With fifteen new destinations to explore after his latest release, Daniel Donato delves his cosmic voyage into deeper horizons. Donato’s ability to “repurpose” country music’s foundational themes into a current, modern sound propels his unique journey into unexplored territory. While the tales on the album run the gamut from happy to downright depressing, the music behind them is some of the catchiest in Donato’s career.
Slide&Banjo’s Marty Halpern rejoins Donato’s frequency to continue their exploration into Cosmic Country’s deepest Horizons.
S&B- Another thing the stood out on Horizons is several of these songs are so catchy. They get stuck in your head. Along the Trail, Yonder, Broadside Ballad, See Through and Valhalla. I’ve literally had these songs rotating in my head the last several weeks.
Donato – You’ve always been on the frequency so it’s easier for you.
S&B- They’re happy songs so it makes sense.
Donato- Well some of them aren’t the happiest.
S&B- Fair enough. The stories told may not be the happiest, but the music behind them is.
Donato- You reach for the same thing happiness is reaching for. Happiness is reaching for meaning. You know this way more than me. The hardest challenges in life can bring us peace in the moment on some level, sometimes. That’s what happiness is reaching for. Every song on the record is reaching for a meaning that can endure itself through the light moments and dark moments.
S&B- Another of your musical missions is to “modernize” if you will country songs that can date back over a century. You cover many universal country themes in Horizons. Gambling, love, and lore with the tale of Mike Fink in Broadside Ballad. Did you look anywhere specific to create and modernize such longstanding themes?
Donato- There are a lot of Jimmie Rodgers themes, Bob Wills, and Marty Robbins. The things that stick around over time become traditional. It must mean there’s something true on some level. If an individual is creating something from tradition. If they can learn the tradition, then it’s new when they play it. The spirit of it is true because the person playing it is new. It lends itself to naturally reproducing and manifesting itself over different artists over different times of life. Jimmie Rodgers would start singing about certain themes. Then Merle Haggard would pick them up. Hopefully there’s a through line to Cosmic Country now. It’s the same tradition we’re drawing from now. I never thought about it until we completed the album. If the artist will serve tradition, then tradition will serve the audience.
S&B- Talk about a through line. Let’s discuss some of the lyrics on the album. There are some in here that are Robert Hunter-esque. You hear them from the crowd and scream because they ring true.
Donato- There’s an element to writing where if you can write in a way that feels true and vulnerable, the things that are specific to you will be specific to someone who is on the same frequency.
S&B- I know that’s what you’re looking for. Your words to spark visuals in the listener’s mind. What is this innate ability to take these old country themes and make them fresh with the beautiful words you put with them?
Donato- It’s something I noticed happening. There was a change. If you work every day, you get to lay bricks down. Then life gets revealed and it changes what you see. I like illuminating different depths of life experience. That allows me to write differently about life. It’s how life goes. I experienced a lot more which allowed me to engage with a lot more. I think that’s it. The ideas just come. When they come, I’m grateful and think how can I serve you. Maybe I’m gaining more experience doing that.
S&B- I listened to the album again earlier and noted several of my favorite lyrics. “If I’m bored, then you’re boring.”
Donato – (laughs)
S&B- Another one is… “She gave me the best directions on where to go to find the blues.”
Donato– Oh yeah!
S&B- These instantly create visuals that pop up in your head.
Donato- Originally, I wanted to come up with a word that sounded like erection.
S&B – (laughs) I love ironic humor so lyrics like these stand out.
Donato- Yeah, lots of Roger Miller.
S&B- “You can tell a fool by his gold” is another.
Donato- Exactly. Is it the guy who wears fool’s gold or the person who overly worships the profane material nature of gold?
S&B- I just think of some idiot who spent all day working in a mine happily going home with a sack full of what he thinks is gold. You can imagine his wife’s reaction when she uncovers his mistake.
