BeatRoute Magazine BC Edition February 2019

DAN MANGAN
EVERY MORNING’S A RESURRECTION
JOHNNY KOSMOS
photo by Vanessa Heins
Dan Mangan remains himself, but with a greater sense of focus on More Or Less.
Dan Mangan is one of those artists that always seems
to be challenging and pushing himself with each new
record he produces. You can always tell when an artist
is truly living life or just going through the motions.
In the six years Mangan took off from touring, he
lived a lot of life. A year of rest turned into two kids,
a marriage, multiple film and television scores and
plenty of time for reflection. All of the above have
changed the man and the artist. “It just took a lot of
time. Back in 2012 the phone wouldn’t stop ringing; we
were stuck in this positive feedback loop.”
Years of childrearing and domestication presented
a steep learning curve for a man who had spent years
on the road. “Your kids don’t care about all this cool
stuff you do. They just care
about how you are as a
dad.” Rock stars aren’t rock
stars when they’re at home;
they’re just dads. During
this time, Mangan wrote the
experimental Club Meds
with Blacksmith and scored
the incredible Hector and
the Search for Happiness, as
well as a number of other
films and TV shows.
On his latest release,
More or Less (2018 Art & Crafts), Mangan remains
himself, but with a greater sense of focus. “I came to
the realization I wasn’t done. I had more songs in me, I
had more I wanted to accomplish,” he says of his return
to the business of making music. “That whole process
took years.”
When Mangan decided he was finally ready to step
back into it he contacted producer Drew Brown and
the wheels were in motion. “Took us nearly two years
to get all of the people together that he (Drew Brown)
wanted. During this time Drew encouraged me to keep
writing, by the time we hit the studio I had all these
new songs that weren’t in the demos.”
Was it worth the wait?
Mangan seems in awe as he states, “I had the
same rhythm section, playing through the same
microphones, in the same studio, with the same
hardware and the same engineer as Sea Change
(Beck 2002 Geffen).” Their influence on More or Less
is apparent right away. Upon first listen, the album
evokes a sense of gentle reflection; it’s much more
stripped-down than Club Meds (2015 Arts & Crafts).
It’s not exactly a return to his roots, but more of
an acknowledgment and transformation he’s gone
through. This is still very much a Dan Mangan record,
but this a new Dan Mangan. “We all have our heroes.
Joey (Waronker)’s cases said ‘Roger Waters’. Jason
(Falkner)’s cases said ‘Beck’. These guys work with the
best of the best. When I first got to LA and went into
the studio I was nervous, like, ‘What are they going to
think of me?’” Mangan confesses. “But they just trusted
Drew. They were so nice and really gave themselves to
the material. By the end, they were saying, ‘Great songs,
man!’ None of us is impervious to flattery. Having this
affirmation from people that I admire so much, I felt
like I was getting my groove back.”
Mangan’s groove is definitely back on this album.
The subtlety and vulnerability in the vocals bring the
listener into a very personal space, one filled with
MUSIC
stillness and the musical equivalent of sitting and
staring. “You need to reserve space in your mind that’s
just for you.” Mangan says, “I don’t meditate, but I try
and be bored for a couple minutes a day. If you can be
peacefully okay with yourself just sitting it will make
you better prepared to deal with the never-ending
stream of bullshit.”
There was a full on stream of bullshit when he first
started recording More or Less. While out for dinner
his first night in LA, his car was robbed of everything
except his guitar. Laptops, hard drives full of the demos
he was about to track, his passport. Everything. “I
spent the whole next morning trying to find my stuff
and get my passport reinstated. So, I went into the
studio, do one take
“Your kids don’t care
about all this cool stuff
you do. They just care
about how you are as a
dad.” - Dan Mangan
of “Lay Low” and Paul
McCartney pops his
head into the studio!”
Mangan continues
sarcastically, “Of
course, when Paul
McCartney hears my
music it’s not the
finished product, it’s
the first take of the first
song I’m doing with my
new band. He gave me
some suggestions, but then we scrapped everything he
heard. My Mom was devastated when I said we didn’t
use any of Paul’s suggestions.”
“What the hell is wrong with everyone now?”
a line from his song, “Troubled Mind” is fitting on
days such as that (and in the grander context of
humanity as a whole). “People are an equal amount
of fucked up, always. There’s so much to take in now,
so much information, so much pain, so much going
on all the time.” Mangan says of society, “It’s up to us
to be informed citizens, so we’re not just passively
distracted.”
There are lessons being taught everywhere, every
day. You just need to pay attention and take risks.
The day Mangan decided to take a break from
touring he got a call from a producer to score a film.
“Every time I’ve scored something I’ve learned about
a deficiency in my musicality that I’ve overcome,” he
says of the experience. “And you come out the other
end and go, ‘Aw, man, I didn’t know I could do that.’
It’s a beautiful thing when you know you can still
surprise yourself.” When it came time to prep for the
tour, Mangan enlisted Don Kerr (Rheostatics), Jason
Haberman and Michael Brian.
With an all-new gathering of people behind him,
Mangan took a couple weeks to rehearse in Toronto.
He found that time and this new group gave a breath
of fresh air to his previous work. “It was injecting all
this new personality into the old material. We started
to think, ‘What’s the best way we can deliver these
existing melodies and songs in a live context?’”
Reinventing yourself in the tireless pursuit of
relevancy is daunting and exhausting. While no
doubt an intimidating endeavor, it’s a good thing
Dan Mangan keeps trying because we missed him.
Welcome back, Dan.
Dan Mangan performs February 12 at the Vogue
Theatre.
February 2019 21