Do you ever collaborate or do
you prefer to write alone?
I mostly write alone, but I did
an EP with Calexico back in
2005 called In the Reins, and
that was a lot of fun and great
creatively. So, yeah, I do like to
collaborate, but the opportunity
doesn’t come along that often.
What guitars did you use on
Kiss Each Other Clean?
Oh man, my publicist said you
were going to be asking me
about guitars [laughs].
Don’t tell me you don’t like
guitars?
I love guitars—each of them has
songs in them! I just don’t have
a proper inventory off the top of
my head. They aren’t even all in
one place. I know your readers
would like specific setups, but I
select tones because they serve the
song, not because I’m trying to
establish a certain guitar-and-amp
setup that defines Iron and Wine.
Let’s talk about the tracks on
the album and see if that jogs
your memory.
I’ll do my best.
On “Walking Far from home,”
there’s a cool drone intro that
sounds like an Ebow or some
sort of Robert Fripper-y . . .
There really isn’t much guitar
on that track. The drone is
mostly processed piano and
organ, but I think I did do a
strummed acoustic guitar track
through a Moogerfooger pedal
as part of the drone.
The guitar on “Tree by the
River” has a twangy, delicious-
ly crispy overdrive. how did
you get that sound?
It was a Gibson ES-335. It has
humbuckers, but it can get a
cool, almost Tele-like twang,
too. The amp I used was built
by Jesse Duke, a friend of mine
in Austin, and it’s a big part of
the sound. It’s a Fulton Webb 30
Watt, which has a ’60s Marshall
channel and a tweed Deluxe
channel. I flipped the half-power
switch, turned it up loud, and
that’s the sound it made.
“half Moon” has a great mess
of slide playing. Is that you?
No, it’s a friend of mine
named Jim Becker playing
slide on his Tele. He plays it
with a volume pedal, so the
volume swells sort of like a
steel guitar. Actually, there are
two tracks of slide. The other
