That tribute band to Mother Love Bone, Temple of the Dog—I got to hang out at those sessions, being around that whole scene. That's when I first met Chris Cornell. I was starstruck. He was such a cool, cool person.
SW: Reggie gets compared to Cornell a lot as a vocalist. Is he someone you ever consciously modeled yourself on as a singer?
KAREN MOSKOWITZ
Maktub, from left: Thaddeus Turner, Davis Martin, Reggie Watts, Daniel Spils, and Kevin Goldman.
KAREN MOSKOWITZ
Maktub, from left: Thaddeus Turner, Davis Martin, Reggie Watts, Daniel Spils, and Kevin Goldman.
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Watts: I'd say so. He's a huge influence and inspiration, and I think he's one of the top five rock vocalists of all time. I think that will come out later on in his life. He doesn't get enough credit. His range was insane—the demonic, operatic range that he had. Then he had that low growl, almost Peter Murphy–esque. There's such a great range and tone and texture, and his sensibility—to even get a slight comparison to something like that is a huge compliment.
The Roots ft. Cody Chesnutt: "The Seed (2.0)" (2002) from Phrenology (MCA)
Watts: Oh yeah!
SW: This was engineered by Bob Power, who produced most of Say What You Mean. How did you end up working with him?
Goldman: Bob had worked on a ton of records, including Meshell Ndegeocello's, and one of the label heads at Velour had managed Meshell for a while. So he'd known Bob for a year or two, and I guess he said, "You should check out Maktub." He brought Bob out [to Seattle], and we talked, just kind of met each other and got to know each other. [As a producer], he's very, very, very detailed [laughs]. He's thorough.
Martin: He's one of those tweaker guys that loves to experiment with all kinds of drums and miking techniques. Being in the studio with him is quite the learning experience compared to other producers who don't necessarily tell you what the hell is going on. He's very informative. He gave us this little speech on compression as an art form. We didn't know what the fuck he was talking about [laughs].
Watts: He's a philosopher. He loves to explain every step of the way. He'll give you as much as you want to know, and if you show any type of interest, he'll just go for it. He'll give you examples historically—he hits it from every angle. If you ask him a question, he'll explain it from a myriad of angles. Sometimes you're like, "Wow, dude, I don't know if I need that much." But he's great.
Goldman: He's like a New York version of Steve Fisk in that way.
Watts: Yeah, totally. He relishes information, he loves knowledge; he loves vocabulary as well. It's really interesting: I knew he was an Aries. I had the weirdest vibe about that. I'm not really an astrological person, but there was something about his personality, that I was like, "Why does he seem so familiar to me?" We share several similarities to how we approach things. It was so familiar [that] it was weird. We'd clash at times because we thought so similarly.
[Producer] Steve Fisk is a lot less hands-on than Bob Power is. Steve Fisk is more facilitating; he has this kind of ambience about him. He kind of sits back on the hillside, watching the action unfold, then he comes in and gives some mild instruction. But really, his strength is in mixing and recording, getting the sounds you hear on the record. We've worked with other producers that were like, "This is the way it's going to be," but that was a different scenario. Bob was the middle between the extremist, dictatorial producer and the subtle influence producer. We had leeway, but at the same time, he let you know he had a vision for the songs. Sometimes I would have a different idea for what would happen for my part of the song. Very few times, but once in a while I'd be like, "I think it would be better this way," and he'd be like, "No, it's not going to be good this way." It was a friendly argument, and I liked that about him. I liked that he actually had a vision.
Goldman: Yeah, he would certainly defend it. For the most part, we were on the same page. During preproduction, we were on the same page the entire time. If you look at the recording journal on the Web site, there were a couple days where Daniel [Spils] and Bob were butting heads, big time. But that's gonna happen.
Martin: It's pretty intense being a drummer for Bob Power: Either he works with machines or with the best drummers ever, like ?uestlove. [Power] is an intense guy; he's really all about drum sound. Those beat guys are way into the sounds.
Watts: There was a point where we were like, "What are we going to do? Are we going to make a record? How are we going to make a record? Let's just chill for a while." Bob was really the guy who made this record happen. I'd been away in Europe, and then I was in New York for a while, and I called him up, and he showed me his studio. We sat down, and he went down the line and said why he thought it was important for us to make the record and why he wanted to do this record and why he was inspired to do it. He really pushed hard to make this record. The catalyst was really Bob.
mmatos@seattleweekly.com
Maktub play Neumo's with Slender Means at 8 p.m. Fri., April 8. $15 adv./$17. All ages.
