Nick Etwell is a man of many talents. He can speak Swedish, has a mean sense of style, taught Mumford and Sons’ Ben Lovett to play piano, and is currently celebrating the release of his latest record, The Filthy Six‘s The Fox (out today via Acid Jazz). I had the chance to speak with him before watching a bunch of bearded Scandinavian men throw each other around at the Roundhouse in Camden. Here’s what he had to say.

Jody Orsborn: Tell me a bit about The Filthy Six. How long have you been playing together? How did you link up?
Nick Etwell: The band started in it’s first incarnation about ten years ago. We used to do a monthly night at this really great, dingy little basement place in Soho called the Tatty Bogle. I think it was a brothel in the day and a club by night! We would just play old late 60s Blue Note tunes by Lou Donaldson, Grant Green and the like, and get our friends down for a boogie and a nice hang. We did it every month for two years almost and by the end of it was getting busier and busier and had a really good vibe about it. But it was kind of just for fun back then really.

JO: Every month for two years? Did you feel like you were running out of material or that you were getting burnt out?
NE: No, it was one night a month where we’d get all our friends together for a little party and play some great music. Each month we’d try out new tunes and ideas. It was a really fun night and was just beginning to get a proper buzz surrounding it when the place shut down. The night stopped and we lost the impetus. We were thinking of finding another venue for it but we never got around to that. We should definitely start it up again sometime though!

JO: Was it always the same group of people performing?
NE: The line up changed around a bit at that time but there was certainly regulars. By the time the night stopped we had a pretty settled group. It was around then that I started writing my own music for the band, because before then it was all just covers. I started to write tunes along those same lines [60s Blue Note Soul Jazz] as what we’d been playing and it snowballed from there. It was always just about getting the right people together and playing some cool music and then it became more of me writing new stuff and putting on gigs to perform it. The lineup went through a few variations; the guitarist moved away to Sweden so we had to get a new guy in and we changed organ players a couple of times but eventually we arrived at this lineup as it is now, more or less about five or six years ago. That was when we recorded our first EP. We sent it around trying to get interest from people and used that to get gigs around London and festivals in the summer, stuff like that. We tried to put on at least one gig a month somewhere, as it was something nice to have going on aside from our other work.

JO: You mean because everyone plays with different bands?
JO: Yeah, everyone’s a freelance musician and plays with different artists, different bands, so It’s hard to get everyone together in the same room at one time, let alone to organize gigs! But, i’ve really tried to be a bit more proactive with it in the last few years. We did our first full-length album for Acid Jazz two years ago now and we’ve just finished the new one.

JO: Tell me about this new record? What sound were you going for?
NE: Basically, if I could choose the time period in which to live my life, I’d be living in New York around 1967! I take my inspiration from that era of music, especially the Blue Note recordings at that time, and I just want to create something that can sit happily alongside that. A homage to that style i guess. I wanted to make an album that sounded like those records – ‘Blackjack’ by Donald Byrd, or ‘Midnight Creeper’ by Lou Donaldson – rich, warm sounding, all recorded live onto 2 inch tape. Everyone in the same room playing together. No overdubs.

JO: There’s no overdubbing?
NE: Only hand-claps and vocals. Basically, I wanted it to sound like an old school record. All analogue production, vintage mics, gear, recorded and mixed straight to tape. The perfect combination! it’s going to go out on vinyl too so I wanted it to sound proper. We had 2-3 rehearsals and recorded it over two days with only a couple of takes per song and then mixed it in one sitting. 13 tracks in 16 hours. In, down, and out very quickly. its the way music was recorded back in the old days. They were recording so much music all the time then there was no room for messing around!

JO: No six months in the studio?
NE: No chance! we ran through the tunes, tweaked them, recorded them and went home. done in a matter of days!

JO: Vocals is something new for you, right?
NE: Yeah, the first album was purely instrumental. I had thought about adding a vocalist for a couple of tunes but hadn’t worked out the best way of doing it. I’d had this idea ages ago of doing a cover of Michael Jackson’s “Girlfriend” but with the same groove and feel of Archie Bell and The Drells’ “Tighten Up” (which i think’s from 1967 funnily enough? Maybe 68?! ). Anyway, i had this idea and then we got offered a live session on this great show called the Craig Charles Funk and Soul Show, BBC 6 Music, and they had all their artists that year performing a cover from ‘Off The Wall’. It was the perfect opportunity to work out the arrangement and it went down a storm! The guys in the studio loved it, the audience loved it and the band loved it so we decided to put it on the new album. We played it as an instrumental originally but I thought it’d be a cool track to get vocals on so we got this guy Brendan Reilly in. He’s from LA actually, a great singer with the most outrageous voice. In the studio he was singing it this one way and I said, ‘I know it sounds a bit contrived but, in my head I’m thinking more of a Donny Hathaway thing. Any chance you can try something like that?’ He went back in the booth and absolutely killed it! It sounds amazing. I’m really pleased with the way it came out. Its exactly how I wanted it to be. It’s like a little slice of dancefloor heaven!

