Songwriter and bandleader Mike Baggetta wants you to expect the unexpected on mssv's album On and On, the third full-length offering from the group.
Baggetta's guitar and vocals are backed by the veteran ensemble of Minutemen co-founder Mike Watt on bass and renowned percussionist Steven Hodges (Tom Waits, Mavis Staples) on drums. Baggetta's compositions were road-tested and tweaked through improvisation across 58 consecutive shows during their 2023 US tour before being recorded immediately afterward at BIG EGO Studio in Long Beach, California, under the production guidance of Chris Schlarb. Repeating the process, mssv will play every night between March 13 and May 3 on their in-progress US tour. After a brief rest, they will tour the UK and Ireland between May 29 and June 14. These lengthy stints on tour wrap with the band once again returning to the studio to record new material worked out during the tour.
The members of the post-genre trio are located on opposite sides of the country, meaning that routine practice is challenging. This requires mssv to approach touring with a sense of workshopping and discovery, where the music will often take new shape and journey into paths unknown. The spirit of experimentation continues onto the recorded tracks as well. The vinyl release of On and On, adorned with artwork by John Herndon of Tortoise, features instrumental interludes recorded by Watt and Hodges and then re-spliced by Baggetta, featuring running motifs and nods to the album's compositions. This approach transforms the album into what the band describes as "a trippy psychedelic fever dream" exploring "the temporal and seemingly fleeting nature of society, personality, music, and life and death on Earth, only to realize that all of these are also endlessly repeating."
On and On opens with its title track and closes with "OK To Change," both of which are the most straightforward linear songwriting on the record. The tracks in between are another story, taking inspiration from free jazz to punk rock to spoken word. Tunes like "Boat Song" and "Tiny Pipes" are reminiscent of the effect-laden industrial-jazz rock second side of King Crimson's Three of a Perfect Pair. "Careful What You Wish For" could be the soundtrack to a skateboard video, combining the band's taste for high-energy punk rock with phased-out post-genre breakdowns. Now more comfortable with singing than on their previous album, Human Reaction, Baggetta's vocals appear on seven of the eight tracks, with lyrics that explore universal themes while incorporating personal references and narratives.
I chatted with Mike Baggetta about On and On, the improvisational process the band uses to fine-tune songs, his renewed confidence as a vocalist, early guitar inspirations, and much more. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Main Steam Stop Valve
Sam Bradley: I guess the first somewhat basic thing I wanted to ask was where the name mssv came from.
Mike Baggetta: The name comes from a part in the movie version of the book The Sand Pebbles by Richard McKenna. There's a part where they're talking about the main steam stop valve, which is one of the main parts that makes the steamship move. It's about combustion and energy and pressure, which are all great ideas for a band, but it has another meaning for us.
I had done a record with Watt and Jim Keltner called Wall of Flowers, and when it came time to tour that, Jim wasn't traveling too much from LA. So, I asked Stephen Hodges if he would want to do some gigs with us because I was a big fan of his. A touchstone record for me is Mike Watt's first punk rock opera, Contemplating The Engine Room, which has Hodges on drums and our buddy Nels Cline on guitar. So I thought, wouldn't it be cool to have some music happen on my own with that rhythm section that has meant so much to me from that record? So, I guess in Watt's mind, it all made a lot of sense to put it together that way.
Sam: What sort of things inspired you when you first started playing and writing, and what sort of relationship do you have nowadays with that same stuff?
Mike: Well, my dad plays guitar and was probably the first big influence on me. I just heard him play guitar around the house, playing the instruments and showing me my first chords. He plays kind of a Chet Atkins fingerstyle guitar which is difficult for me to do, but I love all that music for sure. That was a big part of it.
The next thing I remember is that he had a record by Jeff Beck called Wired and I used to check that record out a lot when I was younger. I love that record. I love the cover. I love the sound of it, everything about it. The other important thing about that record is that he plays a Charles Mingus tune. So enjoying that track led me to investigate Charles Mingus and John Coltrane and get into free jazz and improvised music and stuff like that. That was important from that record.
Then, another of the earliest things, and I still have no idea how this happened, but my sister, for Christmas one year, got me a copy of a record by a great guitar player composer named David Torn called What Means Solid, Traveller. That record had a huge influence on me as far as incorporating effects into my playing and thinking about using the guitar in non-traditional ways. Later in my life, I got to meet David and record on one of his records with him, too.
So, all those things are pretty important to what I do now. Even now, I can listen to What Means Solid, Traveller. I can go back and listen to Wired and still have these really important discoveries from hearing them now while playing all this music. Of course I can go home to play duets with my dad on guitar, and that's always an important source of information and emotional kind of info to me, too.
Band Practice
Sam: How has such heavy touring impacted your approach to songwriting and playing?
