Anders Osborne riffs on collaboration, inspiration and ‘Peace’

Anders Osborne, a singer, songwriter and guitarist, is one of the most-respected artists in New Orleans.

Osborne will shift from blues with a metal edge to a slow love song to a reggae beat before doubling back to rock. Versatile, deep, innovative, spontaneous and enthralling (especially live), Osborne’s music is indicative of a man who wants to understand himself and the world around him, his sound as uniquely Anders Osborne as his thumbprint.

He also plays extremely well with others. Osborne on Sept. 28 joins Robert Randolph and the Family Band for a Best of the Bayou performance. One month later, he’ll contribute to two Voice of the Wetlands sets.

Also next month, on Oct. 8, he’ll release “Peace,” his third LP with Alligator Records.

He agreed to introduce himself to the Houma audience that will become acquainted with his music in the coming weeks via a question-and-answer session with the Gumbo Entertainment Guide.

The questions, about his influences, collaborations, the nature of art and “Peace,” and his full, verbatim responses, are below.

For more information on Osborne, visit his website: www.andersosborne.com. To stream the title track from his upcoming album, visit www.relix.com.

– Your Best of the Bayou headline act with Robert Randolph won’t be the first time you’ve graced the stage with the pedal-steel virtuoso. What was it like performing with him the first time, and how do your styles complement one another?

Both of us are pretty energetic, you know what I mean. We have a lot a lot of energy going on. I might be a little shy of the amount of energy Robert’s got. (laughs). He’s pretty frantic, and I love that. I think some of the blues background, you know, a little bit of that feel that we both carry, the spiritual and gospel vibe and blues. I think, in general, sometimes you have to try things to learn and grow and enjoy something. Most definitely, it’s a big experience to play with Robert.

– Beyond Randolph, you frequently collaborate with other musicians, both on albums and on stage, whether it’s Luther Dickinson, Johnny Sansone, the Voice of the Wetlands Allstars, Galactic … the list goes on. Why are you inclined to joint-efforts?

Well, the same reasons. I think, basically, when you play music, it’s really great to have your own band to work out your own little things. But basically, it’s just you and your band members repeating the same old opinion, you know, the same things you’ve been doing. I think sometimes it’s like an injection of creativity and inspiration when you mix it up and you meet somebody you haven’t played with before or, even if you’ve played with them, just to kind of mix it up. It keeps it really fresh for me. I feel like my learning curve stays a little sharper.

– You can pick anyone, dead or alive, to share the stage with for one song. Who are they, and what is the song?

A few things come to mind. I would love to jam with Lowell George. I would probably do “20 Million Things.” But I also have to say, Ray Charles, and if I could play slide behind him playing solo piano on “Georgia” would be pretty cool.

– Many of the on-stage collaborations are unrehearsed. What is it about music’s language that can allow strangers, in some cases, to mesh their talents within minutes?

I think it’s like a conversation. It’s like a meeting of the minds. When you speak in the language of music, there’s so many possibilities. It’s kind of like jousting a little bit, it’s like sparring, it’s like exchanging positive messages and negative messages. It’s like exchanging ideas and communicating. When you do it on the spot, especially with people who are very versatile and have a big musical, vocal vocabulary, I think it becomes, like I said before, it’s just very inspiring. You learn a lot, and you walk away from the conversation with some more knowledge about yourself and about music in general.

 – You chose to adopt New Orleans as your hometown over just about every other place in the world. Why have you stayed south Louisiana (for 30 years)?

I think I chose Louisiana because Louisiana chose me. I was loved the most in Louisiana. (laughs) The people were the nicest here. I also have family, actually, in Lafayette. My grandfather used to live in New Orleans, for a long time.

– When you say the people loved you, how did that resonate with you?

It’s inspiring. It’s a sense of acceptance. I was a teenager when I got here, so a lot of things were based on just feeling comfortable with yourself. There’s a lot of emotional and psychological growth that goes on in your teenage years, you’re trying to figure things out. I think at that time, it was a good fit. You’re allowed to be pretty much as eccentric or as noneccentric as you want here, and it all fits in. That’s not just New Orleans; Louisiana in general is a very special place.

 – You were at the T-Bois Blues Fest in April, Best of the Bayou this month and Voice of the Wetlands in October, so you’ll have spent a lot of time in the Bayou Region lately. What does coastal Louisiana represent to you?

It’s freedom. It makes me feel happy. It makes me feel free. It makes me feel that anything is possible. It is such a fertile ground, and it’s such a beautiful mixture of so many different cultures and nationalities that have meshed together here over a period of two or three hundred years. And you can really feel that. I think also the coastline is unique. There’s nothing like it in the whole world. It provides everything you need. You’ve got everything you need here.

 – Back to your music. Who or what is your inspiration?

My family, my wife, my kids, and I think some of the internal turmoil and the happiness that goes on inside myself. That’s always an inspiration to trigger for songwriting and trying to express things. Then I also think, musically, the culture of Louisiana is a great source of inspiration, you know the general attitude, the general approach to everyday life is really inspirational. I think also a lot of the originators of southern rock ‘n’ roll, you know the Allman Brothers and, even though they’re West Coast, the Little Feat, … a lot of jazz has really inspired me. Cold Train, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Cannonball, stuff like that.

