Ancient River, the sonic brainchild of singer/songwriter James Barreto, is an ever-changing snapshot of rock n’ roll and psychedelia, flowing from the swampy roots of the American south to the far reaches of innerspace.

It all began in the dawn of the year 2000, as guitarist J. Barreto was making frequent trips to Gainesville, Florida to play with The Ohm, his instrumental psychedelic band which thrived on instant creation and a home grown DIY ethic. Over the next few years he began recording local bands, producing several albums while creating music for local independent films. It was out of this period of musical exploration that Ancient River was born.

“It’s a journey I’m on and I continue to search for that sweet place”

How are you coping with the pandemic?

James Barreto: It’s going fine. I was heading out on tour when everything shut down. I didn’t get into the rescheduling loop and just cancelled everything. I figured this thing might take 2-3 years to sort out and I haven’t made plans to perform again. Maybe Summer of 2022 I’ll start playing out around California, who knows. I have to admit I fell hard for the studio, maybe harder than ever before. I also found out it’s really nice to not be out on the road all the time. I can get so many other things done and be close to my dogs and studio creation.

You will be releasing ‘Ancient History 1998-2005’ this Summer, I’m very curious how you sounded back in the early days.

Yes, the label Little Cloud Records is putting out our first album ‘Before Dawn’ 2007 on vinyl. ‘Before Dawn’ has been available for some time, it’s great that it’s getting the vinyl treatment. So I want ‘Ancient History’ to in a way accompany the vinyl release of ‘Before Dawn’. I’ll be releasing that around the Summer and it’s pretty interesting to look back on. I’d say it’s everything from sound collages, studio happenings to early compositions I was working on back before starting Ancient River. I gained confidence when my recordings were being used in Gainesville, Florida for local films. The sound probably isn’t very different in some ways compared to things I’ve already released as Ancient River. I don’t really release anything unless I feel it sounds original.

How did you originally start the project?

To be honest some of the stuff that will be on ‘Ancient History’ is kind of still going. One such thing is ‘We’ve Been Expecting You Mr. Donaldson’. My friend Steve Giacomelli and I started those psychedelic recordings in 1998 and we are still adding parts to it. It’s around several volumes last I checked. It’s kind of like Death of a Salesman meets Alien Nation. It takes place in the past, future and present. Perhaps it never has an ending and just keeps going. Maybe we can hand it off to some aliens to finish up, I don’t know. There are going to be plenty of surprises on that archive album.

Would you like to talk a bit about your background? Where and when did you grow up? Was music a big part of your family life?

My parents were Cuban and Colombian. We lived in Chicago, but I happened to be born in Sana’a, Yemen. We also lived in Nigeria, Africa for a bit. After Chicago the family moved down to Florida. Besides living in London on and off for a few years I’ve been slowly navigating things and making my way to permanently living in California. After that I don’t want to move anymore. Music was a very big part of family life. Music was always on. My two older sisters would pass a lot down to me. My mom was a professional ballerina in Cuba. She had an extensive classical collection. She liked her Beach Boys, Beatles, Joao Gilberto, popular stuff. My dad was more into jazz, Spanish guitar and some occasional James Brown. We’d mix things up a lot. Keep it interesting.

Was there a certain moment when you knew you had to pick up guitar and play?

Yes. I’d say by middle school/high school the guitars started showing up when hanging out with friends. I’d pick up a guitar from time to time and someone would show me a chord or two. Eventually a friend of mine who was taking lessons told me I was a quick learner and better than him already without any lessons. I finally bought a cheap acoustic around that time in my late teens and started making things up and recording on a hand held recorder.

What were some of the artists you enjoyed early on and consequently influenced the music you make?

Hmm that’s a hard one. Probably anything with hooks. I love hooks. For me it has to be totally avant garde or the opposite and have some kind of quality hooks. Anything in between is probably not going to interest me much. I’ve always liked the minor key. For music I make, I’d say maybe Neil Young and Pink Floyd have been the most influential, but American hip hop and R&B have always been my favorite music to listen to.

You recently released two albums. That’s a lot of material for such a short span of time. Would you like to go into details about ‘The House Of Stone’ and ‘After The Dawn’?

‘After the Dawn’ was developed on the road. We’d have an idea for a song and try it out on an audience and decide whether to work on it more or not, what parts to develop further and so on. I throw away about as much as I release so it has to make it through the writing and editing process to stick around. Always very careful not releasing anything that sounds too similar to anything else. ‘The House of Stone’ consists of sessions before, during and after ‘After the Dawn’.

‘After the Dawn’ is perhaps more conceptual where ‘The House of Stone’ is one of those albums kind of all over the place that I like to release from time to time. ‘House of Stone’ is probably one of my favorites Ancient River has ever released. We had all this stuff ready to go and then 2020 hit. It is what it is, one good thing that has come out of the past couple of years is I don’t care much about touring these days and I’m heading into a different phase in my writing and recording, making the best stuff I ever have done. It’s great to see things in a completely new light.

