The Real Ponchos play the Moonshinin' Music Fest: an Emile Scott interview

The Real Ponchos by Mallory Lupick

The Real Ponchos - bandcamp here - are, as Mike Usinger once observed, "not your grandparents' country." (He was reviewing this album by the Real Ponchos at the time). You can see what he means. There's not much trace of the Nashville of yore to be heard, though there is some Texas twang - mostly courtesy of the vocals of Ben Arsenault - in their delivery. But there's also something very laid back and jammy, even Grateful-Dead-like, about their music, which can get quite inspired when Ben and co-founder/ co-songwriter Emile Scott get cooking live. I saw a couple of extraordinary shows by the band at the Railway, circa 2013, back when there was still a little train running around the ceiling and the venue was allowed to open the windows now and then. It was the best sort of live experience, where the band got hotter and more engaging as the night unfolded, Emile and Ben hooking into each others' guitar lines and making their music a vehicle of transportation. It was the sort of show where I struggled with equally wanting to watch the music being made, and wanting to close my eyes and fly away, internally. 

And they had a sense of humour, too: as I recall, there was an amusing between-song patter between Ben and Emile that kept somehow circling back to the theme of "al dente beans" (I asked Emile if he could explain the concept, but he declined, saying that "Ben has put in more time unlocking the mystery of the al dente beans than I have"). It was one of my favourite shows ever at the Railway, with the only ensuing weirdness - besides the beans - being that I barely followed the band thereafter, kind of forgetting about them until I ran into Emile by chance at the Folk Festival this past August. With a year where my listening has been dominated by Guy Clark, Fortune Block, Lucinda Williams and Steve Earle - and even a bit of Dead! - I'm highly excited to play catchup at the WISE Hall tomorrow, at the kickoff gig for the Moonshinin Music Fest 2022.  

Even with a failing computer - I'm writing this at a feckin' library! - I sent off some questions to Emile to bring us up to speed on the band's history since 2013, when I last saw them. I'm in italics, below; Emile is not. See you at the WISE?

The band live the first couple of times I saw you was a very laid back cross between Texas country and Dead-ish jamming, with maybe a bit of a countrified Neil Young edge... Is that still a fairly apt description of your live show? Have there been any major musical changes since then? Any new influences or ones I have missed?

I suppose the biggest change occurred on our most recent album Sunshine, which we recorded in a couple different living rooms. We wanted to move less towards the spaced-out Dead-inspired jams and more towards concise songs with loops and drum machines, while still maintaining a bit of our twang. Aiden Ayers, who produced and performed on that record, has also since joined the band and we have been including some of his incredible tunes into our set for the past year which has turned our latest shows into a bit of a supergroup, collective-type deal.

Sounds very cool. So... the LAST time I saw the Ponchos, you were sharing a bill with a lineup of Petunia and the Vipers (with Barry Taylor on drums!) and Cafe Deux Soleils, maybe in 2016...? Have you crossed paths or shared bills with Petunia or his band much since? For some reason the band made less of an impression then, and I made a note that you were better headlining, when you could really relax and open up your songs and jam out than if you were opening and watching the clock... So I am pleased to see that you will be headlining on Thursday... Any thoughts on this, the differences between headlining and opening? (Have you been able to mostly headline gigs you have played?]

Petunia & The Vipers actually opened up for US that night at Cafe Deux Soleils, haha, which I believe was summer 2013 [note: I was reading the date on the Poncho's first album wrong - without my glasses, the 2013 looked like a 2015!]. They had a way bigger draw than us at the time though, so that show was pretty unique. We had opened up for them in Roberts Creek a couple months earlier and they had asked us if we knew of any shows going on that they could get on the bill for on a specific day because they wanted to add a small last minute hometown show the day before going on tour. And we happened to have Cafe Deux Soleils booked for that same day so it worked out. I love that band, always fun to work with them.

I think our longest set was just over four hours, though that doesn't happen often. We had an opening slot for the Red Truck Concert series about five years ago which was really fun, Lee Fields was the headliner [soul artist presently signed to Daptone and slated for a Commodore show Oct. 30th]. You might be onto something though about the longer sets having more impact, I'll need to think on that more.

What have your biggest successes been since then? I confess to not having followed the band much since that Cafe Deux Soleil show - what traumas and triumphs have I missed? What are your live-show high points, nicest compliments you have received? How far have you travelled? What major life lessons as a band have come up since then? What would you do differently, if you could have a do-over?

