Feature: Jeff Symonds Decodes ‘The Deep Dive Vol. 2’
With 'The Deep Dive Vol. 2' being a cover EP, can you share with us how you selected the songs?
I’m on a podcast called 50 Years of Music with Tim Plaehn and Ben Barton, and we talk about the best songs and albums from every year we’ve been alive. For the Deep Dive series, I go through all the artists and songs we’ve talked about, and find songs that I think I can do something interesting with. I did Bob Dylan in 1966 for the first one, and for this second one I focused on 1967-1973. Since we’ve done about 200 episodes of the pod, I have lots to choose from.
Any particular song that has a special meaning to you?
They all do—these are all songs I just love, and also ones where I thought I had something to add. “Sleeping Dog” is one of Pete Townshend’s prettiest lost songs, “Two Sisters” is such a classic Ray Davies tune about the things we can learn from small moments in life, and the last tune is a medley of two Richard and Linda Thompson songs from their debut album. In a perfect world, they’d all be standards, so hopefully I’m raising their profile and doing them justice at the same time.
Talk us through your creative process and what have you gained through the process.
Doing covers for me is really different from my original stuff—I’m only interested in covers that offer something extra to the original, and ideally point people to a song they don’t know. Once I have the “new” arrangement in my head (like turning “Sleeping Dog” into a full rock song), it’s just a matter of getting it recorded and finding out it it actually works. On this EP, I played everything myself except for some killer guitar and mandolin from Gawain Matthews, who’s just excellent and who also recorded the EP. I also can’t say enough about Megan Slankard, who contributed vocals to the last two songs. I’ve been playing with Megan for over 20 years, and she’s the best singer I’ve ever heard and such a close friend, so having her duet with me on the “Bright Lights > Border” medley is really special.
If you were only given one last day on Earth to play music, how would you spend it?
Yikes! I hope I don’t know what the last day is when it comes, but I guess I would try to get as many family and friends around me as possible and plug in and just play whatever comes up.
What's next for you?
Lots—some great shows in the SF Bay Area, and then a second original album later this year. It’s done and ready to go, and I’m really happy with how it turned out.
