Edie Brickell Jumps Into a New Era With World Famous Pets

There’s a certain magic in being a part of a band, when chemistry and creativity align to create something that could be born only out of collaboration. Singer-songwriter Edie Brickell, who rose to fame as leader of alt-rock jam band Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, knows that magic well. 

“That’s the addiction of improv,” Brickell tells the Scene. “You discover these ideas inside of you that you didn’t know existed. They didn’t exist before that day. They didn’t exist until the band started playing. The magic of creativity is it’s a reflection of what’s inside you — because we’re all such strangers to ourselves, and it’s just a colorful proof of your existence, hopefully. It is so much about surprising yourself, learning about yourself. And seeing the influence that other people and their creativity has on me, how it changes me and makes me better or stranger, it’s just pure magic.” 

While making New Bohemians’ second album, 1990’s Ghost of a Dog, Brickell formed a creative partnership with drummer, composer and producer Matt Chamberlain (who’s gone on to play with the likes of Brandi Carlile, Tori Amos and Pearl Jam, and was even in the Saturday Night Live house band for two seasons). When Brickell and Chamberlain reunited as part of Paul Simon’s Quiet Celebration Tour, they longed for the opportunity to create music together again. Chamberlain enlisted multi-instrumentalist, producer and songwriter Kaveh Rastegar (whose CV includes work with Bruno Mars and De La Soul) and session guitarist and producer Mason Stoops (who’s played with Jackson Browne and Mumford & Sons, among many others), and World Famous Pets was born. 

The supergroup’s self-titled debut album (out Sept. 25 via Shuffle Records) is a freewheeling exploration of creative fluidity and improvisation, which Rastegar describes as a “trust fall.”

“When you get together with people to improvise and just make something from scratch like this, there’s always a level of trust that you have to have,” Rastegar says, sharing the line with Brickell on our call. “I think everybody has to have their own amount of confidence in just trusting the other people that you’re in the room with, and then just getting to something. When you’re improvising, it’s all about leading and following, and then also being accepting of outcomes that you don’t have strict control over.”

Though Brickell already had a kinship with Chamberlain, she got to know Rastegar and Stoops over the course of six days in the studio.

“I felt sort of shy and a little bit scared,” Brickell recalls. “I couldn’t sleep the night before, because walking in and just not knowing what you’re going to do with strangers making music — it’s a vulnerable feeling. But when they start playing, the music takes over. And then the band, that’s what I love about a band. Four individuals become one entity, and that entity has a bigger personality than anything I could do on my own. It holds more surprises, more mystery, and I think more evolution.” 

During those six days, each band member contributed to the songwriting, often improvising the music and lyrics on the spot. The results run the gamut from the defiant, punk-inspired “I Will Say No” to the playful, buoyant “I Guess It’s You.” Discussing the origins of the second of those two, Brickell explains that Stoops was the first to return from lunch one day during the sessions. She walked in to find him strumming, and she started singing along.

“It just came right out,” she says. “I can’t really explain how that happens or why. A lot of people think that songwriting is autobiographical, and I think a lot of times it is. I think sometimes — or a lot of times for me — it’s just listening to what the music wants to say. That’s the part I can’t really explain.”

World Famous Pets will make their live debut at The Basement East on Sept. 23, marking another new chapter for Brickell. When she released her 1988 debut album with New Bohemians, Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars — which features the ubiquitous hit “What I Am” — the Texas-born songsmith was only 22.

“I loved making music and I loved being in a band, but I didn’t feel comfortable,” Brickell says of her early years. “That was tricky, because I knew how many people would love to be in that position. I felt that those people were more deserving at the time.”

Following Ghost of a Dog, Brickell released the 1994 solo album Picture Perfect Morning and then took a nearly 10-year break from recording. But the music never left her.

“What I recognized when I was out with my kids especially, is that I sang and made up songs all the time,” she says. “When I realized I was constantly thinking about music, I thought, ‘Maybe it’s not a fluke. Maybe I am a musician.’” 

In the early 2010s, legendary drummer Steve Gadd encouraged Brickell to return to the studio following work with his new group The Gaddabouts. This next phase of Brickell’s prolific career began with Love Has Come for You, her critically acclaimed 2013 bluegrass album with Steve Martin. Brickell says the opportunity to collaborate with friends new and old for World Famous Pets is the moment she’s been waiting for.

“I always wanted to be in a classic band that could evolve together, album after album after album. I’m hoping that I’ve landed in that nest and that we can all fly out of it.”