Martin Maudal of Baldy Crawlers: “Refinement comes when I sit down and focus. But the inspiration nearly always comes when I'm not looking”
My first encounter with producer and Berklee College of Music graduate Martin Maudal came in October last year when I discovered a tune called Bring Me a Flower. Courtesy of Baldy Crawlers, a musical project that has evolved into a remarkable collective of musicians, the tender and cinematic track really made a lasting impression.
With a new single on the horizon, I thought it was the perfect excuse to get Martin in the interview hot seat. Thankfully, he was more than willing to accommodate!
Letting us in on the story behind Baldy Crawlers' latest release, Hatred?, his years spent in the foothills of Mount Baldy painstakingly crafting musical instruments, and why he believes the next decade will be one of the most fascinating periods in music history, please welcome Martin Maudal of Baldy Crawlers!
Hey Martin - welcome aboard! Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us!
Let's kick things off with an easy one...Who are Baldy Crawlers, and how did you all find one another?
Oh, easy, you say? Lol! Thanks for having me Jeremy!
Well, one of our singers, Elizabeth Hangan, goes all the way back with me to our first band when I was 15. For all the others, you have to know that Baldy Crawlers started as a marketing tool for the guitars I build. There wasn't so much a band as a rotating project. Over the last few years, though, it's developed into a group of top-drawer LA cats who've been bought in.
All of them have the singular quality of being willing and able to play well outside their usual wheelhouses, and that is a very rare thing. Then again, folk comes from every corner of the world, so it shouldn't surprise me when there are some roots among players of all stripes.
So! Baldy Crawlers are: Elizabeth Hangan on vocals, Norrell Thompson, a Latin jazz singer now also singing trad folk, Marc Weller playing a bunch of the Maudal Musical Machines and pedal steel on Latin tunes (cray), Carl Byron who's thing is Gypsy jazz on accordion and Hammond organ, Jonathan Montes on piano, another A list LA Latin jazz guy Ross Schodek on bass, and on drums for some of the tunes, José Miguel Perez, and Cougar Estrada (Los Lobos) on percussion. And me on acoustic guitar, drums and harmony vocals - the writing and production.
I don't want to flex too much, but if anyone wants to Google these guys, they'll find an amazing array of Grammy-level credits 😉
Hatred? is the act's brand new single, and by the time this interview is published, it will already be making its way into listeners’ ears.
It's a tune that I've fallen completely in love with, and I'm wondering if you could unpack the inspiration behind it?
Thanks! Well, the song is true soft lips/hard teeth folk; beautiful to listen to and as painful as it gets to contemplate. There was a photograph a photojournalist friend had given me, this was years ago, that just hit so hard. Soldiers in a circle around a prisoner on his knees... guns out... what struck me was the connection between captors and prisoner... every face in the group was drowned in misery and the deepest exhaustion I'd ever seen. And I imagined the thousands... the tens of thousands of times such a scene has played out in human history.
As you may recall, Bring Me a Flower was a track that I proudly labelled as "a genius blend of Americana and atmospheric folk."
Would you say there's a creative thread connecting Bring Me a Flower and Hatred, or are they very much chapters in their own right?
Of course. What Baldy Crawlers has become first and foremost is storytellers. I hope that what we manage to pull off is long-form storytelling where every song is a chapter in an ongoing tale. It's a great question, and I hope you asked it because you yourself saw some kind of thread between them.
Take us through some of your and the band's biggest musical influences.
And, just for fun, if you could pluck one song from history and add your name to it, which would it be?
That's another not as easy as it sounds question, because the band's influences are very likely quite different from the individuals in it. Me, I'm all over the place from the Kingston Trio to Steely Dan to Oscar Peterson. The band though - Hurray for the Riff Raff, Lila Downs, Calexico, Y La Bamba, Mercedes Sosa... Ruben Blades.
Have you listened to Linda Ronstadt's Canciones de Mi Padron? Fanfreakintastic! So, a very borderlands tribe.
Do you feel artists have a responsibility to comment on the times we’re living in, or is music’s role more personal and timeless? Or perhaps a bit of both?
Artists accept their own responsibilities, and I wouldn't presume to tell anyone what they are. I can promise you, though, that some of the songs we have coming up in the near future have no socially redeeming qualities whatsoever 😉
When inspiration strikes, what’s the first thing you usually do to capture it?
Do you feel like you search for songs - or do they "find" you?
The largest influence on my songwriting was the 7 years I spent working on a tree crew in Claremont, CA. This, coincidentally, got me serious about building guitars too. The absolute most gruelling physical labor I've ever done in my life. And dangerous! But doing hard labor like that in 100-degree SoCal heat forces the mind (my mind anyway) to flee to higher planes. It's funny, but I'm actually serious. It taught me to be open to inspiration when I'm not trying to, when I'm doing literally anything else. Refinement comes when I sit down and focus. But the inspiration nearly always comes when I'm not looking.
What are your thoughts regarding the current state of the music industry? And, if you could, what changes would you make to it?
We're in an astounding time, and cray cray as it is, buckle up! Because it's going to be a wild ride over the next decade. In the world generally, but most definitely in music.
Martin, it's been an absolute pleasure having you here! Thank you again for taking the time!
Before we say farewell for now, what comes next for you musically, and do you have any words of wisdom you'd like to leave us with?
Thank you Jeremy!
Well, speaking of long-form storytelling, Hatred? is just the first single from our upcoming EP Fais Toi Plaisir, which goes from chapter 1 - a soft lips/hard teeth folk song - to a love song - to the Earth in Waterfall Laughter - to a full-on Latin dance number/cautionary folk tale in Spanglish called Orbelín and the Black Widow. It's going to be a fun year!
Words of wisdom? Empathy is a muscle. Work it!
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