Morgan Henderson biked about 10 miles from his West Seattle dwelling to Fonté Espresso within the Denny Triangle neighborhood to fulfill The Stranger. Whereas that commute would tax most musicians, it did not appear to faze him. It is merely a tiny fraction of the mileage that he is run in races such because the Cascade Crest 100 ultramarathon.
To place it frivolously, musicians—particularly these of Henderson’s renown—aren’t well-known for his or her love of pounding the pavement on foot for a number of hours. The Seattle multi-instrumentalist is a part of a small crew of musicians who compete in long-distance operating occasions. Morgan’s buddy Ben Gibbard might be essentially the most notable amongst them, and, sure, Henderson’s logged many miles with Demise Cab for Cutie’s frontman.
Given how in-demand this glorious and adaptable participant is, it is superb that Henderson, 46, has time to coach for the Seattle Marathon and different for much longer races. Apart from his principal gig as MVP (Most Versatile Performer) for folk-rock phenoms the Fleet Foxes, Henderson has bolstered a few of Seattle’s most celebrated and unjustly obscure teams over the past 25-plus years. A partial checklist consists of rustic indie-rockers the Cave Singers, post-punk savants Previous Lives, Spencer Moody’s bizarre new jam band, the Blind Seekers, and dual-sax experimenters the Ocean. He is additionally contributed to data by and carried out with the Walkmen, Hamilton Leithauser, Russian Circles, the Lifeless Science, and J.R.C.G., amongst others. And, most newsworthy of all, he is returning to bass/keyboard duties for post-hardcore nerve-frayers the Blood Brothers’ reunion tour, which is able to have a good time the Twentieth-anniversary reissue of Crimes all through November and December. Extra on that later.
As a younger man, Henderson most well-liked practising his devices—which embody upright and electrical bass, guitar, keyboards, violin, percussion, saxophone, flute, and clarinet—over operating. Though he was a motorcycle messenger within the early ’00s and subsequently match, his preliminary foray into operating went poorly. At some point a pal who rode for Recycled Cycles’s racing crew instructed Henderson he was going to go for a run as a substitute of a motorcycle experience, and Morgan could not perceive why. He thought operating was horrible, regardless that many individuals stated he regarded like a runner.
Watching a documentary in regards to the New York Metropolis Marathon in 2010 swayed Henderson to tentatively discover the game. He remembers, “I attempted to run on a Blood Brothers tour as soon as and I most likely had on Converse footwear and denims, and I could not stroll the remainder of the day. I most likely ran half a mile. I believed, ‘I am not meant to run. I will most likely by no means do this once more.’ As a result of it harm.”
How fallacious he was.
The mom of Henderson’s spouse, Jessica Tjalsma, knew somebody who’d competed in a 135-mile race referred to as Badwater in California’s Demise Valley. This ultramarathoner suggested Henderson to acquire trainers and significantly attempt operating. He did so, only a mile a day for a lot of months. Then one night time he impulsively did three miles, stunning himself. “And that is the way it began,” he says. “What does operating imply? It feels good, it hurts, it is a problem. It’s going to really feel horrible after which rapidly it feels extremely straightforward and superb, and you do not know why.”
After a pair years of coaching, Henderson ran the Seattle Marathon—which has a 1,600-foot elevation—in 2012. His greatest time for that distance is a good three hours and 18 minutes. He is additionally run a 100k (62 miles) in Oregon, a 50k (31 miles) in Bellingham, and the aforementioned Jap Washington 100-miler, Cascade Crest. His greatest time on the latter distance is 27 hours and alter.
Simply being awake for 27 hours is a problem. How does Henderson truly full this race? Does he nap throughout it? “I do not sleep for it; some individuals do. There is a part of the race referred to as No Title Ridge. It is a very lengthy entry highway [that I usually encounter] proper because the solar is developing. You are popping out of that time of the night time while you’re very delirious, and also you’re beginning to get up as a result of the solar’s developing. And I’ve seen people who find themselves within the grime, sleeping. After which they arrive hauling ass behind me later within the race. Perhaps I ought to sleep, as a result of this particular person’s going to complete earlier than me… As a result of I do not sleep, the toughest half in regards to the restoration of these races is lacking an entire night time of sleep. That has me pretty tousled for every week afterward.
“Primarily, [ultramarathoning is] about sustaining your capability to drink and eat meals, and also you simply preserve going. Some individuals can run the entire thing. Some individuals hike up the steeper climbs and take breaks. For me, it is a combination of operating and mountaineering. Generally I am mountaineering actually quick and different occasions you are simply all the way down to a crawl.”
