Left Hand Smoke

Just like rock band Left Hand Smoke’s fabulous tune, “The LA Song,” “I’m going to go where it’s really real, and not black and white,” you need to dial into the real music, of this terrific and talented Seattle based group. On a rock scene where there appears to be a dearth of genuine innovators, Left Hand Smoke’s music is far from black and white. It is colorful, creative, and inspires listeners to tap their feet, move their hips, and sing along.

Left Hand Smoke’s lead singer, keyboardist and primary lyricist Ben Mish, took time to speak with me a couple of times over the past month, providing insight into the band’s music, answer questions about their albums, and to talk about their gigs. In addition to Ben Mish, Left Hand Smoke is also comprised of, his brother Will Mish (guitarist), lifelong friend Ronan O’Mahony (guitar / backing vocals), and drummer Andrew Cloutier.

The 2006 CD At The Hotel demonstrates a maturing of the band’s sound, signaling that they are capable of taking on the big boys, and jockeying for chart space on Billboard and R&R. The album opens with the smoking “Sugar On Sunday,” segues into the melodic “The LA Song,” which possesses a beautiful change of pace bridge, and then as the disc begins to wind down, the band shakes things up with the risqué title track, “At The Hotel.”

Ben Mish says, concerning the songs on the CD At The Hotel, “Some of them I had been working on for a while, and some of them came about during the preproduction process. I usually have a whole bunch of songs lying around, so when it is time to go into the recording studio, I always (well prepared). We just continued to work on the songs when it was time to record. In this case, there were quite a few, like “The LA Song,” “You Got Soul,” and “At The Hotel,” that we had been working on for a while. We had been playing them live.”

Although it has not always been the case for previous Left Hand Smoke albums, the majority of the tunes on At The Hotel are ballads. Mish explains, “On other albums, I think that I came from a different perspective when I wrote the songs, but in this case, it felt comfortable to be the storyteller. The storyteller role is one that I like, but sometimes it is more about just trying to get an emotion across. Sometimes you can get that (emotion) across easier when you are telling a story, than you can by just trying to say what you are trying to say. Some songs have lots of lyrics, and some songs have very few lyrics. Sometimes I will come in with a bunch of lyrics, and then the music will make me want to change it, so that I have just a few (words). At other times, I will come in with a long story, and then I will realize that there is no way that I can get this story across in this song. I just have to get certain words or phrases out, and that’s what is really going to work.”

The song, “Fallin’ In Love With A Dream,” from At The Hotel, is a song where Mish was able to use his excellent vocal ability to communicate the emotion. He uses a falsetto to communicate the heartbreak of a girl in love with a guy, but she realizes that her dream is slipping away, because he has other aspirations.

“I like doing falsetto, so every now and again I will have a falsetto part in a song. I brought that into “Fallin’ In Love With A Dream,” when we were just jammin’ on it. I had a melody that was an octave lower, and I was just messing around with that. I started turning into a falsetto, just for fun. I was trying different things, and it seemed to stick. That seems to be how it works sometimes, where you are just messing around with something and it works,” says Mish.

As At The Hotel continues to spin, you realize just how good Left Hand Smoke really is. This is far from being a one dimensional band, that simply bangs out hard driving guitar riffs, although, Will Mish and O’Mahony can easily hold their own with most of the premier rock guitarist on the music scene today.

While “Fallin’ In Love With A Dream,” demonstrates a sensitive and prettier side to the band’s music, the tune, “Too Late, Too Late,” lets the listener hear the fun, quirkier side of their music.

“I thought I would write a breakup song, about time running out, and that was the phrasing that I decided to use, a rapid fire lyric. It ended up working pretty well on the song “Too Late, Too Late,” Mish says, in explaining the creative process behind the song. Mish leads the charge with up-tempo keyboard strokes, while brother Will and O’Mahony serve up some scintillating guitar riffs.

Photo above: Left to Right: Ben Mish, Will Mish, Andrew Cloutier, Ronan O'Mahony

March 2008