Catching Up With Chad Gosselin: The Big Lonesome at Grandten Distillery Tonight (7/27)
The Big Lonesome are used to those two words describing their band. Big and open roads often times lay themselves out in front of the van and even when you are sitting next to your best pals for hours at a time, that road can get lonely. The fellas have been at the touring thing for a long while now. Hitting it hard up and down the east coast with a few home town shows speckled in between and thats just what tonight marks for the boys.
They have been off on a 2 week stint and will hit Grandten Distillery in Boston tonight for an earlier show starting at 7 PM. Two solid sets of good old rock n’ roll. We caught up with lead singer and guitarist Chad Gosselin to talk about the show, being out on the road and the new EP they have coming up. Check it.
RLR: So, this 7/27 show is a big homecoming gig of sorts after being on the road for a solid 2 week stretch down south. The south in the summer time…you dudes are brave. What are some of the spots you are hitting and what are you excited for?
CG: Brave indeed… especially considering most of our nights are spent with four dudes sleeping in the van with no A.C. The show we were most pumped to get back to was Charlotte, NC. We played down there on a whim in January, expecting very little out of the experience (booked it as a connecting date) and we’re blown away by how well we were received for an out of town band. The people at the Evening Muse are doing really great things down there. They promote and get some people out. Really great listening room!
RLR: I haven’t heard of the Grandten Distillery til you mentioned this show. Any significance to the chosen spot?
CG: This is going to be our first time at the GrandTen Distillery. The Boston music scene has changed so much over the last few years, The Lonesome is still trying to find our digs post TT’s (RIP). One of the reasons we picked GrandTen was because we get to play for a bit… we’re doing two sets of music from 7 – 930. We’re rarely home these days, and when we are, doing the typical 45 minute set thing just goes too quick for our liking!
RLR: You guys have a new release on the horizon. Can you tell me a little bit about the recording process? Where. When. How. Etc.
CG: Good golly I can’t wait for that record to exist. haha. It’s going to be another EP. Five songs in total. We just finished mixing and mastering when we were out on the road, so there’s not too many steps left to making that a reality. We spent so much money on our last record, we decided to do things a little different this time around and do things as much as possible on our own. We tracked some of the basics at Q Divison, and did most of the overdubs at Wondersmith Audio and 37′ Productions. Joey Z. did a good chunk of the engineering on this one which helped to keep the cost down.
My favorite track on the record, Everytown, USA was completely live tracked. Thats something we have never done before – all four dudes in one room, in a circle, mistakes and all. I absolutely love the vibe of that session. In the day and age of perfecting everything with editing and pitch correction, sometimes we lose the raw power of a good song and good performance.
RLR: How does the songwriting process work within the band? Is it all you? How does a song kind of take shape ones the bones are in place?
CG: Most of the songs are started by something I come up with. I usually wait to to bring it to the band until I have a working form and pretty close to the final set of lyrics.
For all the extra bells and whistles on this one, I tried to not overdevelop much on this EP. I wanted to leave room for everyone to do their thing. Luke is such a strange guitarist… he always comes up with parts that aren’t stylistically “guitary”. His principal has always been saxophone, so I find a lot of that stuff comes out when he picks up the guitar. Leaving him room to add color into the song has really helped shape our sound from less of a “three chords and the truth type of thing” into more of a distinct sound.
RLR: Whats your muse?
CG: It changes… As typical as it sounds, I don’t know how to not write about my own experiences. Hopefully that’s not to vague!
RLR: What is coming next for The Big Lonesome?
CG: World domination! In all seriousness though, we’re writing another record at the moment and getting ready for a fall tour that will take us back through the northern US. We made it out as far as Milwaukee in April, but the plan is to try to make it to the Pacific northwest this time out
