The Mystery of mssv Solved

Kicking off Main Steam Stop Valve, the 2020 debut of mssv—the threesome made up of guitarist/singer Mike Baggetta, drummer Stephen Hodges and bassist/vocalist Mike Watt—is a driving motorik banger called “The Mystery Of.”

And like that song is titled, there’s a bit of mystery in the world of mssv, and I’m here to set some facts straight.

First off, mssv doesn’t fall under the ever-widening net of Minutemen, fIREHOSE and Stooges bass godhead Watt’s side projects, of which there are too many to spout off here. This trio, mssv, is its own thing, a singular-minded unit who put the power in power trio in their econo jazz, rock and punk mind-meld.

Secondly, and this one’s important so listen up: mssv and the trio of Baggetta, Watt and legendary drummer Jim Keltner are two completely different entities. Sure, they share two members but in trademark Watt-speak, there’s no “connec.’” Baggetta, Keltner and Watt’s two masterstrokes, Wall of Flowers and Everywhen We Go, are vibes and worlds apart from mssv.

While you’d be a fool to discount the contributions of the monster and unrivaled Contemplating the Engine Room rhythm machine of Watt and Hodges (they are indeed a monster combo), mssv is Baggetta’s vision. He writes the tunes and parts, sings, spiels and everything in between. Okay, Watt penned two tracks on Main Steam Stop Valve including, the ultimate mssv call-and-response anthem, “The Eureka Moment.”

 

 

But on mssv’s new slab called Human Reaction, Baggetta takes the steering wheel of this tugboat. Yet he’s no ball-hog. In fact, they prove that there’s no better dialed-in, mighty-ass trio on the underground scene today. Human Reaction harks back to the jazzified punk rollick of Watt’s seminal Engine Room record and fIREHOSE, as Baggetta brings an epically heady haul of buzzsawing, chugging and string-plucking guitar wallop along with his catchy-as-heck tunesmithery. The title track is worth the price alone.

The Globe caught up with Baggetta on Zoom from California a day before mssv was to get in the van and hit the road for a recently completed  massive 58 gig, two-month “aki tour” across the States and Canada in true-blue econo fashion.

 

How do you prepare yourself for a cross-country, 58 gig tour? I know you’ve done mssv treks before, so it’s old hat for you. 

Well, we did 48 in a row last year and then I did a Dumbass Youth tour that was 19 in a row. The previous mssv tours were two shorties, like two 10-day tours or something like that. I’m really happy to play. I guess it’s a lot but I just feel really fortunate about it. It doesn’t really feel like, “Oh, man. What a horrible chore this.” It doesn’t feel like that at all; I feel so psyched to get to play my music with these guys almost every night that it’s really exciting and sustaining. But, otherwise, I don’t really party or anything anymore. I just try to eat well and sleep well, take it slow and get everything set up that I can beforehand, all the information and stuff like that. The new music is sounding awesome. 

 

I’m really digging the new mssv record, Human Reaction. 

We actually have even newer music because we’re going to make another record at the end of tour like we did last year. It’s such a treat to play with those guys. I can’t say enough good things about it. 

 

You have a full plate of songs to pull from for shows with this new record, Main Steam Stop Valve and now even newer material. You also did a few songs from Live Flowers a couple of years ago when mssv toured. 

Nothing from Live Flowers, nothing from the Scott Aicher seven-inch and nothing from the Italian seven-inch, but we are playing the Nels Cline meets mssv seven-inch songs because Striped Light did a new run of that vinyl so we’re playing those two sides. We’re playing a couple songs from the first Main Steam Stop Valve record, we’re playing all of Human Reaction every night and then every other night we’re playing half of the new songs and then the other half the next night for what will be the third [mssv] studio album that we’ll record at the end. 

 

So you basically have a brand new mssv record in the can already? 

Well, not the can but in our heads. The can holds the tape and the tape won’t be recorded until November 5 and 6. 

 

In mssv, you’re the leader of the band, you write all the songs and parts. On Human Reaction, you’ve certainly embraced the role of frontman, too. You sing on a bunch of the tunes whereas Main Steam Stop Valve was primarily all-instrumental with the exception of a couple of Watt-spieled tracks. Do you look at Human Reaction as a sort of a reinvention? 

Yeah, the first record was a lot of instrumental songs. Watt sang two, I sing backup and Hodge did backup also. What ended up happening is on the Scott Aicher seven-inch… Scott Eicher is the artist who gave us those four panels for that seven-inch that we did over lockdown and it was four characters that he drew. He’s a great cartoonist and illustrator and to use those as the premise for the seven-inch, I thought, “Well, I should write a song for each one of these panels of these characters.” But in order to do that I had to make up in my mind a storyline. So, I wrote a little movie script about these four characters and how they’re related and stuff like that. Then I scored the movie that I wrote and that’s how that music came about. But I thought, “Oh, it would actually be cool if the first and last track had words to these songs to mix it up a little more and give people a little more insight into what’s going on.” So, I asked Watt if he’d put words to the songs and he said, “Sure…but why don’t you send me your story so I can see what it’s about?” I sent him my little fake movie script and when he sent back his recording of the words, I realized it was pretty much just the words that I gave him but he tweaked it a little bit to make it fit the rhythm and stuff like that.

