In the immortal words of 38 Special, “Just hold on loosely, but don’t let go. If you cling too tightly, you’re gonna lose control.” Those are the lyrics I offer to Cut Worms’ Max Clarke as he describes relinquishing control of his music to Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, who took on the role of producer for Cut Worms’ latest LP, Transmitter.
The indie singer/songwriter, who lifted his band name from William Blake’s Proverbs of Hell – “The cut worm forgives the plow” – stares blankly back at me through our Zoom meeting, completely bemused by my callback to one of classic rock’s great wordsmiths.
“Yeah, that’s a good one,” he manages. Even if he was silently judging my taste in music, the cut worm forgave the reference.
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“Historically, I’ve white knuckled it through other people’s playing,” Clarke says. “I had a very specific idea of what I wanted, and I did it all myself a lot of the time. I had a stranglehold on the thing. This time, I trusted that somebody else could bring something to the music that I couldn’t. He pretty much got what I was going for right away.”
If you’re going to enlist an outsider to bring a fresh perspective to a song – and maybe an expensive guitar or two – Tweedy and The Loft is not a bad choice. Since Tweedy records at The Loft on a near-daily basis, Clarke spent virtually no time setting things up or getting sounds.
“If you wanted to use an instrument, you just picked it up and used it,” he says. “At one point, when we were sitting there in the control room area, I reached for an acoustic guitar to idly play or strum. Jeff’s like, ‘That’s the most expensive guitar in this building.’ He wasn’t taken aback, but it was like, ‘Just so you know.’ I didn’t ask how much it was. I was just like, ‘Get it away from me.’”
It’s good to know that Tweedy’s on-stage, chill dad persona translates to the studio. “He had 15 original Rickenbackers from the ’60s,” Clarke says. “Even though there was all this really cool old gear and things that could be in museums, Jeff wasn’t precious about any of it. The instruments are meant to be played.”