Then there’s a live album from December, ‘Live In Chicago’…

Yes, released in December of 2021. Chicago is my favorite city. For a while Ancient River did this two piece experiment. We set out to make a two piece rock band sound as big or bigger than the two parts. Myself and Alexis Cordova. We ran ourselves into the ground touring. People would tell us all the time we were the greatest 2 piece rock band they had ever seen in their entire lives. I never asked compared to whom, but I’ll take the compliment. It wasn’t that easy, you have to always be aware and concentrate because one little mistake and everything could fall apart. Ancient River had never released anything live so I took the opportunity to release a snapshot of what we sounded like on a given night. I have plenty more live recordings so maybe I release more live stuff one day. We’ll see.

You’re also working on another album…

I have ‘O.D.D.S. 3’ coming out very soon. To celebrate the 3rd installment of this series, it’s a triple album, 31 tracks. I’m also going to be recording some pretty acoustic songs in California. The songs are all written and I can’t wait to start recording them very soon. I’ve released and performed acoustic songs in the past and I miss it. That’s the next thing on the horizon. Set for release in 2022.

Would you like to talk about your guitar and pedals you employ?

Sure, it depends what’s going on at the time. When the band was a 3 piece I only used a few pedals, pretty standard. A DD-3 digital delay by Boss, and a vintage tape delay by Echoplex, a Rat distortion pedal, a Big Muff Fuzz pedal and a Vox Wah pedal. When we switched to a 2 piece things got more complicated. I had to add pedals. It’s the most pedals I’ll ever use, I’m not going back to that. It looked like this giant mothership. I used everything mentioned above, but added 2 Boss loop pedals, tremolo, a phase pedal, an additional delay, a reverb pedal, a tripler to divide the signal to multiple amps and finally a polyphonic octave generator. It’s too much, but I used every single one of those pedals every show.

Let’s end this interview with some of your favourite albums. Have you found something new lately you would like to recommend to our readers?

Sure, for new stuff I’d recommend our label mates Muun Bato, really well crafted songs. Check out Giacomelli on the Something Cold label. Giacomelli is a life long friend and collaborator and I’m excited at what he’s been up to lately. Lastly, check out the band Feliz out of San Diego. I met the guitarist Omar on my journeys and always followed what he’s been up to. It’s all very exciting stuff!

For some of my favorite albums front to back; The Beach Boys – ‘Pet Sounds’, Jimi Hendrix Experience – ‘Axis: Bold As Love’, Neil Young – ‘Zuma’, Pink Floyd – ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ or 1975’s Wish You Were Here, Dr. Dre – ‘The Chronic’, David Axelrod – ‘The Songs of Experience’, My Bloody Valentine – ‘Loveless’, The Mothers of Invention – ‘We’re Only in It for the Money’, João Gilberto – ‘Brazil’s Brilliant’, Peter Green – ‘End Of The Game’ … man I could keep going and get carried away. Maybe it’s best to stop there, ha.

Thank you for taking your time. Last word is yours.

Man, thanks so much for having me on here. I’ve always liked what you do and the way you do it. Thanks to asking unique questions, I stopped bothering with interviews almost entirely because I constantly get asked the same boring questions over and over. So thanks for asking some unique questions I don’t usually get asked. One thing I’ve never talked about that I think I should address has to do with my approach to all this music industry stuff. I don’t do much social media or self promotion. All I want to do is create things and then go away and maybe check in sometimes when I have some new tunes. I don’t really do photoshoots and I’m definitely not going to take pictures of myself and post them to social media. I’ve never lip synced or shot a music video, because of this I sleep very well at night. I don’t have to do any of that shit. I don’t have anything against it, but it’s not for me. I was diagnosed with agoraphobia in 2005. It’s apparently very rare. It can make life very difficult at times. Touring became almost a sort of exposure therapy for me and my condition. For some reason I never experienced stage fright. I like my privacy, privacy has a personal value to it. Basically I’m in the wrong place today with the way things have become with social media, surrounded by many narcissists. My journey has bumped heads with a lot of industry types because of the way I am. After 2015’s ‘Keeper of the Dawn’ album we got invited to the party, looked around and dipped out the back door. It’s very hard to promote your music when you don’t want to participate in that side of things. All I’m saying is it really means a lot to me when people support my art even though I don’t do those other things that perhaps some people expect. Thanks for letting me be me and do things my way, no matter the cost. All I want is to do is produce, write and record without much outside influence or pressures. It’s a journey I’m on and I continue to search for that sweet place. We’re all on this journey together yet totally alone. Be kind to others. Peace!

Klemen Breznikar

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