As a former marathoner myself, I discover it odd that runners eat throughout races, however ultras are a a lot harder endurance exercise than your primary 26.2 miles. Eventually yr’s Cascade Crest, Henderson consumed Maurten Power Gels, which “type of style like marshmallows, however they’re very delicate. I had another stuff that was approach too candy and approach too salty, and I actually suffered. However on the finish of the run, it is 100% water and Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola’s recipe of candy and salty—particularly if it is flat—I can get that down, I do not get sick, and I preserve going.
“It is a bizarre factor to do. I actually love long-distance operating, however there is no a part of me pretending that it is the wholesome solution to run.”
Henderson described this yr’s Cascade Crest as personally disastrous. “I ended up getting heatstroke and needed to bail out at 30 miles. Had I completed, it might have been my fifth end there. You get a particular belt buckle in the event you end 5 occasions; I used to be actually wanting ahead to that. I will should attempt once more subsequent yr.”
Henderson spent all of August recovering from that ordeal. He is begun coaching 50 to 70 miles every week for the Seattle Marathon in December. “I biked right here as a result of I am nonetheless making an attempt to verify I can take the speed-work portion of marathon coaching.”
Sustaining a operating schedule when touring usually presents logistical issues—but additionally some fortuitous revelations. Henderson raves about an incredible stretch throughout a Fleet Foxes European jaunt for the Crack-Up album. “We have been in Montreux for a few days and I ran up into the mountains there. I might get up early and I used to be energized by [the scenery]. It was so lovely.”
Whereas in Montreux, the Foxes attended a session on the home as soon as owned by the late founding father of that Swiss metropolis’s jazz pageant, Claude Nobs, the place they’d the uncommon likelihood to jam with the Roots. “And I needed to choose between jamming with the Roots or operating within the mountains. I really like the Roots, however I gotta go into these mountains. [The Fleet Foxes] nonetheless have footage of them hanging out with the Roots, and I actually missed out. One [reason], I had a race. Two, I simply had to be in these mountains.”
There you might have it: Morgan Henderson’s priorities in a nutshell! He laughs and says, “I do know! I simply could not keep up that late if I used to be gonna get up at 4:30 am or no matter to do a 20-mile run, get well, and play a present. In that mode, I mainly don’t have anything to do all day.” After an extended morning run, he normally takes a nap within the afternoon earlier than a present. “I would not do [a long run] with the Blood Brothers, although. There’s not loads of headbanging happening within the Fleet Foxes.”
After I requested Henderson in a membership a number of weeks in the past if he thought there is a symbiotic relationship between operating and his music, he stated he did not suppose there was a connection. However now he admits “the method of practising and dealing on music is similar as engaged on operating. After I’m happening a exercise run, I’m practising operating. I apply my devices on daily basis, so there’s the self-discipline it takes to get higher at an instrument; to get higher at operating takes the identical self-discipline.
“So far as the artistic facet goes, operating shouldn’t be a spot the place I usually get inspiration. It is extra like I am getting some area from the focus of engaged on one thing. That being stated, there are occasions once I’m stomping out, and rapidly, a rhythm or one thing is coming into my head, and I would pull out my telephone and attempt to [document it] so I could make sense out of it later.”
In contrast to many individuals, Henderson does not hearken to music whereas he runs. “I did initially, however the tempo of no matter I am listening to is just too distracting to run to. For [100-mile races], I’ve downloaded the identical audiobook, Jon Ronson’s Misplaced at Sea, for once I get bored or drained, and I’ve by no means listened to it.”
Going again to his musical actions, it is clear that Henderson is as cell in that realm as he’s on roads and trails. Whereas his first bands—Dempsey, Nineironspitfire, the Blood Brothers—trafficked in post-hardcore’s broad-shouldered aggression, Henderson’s newer initiatives (together with soundtrack work) discover extra nuanced territory. For instance, the Blind Seekers, Spencer Moody’s low-key deviation from Homicide Metropolis Devils. That includes Afrocop’s Noel Brass Jr. and Andy Sells and Henderson’s associate within the Ocean, Joel Cuplin, the debut LP, The Blind Seekers, offers in low-lit jazz rock over which the chief orates cryptic tales, like a hip priest.
“I stated sure, probably not understanding what to anticipate. No person got here in with something ready. We simply type of went for it. After I hearken to tracks from that file, I nonetheless query, ‘Was I there for that? I do not bear in mind doing that.’ [Cuplin and I] overdubbed some horns on it afterward. It was very groove-oriented and everybody went with their first instincts.
