Stephen Bloch

 “I have to make myself available when I hear the melodies or feel the current that pulls me toward the guitar,” Ray LaMontagne explains while considering the series of events that led him to record his new album, Part of the Light. “Otherwise, those things just disappear; they just go away.”

In this case, the process began a few months after concluding his tour in support of Ouroboros, the expansive and enveloping album that LaMontagne recorded with producer Jim James and then performed on the road with the other members of My Morning Jacket.

“There was a theme with all the songs that I was feeling,” LaMontagne continues. “Just an overall sense of trying to affirm what’s real and what’s important to me at this time in our culture—human culture, really—where people are just so isolated. All this technology that is supposed to bring everybody together and make a human connection does the opposite—it leads people to feel isolated and alone. It seems like such a sad time in human history—not to be a downer, but it does. There’s such a disconnect from the gift that we all have just being alive on this planet. It’s such a beautiful existence. We get this little blip of time to enjoy and be part of it, and we’re so separated from it.

“As the songs were being written, it just became clearer to me that, in my subconscious, I was trying to soothe myself and say, ‘Look, your friendships, those moments you have with your friends and the people that you love, all these things are so precious; this is what it’s all about. And just try to remember that every day; remind yourself what a gift it is just to be here.’”

(For LaMontagne’s thoughts on each individual song from the new record, stay tuned for an upcoming special, online-only Track by Track feature.)

Given your thoughts on technology, have you ever considered limiting your audience members’ access to their phones during shows, like Jack White is doing with the Yondr pouches on his current tour?

It would clutter my mind to worry about that. They bought a ticket, they’re there; it’s their night. They can do whatever they want. If they want to sit there and talk all night, fine. If they want to get into a fight with the guy next to them, fine.

I’m gonna play the tunes and, if they want to listen and actively engage in it and experience it, then they will. And if they don’t, then there’s nothing I can do about it. If I worried about that, then I would be pissed off every night that I was on tour. Can you imagine how that would feel? What a distraction to worry about people being on their phones.

Has it been that way throughout your career or is this something that you’ve learned over time?

No, that’s something I think I’ve learned: to let go of those things. Anything that’s out of my control, I just don’t even think about it anymore. If it’s a chatty audience, I just don’t care. It’s not up to me how people behave. I show up, I bring it and if they want to give back, then it becomes a great night where that circle really happens. I always do my part and that’s not to pat myself on the back. It’s just my approach. How the night proceeds is really up to the energy of the audience.

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On your last tour, I noticed the audience energy varied a bit during portions of the show, depending on when they first engaged with your music. Some people were particularly enthusiastic about the Ouroboros material, while others were notably effusive for your earlier work.

Supernova was the same. We put Supernova out and the first line of the first review I read was: “I cannot tell you how much I hate this record.” And again, Supernova, for me, was a massive breakthrough because I had come off of about two years of not playing music at all and reassessing a lot of things in my life. But mostly what was driving me at the time was that I was just turning 40 and something wasn’t working any more. I finally realized that the negative self-critical voice that had been driving me hard just wasn’t working anymore, and it was just hurting me. It wasn’t serving me; it wasn’t serving anything. It had its time when I was younger—it pushed me—but then, it just started to eat me a little bit. I didn’t know what was happening, but I couldn’t come back to music until I figured it out. But once I did, and I slowly started coming back to writing, it was from a different place and it was no longer this questioning of every song, every line.

I had been so hard on myself, and all of that just fell away and I started to write from a different place—a place where I know what I can do. At this point, I really understand and feel confident in my own voice—my writing voice, I mean. There’s no push and pull anymore. I just write the songs and let them be what they want to be. I loved that batch of songs—the Supernova batch of songs—and I still do.

Given all of that, moving forward, how do you view your relationship with yourself, your catalog and your audience?

I view my albums like paintings. I paint one and then I set it up against the wall and walk away from it, and then another painting comes to me and I work on that. It would be self-destructive to concern myself with how people are going to react, so I really don’t think about it. I just put it out there and, if the album finds its way into people’s lives, then that’s great; but if it doesn’t, I have no control over that.

When I hear that an album like Ouroboros has grown on someone, I appreciate that, because it’s not going to mean something to everybody. But wherever the songs come from feels like a real gift, and I’m fortunate to even get the songs.

This article originally appears in the Parting Shots section of the July/August 2018 issue of Relix. For more features, interviews, album reviews and more, subscribe here.