Very cool. 

And, so I thought, “Oh, wow, I guess I can write lyrics.” I’ve asked him a bunch about that, especially on the “haru” tour last year we talked about words to songs and how I always wanted to do it. But it was always hard for me because when I was a teenager I had a guitar teacher who squashed that idea. I think I played in a showcase or a talent show and I was trying to sing and play at the same time and I’m sure it was terrible. But I talked to him (my guitar teacher) afterwards and I was like “So, what did you think?” and he was like, “The playing sounds great but maybe no more singing, though.”

 

Oh, man, that’s harsh.

It’s really messed up to think about. I didn’t really have the courage to try to keep doing that even though I’ve always wanted to and I love, obviously, lots of music that has words to it. So, saying to Watt if he’d bring words to a song and here’s what it’s about and feeling like I don’t want to keep asking someone else to sing my idea to a song…that doesn’t seem right on a humanitarian level or something. But then being encouraged by both Hodges and Watt if I sang some more and they were like, “Yeah, of course, absolutely. You should try it.” That was super-encouraging and they both are really helpful. So, on Human Reaction, there’s eight songs and I wrote them as four two-part suites so each word song has a matching instrumental song. They have these little kinds of two sides of a coin for each one of the little suites and that’s how I think about it. 

 

The record definitely has a free-flowing quality to it, trading off on word songs and instrumentals. 

I didn’t want to make that the premise, like, “Oh here’s my idea for four two-part suites on this record” but it is what I think about it as and that combined with singing these new Human Reaction songs on tour every night last year for 48 nights in a row…I’m not a singer but I sang 48 shows in a row. Then all the new music that we’re doing that we’re going to record at the end of this tour…I think almost all of those have me singing on’em that I wrote words for. It seems to be the evolution of whatever is going on with us right now. 

 

It certainly adds another dimension to mssv.

The word thing is great because it’s like adding another instrument to the band almost. It’s like another element to navigate and to put together with the music and the juxtaposition to that can really change a lot. Overall, the feeling is that we don’t have to do one thing or another. We can play songs without words or we can play songs with words or we can play little mini-suites or we can play a bunch of separate songs or we can improvise or we can play composed things or we can move between ’em. I have my electronics, my samplers, I can sing or Watt could sing. To me, right now, it feels like a limitless palette in this band, which is crazy-inspiring. 

 

I saw you guys on the last mssv tour where you played songs live that are now on Human Reaction. It’s like a page taken from how R.E.M. and Hüsker Dü used to play a bunch of songs on tour supporting a new album, but those songs would be on the next record. 

It’s obviously not a new idea, but for me, I was in a lot of situations in New York in the modern jazz kind of world where people would write a bunch of music for a record and they’d ask you to play and you’d just do a few rehearsals and maybe a gig, then you’d make the record and it was great. Then a year would go by and the record would come out and you’d do a week or two of tours and I always remember feeling at the end of a couple of weeks, “Maybe we should have made the record now” because the music grows. It evolves so much in ways that you just can’t ever predict it from just a few practices or whatever. I don’t even know how or why but you live with them every night in front of people, which feels different. 

The new music I did last year for Human Reaction songs… I write music for them, hearing the sound of Watt, hearing the sound of Hodges and I write their parts or what would become their parts. Then thankfully they change them and edit them and make them sound better. But I give it to them when we do practice, it comes together pretty quick and it sounds like something. But, at the end of tour, the songs sound, not completely different, but they’re so evolved in a way that I could have never given to them on a demo. These intangibles kind of happen and I love that. To me, it makes a lot of sense because the record’s going to be around forever; I don’t want to make a record and have a bunch of people buy it and go, “Eh. It probably would have sounded better after a bunch of gigs.” Although, I feel like we’re really laying the music down onto the records in the best way they can be with as much magic as we can guarantee it. 

 

 

Human Reaction definitely manifests a super-locked-in rapport, like the parts for Watt and Hodges you write are tailor made for them. It has a Contemplating the Engine Room vibe, which you’ve said is one of your favorite albums. 

I like to try to always head for the direction of my music, which is whatever “the thing” that I want it to be. I listen to so much music that influences me; I can’t pretend that it’s not there for sure. But I do try to be very purposeful about hearing the sound of those two guys when I’m writing and when I’m putting this music together for them. I remember I did a gig maybe a year or two ago or something, just like a local gig wherever I was living. I remember I pulled a couple of mssv songs out and we played ’em…a different bass player and drummer. The gig was fine but I remember thinking, as soon as we started playing those songs, “Oh man, this is wrong.” It didn’t have anything to do with anybody’s playing; it just wasn’t made for that. It was made for a different thing.  