“It was perhaps two days of recording, and I did not give it some thought once more. I barely considered it whereas we have been doing it. Here is a bass line, this is a groove, and we simply went. Spencer’s voice, the phrases he chooses to say, they’ve a approach of contextualizing any music that is occurring. It is an attention-grabbing file consequently. The label [Displaced Snail] does a selected lathe reduce that makes it very noisy and textured, which provides an entire different dimension to it.
“Spencer is such a singular particular person and artist. The best way that I’d’ve approached recording that album shouldn’t be the way in which we did it. Every little thing was very free and match into Spencer’s world.”
Henderson entered the Ocean at Cuplin’s request. The Fixed Lovers saxophonist/guitarist satisfied Rabbit Field Theatre proprietor Robynne Hawthorne to let him host an open-format music month-to-month—additionally referred to as the Ocean—on the Pike Place Market area. They looped in former Lifeless Science drummer Nick Tamburro for frequent appearances and invited varied visitors, akin to Pseudo Saint/Fixed Lovers flautist Brenna Kamppi, to hitch every session for spontaneous, free-form live shows that end in illuminating surprises for each performers and audiences. [Full disclosure: I DJed at one of these events.]
“It rapidly turned clear there was one thing there that I actually wished to discover, particularly with Joel and me. So, perhaps we do two units the place the second set is [a collaboration], however the first is Joel and I making an attempt to work out this factor that I’ve a tough time defining. It felt like I am chasing an concept.
“I am making an attempt very arduous to reach someplace that the place I am not even certain the place that’s. [On September 8 at Vera Project, we opened] for Colin Stetson. We put loads of effort into that present, making an attempt to have materials that’s the place we’re making an attempt to go. We performed the present and instantly I used to be like, ‘Okay, now I bought it.’ After each present I believe that.”
For the Ocean, Henderson makes use of an Octatrack MIDI controller that controls two synthesizers—a Moog Siren, which creates the bass sound, and a Nord Drum, “which inserts between rhythm and tonic sounds.” Cuplin deploys a looper and results models, so his loops correlate to Henderson’s actions.
He views the Ocean because the truest expression of his musical talents “as a result of it calls for a bit extra of me. As a result of I am making an attempt to be current and make one thing occur within the second, but additionally write issues, so far as the electronics go, that arrange a world through which to discover. Not in contrast to any jazz or improvisational music the place they could have some constructions that they constructed forward of time—songs that they are going to mess around in. It takes fairly a bit to be within the second, listening to what Nick and Joel are doing and attempt to make one thing occur in that second.”
Wow-wow, Henderson’s cross-country duo with NYC-based Pollens member Jeff Aaron Bryant, could be essentially the most attention-grabbing undertaking in his discography. Their extremely percussive, unusually textured instrumentals sound vaguely like ceremonial South Pacific Island excursions transplanted into an natural techno matrix. It is 1000’s of miles away from Fleet Foxes’ healthful folks hymns and proves that Henderson’s artistic impulses are getting extra adventurous as he goes. It is no shock that Justin Gallego of J.R.C.G. tapped wow-wow to open their latest album-release present at Clock-Out Lounge.
So, this autumn, as he trains for a marathon, Henderson may even be serving to to resurrect the spasmodic, heavy rock of the Blood Brothers, who’re coming off a decade-long hiatus. Anticipation for the band’s return has been fervent, and so they’ll do two nights on the Showbox (November 14-15), though Henderson was too busy to dwell on the reunion’s influence.
Have the group needed to do loads of rehearsing to relearn the songs? “We bought collectively months in the past, lengthy earlier than we confirmed that we have been going to do the present, simply to see what it felt wish to play. I am the one [member] who’s nonetheless professionally a musician, so it is like getting in control for them. I am not saying that critically; they only do not do it on daily basis like [they used to].
“Regardless of me having bands earlier than and after them, these guys are—no pun supposed—like my brothers. It is a very familial relation between the 5 of us. The persons are the identical, the jokes are the identical. We wrote these songs a very long time in the past partially to have enjoyable and to flex our artistic freedom, and it nonetheless feels that approach.
“So far as studying them goes, for me a minimum of, when you find yourself a part of the artistic means of one thing, the logic is all nonetheless within me. It did not take a ton of time for me to recollect [the songs]. It was extra about remembering the logic of what I used to be taking part in fairly than sure elements.
“It is very heartening to see how excited persons are. It looks like persons are enthusiastic about loud and heavy music nonetheless. And that is encouraging to me, as a result of rising up, that is the music I gravitated towards—issues that have been a bit outlandish.”
See the Ocean with Chris Icasiano of Fleet Foxes and Pure Bathing Tradition on Wednesday, October 9, at Rabbit Field Theatre, 7 pm, $16.69, all ages.
