Gregory Alan Isakov hasn’t considered hosting his own Woodstock Festival on his farm in Colorado, but he often has friends and fellow musicians over to jam. In his second visit to the Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre in under a year, Isakov will be able to take his private farm show on the road, playing alongside friends and fellow folk band Blind Pilot on Thursday, Aug. 10. Isakov spoke with The Tribune about the year gone by, including his live shows alongside several symphony orchestras, recording a new record for the first time since 2013 and returning to life on the farm before setting out on a slew of August dates:
Last year at Red Butte, you played alongside Lake Street Dive. This year, it’s Blind Pilot. What’s changed and what are you looking forward to about this show?
Those (co-billing shows) are fun. We don’t do that a lot actually, that was kind of the first time we’ve tried that. We’re old friends with Blind Pilot so we thought it’d be fun to do a little run together to see if we can come up with some stuff together. We’re really excited about it.
Blind Pilot is a little bit more in your musical ballpark than Lake Street Dive; can you guys collaborate together onstage?
We’ve worked on a couple of songs together in the past. One of our first tours, I forget which record we were on, but throughout the Midwest we were supporting Blind Pilot. We’ve been friends ever since.
What’s special about playing shows outside in the summer air in venues like Red Butte?
I used to not like playing outside much because of the acoustics. I used to like clubs a lot because the sound sort of held and you kind of play off the room. After we played Red Butte, I really liked it. It felt like a theater to me, really intimate and really close. Sometimes in those outdoor venues, you can get lost, but I really like that one. There’s a bunch I really love.
How has life changed for you since you played Red Butte a year ago?
It’s been a great year. We definitely have toured a lot. I spent probably five months in Europe doing a three-month support run and then I went back with the band for a headlining run for about a month. We did a lot in Europe this past year, and then I’ve been making a record here at the farm for the past six months or so. That’s what I’ve been doing, mainly, and then running the farm. That’s been going great; it’s been busy, but great.
The Colorado Symphony album was mostly older songs, but “The Weatherman” came out in 2013. How did the symphony album influence you writing these new tunes?
I’m always working on stuff. I’ve been sketching out about 40 songs. I spent my time in Europe working on revisiting some songs and working on some new writing. Now, we just started diving into it a little bit more. It’s a simple record, we’re making it on tape and I think we’re probably halfway there already. It’s been really exciting to begin to unplug from the touring world for the past few months.
Did the symphony album add a fresh perspective or allow you to stretch your legs in a way that recording a regular studio album wouldn’t?
It was a really big learning experience working with the giant productions like that. It’s nice to just be in a room, play a guitar and say: “Maybe that’s the track.” Just really simple.
Has being in the familiar environment of the farm helped you write the new songs or is there value to being out of your comfort zone to write on the road?
It’s been perfect. I got kind of bummed at the fact that sometimes the studio process is interrupted with touring. But then it ends up being a good thing to get away from it and give it some time to see if when you come back you still feel something that you thought you did. It’s sort of a nice check, like, “Yeah, I’m so stoked on this song and now I don’t know if it’s working,” or the opposite when you’re like, “This might have been in the toss pile, but now I love it.”
I have these giant notes all over my walls and different words I repeat I’m working on new lines for. Songs, when you have them all up like that or you’re working on 40 sketches of stuff, you’re going to repeat yourself here and there, and it’s nice to see it all at once.
Has a theme for the record emerged yet?
It’s an ongoing process. I love making records, and the symphony record was sort of an homage, like a live nod to all the work that we’ve done with these arrangements and our catalog from before. This is definitely going back to the studio records and back to the “glowy cave room of insanity” of my studio.
I think most artists probably miss home when they’re on the road for a while. But is there something special about returning to the farm and having your roots there, literally and figuratively?
Oh yeah, man, I think about it all the time. It’s funny, I know a lot of musicians that get super geeked out about gear or ordering a new compressor or whatever. … I don’t have that with gear, at all. I was just talking about this with a bandmate, he’s really into trying out different mics and stuff, and I’m ordering fruit trees and get super stoked.
The thing about the horticultural realm for me that’s so amazingly healing and just works really well for my mind — working on a piece of music, I spent six hours the other night thinking about one line of audio — one line of lyric — that’s in this weird elusive lens in my mind and inner landscape that’s in and out. Then, when you’re in a garden you’re like, “Well, that was 20 hours of work and now it’s right there and it’s beautiful!” But in the studio, 40 hours go by and I don’t even know what we kept, if anything is realized. I know that I need to put the time in, but there’s no way to calculate it. It’s some beautiful tactile measurement of work, which I really love, you know?
Gregory Alan Isakov and Blind Pilot<br>When • Thursday, Aug. 10, 7 p.m., gates at 6 p.m.<br>Where • Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre <br> Tickets • Sold out