“Producing the Silver Wells usually starts with a bunch of emails from Leland Ettinger containing piano demos of songs for the album, and usually my job as producer is to listen to them and try to conceive of the sound of the finished record and figure out how to realize it. This record was no different and the sound of the album revealed itself almost immediately with the modes and chording she was using calling to mind flowing water - fortunately one song was titled Riverboat which instantly became the name of the record - but there was a catch: Ettinger also requested that the record have a more organic “band” sound than on the prior albums (which happily went with the flowing river idea nicely). The puzzle was how to create than kind of vibe in the time needed to make the record, and fortunately, I had a model to work from. On After The Goldrush, Neil Young had called Nils Lofgren into the sessions to play piano. When he objected that he wasn’t a piano player, Young explained that that was why he was wanted and nobody has complained about the piano on After The Gold-rush in the half a century since! I took that model and brought in some of the usual musicians who play on Silver Wells albums but switched up their instruments so that ears and musicianship came to the foreground and they were really creating a band sound instantaneously. Additionally, all the guitars are in alternate tunings, specific to each track, calling to mind both Joni Mitchell and Sonic Youth and helping pure musicality drive the organic development of the recordings. Throw in some marimba and vibes and you have the natural tones of the Riverboat album. We wanted a studio atmosphere like The Band playing Music From Big Pink where people were free to move from instrument to instrument as the spirit moved them; I felt like Ettinger’s songs had made a leap forward and I think the musicians helped make the sound of the album rise to that level as well. I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed recording it. It’s an exciting new record.”

From Steve Gregoropoulos, Producer of the new record: 

“Producing the Silver Wells usually starts with a bunch of emails from Leland Ettinger containing piano demos of songs for the album, and usually my job as producer is to listen to them and try to conceive of the sound of the finished record and figure out how to realize it...