 

You operate in both the rock realm with mssv and in the jazz world as a leader in various guises. How does one inform the other, if they do? 

The idea that I’m thinking about two specific people for parts in mssv music definitely belies that. But I think, in general, the way that I play, if I’m doing sort of improvised music or like “songs-songs” or accompanying other people on whatever they’re doing, I do tend to enjoy the juxtaposition of structure with improvisation and that’s an element in some of the mssv music also where there’s improvised parts in combination with structural elements. If I’m playing a free- improv gig, a lot of times when I’m improvising, I’m improvising little structural things for me to build something on. It’s not so much just like going bananas; I always think about it, that idea of composing in real-time and that can be just using dynamics to build the structure or using pitch sets or rhythm sets to build the structure and then kind of improvise and navigate between those—or if I’m writing things for mssv, it has some of those similar elements with things that can be navigated in between or words can go between these different elements that combine improvisation with composition in a way. So, the answer to your question is actually both: it is different, of course, but it’s also built with the same threads running through it, in a way. But it’s hard for other people to know what those threads are, I think. 

 

I wanted to hit on your trio with Watt and Jim Keltner, which is not the same band as mssv. 

Thank you for acknowledging that those are different bands! Out of all the interviews I’ve done, I think you’re the only person to go, “Oh, let’s talk about a different band.”

 

I think I made that error the last time I interviewed you. Some people think the two bands are interchangeable and that’s not the case. I think particularly with Human Reaction, mssv has clearly broken away as being under the same umbrella. The trio with Watt and Keltner is collaborative while in mssv you are the leader and songwriter.  

It’s definitely more collaborative. I think we bring an equal thing to the music but I guess I provide more “song-songs” at the end of the day but there’s a lot more pieces that get improvised in those recording sessions. On the last record, Everywhen We Go, Watt brought a composition to that one for us also, so it’s a little bit of a different working thing. 

 

Of course, Hodges and Keltner are two very distinct drummers who bring their own style and voices to the table. How do you look at it?

They’re different drummers for sure. I don’t know about very different. Hodge has a really deep groove, he’s very creative as well. But, of course, different people play differently. But, the Baggetta Keltner Watt band, we’ve never played live, we’ve never toured and who knows if we ever would. So, I think some of the music we get to make has a little bit less of an idea towards that, like we can try out a bunch of different stuff in the studio and I can take things and shape them into compositions over a longer period of time so that they end up on a record without the expectation of “how are we going to replicate this live?” or “I need to have 45 minutes of songs ready before we go in the studio because we got to be able to play it on the road like that.” Those expectations aren’t there so it really is a liberating thing. It’s also a little more terrifying because you never know. Well, no, strike that. It’s a little more scary because you have to trust the process of improvising together in the studio to make the album. But I learned after the first one, Wall of Flowers, that was a big lesson for me in really trusting the people that you play with, which I’ve always tried to do. But I think that Wall of Flowers record showed me the proof that you can totally let go of everything and completely trust the people you’re playing with as long as you know they are people that you can trust to make music with. That’s the way I think about the music with that group. 

 

On the mssv front, how did the songs on Human Reaction morph and evolve from playing them so much on the last tour before you went into BIG EGO to record them as the finished product? 

Great question. “Baby Ghost (from the 1900’s),” that one got a lot more adventurous from what it was originally and also I didn’t have a melody. I came up with the melody on the road because I would change that every night. So, I came up with something that matched what I had for the feel. But then the feel got so much more deep and all of us took a lot more chances with the way we’re playing that song. Songs like “Say What You Gotta Say, “Human Reaction,” and “Pillow Talk” and, well, pretty much most of the rest of the songs we really worked the dynamics out a lot on the tour, too. We have a lot of really specific places that are loud or crescendoing or really, really quiet or going from super loud to super quiet as quickly as possible. We spent a lot of time installing and working out different dynamics on those songs. The new songs that we’re going to record later, I feel like I learned a lot from that and I built a lot of dynamics into those right off the bat. So we’ve already got a lot of that happening with the brand new stuff, too.

 

Yes, the three of you have the quiet/loud dynamics down pat. 

We got to work on it every night for a month and a half or two months with practice, like “Junk Haiku.” It’s not really a difficult thing…it is tricky but it’s not like you have to practice twenty years to learn dynamics. It’s one of these things that’s instantly available to every musician that can really add a lot to the drama of the piece. It goes in line with that thing of “How much can I do with as little as possible?” I always think about that musically for myself and those kinds of elements in this band speak to that side of the music for me pretty nicely, too.