MUSIC

And once you’re on stage that night, you say the band is feeling especially dialed-in. How does the venue itself play into that?

The room sounds different every night. The monitors up on stage become a big part of the show for us, because if you can’t hear yourself or somebody else in the band, you get a little lost — so it’s just a combination of things having to kind of all work together, and it almost never goes off perfectly in my mind. But on that night, there was an issue with the lights, which were blasting the balcony in a very annoying way. I don’t know if you remember that …

I was up there getting blasted in the balcony!

I’m a concertgoer. I love a good experience at a show, and so my mind goes to, “Oh my god. What’s it like for you people out there? That must suck.” We don’t travel with a light person, so you’re always relying on the house lighting people. And we go through stuff with them, but for some reason there was something crazy going on there. But that’s part of the fun. It’s not boring. We’re not just kind of going through the paces. You’re kind of always reacting to the environment — and to the audience, and to the band.

I’m always striving for perfection, but not always expecting it. I’m expecting something to go wrong: some string to break, or a pedal not working, or a missed lyric that I’ve said 100 times. Even on this set, I think there are a couple of songs we played that aren’t on the record, where we decided, “Oh, we don’t need that,” or there was a mistake or something. So I would say Boulder wasn’t perfect. There’s no way to get perfection when you’re performing live, and I think if you start getting close to perfection, you’re starting to get into the boring territory.

Boulder Theater just got a new sound system this year, so you’ll have to come back and give it a spin.

I’d love to come back! Everything else about the night, aside from the lights, was great. The venue had a nice little backstage, and the food around town was great. There are some places you go and you’re like, “Oh, I wish we could have brought more people in.” But Boulder was one of those where it just sold really well. It was packed. People were psyched. They were enthusiastic and dancing and singing and stuff. So, it definitely feels like a good spot to come back to.

I’d be remiss if we didn’t talk a little about your bandmates on this recording. So I’ll just hit you with a broad question: What makes The Very Good Band so very good?

Wow. Well, they’re all super pro. Everyone comes from playing in bands and doing sessions. Ellie [Eliana Athayde], our bass player, is classically trained and comes from a jazz and classical background. What she’s doing [with my music], she could do with her eyes closed, because it’s fairly simple rock ’n’ roll and folk music. They’re all just super high level. We really get along and love playing together. And we make each other laugh — they’re all very funny in their own ways.