Prolific music duo Misner & Smith on why California is where they do their best work

What does it take to keep a music project fresh and relevant? How do you maintain creativity and continue to evolve? 

The folks behind the Northern California band Misner & Smith know a thing or two about it. 

For nearly two decades, Sam Misner and Megan Smith have been recording and performing beautifully crafted songs with soaring harmonies. 

They will make their first appearance at The Sofia in Sacramento this Saturday, May 30.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview highlights

Your music pulls from a wide variety of genres. With folk and Americana being the predominant ones. What drew each of you to this style of music? 

MISNER: [Playing acoustically] is so immediate. Megan plays the upright bass, I play mostly acoustic guitars. And, there's something about two voices and two instruments, which is mainly what we do when we're not with the band, that [at the] heart of it is accessibility. Being able to do it without a lot of middle people and so many things that go into it.

Yes, the direct connection from the instrument to the music. 

Yeah. And our music doesn't live in one genre. For 22 years we've been stumped when people say ‘what kind of music do you play?’ And we kind of start rattling off, acoustic Americana and folk and jazzy sometimes and rock. But that kind of gumbo is what's so exciting about the music that we get to make together. 

Gumbo, that's a great word for it! I think it's time we should listen to some music. This track is from your most recent album All is Song. We're going to listen to “Tears and Ink” which we recorded right here in the CapRadio studios.

You are both from Northern California. I've been listening to the album on my commute from work and it's felt like the perfect soundtrack for the pockets of beauty throughout our state. Do you feel like California has made its way into your music? 

MISNER: Oh, what a cool question.

SMITH: I love that. 

MISNER: I love thinking of you driving, listening to it because we both do a lot of driving on [tour] and listening to music can be that soundtrack. I grew up in Sonoma County out west of Petaluma in the country and my family is still out there. Megan grew up in Davis, we lived in San Francisco.

SMITH: We love this place. I think [that’s why] we chose to stay here. There were times where as an artist we were thinking about moving to New York or you know somewhere else to try to get our music out there. But ultimately being here in Northern California is where we feel most ourselves and we're able to do our best work.

As you were both recording these songs here at the CapRadio Studios, there was this unmistakable energy and chemistry in the room and in the music. What has it been like trying to capture the energy of this music in a studio recording session? 

MISNER: It's a challenge and you know, when I first fell in love with music, you just kind of assumed that you went into the studio and just recorded it and that's how it was. 

Boom, here’s a song!

MISNER: Exactly. And you know, we're very much live performers and we love being in the studio but the magic of what we do is best witnessed live, I think. And so being able to craft something in the studio while not losing the magic, the electric [feeling] of things bouncing off each other. It's very easy to lose that in a studio. It can sound perfect, but you lose the kind of X factor that's there.

So, keeping an eye on that throughout as you're listening, as you're building the songs each layer and going do we still have that? And with us, the vocals are probably the biggest part of that. So, often those are the last things we record. The vocals are riding off of the energy of the music and vice versa. But it's a tricky dance and you kind of can sometimes listen back and go ‘Ooh, we lost it.’

You mentioned taking your music in the live setting is the best place to do it. You'll be performing this Saturday at the Sophia here in Sacramento. What can listeners expect to see? You'll have a full band with you, right? 

SMITH: We have a couple of amazing musicians who we made the album with. Our drummer Dillon Vado is out of Oakland, he’s an amazing person to watch do his thing. Bruce Kaphan was our co-producer on this record. He's like a Swiss-army-knife musician. He does almost everything. 

MISNER: He'll be playing pedal steel guitar, electric guitar, mandolin, keyboards, electric bass on a song, electric 12-string guitar. So, he's a site to behold stage left. 

We're excited to be able to play with this band and really flesh these songs out, the way we hear them in our head. We do a lot just the two of us, but when we can bring these songs to their full extent, it's a really beautiful thing.