You may not have heard of The Stilted Lodger before, but you probably know the guy behind the music. The Stilted Lodger is a new solo project from Writ on Water’s own Jeff MacKey. We interviewed Writ on Water at DTL way back in our first issue in 2008. Or you might remember them from way back in the early 1990’s with their Blonde Vinyl Records release Sylph. Either way, this new project from MacKey should be of interest to our readers – continue on to find out why!
You have been putting out albums as a member of Writ on Water for decades. So why do a solo album now?
Jeff MacKey: I guess the main reason is simply that I’ve been working on music alone in recent years. When the pandemic began, I suddenly found myself with a lot of unexpected time on my hands, and I wound up writing and recording more than 60 new songs during the next couple of years. Further, since I’ve released a handful of albums/EPs on Leap Days over the years (Pelléas, 2000; A Wingless King, 2008; either/orwell, 2012), it gave me a bit of a target for an album release. It’s always good for me to have a deadline because otherwise I tend to revise and re-record things endlessly.
Caught in Mischief Unplanned has seventeen songs on it. Was this large number a result of collecting songs for this project for years and years, or a very inspired recent effort?
All of the songs on CiMU were written since 2020, and the majority come from 2022. They weren’t written with the notion of making an album but more as a personal/musical journal over a difficult period of time. By the end of 2022, I felt like I should do something with the material so I spent a lot of time last year whittling that much larger batch down to seventeen, and there is still enough leftover material to make up additional releases of some sort, although it’s hard to say whether or when such projects might see the light of day.
The title of the album seems to possibly be a reference to you creating a solo album itself – you were caught doing this mischievous thing that wasn’t planned. Or was it something else?
I hadn’t thought of it that way, but I’m more than happy for there to be different interpretations of the title. It comes from the lyrics of ‘Leaf Fallen Heart,’ and I think of the phrase as kind of a variation of John Lennon’s “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” (or perhaps Burns’ “the best-laid schemes of mice and men”). You may hold an ideal of what you think your life should be, but sometimes when you reflect back, you may find a lot more seemingly random shenanigans than careful planning.
With The Stilted Lodger being the project name, some might wonder why you didn’t use your name instead? It is an interesting move, especially when you think about what “stilted lodger” could mean.
I’ve just never felt like a solo artist. I certainly have nothing against solo artists—many of my favourite artists are! — but that idea has just never resonated with me. I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone else, especially since I performed literally every sound on this album, but I’ve always thought of a solo artist as being a vocalist or instrumentalist whose works fundamentally feature the singing or specific-instrument-performance by that person. Whereas the music I make has never been meant to highlight any of those elements in that way. One reason, for instance, that I have always felt inclined to keep the voice a bit lower in the mix (some might even say “too low”) is because I don’t regard the vocal to be more of a featured aspect than the rest of the instrumentation. To me, the essence of each song isn’t the voice or the lyric or a specific instrument but something among and between them that reveals itself only when all of those elements are in the correct balance.
I really struggled to find a name for the project I liked. I considered a lot of, in hindsight, bad ideas over the course of several months. One day around the beginning of this year, as my wife and I were taking a walk, I mentioned two ideas to her, both of which I liked to some degree, and she suggested I combine elements of each: The Stilted Lodger. I suppose people can make of it what they will, but my attachment to it was two-fold. First, in the sense of an “awkward tenant,” it leans into the notion of what it means not to belong, to not have a real sense of home, something with which I’ve wrestled throughout my life. Secondly, it pays homage to two of my musical heroes: Paddy McAloon and David Bowie.
So far it looks like the album is available primarily on streaming services. Is Amazon the only place to purchase it? Are there any plans for a physical release?
At this point, there are no plans for a physical release, no. I may be adding another online option or two in the near future and, if so, the details will be posted on the Stilted Lodger Facebook page.
(note: since this interview happened, the album has been added to BandCamp where it can be purchased.)
It has been a while since we have heard music from Writ on Water (A Charcoal Night – 2017) and either/orwell (2012). What is going on with those projects? Are they still active to some degree?