JO: Will that track be the single?
NE: Yeah, we are actually releasing it was a double A-side. I always loved how in the old days they used to release singles with vocals on one side and instrumental versions on the other. I always wanted to do one myself and now here’s the chance. It comes out a week on Monday! (23rd April)

JO: You are about to head off on tour in support of the record release. Where will you be heading?
NE: Starting off at my home town of Derby on Saturday, Newcastle, London for the album launch, Cardiff, Bristol and five dates in Ireland. I can’t wait for Ireland as I’ve only ever been to Dublin and Belfast before and with this trip we’re going out to Limerick, Dundalk and Galway too. We’re playing Communion nights in Belfast, Dublin and Galway. It’s gonna be so much fun being on the road in Ireland…there’s going to be an awful lot of Guinness knocking around…

JO: Speaking of Communion (Ben Lovett from Mumford and Sons label), obviously you do horns for Mumford and Sons, touring with them and have appeared on all of their records. How did you you get hooked up with those guys?
NE: Well, I used to be Ben’s Jazz piano teacher at school.

JO: Was he pretty good?
NE: My star pupil obviously!

JO: When was that?
NE: Over 10 years ago I guess. I taught Ben when he was 13, and I was probably about 24. I would teach him once a week and when you teach someone once a week for six years, you kind of get to know them a little bit. We had a really nice rapport and we basically just hung out once a week. After a couple of years we thought it’d be nice to put a group together for him to play with other musicians, being a piano player can sometimes get a bit boring playing on your own all the time. So, he got a little jazz group together with Marcus [Mumford] on drums and other friends, Luke on Sax and Ed on Bass. I was their coach and i’d get them to play all the things I liked playing; some of the arrangements from The Filthy Six, etc, fun stuff! I would coach them about once a month or so and it was a lot fun. They got to sounding pretty good! Marcus is a great drummer you know. You don’t get to see it much on the Mumford gig but he his. But yeah, we always got on well. A couple of years later, after they’d left school, I kept bumping into Ben on random gigs around London and then the four of them came to see The Filthy Six play at the Jazz Lounge, Glastonbury, while they were there playing their early gigs. I spotted them in the crowd, we found each other after the show and they were like ‘we’ve got a little band together now’ and that’s when i met the other half of what turned out to be Mumford & Sons. Ben gave me a shout about 6 months later and asked if I would play on a record for them, which was The Cave EP. It was probably about three years ago now, yeah, three years ago! I went into the studio and they played me the track and I was like, hey… This is really good! We did a couple of tracks and that was that. A few months later i recorded the album with them and it all just kind of blew up. It’s been fun, really great fun playing with them since.

JO: So you’ve been with them from the beginning. Do you plan to continue playing with them longterm?
NE: Yep, as long as they’ll have me or until we fall out! (laughs).

JO: With all of the guys in The Filthy Six playing for different bands (Duran Duran, Amy Winehouse, Basement Jaxx, James Taylor Quartet, etc), is it hard to keep a consistent musical style? Does it get confusing switching from folk to funk to jazz and so on?
NE: You get into whatever you are doing at the time. One week I’ll be with Mumford and the next I’ll go off and play a blues tour or something. Yesterday i was recording some 50s style Portuguese rock n roll. It’s quite random day to day with the situations and settings you go into, but that’s what we all love doing. You get the chance to play a variety of different music all the time.

JO: Is that what’s cool about being a gig musician, that you get to collaborate with all these different musicians on different types of music?
NE: It’s the best job in the world. You get to meet new people all the time, you get to make new friends and make good music, hopefully. Each day can be an exciting new project. Its great having so many different things going on but i’m now starting to move The Filthy Six higher up on my priority list in order to do more with it.

JO: How much of The Filthy Six’s music is co-written/ collaborative?
NE: I’m a real control freak. For my tunes, I pretty much write it all down and have a specific idea of what it’ll sound like. I take it the boys and 9 times out of 10 it works. Occasionally, they will be like ‘are you sure you want it that way?!’, and we’ll work out something different. But it’s my baby and i can be quite pedantic about it so the majority of the tunes are written individually.

JO: What about with the horn parts for Mumford? Is it a collaborative process or do one of you just come up with what it’s going to be?
NE: With the first album, they had most of the main lines in mind and I just had to come up with harmonys etc. although I did manage to sneak in the occasional extra line here and there! For the new album the boys had some plans for what they wanted and Dave and i (Mumford’s Trombone) came up with ways of making it work best. It’s quite an organic process really. They have ideas and we’ll be like, cool, or, let’s try it this way. then they either like it or they don’t. There was some quite epic double tracking recorded for the new record too, be interesting to hear how it all comes out.

JO: Are there any other acts out there right now that you think are doing anything really interesting or inline with what you are trying to achieve with The Filthy Six?
NE: The Daptone guys are probably the most high profile musicians that champion the use of vintage recording techniques and it really shows in their sound. It’s fantastic. Jack White has recorded at Toe Rag Studios in London to great effect. Ben Lamdin from Nostalgia 77 (who co produced the album) has achieved some lovely sounding records for Tru Thoughts Records, which is why we called him up to help us. I also like Dan Auerbach from The Black Keys. He’s great, I just listened to some of the new tracks he produced for Dr. Jones and they’re amazing. He got this great sound. These people are all using quality old kit; mics, desks, tape, I mean, there’s a reason why we still listen to all those old records from the 60′s and 70′s, and, apart from it being great music it’s because they SOUND great! That’s the sound i want to aim for, and the way I wanna do things.

