“I was in West of Rome since 2000, and maybebecause I was in a band situation for so long, I’m now really enjoying gettingout and having the chance to play with different people and see what they’llbring to my music,” DeMay says of his many collaborations. “The downside,though, is most of the people I play with have their own bands and projects todeal with, so I don’t always have a steady lineup to do shows with.”
DeMay has a reputation for hastily recruiting hisbacking bands, but inspiration is often born of that haste. One of DeMay’sbands clicked in particular. For the annual Kneel to Neil fund-raiser in late2008, he was joined by Quinn Scharber, Allen Cote (of The Championship), RyanStang (of Dustworks) and Joe Kirschling (now of The Celebrated Workingman).
“We only practiced a couple times, but theperformance went over really well,” DeMay says. “It felt really right. I wasthinking about doing some recording, and after playing with those guys I knewwho I had to get into the studio with.”
Before the lineup was lost to history, DeMay bookedthem for a weekend at Howl Street Recordings with producer Shane Hochstetler.On paper, that seemed like an unlikely pairing: At the time Hochstetler, of theindie-punk band Call Me Lightning, was best known for recording punk and metalgroups. Though DeMay and Hochstetler were both vets of the Milwaukee music scene, their paths had barelycrossed.
Before their sessions together, the two got to knoweach other over dinner and, like so many of DeMay’s collaborators, they bondedover a shared love of Neil Young.
“We talked about some of our favorite recordings,”Hochstetler recalls, “and we found that we both really like the same qualitiesin recordings. My favorite way of recording is capturing a band live, stayingas true to the actual band as possible. Sometimes a singer-songwriter will comeinto the studio and want to lay down the bass, drums and guitars separate,doing a lot of layering, but I still think there’s no substitute for a realband tracking everything all at once.”
That live sound drives DeMay’s resulting recording,Bigger Than Small, a hearty six-songEP that clocks in at nearly half an hour. The EP hinges on the interplay of itsplayers. Even its most mournful, twangiest numbers are enlivened by electricguitars.
“Though these are Chris’ songs, he gave the bandfreedom to play things however they wanted,” Hochstetler says. “That makes thisso much more than just another singer-songwriter record. The players weren’tjust hired guns; they were really a band, basically.”
DeMay will release Bigger Than Small this weekend with a 9:30 p.m. show at Linneman’sRiverwest Inn with opener Conrad Plymouth.
Some of the players and guests on the EP will joinDeMay for the show; others won’t. In the time since recording Bigger Than Small, DeMay has continuedto find new collaboratorsthe most recent of which is Hochstetler himself, whowill be drumming for DeMay at the release show.
