Jonathan Meiburg is part of the artistic community of Austin, Texas. At home between commitments, he’s in preparation for tour with Shearwater, his additional band for which he is the front, for in Okkervil River he only plays the music. The frontman for Okkervil River, Will Sheff, took a somewhat backwards step for the four-piece’s new album Palo Santo, electing not to sing on it.

“He does behind the scenes stuff,” Jonathan explains. “He sequenced it actually. I would go to him sometimes with songs and we’d talk about what we were working on, and there’s a lot of ways he’s involved that aren’t immediately obvious.”

Jonathan explains that there was no determined decision behind Will not being a singing member, but it had more to do with that for this record Jonathan had an array of songs. “We just kind of went with that, and I was really happy with it,” he says.

Shearwater is very distinct from Okkervil River, operating in a more down-tempo vibe than the last Okkervil record, 2005’s incredible Black Sheep Boy. “I think pound-for-pound that might not necessarily be true!” Jonathan exclaims, before admitting that it is more meditative than Okkervil. “Crafting a record you try to have different sounds and tempos on it in a way so that there’s a progression to it and a feeling of a dramatic arc to it. It’s funny with writing; sometimes you just get a certain sort of song and sometimes you just have to wait for a while. I’ve already started working on the next record, and it’s going to be different again to Palo Santo.”

Unprepared to give anything away about it just yet, Jonathan explains that he’s “…still gorging the pieces from the bottom of the lake, hosing them off, and seeing what they look like.”

He explains that piecing together a record like that requires patience. “I’m sure there are people who work faster than I do but you really do have to sit and listen to things,” he says. It makes it sound really passive but it is somewhat like that; writng songs it simply something that can’t be forced. “You have to just open up the receivers and see what comes in. Often what I’ll stick with are little melodies and things that stick with me, even if they’re very simple. If I just can’t forget them then I’ll keep working on them. There’s a song, “Failed Queen”, which is just basically two chords but I really, really liked it, even though I was thinking ‘is this a song?’.”

He says that it’s hard to say when it changes from being a formative idea into being a song – it’s not until the band have played it through when there’s a sense as to whether it will gel or not. “You can force things and sometimes it can help,” he clarifies, “but usually it doesn’t. The moment when the band is playing the songs together is when you know whether it’s going to be worth it.”

Shearwater started before Jonathon joined Okkervil River, and have been steadily plugging along since then. Whilst Okkervil River have toured more and gained more attention, he believes that the amount of work going into each band has been equal. He’s currently working on new Okkervil River material, with strong material from Will awaiting recording. Shearwater differs in that the ramshackle nature of the other group is less apparent – all the elements are integrated in a different way. “Okkervil is like a party on the stage, and Shearwater’s energy has a different feel and a different focus to it,” is how Jonathan puts it. “It’s not necessarily dead serious either. It’s just like the records; there’s a different feel to it, but it has that same quality about it.”

Palo Santo has earned comparisons with Jeff Buckley, which is strange to Jonathan (“People think he invented singing high notes; which is not true”), as he’s never listened to a full Jeff Buckley record. In terms of emotional weight, Shearwater is closer to something like Antony and the Johnsons. “I like how at the same time he seems to give a lot away with his voice he also seems to hold a lot at the same time,” Jonathan states in agreement. “That’s a quality I very much admire.”

You can definitely hear that in Palo Santo – everything is not all obvious; there’s a sense of something hidden underneath. He says that it was very much on purpose. “There’s a different between something being abstract and something being vague,” he murmurs. “I think abstract is good in that it evokes a powerful response, yet you have trouble defining exactly what it is that brings that out in you. I also think that it’s really important to have some moments that are really clear, so that that way there’s things that drift away and become hazy, it can come back in and be something for you to hold on to.”

With overarching themes being the centrifugal focus for Palo Santo, Jonathan says that it felt more realised to him as a result – it’s the most confident he’s felt within his songwriting. For their next release, it’s also like that it’s going to be filled mostly with Jonathan’s songs.

Shearwater’s Palo Santo is out now, but Jonathan will not be making it to Australia this time around with Okkervil River, as the two bands touring commitments clash. Okkervil River dates:
06/09: The Zoo, Brisbane
07/09: @ Newtown, Sydney
08/09: East Brunswick Club, Melbourne
09/09: Fowler’s Live, Adelaide
10/09: Rosemount Hotel, Perth