Donato- We’ve spent many moments listening to the same Bob Dylan or Robert Hunter lyrics. Yet every time you listen to them, they mean something more and different. I feel one thing that makes lyrics true is if they’re a mirror. It might seem like words, but it’s supposed to reflect something that is you. When you mentioned all those lines, that was the feeling I got when I was writing them. Since then, they’ve changed. Which makes sense. They’re mirrors. Thanks for noticing. You notice a lot of the same details I’ve put in there.
S&B- Another great line is “I can’t convey my love with words. I’ve tried. These clouds get to weighen on my eyes.” What a wonderful way to describe crying. Switching to the cosmic side, when you throw that big jam in Chore or Down Bedford, was it written out before hand or did you just let it rip in the studio? How did those big masses of music come to be?
Donato- There’s composition on those songs and a game plan on the parts that are usually improvised. Just to accommodate the studio. In the age of pro tools, we could have gone as long as we wanted. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. If we were in the day when the Dead were making records, I don’t know if we would have the liberty to include those songs in that way. We would have needed to present them differently. The way Uncle John’s Band is presented on Workingman’s Dead. It’s informative on what they do live, but is in no way all they do live. I wanted to do that a little. That’s why it’s only those two songs. I thought that was all the record needed. The record is shaped perfectly because I believe they’re at end of their side on vinyl.
S&B- That forethought allows the momentum to build to a climax.
Donato – It’s like Tarantino in The Hateful Eight. All the gore and big shootout was really saved for the last thirty minutes of the movie. Just like Django Unchained. I like that there’s all this anticipation. All these characters. All these archetypal concepts of adventure, love, tragedy. Then there’s this high action with bullets flying. That’s what jams are. It’s a highwire act. That’s what a shootout is. One of the highest, high wire acts I imagine. There’s this payout from the ultimate tension and supreme chaos. It needs to be towards the end. I really think of Cosmic Country records like Tarantino movies. He really tells a story that no one else does in that form. The format which he tells stories is brilliant. The spirit of that of that can be embedded in records. It’s not beholden to visual media. It’s a concept I probably started thinking about 11 years ago. Playing all these live shows doing two sets a night you have to tell a story.
S&B- You tell the stories in the songs but always leave holes to take off in unique directions when playing them live. While they may be tight on the record, any can open up in a concert given the moment.
Donato- Oh yeah. Valhalla, we open that up every night. With Translation, the concept of the song lends itself to musical journey. That track was inspired by Blood on the Tracks. The instrumentation on the record. That was Dylan’s peak era of expressing narratives. It’s a lot at once.
S&B- I’ve been waiting to ask you about this one theme in the instrumental part of Chore. I can’t place it, and it’s been driving me crazy. It sounds like a bit of the Rocky theme. Then I think it sounds a little like 2001. Do you know which lick I’m referring to and what, if anything is it from?
Donato- There’s a couple of answers to that question. There’s a factual answer of what it sounds like. There’s a spiritual aspect that is true of melody. The same notes used in Cannon in D are the same notes used in Arkansas Traveler. There are certain patterns to melody just like there are patterns to life or patterns to a day that create feelings. There are all these patterns that are linked to each other. There’s a cosmic pattern to certain melodies. If you were to break the numbers down, they would read the same. You’ll hear something and it is Rocky, and it is 2001, and it is Chore all at the same time.
S&B- In previous chats, we have discussed adding new tones to your sound. You weren’t super gung-ho on the idea. Listening to the album, it seems like you had a change of heart. You clearly use multiple guitar tones throughout. The beauty is it doesn’t take anything away from the patented Cosmic Country sound you’re focused on.
Donato- Absolutely, that’s just the unfolding of the live experience and us growing. Having more folks in the room. There needs to be more air. The breeze in the air we’re pushing out on stage needs to say different things. If the breeze could speak, it would say something different in a dark forest at night than a quiet day in the valley. The way the guitar can relate to that necessity to tell a story is realized with so much new great technology specifically being made for guitar. There are so many great leaps recently that aren’t ridiculous to ask of a guitar player who is used to playing and sounding traditional. You can go way out in the cosmos with some of these sounds. Playing as many shows as we do, I get into the nitty gritty during soundcheck. Spend fifteen minutes. Just me in my ears so I can dial in my guitar more. The guitar is center in improvised music. You really need to have a signature set of sounds. Jerry had it. Trey has it. Billy Strings has it. I’m trying to craft my own. When you come to a Cosmic Country show… you’re gonna know.