JO: Last question, is there a wishlist of artists you’d like to play with?
NE: Elvis, naturally, but that sadly won’t happen. It would have to be Lou Donaldson. He’s what got me into the Soul Jazz sound. He’s the righteous reed! He’s playing Ronnie Scott’s at the end of May and I really hope I’m free to go. He’s well into his 80s but he’s still got it. I’m a massive Tom Jones fan too and i always said that if I got the chance to play with him, I would hang up my trumpet for good as it couldn’t get any better than that. Then I actually got the chance to play with him on a tv show – I even ended up recording with him on this track which never got released, gutted! – and I was getting all these calls from my musician friends saying “so… are you gonna give up now? Do it! Please stop!”. I was like, “thanks guys, you make me feel so special”… Charming. Needless to say, I welshed on the deal…

The Fox is out today via Acid Jazz. The band is currently in the midst of a UK/ Ireland Tour and will stopping in London, tomorrow, Tuesday, April 17th for their album release gig at The Social on Little Portland St. Tix are £5.

mp3: The Filthy Six- The Fox (buy)

This Friday, February 24th, I See Hawks In L.A. will be headlining McCabe’s in Santa Monica. It will be the first of several concerts celebrating the release of their brand new mostly-acoustic album, New Kind Of Lonely, which finds the band in a wistful, contemplative mood. We caught up this week with the Hawks’ multi-talented guitarist and co-songwriter Paul Lacques via email to ask him about the new album and a few other bits of Hawksian ephemera.

When You Awake: I wanted to start off by asking you about the new album, of course, which is a mostly all-acoustic collection of songs, the first one you’ve released in your long history as a band. Was there a particular reason for doing it now?

Paul: Several of our earlier recordings started off acoustic, but we could never resist the lure of the pedal steel and Telecaster.  This time we took a vow of no electricity, and managed to go cold turkey.  Scary at first, then quite rewarding. (Continue reading after the jump)

WYA: I remember the first time one of our mutual friends, Doran, told me about you guys playing a longtime residency in the basement of Cole’s Bar, 6th and Main, east of downtown L.A., often with fiddle player Brantley Kearns (ex-Dave Alvin’s and Dwight Yoakum’s bands) sitting in on a regular basis. Is this new album in any way an attempt to recreate or recapture those Wednesday night shows?

Paul: Not consciously, but quite likely. We played once a week at Cole’s, for three years, unless we were on tour, and that honed our acoustic sound.  There’s an immediacy to the lyrics and the emotion of the song when it’s stripped down, and the notes die out more quickly.

WYA: You’ve said that the songs you recorded for A New Kind Of Lonely were “recorded old school, sitting in a circle around some fancy microphones.” In the video for your successful Kickstarter crowdsourcing campaign, singer Rob Waller says it’s “kind of an old-fashioned way to make a record,” and goes on to say that one of his favorite records, growing up, was Will The Circle Be Unbroken, and that’s how the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band recorded that album. Can you elaborate on the way the songs came together and how they were recorded?

Paul: The commitment to live acoustic really made us focus on a mood or style, first of all in the songwriting.  We had about six songs finished from the previous year, and when we sat down to write more for the new recording, we steered the ship towards the Folk Shore.  Mary Austin Sky, Bohemian Highway, River Run, and New Kind Of Lonely were the last four songs we finished, and they get folkier and folkier. Rob, Paul Marshall and myself were all involved on the writing, and so we knew the songs fairly well by the time they were finished.  We did four days of rehearsing, and cut the record in three days, with Cliff Wagner on banjo and Dave Raven, all live.  No click track,  either, so the tempo floats, which to me makes it groove harder.  All the instruments and Rob’s lead vocals were live, and we added harmonies, dobro, and some great fiddle by Gabe Witcher later. Marc Doten did a wonderful job recording, he’s got great gear and ears. Paul Dugre did his usual bold and adventurous mix, and Joe Gastwirt did a sweet sounding  mastering.  We were in good hands.

WYA: NKOL begins with “Bohemian Highway,” which I understand takes its name from the one of the two highways that intersect near the little town of Freestone, California, up in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco. It sounds like a nice little place to start a journey off from, a good jumping-off point. Was that the idea?

Paul: Exactly.  It felt like the beginning of a journey.  The song is very impressionistic.  I did a tour as sub guitarist for Old Californio last summer, and Victoria and I stayed on in Sonoma County, lazed around on the lawn at the Green Apple Inn with Mr. D’Arcy, the cat, kayaked on the Russian River, and stared at the stars.  The Hawks  have spent a fair amount of time up there, so Rob jumped in with his impressions.

WYA: What’s the significance of this northern part of California for you, and for Rob Waller? We know you’ve got one song about “Humboldt,” and another that name-checks the “Yolo County Airport” and local surroundings, which isn’t too far away.

Paul: California’s landscape has a powerful presence, anywhere in the state.  Heavy emanations of endless variety.  A lot of our songs are a bit haunted by the ruination of Southern California, which we humans have accomplished with breathtaking speed. If you’re in a sour mood you can really feel dark about the rich farmland that is now a sea of Forever 21′s and McMansions in Orange County. Northern California has been much smarter, or luckier, about its growth patterns. So much of it is still unspoiled, with that sweetness that endless rolling hills have.

