I sat down with Nate Mercereau and talked about being on tour and his new album, Excellent Traveler, which releases today, October 11, 2024.
What was the songwriting process like?
Nate: It was about a year and a half of getting deeply involved in live sampling and considering everything around me as potential for creating more music. The process involved spontaneous creations, editing, sculpting, composition, arranging, layering, collaging... combinations of all these things.
How did you come up with the album title?
Nate: "Excellent Traveler" came to me as I was traveling home from a European tour. I thought I'm pretty good at this, I feel like an excellent traveler. I liked the sound and look of the words, and it felt like an appropriate name for an album representative of many different places. The title took on more meaning the more I lived with it -- it's aspirational. Traveling can mean getting involved in a wide range of possible experiences, and it can be very difficult, and the name was with me as a useful phrase during those times. I also consider it to be related to "traveling excellently" through emotional landscapes and inner worlds.
Describe the album using three words.
Nate: All possible realities.
What was the creative process like for the album cover?
Nate: Nesanet Teshager Abegaze took that photo at a concert we played at The World Stage in Leimert Park in Los Angeles. As soon as I saw the photo I knew I wanted to use it for an album cover. That's Billy Higgins in the framed photo above me. I worked with Jordan Williams at Third Man Records to create the album artwork. Is there a song you're most excited for fans to hear?
Nate: I feel like this album is a place to visit, explore, look around, and live with it. Different moments of it will become meaningful to folks for different reasons.
Do you have any essentials that you bring with you on tour?
Nate: Openness to infinite possibility.
How has the tour been so far?
Nate: Expansive. We can do anything and go anywhere. Are there any cities or venues you are looking forward to performing in?
Nate: I'm very much looking forward to bringing Excellent Traveler to The World Stage, where the album cover photo was taken. I'm also very stoked to play in San Diego at Folk Arts Rare Records, which will be a hometown concert for me.
Which song from ‘Excellent Traveler’ are you most excited to perform live in December?
Nate: I'm not going to be playing songs from the album in a direct way... I'm going to bring the entire process of Excellent Traveler to each place, live sampling the environment on my way to the concert, and sampling the musicians and audience during the set, to create special new moments specific to each location. Themes, suggestions, or energy from the record will show up in many ways, I'm particularly into the chords from "Juniper's Theme" right now... we're going to invent and visit worlds and sonic spaces and explore them with my co-creators on this run -- Carlos Niño, Andres Renteria, and Aaron Shaw. Have you learned anything from being on tour with André 3000? Has he given you any advice?
Nate: I learn a lot just by being around inspiring people, people who are very much themselves. I've learned a lot about curiosity and openness through André, not because he's given me any advice specifically – just by being around him being himself, and being myself around him. I don't believe in advice in a traditional sense, and I don't have much interest in it, but I do feel like observation and energetic exchange can be influential and expansive in major ways.