 –Your dad reportedly helped expose you to jazz – if so, how did this shape your current improvisational skills?

I think it’s been pretty instrumental because when the foundation is mainly drawn from horn players, I think the way you approach your instrument is a little different versus if my first exposure would have been just blues guitar or rock ‘n’ roll. But it wasn’t. It was mainly jazz. I think that has helped me a little bit in how I approach it when I improvise.

– Can you be specific?

Once again, I bring it back to the Allman Brothers and even Grateful Dead. What jazz does, it opens up the chordal structures, it opens up the solo structure, it allows you to do anything you feel like during the solo part. I think I’ve been very inspired by that.

– Your songwriting is lauded for inspiring deep, sometimes existential thought from your listeners. Across the wide spectrum of New Orleans art, does anyone provoke you do to the same?

A lot of people do. It doesn’t have to be a specific artist. There are a couple of songs by Dr. John. Dave Bartholomew wrote some old tunes, you know “The Monkey Speaks His Mind.” In the bigger picture, I think the sentimental and melancholy aspect of things, I think, a lot of that comes from probably Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison and Lowell George. I think those are the main influences in how I approach most things.

– Tim McGraw turned one of your songs into a No. 1 country hit. You wrote two tracks on Keb Mo’s 1999 Grammy-winning Slow Down. Brad Paisley, Kim Carnes and Tab Benoit have covered your material. What gives your songwriting this kind of range?

I don’t know. I feel blessed and I feel lucky that people appreciate what I do. I really don’t have an answer for that. I think, possibly, it’s that I don’t really restrict myself very much stylistically, and I think that’s maybe a reflection of why so many different types of people record my stuff. I try to be as honest and as authentic to the song as possible, not to a specific style. I try to cater to the song and make sure that comes out right. Sometimes the styles may vary a little bit.

– Talking about varied styles, “Three Free Amigos,” the EP you released earlier this year. It was billed as free flowing, and you pretty much obliterate any notion of a single genre. What did this album allow you to accomplish?

What I wanted with the album was to kind of show the process of my song writing demo parts. The whole record was made as a demo. The way I would do, basically, pre-production would be that I have a song and then I would go in and either just record it by myself if I wanted to make a little bit of a demo out of it, I would record just myself on vocals and then add bass and drums afterwards and sort of build on a bare skeleton of an idea. That’s what we did. We just went in, and we tried our best not to overbuild it, so it’s long a song demo record, if that makes any sense. I didn’t want it to be all cohesive, just one thing. In the end, you try to sequence it right so that it’s a pleasant listening experience, but the idea was to give you the whole idea of if I go in with 25 songs for a record, this would be six of them that you’d just have as an example. It wasn’t intended to be some kind of major effort. It was more meant to be, yeah, a sneak-peak at the songwriting process.

– On “American Patchwork” and “Black Eye Galaxy,” you sang about personal struggles with addiction while forsaking any effort to keep less-glamorous aspects of your life hidden. Why do you feel introspection and truth are important to art?

I think art is a very vital part of manifesting ourselves on this planet and in this universe. We express ourselves in so many ways, politically and with different personality and so forth. I think the strongest manifestation usually is our art. If it’s not you performing the art, it’s the art that you appreciate and what you surround yourself with, in your house and what type of home you have and car and all that stuff.

I feel that if, as an artist, if with what I’m going through is maybe not always pleasant or my thoughts, they’re very personal, it’s important to me to be honest to that. I think that becomes a reflection. That’s what people are drawn to. The people that are not, that’s OK. They’ll be drawn to something different. 

– OffBeat Magazine named you New Orleans’ Songwriter of the Year last year and the city’s Best Guitarist for the past three years, among a litany of other accolades you’ve had over your career. How do you assess your talents, and how do you search to balance them?

I try to improve on all the aspects of the talents that I have, and I try to make sure to do them justice and that I am respectful of the gifts. If something feels inspiring at the moment, say that’s producing, songwriting, or whatever it is, I stay focused on that. I try to improve my skills and my craft. That’s pretty much all I can do.

– We just learned you’re releasing your next full-length album Oct. 8. It’s title “Peace.” What themes do you grapple with? What is the album about, musically and lyrically?

The title track is basically my search for a day of finding peace. That can be interpreted any way you want, but that’s kind of what that song is. Then there are some observations on, you know, getting older, the age I’m at. Some looking back at part of my life and the opportunities and the things that happened that could have led me down so many different paths. But I chose not to go those routes, so I reflect on that. Then I have a song about my wife. I have a song about my daughter and my son. There’s also an event that took place, it was a shooting … Believe it or not, there was a shooting in New Orleans, so I’m tackling that on one of the songs.

– With “Peace,” you’ll have released three full albums in four years, plus “Three Free Amigos,” since you signed with Alligator Records. Do you do anything besides write, perform or produce music?

I try to exercise. That’s about it. Or fix something that’s broke at the house.

Anders Osborne performs at Jazz Fest. Osborne joins Robert Randolph for a set Saturday, Sept. 28 at Houma’s Best of the Bayou Festival. 

ERIC BESSON | GUMBO ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE

Osborne releases his full-length album “Peace” Oct. 8.

COURTESY PHOTO