WYA: The next track is one we’ve heard you guys play live before, “Dear Flash,” and the liner notes say it’s inspired by the tough old codger in Gurney Norman’s counter-culture novel Divine Right’s Trip, which was first published in installments in the Whole Earth Catalog, back in the early ’70s. Care to elaborate on that, or the influence of counter-culture literature in general on the Hawks lyrics?

Paul: If you take away 1960s and ’70s counterculture influences, I think our lyrics would evaporate. Paul Marshall was a part of the California folk psychedelic scene, had a recording deal while still in high school, toured and recorded as lead singer of  Strawberry Alarm Clock. I missed the ’60s by a few years and was painfully aware  of it, but I immersed myself in psychedelic country rock, learned the Burrito Brothers canon for my first folk duo, devoured the Whole Earth Catalog, built a geodesic dome, read all the Kesey and Kerouac stuff, and tried hard to be a hippie in the early ’70s.  By 1975, I knew it was over.  I hitchhiked to New York and got a ride from a guy who described this new kind of Manhattan music scene that was going to take over:  “It’s called . . . disco!” Rob’s younger than Paul Marshall and myself, has very broad tastes, but instinctively sought out the California counterculture. By the time I met him in 1997, his band The Magic Of Television had made the plunge into country rock.

WYA: There are some elegiac songs about losing friends along the way, as we all do, especially as we get further down that ol’ highway of life. “Big Old Hypodermic Needle” contemplates the loss of two friends who overdose together to get “one last time for the memory of the sunset turning gold.” And, “The Spirit Of Death” is a beautiful, poignantly-penned song that pays tribute to singer-songwriter and fiddle-player Amy Farris, who passed away back in November 2009. It’s so nice that you guys would remember her this way, with such a wonderful song (“When I was a younger man, the good times eased the way / But now the stars are falling every other day / The dreams of childhood are returning to say, your dance is coming, better pick a tune and play”). I remember the Hawks playing at her tribute show at McCabe’s along with Dave Alvin, Peter Case and Rick Shea among others.

Paul: We were devastated when Amy passed on, and we still think about her all the time. Rick Shea and I went down to the Santa Monica pier and saw Dave Alvin’s kickass Guilty Women show, and Amy was tearing it up, and we had a nice long talk.  A few weeks later she was dead. It still doesn’t seem real.  We did so many shows with her, she was really part of the band for a few years. For our Kickstarter rewards, we gave away some live show downloads with Amy, and we’re going to make them available to the public later this year.

WYA: “I Fell In Love With The Grateful Dead” is a lot of fun, like a lot of the songs that find their way into your catalog. There’s even a line in this one that says, “What, may you ask, is this song about? It’s a cry for the tribes of peace to come out / We got the numbers, we’re fast and we’re strong, consult your Whole Earth Catalogs.” So, are you guys trying to start a revolution? The hippie spirit lives on! Is that yours or Rob’s memory of seeing the New Riders of the Purple Sage and the Dead in the summer of ’72 at the Santa Barbara Bowl?

Paul: It’s really funny for the audience (and us) when we do the song live and Rob sings “what, may you ask, is this song about?” because it’s a very long song. We do indeed wish to further the revolution in thought, spirit, and deed that was the ’60s.  It’s alive in people like my nephew, who was a student activist at UCLA. He jumped into the Occupy movement, and is now teaching organizing and activism in South Los Angeles.  Reagan ushered in an era of willful stupidity and greed that has only gained momentum in the last 30 years, and we say ‘fight it.’ We are unreconstructed hippies. Stop driving your car and get on a bicycle. The Palladium show and Santa Barbara Bowl lyrics are my experiences in the 70′s, Hampton Sydney is Rob’s in the 90′s, and the backstage moment is, of course, Paul Marshall’s, whose career was way ahead of ours.  He actually recorded with Brent Mydland, one of the Dead’s exploding keyboardists.

WYA: Lyrically, this album continues in the vein of much of the Hawks’ past recordings. Longtime MOJO scribe Michael Simmons called you guys “the finest country-rock band currently flying the freak flag of freedom, eco-peace and psychedelic transcendence on planet Earth.” There are songs on New Kind Of Lonely with Steinbeck-ian naturalism themes, ecologically-minded songs about being respectful and simply awestruck at the beauty to be found in nature, and songs that talk about the destruction we’re all doing to Mother Earth. There are also songs that pin-point memorable places to be found along the highways we travel, and some even close to home. For instance, “Highland Park Serenade,” your home town, wistfully name-checks Mr. T’s Bowling Alley, where Rob Waller’s wife once ran her own award-winning restaurant, The Gutter.

Paul: I miss The Gutter!  I was their part-time prep cook, and it was much fun. When I got a job at History Channel, Katie’s twin sister Lecie said, “So you’re going for the big bucks, eh?”  We used to write songs about Echo Park, now we write about Highland Park.  The band was named into existence on a high desert hike, and it seems like it’s our assignment to write about the land.  None of us have ever been so geography-specific in our writing before.

WYA: The Hawks don’t shy away from their political side, although there’s nothing too political, I suppose, on NKOL, even though the country seems to be needing to hear something political from bands like yours right about now. I remember reading this excerpt in the liner notes that you and Rob penned for your greatest hits collection Shoulda Been Gold: “We politicized our music, bitterly and reluctantly and sometimes unconsciously, our awareness blindsided by the collapse of a large chunk of America’s psyche. Our song ‘Humboldt,’ written as the bombs fell on caravans in Afghanistan, is a small fist shaken at a new American government we feared was invincible and sinister.” Care to elaborate?

