The Infinite Possibilities of Chris Stamey
Catching up with an American college rock icon
Chris Stamey is one of those musicians for whom the term “cult hero” might have been coined.
Stop 10 people on the street and nine of them have probably never heard of him (despite the infectious nature of his music). But among other musicians — and particularly in power pop and alternative circles — he’s something of an icon.
Stamey grew up mainly in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He, drummer Will Rigby and guitarist-producer Mitch Easter issued the Sneakers EP — one of the first self-released records in America — in 1976. (Oddly, the power pop group Shoes would release an influential independent disc called Black Vinyl Shoes the following year!) A short time later, Stamey — still in his early 20s — moved to Manhattan where he played with Alex Chilton (perhaps the ultimate pop music cult hero) and became part of the burgeoning New Wave scene that was taking shape at CBGB and other clubs.
By the late ‘70s, Stamey had formed The dB’s with drummer Rigby, fellow singer-guitarist Peter Holsapple (a childhood friend) and bassist Gene Holder. Their first two albums — Stands for deciBels and Repercussion — are considered benchmarks of early ‘80s power pop. But somehow, the band never scored a hit. After that sophomore set, Stamey left for a solo career while The dB’s carried on with Holsapple as frontman.
Over the next four decades or so, Stamey has worn many hats. He has released numerous solo albums, both on major labels and independently; he has worked with more than 100 artists — ranging from Yo La Tengo to Branford Marsalis — as a producer and arranger; he has teamed up with Holsapple periodically (and even took part in a full-fledged dB’s reunion with 2012’s Falling off the Sky; he spent eight years as the musical director for an international series of concert performances of Big Star’s classic album Third; and he published the memoir A Spy in the House of Loud in 2019.
Stamey returned to record stores on July 11 with Anything Is Possible, already being considered one of the best works of his career.
“This album is a love letter to the kind of harmonically rich yet lyrically innocent pop music I heard on the family turntable and especially on AM radio, growing up in the late 50s and mid-60s in the American South,” he explains.
Indeed, it’s clear from the opening song, “I’d Be Lost Without You,” that this effort is heavily influenced by groups like The Beach Boys and The Beatles. Anything Is Possible includes 11 songs (10 originals and one cover) and features cameos from Marshall Crenshaw, The Lemon Twigs, The Wild Honey Orchestra, Jennifer Curtis and Stamey’s old friend Mitch Easter (among others).
I recently had a chance to chat with Stamey for Rock & Roll Globe.
The new album [is called] Anything is Possible. 10 originals and one cover. Tell me a little about when and where you recorded [the album].
Well, the process started with writing down song sheets with the melodies and the chords. Then I kind of workshopped it — first with the rhythm section that’s on the record here. And then I went to California and played the songs with the Wild Honey Orchestra folks. I had written some arrangements and I got to hear those. So when I came back, I wasn’t starting from scratch. We did really one day in the studio with the main rhythm section. And of that, I think maybe seven songs of the 13 ended up on the record.
I got caught up in a little bit of touring. Mitch Easter [and I] are in a band called Sneakers. [We opened] some shows for The Lemon Twigs and that kind of changed the record. I got back into how much fun it was to play electric guitar and have a drummer hitting the backbeat. So the record shifted to get to where it is now.
Most of the recording, in the end, was done at my own studio. It’s called Modern Recording. A few people did things remotely. Probyn Gregory from Brian Wilson’s band did his stuff in LA. The Lemon Twigs did their great parts in New York, in their own studio.
I have most of the Twigs’ albums. I love Everything Harmony.
Oh yeah. The most recent one, A Dream Is All We Know, is super, too. With me, they get better every time. They’re my favorite band! Have you seen them live? It’s crazy how good they are.
VIDEO: Chris Stamey ft. The Lemon Twigs “I’d Be Lost Without You”
Is it cool to ask you about a couple of specific tracks on the new album? I like “Meet Me in Midtown.” It [sounds] almost showtune influenced.
When I talk about songs I’ve written, often I have opinions. But when you’re writing the song, you’re kind of in the zone or out there. So I’m trying to figure it out just like you are.
I know [with that song] I was thinking about the midtown scene in Memphis that Big Star was a part of. But also, I always liked the story about Tony Hatch — a great English producer who did Petula Clark. He went to all the publishers, brought all this stuff back to her and she rejected all of it. And he said, “Well, I was in Times Square and I wrote this song.” [That was] the song “Downtown” and that became a big hit for her.
