX: I mention jazz, but in terms of genre, you’re everywhere at once. Rock, jazz, classical, and more. I like talking about jazz here because of the improvisation, which is more of a thing in jazz. I imagine it’s a must-have for you. I’ll ask this; name a show where you were never more “in the zone” for improv your unicorn show.

PM: When I first started making records and going around playing with Gary Burton on kind of an international level, I had only been playing for a bit over 5 years, Now it is something like 50+. What is really rewarding is that what might have even been a “unicorn” show for me in the early going is way below the level I know I can consistently get to and beyond every single night now. And if I live to 100, I think that kind of growth would keep on being the case. Maybe music is unique in that way.

RRX: You’ve won 20 Grammys in everything, 12 different categories. Awards are important, especially when a musician is trying to get out there. But after 20, at some point, it seems like it would lose a little bit of its luster. But is there any part of winning a Grammy that is just as exciting at Grammy number 20 as it was at Grammy number 1?

PM: If you come to my house you’re not going to see any awards or anything like that on the wall or anywhere else. I don’t really feel comfortable having things like awards of photos or anything like that around me. I am always looking to what comes next or what is happening right now. I really try to appreciate it when an award or some kind of honor comes along, and I do. There are certain honors that are unbelievable to me, that I never would have anticipated or expected in a million years.

At the same time, because I do live my life playing so much, I could say it like this… In Bakersfield, I played a gig and I think I might have played the best I’ve ever played so far. I finally got to that solo on that fourth tune that I’d been hoping I’d get to all tour long, I got it. I finally did it. Then the next night we’re playing in Phoenix and it doesn’t matter what I played in Bakersfield the night before. The people in Phoenix don’t care what I played in Bakersfield because tonight, I’m in Phoenix and I’ve got to play that fourth tune again and I hope I don’t mess it up.

My whole life is geared to enjoying stuff while it’s happening and then moving on. I feel honored and humbled by it all, but my thing is, “Okay, tomorrow is the next thing,” and that’s the only thing for me, what’s happening next.

RRX: We are a digital radio station as well as a publication and site. We have about 13,000 songs in our library, all curated, no bulk additions. We have you in our library, I’m positive about that. But we are all about those delicious deep cuts. What Pat Metheny song is the deep cut we need to have on rotation?

PM: As I mentioned, it is all one long record – it is all one long song. I would be flattered if you guys played any of it!

Interview by Liam Sweeny.