Paul: My Mom is somewhere to the left of Noam Chomsky, and all nine of her children are right in step with her. Rob’s pretty lefty, and Paul Marshall’s a Libertarian, so you can imagine the sparks flying on long road trips. The Bush years were a stunning assault on what were considered unshakeable American, or human, values, and the Hawks really got caught up in it, with many overt or implied political songs.  I think it made us a bit demented for a while, and we had to step back a bit to get some peace of mind.  New Kind Of Lonely might be a letting go of trying to sing about things political.  America needs to  relearn some recently forgotten lessons, and its downward spiral seems to be an unavoidable part of the learning process.  Let’s hope the bottoming out isn’t too painful, and that we diminish gracefully.  The Hawks are staying out of the way, and trying to keep our values and sense of joy alive in dark times. River Run addresses this pretty specifically.

WYA: Your Kickstarter campaign had so many great premiums, like an afternoon of “weapons training and target shooting” (guns and ammo provided) with Paul Marshall at a bucolic San Gabriel foothills shooting range or an afternoon trip to an Echo Park stable for free horse manure and leaf mulch with you showing the person who selected this how to terrace their garden and make fantastic soil using the sheet mulch method. What do you think of Kickstarter in general? Is it going to become a normal way for independent bands are artists to be able to put out albums and fund tours?

Paul: Kickstarter not only paid for our recording, it was an opportunity for our friends to show the love, and they really did. It was quite moving and humbling, the money just poured in. Several of the premiums involved unreleased live and studio tracks, and it was great fun to weed through hundreds of performances to find the cool stuff.  We just hosted a dinner for the higher paying donors, and just did a live concert, and they were very personal. Our fans are friends, and our friends are fans.  We really have a tribe going here. Our Kickstarter experience was totally positive, and in the era of free music as a Constitutional right, I think patronage from fans is one of the few options left for indie recording artists, film makers, etc.

WYA: I know this is probably a longer conversation for another time, but do you think you could sum up your strong feelings about piracy and the recent congressional bill that failed. You’ve started a Facebook group for all musicians, artists, filmmakers, authors, and concerned friends who want to take a stand against file sharing, unauthorized downloading, bit torrent, MegaDownload, i.e. stealing another artist’s work. What do you think will happen next? Will the next version of the SOPA bill succeed?

Paul: I may sound like a crank and a contrarian, but that’s because I am. I think the concerns over SOPA were totally exaggerated.  The goal was simply to shut down sites giving away content they didn’t own. When the increasingly Stalinesque Google juggernaut is putting on Occupy airs and screaming about censorship, I say ’beware. ’ All recording artists and film makers are still totally exposed to online theft. Three weeks ago our new CD wasn’t even up on Amazon, and we found pirate sites offering the whole album for free! With Congress cowed by internet giants, I think the only thing to do is spread the message: please don’t download our songs for free, unless we’re giving them away ourselves.  It’s simple.

WYA: I wanted to ask you about your past experiences working as a researcher for The History Channel, which sounds to me like a really wonderful job. One of your Kickstarter premiums was a never-before-seen DVD of your very own ill-fated History Channel mini-show, Logger Paul, which I understand were short episodes of you introducing very odd clips from the National Archives vaults, such as, quoting here, “Mussolini’s son’s appearance on The Little Rascals after dropping bombs on Ethiopian rebels, Nixon getting attacked by mobs in Venezuela, a 1939 Hitler claymation, of course–with lots of acerbic commentary by our host.” Tell me more.

Paul: I worked for Actuality Productions, which produced hundreds of Modern Marvels shows for the History Channel, and a number of longer documentaries for Discovery, National Geographic, etc.  My brother Anthony, the first Hawks drummer and still active songwriter, got me the job. He’s a full-on documentary producer now. I started out as a tape logger and moved up pretty quickly to researcher, got to interview archaeologists, cold fusion nuclear physicists, solar panel inventors, coffee roasters, quite a variety. I have a pretty good background in science from UCLA, so I could ask questions and not sound too Hollywood. They actually submitted my research for Emmy consideration.

The last year I was there, I submitted an idea to present strange historical clips from the National Archives vaults. They said great, and you’ll be the host. So we filmed fifteen episodes of oddities, including Nixon and Mussolini’s stranger moments, and also solar panel inventors from the 1930s, Vietnam War flyovers of the Ho Chi Minh Trail with so many bomb craters that your jaw drops, tens of thousands of factory workers streaming out of the Ford munitions factories during World War II, etc., kind of a patchwork quilt of historical impressions, followed by my acerbic asides. It was going to air once an hour around the clock on History Channel, and I would have been a minor celebrity people might recognize in line at Trader Joe’s.  Alas, some high executive in New York City saw the clips, no doubt declared ‘that hippie’s not going to be on this channel!’ and that was that. I kind of don’t blame them. Dan Rather I’m not.

