Tom Freund [ tickets ], a California-based singer/songwriter, recently released his latest album, the Ben Harper-produced "Collapsible Plans."

LiveDaily contributor Maya Marin sat down with the multi-instrumentalist to discuss his discography, his working relationship with Ben Harper and much more.

[Click here to view video footage of Tom Freund's exclusive LiveDaily Sessions performance.]

Thanks for listening to LiveDaily Sessions. In the studio today is acclaimed singer/songwriter and instrumentalist Tom Freund. Thanks for joining us.

Tom Freund: Thanks for having me.

I want to hear about your early days. You play strings, piano and guitar. Was your youth filled with lots of music lessons and practicing?

Yeah, a little bit of music lessons, but mostly it was just growing up in New York City and being exposed to a lot of jazz and theatre stuff. I went to the School of Music & Art and I did some off-Broadway shows and somehow the culmination of all that just had me picking up instruments, not really seeing the barrier between playing guitar and bass. I just played whatever was there.

So when you were off-Broadway, you were acting?

I was. I did some acting, singing and playing—a little of all of it. It was mostly avant-garde stuff. It wasn’t in the mainstream, but some really hip stuff. This one director, Elizabeth Swados, did a lot of shows like "Runaways" in New York. It was a really good expressive time for me.

Was acting a career consideration for you at the time?

Not really, no. If someone wants to draft me for something, I'm in but I'm not looking down those roads.

You started out performing as half of a duo with Ben Harper and you released an album together.

That’s right, "Pleasure & Pain."

How did the two of you meet?

I was going to college in Claremont, CA and Ben Harper was a local luthier there, working in his grandparents' folk music center. He was also a musician and the guy fixing guitars and doing stuff like that and we had this mutual friend who thought we had to meet each other. I think Ben and I both were like, "yeah, whatever." It was pre-cell phones, so we both had outs. We both had people come by the folk music center and say, "hey, we've got to go to this party now," and both of our people came by as our out but we sent them away. We ended up playing until about 5 a.m. We really hit it off musically and friendship-wise too.

How would you describe the music that you played together when you first started out?

When we first started out, he'd come from a nice blues background—a lot of Blind Willie Johnson and Robert Johnson stuff—and I was listening to a lot of that stuff too but not playing that as much as he was. I was coming from more of a James Taylor to Paul Simon to Steely Dan—running the gamut—with a sprinkling of jazz in there. When we got together, it became this very rootsy two-guitar thing. He played lap steel and to differentiate, I called it flat top, just a normal guitar like you see me play today. So we had a flat top and a slide duo and it was really just two voices and two guitars and that was the whole album. It was recorded direct to two-inch tape. That was really cool.

So it's out of print right now. Is there any chance of re-releasing?

They're out of print and they go for $500-$600 on the Internet. I'm looking for that box of 12 I stashed away in my mother's attic in Connecticut.

So there is still a chance of it being re-released.

There's always a chance that'll come out again, but there was a limited release of I think 1500 vinyl copies.

Do you think you'll consider collaborating with another musician in that same capacity again?

I think I do it a lot with people in general in terms of playing and writing and stuff, but for long-term, I'm totally open to it. It just hasn't come up yet. There are people I really relate to playing and singing and writing wise, but we haven't said, "let's have a band" or anything.

Let's talk about your latest full-length studio record, "Copper Moon," which came four years after your sophomore release, "Sympatico." How do you feel this album differs from your earlier work?

Are you talking about the very new record, the one that we've recorded but haven't put out yet that Ben Harper produced? I can tell you about both. "Copper Moon" is a record I put out. It was a great album to make. It was done here in Los Angeles and a little bit in Austin, Texas. The new record that's not released that we're trying to get out into the universe, it's called "Collapsible Plans." It's cool that you mentioned the Ben Harper thing because it's come full circle now. We've been playing a lot of shows together and he just produced my record and that’s the one we're trying to get out now. It's been done for a couple months. We're doing artwork now and doing those things to get it ready to ship. So there was "Sympatico," then the "Copper Moon" album, then there was a half-live, half-studio record called "Sweet Affection" and now "Collapsible Plans."

