Mountain Goats find firm footing in collaboration

There was a time when the name John Darnielle was interchangeable with the name the Mountain Goats. The Mountain Goats was Darnielle’s one-man operation. He would write the lyrics, the music and take on the recording process by himself, establishing himself as a writer’s writer among his indie-rock peers.

As years passed, Darnielle began to bring in collaborators, and some of those collaborators have turned into permanent band members.

Peter Hughes is one. Before he and the band set out on tour in support of their latest album, “Beat the Champ,” Hughes discussed how much of the Mountain Goats’ operation remains in Darnielle’s control.

Question: Are they making you do this interview because the show in Cincinnati is not selling well?

Answer: Well, I don’t know. It could be. It doesn’t hurt. You know, it’s funny. John does most of the interview stuff, so he gets really hammered, and he gets really burned out on talking to people. But I hardly ever do. I don’t mind doing interviews at all. It’s not a burden.

Q: When you say hammered, does he get drunk in order to do the interviews?

A: No, no, no, no, no. He gets hammered with obligations to do interviews. He’s doing tons of interviews up to the tour. He spends a lot of time talking to people on the phone about the Mountain Goats, whereas I don’t spend quite as much time, so I don’t mind doing it.

Q: Does John write all of the music, in addition to writing the lyrics?

A: Not all. He writes the song, whether it’s on guitar or piano. He’ll come up with the chord progression and the melodies and the basic song, and then Jon Wurster, our drummer, and I will come up with our own parts. John doesn’t write my bass parts. And then we’ll get together and kind of arrange stuff and hash things out. Definitely the arrangements are more of a collaborative effort, but the songs themselves are John’s.

Q: So you and Wurster have leeway in terms of the way you play on the record or the way the record sounds?

A: Oh, totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Making the records is very collaborative. We’ll work up our parts individually, and I’ll usually come up with a few different looks for a given song, just because experience has taught us over the years that when we actually get together and start working on arrangements together, sometimes the song will just come together automatically, and other times it might take a few different approaches to find what serves the song best. But that kind of thing is just really driven by the song itself. You really just try to listen and let the song dictate where it goes. Sometimes it’s an elliptical journey and sometimes it’s direct. It happens both ways.

Q: The songs usually start with the lyrics, right? You’re not the type of band that would go in and jam, and then John writes lyrics to suit. Has it ever worked like that?

A: It hasn’t. We’ve talked about doing stuff like that, possibly somewhere down the road, just like as an experiment, because we’ve never done it that way.

Q: What was the concept of the music for this record? How did you want it to sound, in terms of its relation to the lyrics?

A: Really it’s the same as we’ve always approached it. We don’t sit down before we make a record and have a band meeting and say, “OK, this record is going to sound like this.” It really is more organic and intuitive and really just responding to the songs individually and figuring out what’s the best way to approach a given lyric. The lyrics really are the central focus. We’re really trying to find the best way to frame them and get them across.

It’s funny. You don’t really have a sense of what the album is going to sound like as a whole until you’re finished, and then it’s surprising to hear people’s reaction to it. I’ve heard a lot of people saying that this record just sounds a lot different from the last ones or previous ones, and it’s super-interesting to me just because I never really think that it did. And now I listen to it through other people’s ears, and it’s kind of like, “Oh, I guess I could see that.” But for us, it’s more of a continuity of working.

Q: Is there anything about you other than your ability to play an instrument well that makes you a good fit for the band and a good music-making partner to John?

A: It’s having been friends for 20-plus years. John and I have known each other since we’ve both lived in California, since we were much younger men. So there’s just common experience and friendship and empathy. And I’ve always been a fan of his songs from the very beginning. For me personally what makes me able to work with it, it’s just that I love the stuff. I love John’s writing. So it’s always really fun to get my hands on new songs and have a part in creating new music.

If you go

What: The Mountain Goats with Ides of Gemini

When: 7 p.m. Thursday, April 16

Where: Bogart’s, 2621 Vine, Corryville; 513-872-8801

Tickets: $29.27