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Sam Beam — better known by his stage name Iron & Wine — started writing hushed, quiet folk songs more than a decade ago in his bedroom in Miami. Critics compared him to folk legends such as Nick Drake and Leonard Cohen for his songwriting, which was stripped-down but beautiful.
After gaining popularity from being featured in movies such as "Garden State" and the "Twilight" series, Beam began to expand his sound to include elements of jazz, R&B and psychedelic rock. But while his changing palette gained him new fans, it also alienated some of the people who had fallen in love with his original sound.
Beam is now back with a new album — or rather, a new album of old songs. " Archive Series Volume Number One " is comprised of some of the demos that weren't included on his first album. The singer-songwriter talks about why he decided to take his fans back to his roots and the feeling of time travel that came with the project.
Where did the idea for your "Archive Series" come from?
"The Archive Series" was a long time coming. The first record that I ever put out was called "The Creek Drank the Cradle," and it wasn't really written as a record. It was just some of the songs that I had been working on during the years leading up to it. They were just home-recorded, hobbyist things. [laughs]
So there were a lot of songs that ended up on the record, but there were also a lot of songs that were left off, at least two or three times as many. There were all these songs laying around in the closet gathering dust, and people had been showing interest over the years, so it was really just a matter of finding the right time to put them out.
As an artist, you're always trying to make your fans happy [laughs], but at the same time you have to push forward and concentrate on what you're doing at the time, rather than what you did a few years back.
So who do you see as the audience for this record? Are you addressing a certain type of Iron & Wine fan?
I think different people gravitate toward different things. We've been doing this for a while with different permutations of the band, and I've been putting out records for over a decade now. Honestly, I think that when the first record came out there were a lot of people that got attached to that type of recording.
And when I started doing other things, those people lost interest, perhaps, or were along for the ride. But then there were also people that weren't so into the early stuff that all of a sudden found something they could gravitate towards in the new things. Everyone's different, it just depends.
Why did this feel like the right time to release this record?
There was enough distance between the first record and what I've been doing now, so it felt like a bit of time travel. It didn't feel like, Oh, this is what he was doing just the other year, so in that sense it's fun — like looking at old photographs.
What does it feel like when you listen to these songs?
Putting these things out has been a kick in the head, because you do have to revisit and it's really like looking at these old photographs and remembering the day that they were taken, remembering people that were in your life or the places you would frequent in those times. It was a bit of time travel, which was really fun.
Or, it's like looking at a diary page that you forgot that you had. You just forget, and you go on with your life and you experience all these different things, and it's hard to reach back through the layers until you have these little reminders.
Are there any songs that really provoke a specific memory or reaction for you?
They've all been very, very different, because there are very specific things that, while they're maybe not autobiographical or even explicitly about some experience you've had, something sparked an inspiration for the tunes, either some melody line or some image. So it immediately takes you back.
What about general memories? What comes to mind when you inhabit these songs again?
Mostly I remember being in Miami, because most of these songs were written and recorded while I was in Miami, doing music in my spare time. I would work on movies and commercials, these kinds of production sets during the day. And then, because I had a lot of energy in those days, go home and stay up all night writing songs and recording. [laughs]
And so mostly I remember the stoop, the window and the ocean breeze. Those are laced in these songs for me.
Listening to these songs is one thing, but what's it like to play these old songs now?
The song doesn't die the moment that you record it. It has a life where you can keep reinterpreting it in different ways as the years go on. That's important to me.
And what about the lyrical themes on this album? Do you feel like you're still singing about the same things?
I don't feel like I pull punches now, I don't have anything to hide. I just don't find it that interesting. [laughs] But then, I guess that was the center of my consciousness — affection and those kinds of things.
Luckily, that's what people like to listen to. People are obsessed with love songs because, whether we're in the middle of some kind of romantic thing or we just have fond memories, music goes hand-in-hand with that floating, emotional feeling, that emotional space that we get into.
So it's fun, and I guess my narrative has expanded over the years. Love is definitely on the horizon that I'm talking about, but it's only a part of it now, where it used to be dead-center in the crosshairs. It doesn't seem to be that way anymore.
The lines in "Two Hungry Blackbirds" about "the sky falling" are really beautiful. How did you find those lyrics?
Sometimes a song tells you what comes next. You start with a line, like the idea of the sky falling, and then suddenly you say, What if I could be over somebody, physically sitting over the top of them? Then it suggests, well, what if you were under? What would that be? If you're open to it, the song will guide you to the next thing. It's a fun place to be as a writer, to have a song that helps you along, that holds your hand and guides you with it. [laughs]
So when you're listening to these songs and you're hearing an older version of yourself, what's that like? Do you still feel like that person?
It's really funny to go back and shake hands with an older version of yourself. [laughs] I can only imagine what novelists or actors — I mean, goodness gracious, what a movie actor has to deal with when they watch the work they did decades ago. The arts are always subjective, but you feel like if you put your time and energy into it, you develop in ways over the years.
Some people would say for the worse, and some people would say for the better, but you're definitely on a personal trajectory, you're pursuing something. And what other people get from your work comes from how they experience the world. It has nothing to do with your process. And so my process has gone in a lot of different directions, and it's been really interesting to go back and put these old words back in my mouth. [laughs]
Iron & Wine's 'Archive Series Volume No. 1' is out on Tuesday, February 24.