S&B- That leads to another area we’ve previously discussed. Your goal is to have the Cosmic Country sound instantly recognizable. I think you said within eight bars. And you’re doing that. Getting to the point where the listener can hear your music and it triggers something in their soul. They know it’s Daniel Donato.
Donato- That’s something I’ve realized since the last time I told you. I remember telling you that goal. That day is not going to come to me; I’m going to go to that day. It must be something that’s immediately available where I can decide to do that. Maybe that’s the biggest step. That decision. The novelty of that idea has not worn off on me. It becomes more and more true. If you want it, you’ve got to take it, and do it because you can. Say fuck it. I’m just gonna say what I feel. Only you can give you permission to do that or attain that.
S&B- You’ve put in the time and groundwork to create the credibility, so when you do put something new out there, you’ve earned the trust of everyone to allow it to come to fruition.
Donato- That’s the design of what’s at play. Thank God you have to work hard. It wouldn’t make sense otherwise.
S&B- Hindsight doesn’t come for free. There’s another of your Hunter-esque lyrics that describes it perfectly.
Donato- Oh yeah. Oh man. Exactly. That comes from the whole concept of free will. There’s no such thing as free will. Whether you’re making a positive decision or one that skews negative, there’s a price for either. Nothing is free.
S&B- Going back to your bandmates Sugar, Bronco, and Mustang. You guys have been a cohesive unit for a while. To me, it seems like creating a bond much deeper than bandmates is crucial to overall success.
Donato – Well maybe not. There’s plenty of opportunity in Nashville. And people in my ear saying… “This is Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country.” That is true, but that’s not the type of person I am. The real relationships in life are the ones that survive all the seasons. The seasons will change the score. That is a line in Chore. The seasons we all agree… though thick and thin. What is it they say in wedding vows?
S&B- For better or worse.
Donato- Right. For better or worse. I’m not suggesting we’re married. The faith that goes into a marriage is still needed in going on a musical journey and creating a band like Cosmic Country. With Sugar, Mustang, and Bronco, we have complete faith with each other. That means when shit gets tough, we’re gonna stick it through. Oddly enough, most of that pressure comes down on me. It’s not evenly distributed in the band. I’m so happy to have that. There are artists that put out records made with musicians they may have never met before the recording. I have this strange feeling you can hear the emotion in our record. You can hear the history of us. Even if that history isn’t very long. It helps me listen to the history of the Dead more. When I listen to the later recordings you can hear how these guys stuck through it with Jerry. Through his two comas. There’s a sound from that earned through experience and faith.
S&B- It does come with payoffs. You are experiencing big ones. From busking the Nashville streets for tips to playing at Robert’s. Then, to literally go across the street and headline the Ryman. If you can even attempt to put in words everything you’ve put into your career paying off? And to do so literally steps from to where you put in countless hours, weeks, and years of the grunt work.
Donato- The same spirit I was drawing from and aspiring to busking on the streets is the same one I aspired and drew from to play at Robert’s. It’s the same one that got us to the Ryman. I’m learning the material environment will change and compound and transcend itself if one moves faithfully by drawing and aiming for that high spiritual value the whole time. So, if you can stay consistent with what you’re aspiring to and drawing from, that will lead you through the linear scale of the progression of experience. Starting on the streets. Going to Robert’s. Starting Cosmic Country. And now it’s bringing us to the Ryman. Who knows where else it will bring us. I don’t want to stop now.
S&B- Thanks Daniel. Fantastic job with Horizons. I can’t wait for our next chat.
Daniel Donato – Horizons Retrace Records