The Voice recently called up Sam Beam, leader of the well-respected alt-folk outfit Iron & Wine, at his home in Miami. We talked with him about touring, his new Woman King EP, last year’s highly successful sophomore full-length Our Endless Numbered Days, the joys of fatherhood, his erstwhile career as a cinematography professor and his upcoming projects.
Voice: How do you enjoy touring?
Beam: I like touring. I mean, it’s kind of a pain leaving the family, but I think anybody likes to go and do something creative. You know, put it out there and have people respond.
Voice: Before Our Endless Numbered Days was released, you talked about cutting back on some of your touring and even going back to work.
Beam: I did go back to work for awhile. It was a necessity at that point. I didn’t really know what my boundaries were as far as what was a good amount of time to tour and, yeah, just given the family situation. We sort of figured it out.
Voice: At this point you’ve stopped teaching altogether. Do you see yourself going back to that eventually?
Beam: Not if I can help it.
Voice: This spring are you going to be doing more of a U.S. tour?
Beam: I know I’m going to be doing about two weeks in the Midwest and then another two weeks on the East Coast.
Voice: How much of a band do you tour with?
Beam: It depends. In the spring it’ll probably be like a five or six piece band.
Voice: How does your new EP differ from the Our Endless Numbered Days stuff?
Beam: Well, it’s not really a concept record, but it sort of has this loose theme of women characters. I kind of had all these songs laying around that were either historical characters or just personal characters.
Voice: Any specific historic characters?
Beam: Jezebel, this old queen from the biblical story. Mary, from, you know, Jesus and stuff. Lillith, this mythological first wife of Adam. And then these songs were laying around, and this “Woman King” song came about and I just sort of got the idea to give these other songs a place. There’s this sort of loose theme that runs through it, but it wasn’t specifically developed.
Voice: The other big project that’s coming out pretty soon is the collaborative EP you did with Calexico [tentatively titled Lays in the Reigns]. When can we expect that one?
Beam: That’s probably in the fall. We’ve been trying to do that for awhile, and we were finally able to clear the schedules and so we did that about a month ago. We have a few more things to do on it. There’s a fellow that runs a label that’s called Overcoat Records, this guy Howard Greynolds. He’s a mutual friend of ours. He’s doing this series of EPs with coupling bands.
Voice: Do you still feel slightly out of place in the studio or is it now pretty natural for you?
Beam: Actually, I love the studio. I mean the first experience I had in the studio I think I enjoyed being in the studio, it was just that I was trying to do too much in too little time. Once you learn how things go, it’s a lot of fun. I’d say I prefer it to touring honestly. I mean a recording is a recording, whether you’re recording at home or with the big toys.
Voice: As far as a follow-up to Our Endless Numbered Days, have you started writing songs for it? Are you working on that at all?
Beam: Well, I’m kinda always writing. The first one obviously they just said, “Let’s put a record out,” so I just grabbed some songs. The second one was kinda the same. I’ll just go through the vaults, see what’s there. So, it’s sort of this ongoing process. I don’t just start writing for a record.
Voice: Do you envision the new album taking on a particular character?
Beam: Well, each one I try to evolve in a certain way. The second one I thought it was important that I go into the studio. This EP is quite a bit more playful in terms of percussion and lots of buried instrumentation. I don’t really have a strong bead on it yet it should be quite a bit more playful.