What was it like working with Ben again after so many years?

It was terrific. My biggest thing was let me do a studio album in one place and in one sitting. The other albums I'd done besides my first record, "North American Long Weekend," where all these other albums had been done sporadically here and there when there was time and money. This one was different. I wanted to do a record in one place and in one sitting and then Ben and I started talking. We'd been sitting in with each other musically and I asked if he wanted to produce the record. We found the time. We literally did the record in ten days. We did ten songs in ten days, top to bottom, mixed and out the door.

How do you think that affected the music, recording and writing in such a concentrated period of time?

I'd had the songs. We'd talked about what songs we were going to do, but in terms of shaping it as an album, I thought it was really creative. They were action-packed days. There was no sitting around and playing Gameboy or whatever. It was on and we had some late nights. We were doing it over at the Village Recorders, a great studio in West LA. We had a special guest—Jackson Browne—come in too, which is an extra-special treat on the record. He plays piano and sings on the "Copper Moon" song and one other.

Talk a little bit about "Sweet Affection." You mentioned that earlier—half-live, half-studio. Where did the idea for this album come from? I believe also the proceeds went to charity?

Yeah, 50% of the proceeds go to Sweet Relief, which is an organization that was started when this friend of mine, Victoria Williams, took sick at Neil Young's annual concert. She fell sick literally onstage, could not move her arms. She's one of my favorite singers and we'd recently become friends before I made this record, so it just felt natural because she's on a couple tracks, to let me try to do something with Sweet Relief. There are a couple records in the '90s that came out, some of my favorites…there were two Sweet Relief records done—one was artists that covered her songs, and another where artists covered Vic Chestnutt songs. It was all about gathering money for musicians who don't often have insurance or other means to go ahead and get help…when something serious happens like MS, which Victoria has, how are they going to pay for that? It was starting a fund for that and I thought it was a really cool thing to be a part of. She's doing all right now. We just jammed in the desert at the Stagecoach Festival.

Talk a little bit about your songwriting process. Do you have a typical process that you follow—lyrics first? Melody first?

I always say that I take it however it comes. I'll take a flying riff in my head and go to my computer and record it or I'll take a line that's been bugging me or something that I think is funny that someone says and I'll write it down. It could be like a month or a year later that I open up this book pad and find something that I've said, so it's really whatever is going on. Sometimes songs do come in one sitting and you sit down and write a whole thing. Other times, I'm mulling over a few. I kind of do it like I read books. I usually have five books going at one time. I'm horrible at focusing on one book, so I kind of do songs like that too. I have a couple roving and I'm going to see when they land. I think for me, I'm more in the process now of writing lyrics first and then putting music to it. I used to be the other way. A lot of my earlier records were musically come up with an idea and get something down and then fit the lyrics in. I think I'm at least 50-60% going the other way now, which is pretty cool. I'm just writing stuff, pouring that part out and then editing that and having music come into play with that.

Why did you decide to do it the other way around?

I don't know. I think I just found myself writing more or journaling even, whatever you want to call it. I just started taking notice of things and putting them down so my head didn't explode and then finding that these thoughts could be songs.

I took a look at your current performance schedule and you've currently got some local gigs lined up. Do you prefer staying put and performing around town over hitting the road or vice versa?

No, I like hitting the road. It's been a little while since I've hit it. Last year I was out a bunch touring, and the year before that even more. I did two long tours—one was opening for Ben Harper—that was like a two-month thing. Then there was another three-month thing where I was opening for Brett Dennen and then playing in his band too which was great. He's another one of my favorite people now on the scene. I like playing in LA a lot but there's over saturation stuff too, where you feel like you just played there. Because of that, the road can be really refreshing.

When you were on tour with Ben Harper, I believe you played together…

We usually did a song or two a night. He would come in my set and then I would play in his set too.

You're probably going to be hitting the road soon, to promote the new album?

I really hope so. The idea is to get this record available to people and then do some traveling.

Great. Thanks again for coming in and talking to us!

Thank you so much!