Mike: Well, it's important because, in this band, we don't all live near each other. The other guys live in Southern California and I live in Gainesville, Florida, North Central Florida. So I've been going out to the West Coast for 20 or so years doing music things, but I can’t just call them up and say, "Hey, let's do band practice tomorrow at 3:00."
So, when we have a record coming out, we have a tour set up. I kind of take that opportunity to get a bunch of new music together so we can practice it on the road, and then at the end of the tour, we'll record a new album. It's really important to play all these shows in a row because we get to work out the new music to the point where we know it inside out, and it's evolved to a place that I could have never imagined just on my own. Once we're at the end of the tour, we go to the studio and record that stuff after 50-some-odd shows. We make good-sounding records, I think, that way.
Sam: Does that process stress test many of these songs or ideas?
Mike: Oh yeah, for sure. Getting to work out songs in front of an audience every night is really important to know what you want to do with the song. There are some times when it's not about crafting the song to what the audience reacts to, but for me anyway, it's more about "is this an honest thing that I'm telling people on stage every night?" or do I feel like something was kind of not honest about this song and we have to figure out what it is.
Or it can be something like the bass part I wrote, and the drum part I wrote are getting in the way of each other. Those guys have a lifetime of really deep knowledge about how bass and drums can work together, so they can sort of finesse that stuff into a more interesting way to get the song happening. All kinds of things like that happen on the road from doing it every night.
You know, music, I don't think it should exist in a vacuum. If it’s not getting out there with the people, it doesn’t carry the weight that I think music ought to.
Sam: Do you feel the same way about the improv? By the end of a run of shows, do you have a better gauge of where the improv is either coming from or where it's going?
Mike: Yeah, I think that the more you can improvise with people, the better you understand how to communicate with them in that way. I think that it’s more about understanding how to interact with people. The more you do that, the better you’ll get at it.
Everybody's going to improvise and approach music in a different way, and that's just like someone's personality; everybody's different. Everybody's an individual, which is what's cool about doing it in music this way. If you meet someone for the first time and improvise together, that’s exciting and great. It's like making a new friend. But the more you do it over the years and a number of shows, the more you build a more intimate relationship with someone like you would in your life. They can get to deeper things with it the more you do it with someone.
Sam: I know many bands in that realm have said they feel misrepresented by studio recordings. Do you ever feel that sentiment, or do you feel like because of time spent on the road, you come into the studio with a little bit more of a gauge on exactly what you want?
Mike: The way I think about it is that they're two pretty different things. I don't think you can capture a live feel with the music in a studio environment. I think you can make a live record. It's fun to approach it in a way different from what you can do live. So, a lot of times, the studio versions of these songs have a lot of little extra things happening in them.
We’re a trio, so there’s only so much you can do live with one guitar, a bass, and drums. I mean, there's a lot you can do, don't get me wrong. But there's stuff that you can't replicate in a live show from that. Yet at the same time there's things that happen live that you can't replicate in the studio.
The energy, the interaction that you see in the audience kind of propels it. Whether it's the improvisation or just the song’s energy or tempo. I like to kind of not think about them as the same thing. If I were trying to recreate what we do live in the studio, yeah, I probably would feel kind of disappointed that it wasn't the same, but I don't think it's supposed to be the same thing.
Sam: Speaking of things you can only accomplish in a studio setting, can you tell me about the instrumental interludes on the record?
Mike: So, it’s a different listening experience on the vinyl version. I had both Watt and Hodges separately improvise solos for about 30 minutes each in the studio that day and I just asked them to improvise on themes of their parts for the other songs in the record. So they might take a drum or bass part from one song and play it slower, play it faster, or just improvise off the themes in that part.
Then, after recording, I went home, and I listened to all this stuff for days. I listened to Watt playing solo bass on the stereo around the house. I would sit there and go, “Oh, this part would sound good with this other part that he played!" They had no awareness of what the other person was playing. I would find these moments and edit them together, and then I would sort of transcribe what they were playing and compose these guitar parts to overdub.
So I think the effect is that you're listening to these instrumental pieces that reference music to come later in the album and some that have come already in your listening, depending on where you are. It just makes for a more interesting listening experience if you're going to sit down with the record. It kind of puts you in that state where you don't know what's composed, you don't know what's improvised, you don't know if you've heard it before, or you don't know if you're going to hear it later.
I like that moment when you wake up from a dream, and you don't know if you're still dreaming or if it's reality. Music can get you into that place sometimes, so I try to find ways to get people there.
Little Mike Hung His Head
Sam: How has your approach to vocals differed on the new album?
Mike: I've been playing guitar for about over 30 years now, but I only started singing with this band maybe four or five years ago. When I was little, I took guitar lessons, and I remember one week, I learned a song, and I was singing along with it, singing the words to it. The teacher said, “Yeah, great guitar part, but maybe no more singing." So little Mike hung his head, and he was like, “Oh, I'm never singing again." Looking back on it now it's a really detrimental thing to do to a kid at that age.