New Kind Of Lonely comes out March 6th, on Western Seeds Records, in the U.S., and March 23rd in Europe on Blue Rose Records. The Hawks play McCabe’s this Friday, Feb. 24th. Old Californio opens the show with a special acoustic set, with Paul Lacques joining in on Dobro for some tunes, at 8pm, and Cliff Wagner will be sitting in with the Hawks on fiddle and banjo, and Richie Lawrence on accordian (both also make an appearance on the new album, along with fiddle player Gabe Witcher and drummer Dave Raven). They’ll return to Yolie’s in Ventura for two electric sets on March 9th, and on Saturday, March 10th, the band will be out at Pappy & Harriet’s in Pioneertown. Future dates include The Palms in Winters (April 14), and Rancho Nicasio in Marin County (April 15). Later this spring, the Hawks will touring North Carolina, where you’ll find them on the bill at the Albino Skunkfest (5/4) and the French Broad River Festival (5/5), before returning to California to play at the Topanga Banjo and Fiddle Contest (5/20) and the Strawberry Festival, up in the High Sierras (5/25). Over the summer they will hit the road to places new and familiar. Go see ‘em!

Click here to view the embedded video.Marcus Foster- I Was Broken

You are releasing your first full length record this September. In addition to being a musician, though, you recently completed an MA at The Royal College of Art and had a piece at the Saatchi Gallery as part of their NEWSPEAK: BRITISH ART NOW exhibition. With the gearing up for the record, is art still a focus or is it taking a backseat to music?

Yeah, I’m still making art, I’m still kind of working [on it]. But I’m doing a lot more music stuff at the moment. I’ve spent the last six years of my life making art. I feel like it’s the the right time to have a go at doing a bit of music…do that for a bit and keep the balance.

Why now with the music? Did you meet the Communion guys and it just all fell together?

I met the Communion guys when I was doing my Masters. Before I was just working with this one guy. And it was just great that I found them at the right sort of time. With my masters, I was still really busy with work but I found the time to record an EP and go on tour.

Did they just approach you and say they wanted to do this record with you?

They said “Do you want to be part of this compilation thing?” And I was like “Yeah”. “Do you want to come down and play?” “Yeah. Great!” And then we just got on so well recording this one song that we were just like, fuck it. We just became great friends from there.

How involved were they in the recording of the EP?

It was all done in a church in Crouch End. It was with Kev, who is in my band and he also runs Communion. So then we did the album together as well, which made sense and we just kept going. It all worked out.

Are you looking forward to the album finally being released? 

Can’t wait for the album to come out because then it will just be like “Done. Hello. Hi. How are you?” No. I’m really excited about it.

Visual art and music. Do you come at both from the same angle and grapple with the same issues or are they totally different processes?

No, no. It’s a really different process. I’m still trying to find… I don’t know. It’s weird. I’m kinda being forced to make connections with it, which I don’t necessarily feel makes sense. It’s just that I do two things. You know I went to Iceland to do a music video and did the artwork for the album there and I’m starting to try and combine the stuff that I do with my music and artwork and I’m interested in working with videos and trying to make them more of my art…just because that’s what I like and that’s what I’m drawn towards, so just embracing that side of the music. But [music and art] they are a very different process.

For the video, were you the artistic director?

I did it with a close friend, a guy called Max Knight,  who made videos for Laura Marling and Ellie Goulding.  He’s a good friend and we just went out and we had the same vision and I was just breathing stuff beside him frantically. I just realized that I need to work with people and be hands on. It has to be a collaborative process because I distrust anyone (laughs) which I’ve learned from doing this album’s artwork.

Because when you outsource things to someone else,  you feel like that wasn’t what you wanted?

No, I mean it was great. I just learned that it’s an interesting  process.

Would you be happier if it was your artwork on there?

No,  it’s just a different thing. It’s kind of walking a fine line between…I’m still trying to find the balance between what you do let go. How much of me should swing towards the art side and how much you should let go and try and find the right balance of people that are trying to walk that kind of line.

Do you feel like you’ve found that balance here in London in terms of community?

Yeah, I mean it’s good. It’s early stage. Just starting, it’s exciting and it’s going the right direction. I’m meeting new people all the time. Artistic people. It’s just trying to find the right kind of people to work with. I’ve got the right band. I’ve got the best band I could ever want. I just love playing live with them. It’s so much fun. It’s really exciting and can hopefully just keep going.

Is there anything coming up you are particularly excited about?

Green Man Festival. I’m playing a lot of festivals which will be really fun because I’ve never really been to festivals in my life. So it will be nice to play and go to one. And shows. A lot of tours have been fun and I want to keep going.

You went to America two years ago, right?

Yeah, 2009. I’d been to New York once before but I’d never really seen the country so it was cool to see lots of different states. It was when I was in college, too, so I had to make work while I was there. So video ending up becoming an important part of my art practice. It was amazing, I could be on tour playing music, and make sculptures, it was incredible, an incredible realization. A lot of the stuff that ended up being in my final [degree] show was from San Francisco to LA.

What kind of artwork?

Photography and video and stuff. You come across a lot of strange situations and bizarre objects. I realized that the type of videos I would take were similar to the objects I would make. It was an interesting relationship between things, and I write songs a bit like that too…a landscape, traveling.

How did you choose what to document?

I documented everything. You just see so many weird things on tour. And objects, buildings and structures that are slightly bizarre. The way I find things…really bizarre things that if you frame them in the right way…like I filmed these lifts in a San Francisco hotel which looked like weird alien pods, and there are thousands and thousands of lights in front of the pods, so the lift looked like it was under water, like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, really strange. It’s just about taking charge of the moment.

