El Paso musician Jim Ward finds inspiration and new music for a new album during pandemic
Maria Cortes Gonzalez
In the midst of a pandemic that was affecting both his tour plans and restaurant, El Paso musician Jim Ward decided to return to music.
"I needed to return to what music initially was for me, which is kind of therapeutic and reviving. And so I started writing these songs," he said in a recent interview.
That song writing in 2020 which organically ended up including other well-known musicians, led to a solo album, Daggers on Dine Alone Records.
Ward, known for his iconic bands At the Drive-In, Sparta and his alt-country project, Sleepercar, will perform along with Emily Davis and the Murder Police todayat the RockHouse Bar & Grill on Montana Ave.
He is planning to go on the road to play songs from his new album as well as some Sparta songs. Before the pandemic, he was set to tour to promote another record he had worked on in 2018.
Daggers was created quite differently because of the pandemic. Ward was never able to share a room with any of his collaborators, such as Incubus bassist Ben Kenney and Thursday drummer Tucker Rule.
"I would sort of write a song at night and then I would send it to my friend, Tucker Rule, who plays drums and he would send me back drum parts that afternoon and we kind of did that for a couple of weeks and then our friend Ben Kenney from Incubus would put some bass on these songs.
"And then I sang on them and then all of a sudden out of nowhere we had a record. So sort of the, you know, (it was) the silver lining of being home and sort of needing an outlet," he said.
The record is made of 10 songs, 10 songs finished in two weeks. But Ward is not generally surprised.
"It was, sort of shockingly fast and unexpected, but also, I think those things come out of necessity. So that was us needing to communicate, this record was totally made out of friendship, you know?
"It was us just trying to connect when we couldn't physically connect. We found a way of connecting musically, and even though my name is on the front of the record, there's a lot of people that went into the making of it — all of which was done via email and phone calls," he said.
Ward describes the album as being one of his most optimistic.
"I usually kind of live in the darker section of the psyche. It's sort of my personality, although I'm pretty outgoing and friendly" he said.
Ward says he might have started out angry, with what was happening politically and socially but somehow he turned that around.
"All those frustrations were wanting to come out of me. And by the end of it, it was sort of a pep talk to myself," he said.
Ward suspects he was just one of many musicians who found inspiration and found themselves making music during quarantine.
"It's easy to lose inspiration when the only thing you do is getting in a bus and get on stage and go backstage and get in a bus and go on stage and go back. So like we — it's hard to break out of that cycle and be inspired to make something," he said.
He added, "I think what we're about to see, and we're already seen it, is a lot of records that came out of musicians being home and re-establishing some roots and reconnecting with some family members and finding new inspirations."
María Cortés González may be reached at 915-546-6150; mcortes@elpasotimes.com; @EPTMaria on Twitter.
Make plans:
Who: Jim Ward along with Emily Davis and the Murder Police.
When: Tonight, Sept. 28. Doors open at 8 p.m.; show starts at 9 p.m.
Where: RockHouse Bar & Grill, 9828 Montana Ave.
How much: Tickets are $18 plus fees on Eventbrite.com
Information: 915-591-7625.