It was a very cool production but he wasn’t downtown! I mean, I lived in New York. So this is like a revisionist rewrite of the Tony Hatch song “Downtown” in some ways. The other song I was thinking about was a song I loved growing up called “Hernando’s Hideaway.” And “Crosstown Traffic” by Hendrix. So those were all things I was thinking about.
I also wanted to ask you about the title track and maybe why you chose to name the album “Anything Is Possible.”
I think a lot of times a record should be like a wedding: it should have something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. I felt like [the song] “Anything Is Possible” came along as kind of a keystone or a missing element, to put things in perspective.
It pushed the record a little more toward the rock side. You know, it’s got a backbeat. I got Mitch Easter to play drums. When we were growing up, we both really loved Bev Bevan from The Move. And Mitch knows I don’t play drums like that. So when I asked him to do it, he just did the most fun drum track in that Bev Bevan style.
Why it’s the title? I meant it as a song of hope. And [maybe] faith in science, which seems to be under attack more every day. And it also seemed to go with the cover. The image on the front of the record is by Faye Hunter, who was the bassist for Let’s Active and who was a good friend growing up.
Tell me a little about the music scene that The dB’s came out of. What was it like, as someone who experienced it and has been playing with the same guys on and off for 50 years?
Well, there was a dividing line for me between being in North Carolina and then when I moved to New York. So I’m not sure which side of that line you’re asking about. I don’t know if there was a scene very much. When I was in North Carolina, there weren’t [many] independent records. Television put out “Little Johnny Jewel” and Patti Smith put out “Piss Factory.” But those were still put out by management, not exactly by the band. Our record Sneakers was pretty early on. Pere Ubu put out a record called “30 Seconds Over Tokyo” around then as well.
There were these few little orphaned 7-inches with handmade covers at the back of the record store. You know, four or five months later, there were 10 of them — some of them from England. And then there were 50 of ‘em. Once people realized that you didn’t have to impress the guy behind the desk at a record company — you could just pay the money to the plant, go to a studio, make a tape and then sell ‘em in the back of a magazine. I was an early adopter of that but really at the edge of the crest of the wave. ‘Cause everybody started doing it.
[But] if you’re talking about what was happening in the clubs, to me the shining light on the hill was the band Television. They were doing something that just clicked with me. I had been in an academic world of post-serialist composition [and] kind of crazy minimalist pieces. And then when I saw Television, I thought “This can happen. They’re a way forward.” It wasn’t really the way I went forward but it was inspirational.
I can see that. The song “Marquee Moon” alone — there’s nothing else like it.
I have a book about songwriting. In that book, I describe what it was like when Richard Lloyd came into the party I was at with the acetate of that [song] and put it on the turntable. It was after midnight. He played it and it was incredible, in that crummy little apartment in New York, to hear “Marquee Moon” for the first time — and to realize what might happen to the world after it was released. I mean, it was transporting to me.
I know you also played for a bit with Alex Chilton back in the day. I met Alex once when he was probably not in the best place, frankly. I was a college student in New York and he was crashing on my roommate’s couch.
Man! What year would it have been?
This would have been probably ’85.
My experience [with Alex] was wonderful. It was like [the expression] “don’t meet your heroes” was completely wrong. He was a thousand percent what I would have expected. And that was my first year in New York, really — just hanging out with him. We recorded a bunch. The tapes were never paid for and they’re now gone.
The Box Tops, his first band, opened maybe 150 shows for The Beach Boys. He would go stay with Dennis Wilson in California [and] take guitar lessons from Carl. Alex produced two songs with me that did come out: “Summer Sun” and “Where the Fun Is.” He actually did them in the Beach Boys manner and that was a whole education. Alex was incredible and I owe him a lot.
You’re [also] gonna be touring pretty soon, right?
Yeah, I guess it starts in a week. I’m doing five or six shows of my own and then three with what’s called The Big Star Quintet — which is Jody Stephens, Mike Mills, Jon Auer [from] The Posies and Pat Sansone who is in Wilco. They’re really great; I love playing with them. I always feel like the guy who would be voted off the island first but they hang out with me and it’s a lot of camaraderie.
Those are all great players. Pat Sansone is very underrated. He’s one of these guys who’s played with everybody but a lot of people don’t know his name.
I’m gonna tour with him, actually, on a co-bill tour in early October, I think. His band Autumn Defense.
That’s him and Jon Stirratt? I love their stuff and was wondering if they were still around!
They have a new record that’s coming out in the fall. [Pat] is [also] a very interesting photographer — you know, using real film. One of the images on my CD is his, a beautiful image. He has a new book of photographs out called Noticings. And there’s a previous one of all Polaroids. We’re all in awe of Pat.
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