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| Photo by Gabe Loewenberg
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By ERIC SCHELKOPF
Power trio mssv likes to take its songs on a test drive before recording them for an album.
The group performed the songs featured on its recently released genre-busting album "On And On" every night on its 58-show tour in 2023.
mssv is currently touring in support of the new album and will perform on April 16 at the Hideout, 1354 West Wabansia Ave, Chicago. The show starts at 8:30 p.m. and tickets are $15, available at hideoutchicago.com.
I had the chance to talk to innovative guitarist and frontman Mike Baggetta about the new album. The trio also features Stephen Hodges on drums and Mike Watt on bass.
Q – Great to talk to you. It looks like you guys have been playing ever night since the tour started on March 13. Do you guys enjoy performing every night?
Yeah, we do. One of the main things that's good about it is that every night, we get to work out new music for the next record.
I don't live near the other guys, so when we get together, I like to have new music ready so that we can kind of work on that every night and then record the new album after the tour.
I don't have the luxury of just calling band practice every Friday afternoon or whatever. But I try to make the time count for everybody.
Q – How do you prepare yourself for such a demanding tour?
A lot of people think that, but it doesn't really feel that way. There's a lot of preparation that goes into knowing where we're going to go, knowing where we're going to stay and knowing what time we've got to get there.
That all happens before we hit the road, for the most part. We get to play our music every night, which is not really so bad.
It's not like we are breaking rocks out in a prison yard in the sun for 12 hours a day. Also, as the tour goes on, I find the momentum of playing every night really helps.
If you were going to play 40 nights in a row and then take a night off and then you have to start up again, that might be a little harder in some ways to get back up.
I don't really think about it as such a big long thing. It is, but I just think about one day at a time.
We're lucky to be able to do it.
Q – And of course, you are touring in support of the band’s new album, “On And On.” I understand you performed the songs every night on the band’s 2023 tour. The songs must have been received well. Is that why you decided to record the songs?
No, I don't know if I would like to do it that way, if I was only going to record songs that people clapped for. That would be kind of a weird way to do it, in my mind.
That doesn't really matter so much to me. If the people like it, all the better, but we're going to record the music we've been working on.
I like if the audience likes the song, don't get me wrong, but that's not going to influence what we choose to record. That would be kind of opposite, I think, of the way of doing it.
Q – That is a refreshing attitude. What goals did you have for the album and do you think the finished product surpasses those goals?
Well, I wanted the music to get recorded, and we did that. When I write music before we go on tour, the whole point is that we get to play it every night and the music can turn into something way different than I ever imagined.
I'm in a very lucky position and I'm thankful for it. But I get to sort of think about what I would like to hear them play in my music.
And then as we go on tour, other things happen and the songs change a little bit here and there every night. They turn into these things that are much greater than I could have ever imagined on my own.
When people start bringing their own thing into the music, that's to me is when the magic happens. I don't want to have a preconceived notion that gets perfectly executed by myself every night.
That seems like kind of a boring way to do it. The real magic in music is when other people bring things that you could have never imagined into the songs and they turn into things that are a group effort that become greater than the sum of its parts.
I feel really fortunate that we have the time and the ability to play all these shows and let that happen for the music. The ideal situation is that it turns into something better than I could have ever come up with by myself.
Q – Of course, those people who purchase the vinyl version of the album will get something extra.
There is a different version on the vinyl. There are a lot of sort of improvised interludes that were kind of edited down and transcribed and recomposed by me that have something to do with some of the music on the record.
They sort of serve like little pieces to tie all the sides together. What I like about vinyl is that it kind of forces people to stop when they're listening to the music.
I think it's a good thing to be able to focus when you're trying to experience something.
Q – I know that you have performed on records with Mike Watt. How did the band come together?
Main Steam Stop Valve – this band – we kind of formed during a tour in 2019. Watt and I had done a record with Jim Keltner called "Wall of Flowers."
We recorded that in 2017. The three of us met that day in the studio.
And we made that record in one day. And then when the record was going to come out in 2019, I thought it might be fun to try and do some shows.
I asked Jim, but he wasn't traveling too much at that point. And so I still wanted to maybe do some of this music live, and I asked Mike it I could get Stephen Hodges' cell phone number from him. I thought he could change the music in a different direction.
I wanted to make an album that has a storyline running through it, but not limiting itself to any type of music, taking the elements of all different types of music.
It's just an independent sound of a band and of a project, with no limitations. That's why I asked Hodges if he wanted to play drums.
I called him up and he met with me. We did 10 shows in 10 days coast to coast.
Those guys were down to try to do some more music. Watt gave us a good band name and here we are, six years later.
Q – Why do you think you work so well together?
I think it's the mutual respect for everybody's talents and everybody's opinions. I know on my end at least, I want everybody to have equal input into the music.
I want these guys to tell me ways that the music could be more interesting, more dramatic and more dynamic. I learn something from them every day.
So I want to keep doing that.
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