{"id":141195,"date":"2023-08-27T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-27T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/?p=141195"},"modified":"2023-09-22T10:25:48","modified_gmt":"2023-09-22T17:25:48","slug":"the-milk-carton-kids-deepen-their-sound-and-songwriting-on-i-only-see-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/the-milk-carton-kids-deepen-their-sound-and-songwriting-on-i-only-see-the-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"The Milk Carton Kids Deepen Their Sound and Songwriting on \u2018I Only See the Moon\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For a dozen years, the Milk Carton Kids have explored the sonic potential of two voices and two acoustic guitars\u2014singing in silvery harmony over the gentle pulse of Joey Ryan\u2019s fingerstyle rhythm, while Kenneth Pattengale probes the edges of consonance and dissonance on lead guitar. With the exception of their band-oriented 2018 album All the Things I Did and All the Things I Didn\u2019t Do<\/a>, <\/em>Ryan and Pattengale have maintained this tight focus on what they can accomplish as an acoustic duo, both onstage and in the studio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That quest continues on their new album, I Only See the Moon<\/a>,<\/em> but it has broadened in unexpected ways. For the first time, Pattengale served as their producer\u2014building on his experiences at the helm of albums by Joe Pug, Cordovas, Joy Williams, Chris Eldridge and Julian Lage, and more\u2014and Pattengale and Ryan also had their own studio in North Hollywood to work in. With the freedom to dig deeper into writing and arranging on their own schedule, they expanded their instrumental palette with varied guitars as well as clawhammer banjo, Hammond and pump organ, and Mellotron, and even brought in a string orchestra on the title track. All these sounds create a rich atmosphere while retaining the emotional intimacy of perhaps their strongest set of songs to date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I caught up with Ryan and Pattengale by Zoom, with Pattengale sitting in their studio in front of some favorite guitars\u2014including a prewar Gibson L-00 miraculously rescued from Hurricane Katrina. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Cover<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After years of living in different cities, how did it impact your music to be together in L.A. again? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pattengale:<\/strong> It\u2019s a big change actually. We didn\u2019t realize those many years we were apart that [living nearby] makes it a lot easier to work together, run a business together, write together, and record together. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ryan:<\/strong> We spent a year making this record, which I don\u2019t think you can do unless you live in the same city. We got through three weeks of it, which was how long it was supposed to take, and then Kenneth said, it\u2019s not good. I agreed and was relieved that he said it out loud, because I think if there was a flight booked for him to go back to Nashville or New York or me to go off somewhere, probably we would just have taken the record we had in the can after three weeks and put that out. We never would have been honest with ourselves about how we didn\u2019t like it. Instead we took a whole extra year, working every day to write new songs and record them and find the identity of the album, which we now think is probably our best one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What exactly did you feel was missing or coming up short? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ryan:<\/strong> For me it was just the songs. At the time, Kenneth said they\u2019re kind of all over the place, except for two songs we ended up keeping [\u201cWheels and Levers\u201d and \u201cOne True Love\u201d]\u2014these really seemed to be pointing in a direction. Then it was exciting to start with those as a kernel or a North Star to be guided by, and just write a whole new batch of songs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pattengale:<\/strong> Yeah, everything\u2019s about the songs. That\u2019s all it ever was. It\u2019s not like anybody\u2019s perfect, even the best bands of all time. You know, the Beatles had some real stinkers, and they slipped onto albums. But the stinkers can\u2019t outweigh the timeless songs, and they always ended up on the right side of that equation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think what we\u2019re most proud of on this record is ending up with an authorial voice that was headed somewhere and felt truthful\u2014and didn\u2019t feel like songwriting exercises or constructions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ryan:<\/strong> One thing I hope won\u2019t sound like self-flattery is, you know, I think we can sing and play anything and make it pretty; we could take a song that doesn\u2019t mean that much to us and make it sound like nice music. But on this album, it was important to us that the lyrics felt sharp and purposeful as well as personal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m digging the banjo-and-guitar combo on some of the new songs. Joey, back in 2015 you told me you were playing banjo but not ready to go public. What was the impetus behind tapping into that old-time banjo sound? