Brooklyn-based Woods thrives in natural environments, often recording songs in jam sessions done at home or writing tunes while pulled over on the side of the road.
“It’s all pretty off-the-cuff,” band member Lucas Crane said. “It’s about connecting, and matching, and figuring out what works.”
Woods will make a stop at the Picador, 330 E. Washington St., at 9 p.m. today, during its crawl across America while touring for its latest album, Songs of Shame. Wet Hair, Peaking Lights, and Taterbug will also play; admission is $7.
Woods’ genesis occurred in 2005, when the members met in New York after finishing college. Crane said the members’ friendship plays a large role in how the group creates music.
“It’s probably the major factor,” he said. “As opposed to other bands … we’re pretty specific how we create music, and we couldn’t do that if we didn’t trust each other or have long-standing intimacy. It’s not like you could get another guy to play tapes or get another guy to write songs like Jeremy does … it’s like lightning in a bottle, you know what I mean?”
Woods’ latest album is a continuation of its freak-folk style and also shows influences from such artists as Graham Nash. When asked about the decision to cover Nash’s song “Military Madness,”
Crane said listeners might be surprised.
“It might not be the first thing people think about because the song is definitely politically charged, but I think the reason we cover that comes down to Graham Nash’s voice,” Crane said. “Graham Nash’s voice does things that other men’s voices don’t. It’s like a falsetto, but it’s still very strong but has these weird undertones … it’s what I would call ‘earthy.’ ”
The band has played Iowa City before and is looking forward to coming back to what Crane described as a welcoming atmosphere.
“We go way back with Iowa City,” Crane said. “It was always a place where we had a friendly mindset in town, a local kindred spirit. We hit it at the beginning, so now we’re coming back on the way back, and we’ll be all road-worn.”
DI reporter Eric Sundermann contributed to this story.