Historie de Nelson Bragg
American pop auteur reflects on his time with Brian Wilson and his new anthology
Throughout his career, Nelson Bragg seems to have become better known for his contributions to other people’s projects than for the music he’s made on his own.
He’s released three solo albums over the course of his career, making a compilation album — even one as excellent as the recently released Mélodie de Nelson: A Pop Anthology — seem somewhat premature.
Nevertheless, his efforts stretch back to the ‘70s, first as a member of the experimental New York-based band Big Noise and then later, after moving to L.A. in the late ‘90s, working with such notable bands as The Now People, The Grapes of Wrath, The Mockers, The Quarter After, Twenty Cent Crush and Cloud Eleven.
He later contributed to projects put out by Stew and the Negro Problem, Amy Celsi, Chris Stamey and members of the legendary studio session band The Wrecking Crew. Originally a drummer and percussionist, he can now be considered a multi-instrumentalist whose prowess as both a player and producer has made him a much in demand creative collaborator.
By his own admission, one of the highlights of his career came when he was recruited as a percussionist and backing vocalist for Brian Wilson’s revival of the legendary SMiLE album and Wilson’s subsequent world tour. He was then given the opportunity to play on Wilson’s 2008 solo opus, That Lucky Old Sun, before taking part in another tour commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Beach Boys’ iconic album, Pet Sounds. He also performed on the Beach Boys’ 50th anniversary tour and contributed to In My Room, a Brian Wilson tribute compilation released by MOJO magazine.
“For 25 years, I was just a drummer and singer, and then with Brian, I became a percussionist,” Bragg explains. “Eventually we even started playing piano together.”
It was in that role that Bragg got to know Wilson both personally and professionally. While Wilson may have come across as aloof around others, Bragg said that behind the scenes, he was far more expressive.
“The public saw the side of him which was very guarded,” Bragg recalls. “They saw a facial expression when he was playing gigs that wasn’t indicative of what he was feeling inside. The face that the audience saw at gigs was this sort of sad face or quiet face, but that was him absorbing the sounds and absorbing the audience. So while he looked unhappy, Brian was always enjoying the gig and always having fun. He was just really, really bad at showing it.”
Still, given the stories about his struggles with social anxiety, one has to wonder what the man was like offstage.
“He was social, he was communicative, he was normal, and oftentimes, he was abnormal,” Bragg maintains. “But he gave great direction in the studio. His prowess for vocal arranging never left. That was something that his mental illness never seemed to affect. His engagement in the musical arranging, and getting all that stuff together was ideal. He really trusted the band to do that for him. If he heard an egregious thing, he’d go, ‘No, that’s out of tune,’ or ‘Can you try a different guitar?’ or ‘That note is not loud enough, lean on that note.’ But vocally, he’d dole out the vocal parts to us with any project that we worked on. He’d do it very specifically, because he knew all the vocal parts, and that was really thrilling to witness.”
While some might think that it might have been rather intimidating to work with a genius of Wilson’s stature, Bragg says that wasn’t the case at all.
“No, never,” he insists. “He was Brian. He was just so into the music. And we were there to do a job. So everyone was on the same page. It was wonderful. I don’t think any member of Brian’s band ever felt intimidated enough to not say something cool when appropriate. We all made a lot of suggestions, and a lot of them were used. We had the freedom to do that with Brian.”
Given Bragg’s own trajectory, as both a solo artist and as a session man, he’s also been forced to make a transition of his own. Yet he denies that there’s been any difficulty in doing so.
“No, no, not at all,” he maintains. “It’s like walking into a different room. I liken it to the job that a dentist does. He goes to his office, and he pulls teeth and he fixes cavities, and then he goes to lunch, and he walks into the restaurant, and there he’s in lunch mode. Then he’s in family mode. Now he’s gonna watch a little TV, play with his son, and then go out for a drink with his friends, and at that point, he goes into friend mode. That’s like going into different bands or a different project. It’s just like a life like anybody else would have. It’s just that it’s musical. I’m more used to creating music that others want than I am used to doing things myself.