So anyway, I've always loved vocals. I obviously have listened to a lot of music with singers, and that's a big part of music. I never had that confidence after that until a couple of years ago. mssv was making some 7”s, and I was writing music for it. I had come up with a story about this couple of songs, and I told Watt, “Hey do you think you can put some words to this? I think these songs need some words."
I sent him the story, and then he sent back the vocal track, and I was listening to it thinking, "Man, this sounds familiar." I realized he had just basically taken what I sent him, the words, and just sort of finessed it a little bit to make it work for his vocal part. At that point, I thought, "Whoa, I can write lyrics! This is not bad." I just sort of had a little bolt of confidence, and I asked those guys, “Would you mind if I tried doing words with this band?" They were like, "No, of course not. Why would we mind? We were wondering why you haven't been singing." So they let me try, and it's been cool. Those guys have been great to learn from as far as singing with them.
Sam: It sounds to me like they gave you confidence in something that you've been holding on to for a while.
Mike: Absolutely. Yeah, I owe them not only for playing my music but also for helping me find my voice in that way. So this is the third album where I'm doing some more vocals. I've gotten more comfortable with it, for sure. Doing 50 shows in a row will make you pretty comfortable singing.
Sam: Is there any particular place you're excited to play or return to, or maybe has just embraced your music over the years?
Mike: I'm happy to play any place. You know, whether we've played it before and we can see people we've seen who come back again, or if it's a new place and we get to meet new people that haven't had the chance to see us or hear what we do. I'm just thankful for all of it.
Music is a tricky thing in society these days, especially being able to take it out on the road and take it to people. It seems like it doesn't get easier the more you do it. I'm just really thankful that we still get to do it and for everybody who comes to hear us.
One Action Leads to Another
Sam: Going back to the songs on the album, I felt like "On and On" and "OK to Change" seem to follow the most traditional sort of rock or pop songwriting structure. Is there anything to the writing process of those in particular that differs from the others?
Mike: Some songs I write just come out like that, and others I write ask for a different treatment. Maybe there's no chorus or maybe the song is slightly different from what people might usually experience. So I didn't have to change too much about them. Sometimes, when you write a song, they just pour out of you and are easy. Sometimes, you have an idea and you have to kind of investigate that idea for a long time before you can figure out what it is. Those two songs you're asking about just kind of came out pretty quickly, which, for me, is not common in writing music.
Sam: How do you think that translates to the live setting, between songs that come out easily versus those that require more attention?
Mike: Well, I think as far as the listeners go, one cool thing about this band is that the three of us have somewhat different backgrounds in music. I come from a long history in improvised music, free improvisation, and writing songs. Watt's obviously got a well-known history with the Minutemen, fIREHOSE, The Stooges, and a million other bands.
And then Hodges, of course, has this deep background in blues and R&B, but also being super creative and inventing that trash drum sound on those early Tom Waits records. Also, he's done projects with David Lynch, Fire Walk With Me. So there are all these reasons people might come to see the band that has nothing to do with our music right off the bat, which is my point.
People might want to come and see Watt. They might want to come and see me and wonder what I am doing in a rock band. They might want to see what Hodges will be playing, thinking, “The last time I saw him, he was with Mavis Staples.” I like that because it's an opportunity to introduce people to brand-new types of music.
If someone's coming because they like Punk rock music, with a capital P, and they think it's all Dead Kennedys or something, they're going to find out something different. Or if they think Hodges can only play R&B beats, they will find out something different. If they didn't even know I sang, they will find out something totally different.
I relish the opportunity to introduce new audiences to new things that we're all capable of together, especially as a band with the new music. Sometimes, you get people who have never experienced free improvisation, and they get to hear some of us do it. Sometimes, you get to play for people who didn't know a band could be super quiet with amps and drums, and then they didn't expect it to be as loud as we can get with our dynamics and stuff, too. So yeah, that's kind of really fun to see people experience things they didn’t know they would experience in the music.
Sam: Is there a particular message that you want people to take away from this record and, on the other side of the coin, take away from the live show experience?
Mike: You know, I just kind of want people to have an open mind about music, and then maybe it will help them have an open mind about the rest of life, too. The record is called On and On, and I think many things are interconnected in life and the universe—without getting too metaphysical.
I just think it's really important for people to understand how much things are connected below the surface, things we can't see. You know, one action can lead to another somewhere far away, and people have to think about that. I think it's the same thing if you come to a show. Just have an open mind, enjoy yourself, and experience something new. If you can take something away from it, you can take that with you for the rest of your life.
mssv is currently on tour, and there's a decent chance they're playing near you. Check out the tour dates at mainsteamstopvalve.com. You can purchase mssv's On and On from Bandcamp or Qobuz and listen on your streaming platform of choice.
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