Matt Lorenz tours as The Suitcase Junket, and the name is literal. One man, a suitcase kick drum, pedals under both feet, and a guitar do the work of a full band, every night, in rooms across the country. We asked him how the rig came together, how you write songs for a band of one, and what the road actually looks like from inside it. His answers are below.
Your live show is a marvel of engineering as much as music — suitcase kick drum, resonator, everything driven by your hands and feet at once. How has the rig evolved from the early days, and is there a piece of it you're still trying to perfect?
The rig has come a long way since the beginning. It started off as a homemade plywood box, kind of like a cajon, with one pedal under each heel. I called it the boomchick machine because it only made those two sounds. Next I added the hi-hat for right toe and a washboard for left foot that I would slide my heel and stomp on for a kind of snare roll and snap. That eventually got replaced by the two can drums and around the same time I switched to a suitcase kick so I could put everything in there when travelling. The saw blade and box of bones were added next and this configuration has remained fairly constant for a number of years. I have to replace the metal "head" on the gas can about once year (license plates) and I have boxes of different materials and varying configurations of bones/chains/silverware that drop into those boxes depending on the tone I'm looking for. Different elements have come and go
over the years - a small keyboard, a floor-tom, a shoe-dropping device that sounds like a flammed tom - and I'm always hunting down new sounds or tweaking elements here and there but the main 6-pedal set-up I have been using for a while is here to stay. Till it breaks.
Writing songs you know you'll perform entirely alone has to shape the writing itself. How does a Suitcase Junket song come together differently than it would in a full band?
My writing process varies. Sometimes I'm writing while playing the whole rig and it's like a spontaneous improvised discovery that is very much for and of the specific layout of the suitcase junket. Other times it's a more writerly process of wandering in the woods, letting the mind off leash, sitting and thinking with a guitar or piano at hand. Those songs don't always end up as junket songs, but some do and then they become more of a rehearsal/arrangement puzzle.
You're out on the road right now — what's the reality of touring as a one-man band that the audience never sees?
Externally manifested split personality disorder? Maybe the audience does see that, though? You have to do literally everything. Tour manager, driver, roadie, guitar tech, drum tech, merch person, performer. It's a lot of parts to play and can be pretty exhausting but if you can compartmentalize the different jobs into different personas...well. Just ask my roadie. They are somehow full of manic energy all the time.
The resonator is such a core part of your sound. What are you playing these days, and what drew you to those instruments?
Wellllll, truth be told no resonator. BUT you are correct that it sounds like one. The first batch of junket songs and the overall guitar tone, were discovered with/inside of a beat up old acoustic that I pulled out of a dumpster. It's almost more of a toy than a real instrument. I believe it's a teisco of some kind and I still use that guitar for most of the junket songs. It only sounds good tuned to open C which is one of the things that makes it ring like a resonator. A few years ago I found an electric guitar that's basically the same as that acoustic in terms of era and make, so that's joined the band. More recently I had a beautiful acoustic built by Trevor Healy out of some wood that was given to me by a friend who had salvaged it from the dump under the brooklyn bridge in the seventies. It's probably the nicest thing I own and yet it still somehow has its origins in a trash heap.
You've been at this long enough to watch the one-man-band go from novelty act to a genuine living tradition. What has this project taught you about what a single performer can hold?
It's been a difficult road at times trying to shrug off the yoke of the novelty act and prove that it's more than a sideshow of "look at me! look at me! Tada!" I've never really wanted listeners to get bogged down in that aspect of the performance. For me it's song first, accompaniment after and in many ways I didn't set out to be a one-man-band. I started doing it as a kind of personal challenge and also a financial necessity in the beginning when I was playing those $300 and a meal for 3 hours of music bar gigs. What I love about the tradition and other folks who decide to be multi-instrumental solo performers is the unique approach of each individual; the inspiration, ingenuity and technical problem solving of people like Jesse Fuller or Eric Royer.
The First Guitar Question: What was your first guitar, and what do you play now?
The first acoustic I played was a Castilla from the attic that only had two strings on it. Sunburst finish, hummingbird pickguard, I still remember my first blisters after getting obsessed with trying to play the beatles on that thing. I think my first real guitar that had 6 strings was a hand-me-down ovation and my first electric was a stratocaster copy of some kind.
Ed's take: The Suitcase Junket is the real deal. Matt Lorenz is the singer, the band, the roadie, and the driver, mostly because there's nobody else in the band to argue with. He plays a guitar he pulled out of a dumpster and kicks a suitcase for a drum, and it would all make a fine novelty act if the songs weren't so good. They're better than good. His songwriting is brilliant in the plainspoken way that sneaks up on you and then won't leave. Song first, accompaniment after; he says so himself above. My heroes in this line have left the stage. Todd Snider. John Prine. Nobody fills those shoes. But the line didn't end with them, and Six-String Travels goes out looking for the ones carrying it now. Matt Lorenz is carrying it, with both hands and both feet.
Give it a listen and tell us what you think. If you enjoy discovering new music, pass this along.
Photos courtesy of the artist.