“On my records, most definitely, I have control of everything. I’m very into quality control, and what I really want to hear with the arrangements and performances and the recording and all that. But with other people’s bands, they generally take suggestions from every band member. There were even times on Brian’s sessions where I heard a little something, and I would tell the music director or producer ‘If we did this, that could be very cool.’”
As evidenced by his own albums, particularly Mélodie de Nelson, Bragg’s always been in complete control. That extends to the other artists that he shares songs with.
“Hell, I was writing songs for all the bands I was in,” he says. “I kept my little folder of songs for myself, for my records. In my situation, the bands that I was writing for were in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and so one band was likely a completely different style of music than my solo stuff. With Big Noise for example, I was writing for a horn section. We were like a post punk kind of group, sort of like Oingo Boingo. That was the ‘80s, during my new wave phase. And then in the ‘90s, I got into this sort of folk rock kind of thing and those songs were closer to my own style. Back then, I didn’t have the money to record. So the songs I recorded with a band I was in called Farmhouse still existed after the band broke up. I didn’t have the money to record them until later, after I joined Brian’s band, so a lot of those Farmhouse songs became my solo material.”
The inevitable question remains as to why he chose to release this anthology of sorts at this particular juncture.
“Rex and Christina over at Big Stir Records are friends of mine, and they asked me if I could do something with them,” he explained. “I told them I really didn’t want to do a new record. So we thought, ‘Well, what about some kind of a compilation, a best of or whatever you want to call it.’ And I said, how about an anthology? That word seemed to be the most palatable word I can use to describe this. But it was their idea. I thought that it was a good idea, and one that I’d be into, although I did think that maybe it shouldn’t happen, because who does a best of after three records? Not a lot of people. In the 20 year window of my solo career, I put out three records. I thought maybe putting out a compilation makes sense, because you’ve got 20 years of time in the window of those three records. To most people, these could be considered all new songs.
Bragg’s influences are obvious. “I’m a Byrds fanatic, I’m a Steely Dan fanatic, I’m a Rain Parade fanatic,” he explains. “One of the great benefits of moving here and being a musician is that I’ve met my heroes, and a lot of the great people that I listened to in college I’m associating with now. I’m playing with Chris Stamey in a few weeks here in L.A., and he and the dBs made some of my favorite music. I just hung out with Peter Holsapple a couple of days ago. I just hung out with Dennis Diken, the drummer for the Smithereens. Sure, he’s one of my heroes, but I have to act normal around these people. I can’t be Mr. Fanboy.”
Nevertheless, Bragg said that a covers album might be in his future.
“I have a list of songs that I would love to record, maybe like with acoustic guitars and vocals and only light percussion. I could probably get into that. Another thing that I might consider, and I hate to use the word ‘duets,’ but I’d like to do an album with some girl singers, kind of like what Robert Plant and Alison Krauss did on their magnificent records. They sort of set the template. I mean, Tammy Wynette and George Jones set the template in an Americana kind of way. So I could see doing a bunch of covers as opposed to originals. It would be like standards and stuff, maybe stuff from the ‘30s and ‘40s. So those are two projects I could foresee myself doing.
“Some people can just grab a guitar and sing a song. I can’t. I forget chords and lyrics. It’s just a sad kind of curse I have. I can practice for a year, but that problem is still going to happen. It’s not nerves, because I’m not nervous. It has nothing to do with nerves. It’s just that for some reason, my fingers and my mouth get distracted while I’m doing it, and it goes into another direction. I think it’s some kind of ADHD situation that causes that problem.”
Even so, Bragg says he’s happy with his status.
“I’m really more of a backing singer,” he suggests. “Some musicians are meant to be backing musicians. That’s their calling. I‘m one of those. I just also happen to be a songwriter, and that’s my calling too. I’m also really obsessed with making records, and that function is so much fun as well. In fact, it’s just so much fun that I just have to do it. I remember when lI ost my first girlfriend after she broke up with me, I was like, I have to write a song about this. That was really how it all happened for me. I became a songwriting drummer.”
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