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ryan:<\/strong> I learned the banjo to begin with on the tour bus with Sarah Jarosz and her band, when we did a collaborative tour in 2014. The sound engineer, Mark Richards, is also a great clawhammer-style banjo player, and she and he were jamming old-time songs the whole time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the modalities of songs I learned is in G modal tuning [G D G C D], and usually it\u2019s pretty ominous sounding. I learned a version of \u201cWayfaring Stranger\u201d in that tuning, plus a bunch of other songs that I won\u2019t remember the names of now, but they were usually about something terrible happening. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanted to take this sound and feel and put my own songwriting lens on it. And \u201cOne True Love\u201d came out\u2014it\u2019s like a little bit of a cross between \u201cWayfaring Stranger\u201d and the Gillian Welch song \u201cOne More Dollar.\u201d And then the other one [\u201cWhen You\u2019re Gone,\u201d recorded in the tuning E A E A B but played live in standard banjo open G tuning, G D G B D, capo two] is an ode to my love for the banjo and banjo songs and the people who taught them to me. It\u2019s a little meta\u2014a banjo song about banjo songs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So for you, Kenneth, playing guitar over banjo rather than a deeper sounding guitar must completely change the landscape.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pattengale:<\/strong> I had to use a whole other guitar\u2014a 000-18, just off the shelf at Martin. Julian Lage has a 000-18 from 1939 that is maybe the best guitar I\u2019ve ever played. Once I played that one, I never bought a 000-18 because I could never find one as good as his. But then I realized I needed it, so I called up Martin and they sent me one. It works great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Joey
Photo: Rachel Kramer<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That would fill out the low end much more than your usual guitar. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pattengale:<\/strong> My [1955] 0-15 is such a particular thing that lives on top of other sounds. It\u2019s like a pointy little needle. With that triple 18, you get all the lower harmonics and overtones that feel like more like a bedrock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guitar wise, are there any other changes in what you\u2019re doing in the studio or onstage? You\u2019ve had so much consistency with instruments for so long, with the combo of the Gibson J-45 and Martin 0-15.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ryan:<\/strong> Yeah, but I switched guitars entirely on this record, and also now for live. I don\u2019t really play my Gibson anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Live, I play a [slope shoulder] Martin DSS-17. We\u2019ve been in a good partnership with Martin for many years. Kenneth has his own signature model, we\u2019ve been to the factory and the museum, and I\u2019ve played so many Martins that our friends have. But I\u2019m always looking for something that feels like me, in the way that my \u201951 J-45 does. George Gruhn brought this DSS [to a show], in the black smoke colored pattern, and I was like, \u201cThis sounds like a J-45.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then the sound guy who travels with us, Jason Cupp, convinced me that it\u2019d be better if I played a guitar with a little more legibility, mostly on the low end. He was having trouble getting what he wanted out of my guitar. This DSS-17 sounded enough like me that I was willing to try it out. He was super happy with it once we got it plugged into our live setup. So that\u2019s what I take on the road now, and I have to say, traveling with a new guitar that can be replaced at a moment\u2019s notice, versus an irreplaceable vintage guitar\u2014just the stress level alone is worth it. But I think it also sounds better up front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So that\u2019s the stage guitar, but in the studio I used a different guitar\u2014it\u2019s one of Kenneth\u2019s guitars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pattengale:<\/strong> It\u2019s a 1932 L-00, 12 frets to the neck. Mark Stutman had it up in Waterloo [Ontario, at Folkway Music; see the March\/April 2021 issue]. The story goes, it floated away in Hurricane Katrina and lived in the water in the Gulf of Mexico for a couple of weeks and then he ended up with it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ryan:<\/strong> There\u2019s still silt in it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pattengale:<\/strong> Yes, silt and barnacles and stuff inside, and the belly\u2019s distended like an inch below the bridge, but it sounds great. It weathered that storm very gracefully as it were. That\u2019s all the guitar Joey plays on our new album, with the exception of the last song, where he plays one of my little 0-15s [from 1956] with nylon strings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also Martin sent us a 12-string guitar\u2014a David Crosby signature model. It\u2019s a really lovely guitar and on the album, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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