What was the coolest/most memorable thing you saw in America?

Loads of things. Loads of weird things. I was impressed by a lot of water towers. And this orange tulip café, which I ended up filming. Which was just kind of really weird. It was just a little café but you couldn’t go in. But I like weird bubbly objects. And yeah, I just saw a lot of weird things. It was amazing. I wish I’d made a documentary of it.

Are you going back soon?

We are traveling to America. I’ll probably be there in end of December/January with a big American tour for the album hopefully. I’ll be there for months and months and months hopefully. We might be doing a little show in New York in a couple of months.

No updates yet about the American tour or the NYC date, but he’s set to embark on a 25-date tour of the UK and Europe starting October 7th in Sheffield with When You Awake-favorites, The Pierces. Click here for the complete dates.

During that same decade, she performed with artists such as Bob Dylan  (see photo above of Dylan and Blakley backstage at The Roxy in 1976) and Hoyt Axton, among others, and dueted with Dylan on his epic “Hurricane” from the Desire album. She also toured with Dylan and other performers on the Rolling Thunder Revue, and appeared as “Mrs. Bob Dylan” in Dylan’s 1977 film Renaldo and Clara, performing her song “Need A New Sun Rising.”

During the 1976 presidential campaign, she performed at rallies and speeches by Jerry Brown and in 1984 she performed, with Kris Kristofferson, at the final Los Angeles rally of presidential candidate Walter Mondale. She’s also starred in several movies, made guest appearances on popular TV shows and produced, wrote, starred in, and directed her own feature music docudrama, I Played It For You which debuted at the Venice Film Festival in 1985. She continues to record new material and release new albums to this day. Check out our interview with her after the jump.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ronee Blakley: My character as written was more “like” Lynn Anderson and originally she was to be played by vanilla blonde Susan Anspach. The Loretta Lynn tag occurred when I took over the role as a brunette. I studied Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette and Loretta Lynn. I saw both Loretta and Dolly perform, and hung out with Loretta, who was, and is, an inspiration to me.

WYA: Nashville was just one of the many great movies directed during the seventies by Robert Altman, who also directed McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Thieves Like Us and a personal favorite of mine, The Long Goodbye, among many others. Do you have any specific memories of what it was like working with Altman?

Ronee Blakley: Altman had two rules: don’t contradict me on the set because time is money and don’t show up drunk for work. Those were the instructions he gave everyone, because he was open to ideas and received them gladly, but if he said “no” he was not to be argued with. Those are good rules for every set. Of course most directors don’t instruct their employees not to show up drunk, but that was because he liked to go out with some of us, every night after dailies, for dinner and drinks.

WYA: What was it like recording your first album, Ronee Blakley in 1972. I love your duet with Linda Ronstadt on “Bluebird.”

Ronee Blakley: It was exciting and fun and challenging. I remember driving to Linda’s on Beachwood Canyon, where she lived with JD Souther, to pick her up for the session. She drank alot of carrot juice in those days and sometimes she was a tad orange. The musicians were the best, and when I listen to the album I remember them gratefully for their talent, generosity, and the thrill of working alongside them to bring my songs to life.

WYA: Your second album, Welcome was released on Warner Bros. in 1975. It was recorded at the legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama. Can you tell us something about the recording sessions and what it was like to work with a music business giant like Jerry Wexler, who produced the album?

Ronee Blakley: Jerry Wexler was a force, someone whose intellect, energy, vocabulary, encyclopedic knowledge of recorded music, and no nonsense attitude I respected until the day he died. We talked during his final days. I was honored to perform at his memorial with Lenny Kaye in NYC. Jerry and I butted heads once, but he came right back out of it and still invited me to his house for dinner. Jerry was funky and funny and honest, always the truth! The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section was, and still is, a group of great guys, superb professionals who taught me alot. I still seem them and love them. They traveled with me to back me up on “Howard Cosell.” [Note: Ronee's referring to her appearance on "Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell," with aired on ABC between September 1975 to January 1976].

WYA: You’ve done so many things — actress, singer, songwriter, composer, producer, and director — but I’m wondering, is there one role that you identify with more than the others?

Ronee Blakley: I love doing them all and the way it coalesced in the movie Nashville was maybe my favorite type of combination; working with others closely, writing scenes and songs, singing, acting on film, bringing others into the project, hanging out together, coming up with ideas and realizing the. To have a creative outlet like that is a luxury more desirable than things. To direct myself? Yes, that too is fun!

You can read much more about Ronee here.

MP3: Ronee Blakley – American Beauty (buy)

I caught up with Brian Whelan, founder of a great new LA band, Wheelhouse, via email during a break from prepping for his appearance at this weekend’s Sunset Junction Festival. Brian is striking out on his own with Wheelhouse after having previously been the bass player in Merge Records band The Broken West and also performing as an accomplished sideman with numerous L.A. musicians. His versatile, skillful guitar and bass prowess could previously be witnessed alongside contemporary country rock heroes like Mike Stinson, Randy Weeks and the incredible Tony Gilkyson. Brian also played a number of gigs with L.A. singer-songwriter Kip Boardman, in a band that also featured Wheelhouse bassist Rob Douglas (who has also played quite a bit with Stinson, Weeks, Gilkyson and other artists, including Charlie Louvin) and drummer Derrick Brown. Both Douglas and Brown were in the Vapor Records band Everest for a while. Whelan has moved over to guitar and within the past few months, and in less than a dozen gigs with his new band, he’s shown that he’s a new force on the scene, a true West Coast renaissance man and a vibrant songwriter with a lot of musical interests and influences, including straight-up rock ‘n’ roll, pub rock and outlaw country. Check out the interview, in which we chat about his time in The Broken West, a recent stint appearing on “Mad Men” and more after the jump.