I think somewhere along the way, we all decided that the reason we wanted to stay together as a band was because we really like the music we were making, and we were fortunate enough to have found an audience who also really connected with it. We have become a more decentralized band over the past few years, and so have only had time for a handful of projects each year, but we still love playing together and growing as a band so the fact that we have been able to make time for it and to have people come out to our shows and ask us about future projects has been an absolute blessing.

You did some piano on the first album... I do not recall there being piano in your live show (tho maybe I misremember!) Do you ever do songs with piano live? Do you ever write on piano?

Piano was my first instrument, though I would only be comfortable in saying that I dabble in it. I'd like to try writing on piano again. We actually have a bunch of live off the floor home recordings that were made in January 2020 (only one of which has been released so far for a compilation by the label Public Possession out of Munich). I set up my Rhodes for those sessions, and we all took turns on it at different times. I liked that, would love to incorporate more of it into our music in the future. I don't have a portable piano though, and Rhodes are a pain in the ass to move....

Do you still play any songs off the first album live? What DO you play live? Are there staples of your live set that people who are inclined to do "gig homework" should check out on your bandcamp, so they can familiarize themselves? 

Sometimes we play everything, sometimes it's curated to the venue or audience, sometimes it's some new stuff, sometimes it's the hits, sometimes a combination of all. Some of our audience have been known to take articles of clothing off during certain points of certain songs..... There are a few songs as well that we have never played live, as they would be difficult to translate to a live setting. "Bright & Early" off Sunshine for example. I would love to try to play that one once somehow.

Your cover art has changed a lot on from Tayu Hayward's painterly photo of a horse on the first album (above) to the much more abstract and minimal (Zen?) art on your last couple of releases - where did the change of direction come in? Sunshine's cover has the feel of a visual pun, a sun over a stone, but I have never been great at decoding such things. Help?

It is a bit of a visual pun isn't it! I noticed late in the game that it sort of resembles a division symbol. Peter Taylor designed that cover, whose worked we really liked. We wanted to collaborate with him in some way. And the art for Hannya Shingyo is definitely in the Zen tradition.

Who/ what is the Mountain Rain Zen Community, and how do they relate to the band? (What is the original meaning of "Wake Up (Who's There)?" I love the phrase and associate it with the feeling of coming into consciousness and sort of re-assembling your identity and life in your head, remembering who you are and what you were doing the day before or have anned for the day ahead...

Mountain Rain Zen Community is a local Zen center that Ben has been part of for around six years now. I haven't asked him about the depth of those lyrics.

I am not seeing any songwriting credits on bamdcamp for Sunshine. What are your songs on it? Which get played live? What was the most interesting / enjoyable one to write?

I wrote "Slow Touch," "Stranger Days," and "Bright & Early," though Ben and Aiden contributed some lyrics and/or inspiration for all three of those. Ben wrote the rest of them. We only play three songs from that album regularly. That album was actually really fun to make. Around 75% of it is just myself, Aiden, and Ben in the living room experimenting with sounds and structures. The drums for "Slow Touch," for example, is just a live drum part I played that we ended up looping, the same thing Fleetwood Mac did for "Dreams". There is something about the rhythmic pocket that arises out of that that was fun to work with.

"Bright & Early" came together in one evening. Started after dinner and finished at around two or three in the morning.

Any interesting. past history with Mionshinin' co-performers or organizers, other acts you are excited to catch, or things we should say about the live show on Thursday?

We've played/toured/recorded with a lot of those artists throughout the years. It's like a family. I'm stoked to hear Ian Badger with a full band on Thursday. Marin Patenaude is always amazing. Also Sarah Jane Scouten, and Cassidy Waring, and Etienne Tremblay. It'll be a blast.

Last question: did the band ever cover Zappa or have any interesting interactions relating to the name? Do people show up EXPECTING Zappa, ever? (I do not hear ANY Zappa influences beside the name - see also here - but maybe I have missed something?)

Haha, the only influence Zappa has had on us is that a lot of us have listened to and loved a lot of his music, and the name is a reference to two of his songs. His more spaced-out elements and musical jams are a lot more composed and put together than ours are.

Thanks, Emile! See y'all at the WISE, and also check out the rest of the Moonshini' Music Festival - most of which takes place at an RV Park in Surrey! Facebook here, Eventbrite page for tickets here. You may also want to check out the music of Robert Connely Farr, who appeared in my recent Steve Earle article - more on whom later! And I've written a bit about the East Van Opry and Kathleen Nisbett, also playing the festival, but I'll let people search that out themselves: my library computer time is almost up!