Dan and I have lived in different states for about twenty years now so our work “together” during that time has been very much apart. I’m certainly not opposed to the idea of making another Writ on Water album, but it proves more and more difficult for us to find or make time to collaborate, and I would only consider something to be Writ on Water if Dan and I work together on it. By way of background, most of the tracking for A Wingless King and a good portion of the two 2008 EPs had actually been recorded years earlier in California, and then we finished them up in 2007/08 for release. The Greyest Day and A Charcoal Night were both made up primarily of songs dating back to the ’90s—songs that likely would have been recorded for Blonde Vinyl if the label had survived long enough for us to fulfill our three-album deal. In fact, we had 4-track demoed most of The Greyest Day before Sylph was even released! So strangely, despite having made a handful of albums/EPs over the 25-year span from 1992 (Sylph) to 2017 (ACN), those songs were almost entirely written between 1990 and 2001. From that standpoint, perhaps Writ on Water’s work is that of a time gone by.
As for either/orwell, that album was, for me, quite a unique process and experience. Jarod Weldin and I recorded hours of material over the course of a couple of lengthy guitar improvisation sessions with just a single mic recording what we played. As ideas began to take shape, we would alternately add melodic, harmonic and textural layers. Then, after taking some time to listen to what we’d done over the next few weeks, we narrowed down to 10 ideas that were subsequently re-recorded from scratch over a period of a few months. I feel like that specific process is a defining characteristic of what either/orwell is, and it’s hard to imagine making another e/o album any other way. Again, the obstacle to making another album is coordinating schedules to find the time.
Does that even answer the question? I’m not sure. Dan and Jarod are both dear friends with whom I interact frequently so I’d never say never.
To you, what is the difference between a song you write for Writ on Water and one you write for a solo project?
I don’t know that I see any meaningful difference between the two, inasmuch as I just write what comes to me. There are certainly songs I’ve written in years past that I knew were not Writ on Water songs, that just would not have fit stylistically with a Writ release, but those have never been released anywhere. I think the main difference is that I’m in quite a different place in life and as a musician now than I was 20+ years ago when the Writ on Water material was written so I guess the main difference is…time. And to that end, I’m curious to know whether listeners hear TSL as more of an extension of Writ or as a noticeable change in direction. I didn’t set out for the Stilted Lodger to be one or the other, and I genuinely don’t know.
With the recent re-issues of some Blonde Vinyl titles on vinyl, have you thought about re-releasing Sylph on vinyl?
No. If we thought there was sufficient interest for it to be worthwhile, we might consider it. So probably not. Because Sylph was the final release on Blonde Vinyl, it got essentially no promotion whatsoever, just basically flung into the world to fend for itself. We were wrongly under the impression at the time that it was getting some level of label support, but ultimately, we are just appreciative that the album found any sort of audience and still has some level of ongoing notoriety.
Did you ever know or work with Michael Knott, either through Blonde Vinyl or elsewhere?
We used to run into Mike here and there through the label and at various shows/events, but not to a degree that would rise to the level of really knowing him. And our Mike Knott stories are probably best left out of the public domain. Our connection to Blonde Vinyl had a lot more to do with Ken Bower—the label’s true unsung hero—and Chris Colbert than with Mike Knott.
Do you have any future plans for more solo music? Or do you see this as a one-off project?
I’ve had another project semi-in-the-works with Jon Sonnenberg over the last couple of years that I still hope will eventually find its way out into the ether. It’s from another batch of songs I wrote and partially recorded a few years ago, and Jon was interested in working on some of them. I really admire him as a musician, songwriter and producer, and I think it could turn out to be quite interesting.
And as I mentioned before, I’ve got quite a lot of new material that didn’t make it onto CiMU. Hopefully it won’t all get swept down the stream of waning interest like so many other abandoned songs over the years because I feel strongly about a good bit of it. All of which is to say…no, I don’t intend for the Stilted Lodger to be a one-off and hope to use TSL again going forward. When…that is a bit harder to say.
The Stilted Lodger on Facebook
Writ on Water on Facebook
either/orwell on Facebook
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