Photo by Kent Geib

When You Awake: I understand that, growing up on the west coast, you split your time between Seattle, WA, and San Jose in northern California. Did the music scenes in either of those two cities have any influence on the music you wanted to make?

Whelan: I wasn’t as influenced by the “scenes” in those towns, although I love them both. I was a little too young to really be hit by grunge in Seattle, and San Jose’s ska scene didn’t influence me too much, although Lee [Pardini] and Kevin [Higuchi], who are playing this weekend with me, are in pretty deep with all that stuff.

When You Awake: What are some of the albums in your collection that you can say have helped shaped your taste in music?

Whelan: My first records were greatest hits comps from Eddie Cochran, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry. These are still the records that most inform my own songs and shows.

When You Awake: Many of When You Awake’s readers might recognize you as the bass player in The Broken West. You guys recorded for Merge and did a lot of touring around the country. How was that experience?

Whelan: It was a great experience overall. I learned a lot about writing from Ross [guitarist Ross Flournoy] and the other folks that worked on the creative end of that band, the songwriters and producers, etc. I think touring at that level is a super struggling experience that I don’t exactly want to duplicate any time soon.

When You Awake: You’ve also played guitar and bass with L.A. country rock luminaries like Randy Weeks, Mike Stinson, Tony Gilkyson? Did playing as a sideman in their bands help shape the direction of the music you’re making with Wheelhouse?

Whelan: I would say that that experience definitely shaped what I’m doing now – those guys are all heroes of mine. All of them are tremendous writers, so that was something that brought me in early on. Playing with Tony is like getting free guitar lessons in some ways – you can hear his licks turning up in my solos if you listen.

When You Awake: You played with Ross in The Broken West, and bassist Rob Douglas and drummer Derrick Brown were in Everest, among many other groups, and you have Mona Elyousef on backing vocals too. It seems like a really solid bunch of players, and all the guys in the band are great musicians.You definitely get to play some rockin’ stuff.

Whelan: Ross has been helping out with the writing and production. Live he plays lead guitar and chain smokes. Mona is along to sing all the harmonies – she’s really great and it’s rare to find someone who sings harmonies well. Rob finds tons of old vinyl and digs up songs that we can cover; sometimes he’ll find stuff that I just listen to over and over – “Dear Dad,” “Shame Shame Shame,” and on and on.

When You Awake: “Decider” is a really great song. Seems like you get to rock out more with this band. And you know I love the covers you’d done, like that Buzzcocks cover “Why Can’t I Touch It?”

Whelan: “Decider” was recorded when I had tendonitis so Ross is playing all guitars, and it features the San Jose rhythm section that will be appearing with me at the Junction on Sunday. This song is from my forthcoming LP that I hope to put out next year.

When You Awake: You recently got to appear on the AMC TV show “Mad Men,” playing the part of a folk singer named “Rudy” – what was that experience like? Any future plans to appear on TV shows?

Whelan: It was a great experience – Jon Hamm told me to steal my costume! So that was great. Ross and I got involved in an indie film called Nesting so you can look for that – our song “Everything” is being used also for that. Beyond that I don’t have any plans for the screen – I just pick up the phone and say “yes.”

Wheelhouse will be taking the stage this Sunday, August 22nd at 2 pm, at the FOLD stage, located at Sunset and Edgecliffe. When You Awake faves Leslie and the Badgers will be playing right after Wheelhouse, and Brian says he hopes to coax another guest performance out of Ms. Stevens (she joined the group earlier this year at the Grand Ole Echo). Maps and schedules can be found at www.sunsetjunction.org.

Brian and the band will also be playing at 8:30 pm TONIGHT (Saturday, Aug. 21st) at the Cinema Bar in Culver City, warming up the stage for the Cheatin’ Kind and Dan Janisch.

MP3: Wheelhouse- Decider (Rough Mix)

Guest Contributor Cheree Franco chats with Robin Pecknold about his favorite night-time music, the meaning behind his song “Blue Ridge Mountains” and whether he’s an extrovert or an introvert:

At the Newport Folk Fest I managed to catch up with Robin Pecknold, frontman of Fleet Foxes, for some backstage banter. Except that as soon as I found myself sitting cross-legged on the grass, facing the person behind the ethereal songs that got me through last winter, I knew I wasn’t quite prepared to conduct a professional interview. I blame it on lack of sustenance (did I really expect a bagel to last upwards of 12 hours?) and dually, the sun. Check out the interview, in all it’s glory, after the jump.

Cheree: I guess, um, tell me about yourself. How did this whole thing happen? You guys have been together a long time, right? Someone just passed your tape to Sub-pop?

Robin: Um, we started the band about three years ago and I think we were kind of like, we started to work [for the record/on the record? This part is illegible due to me moving the voice recorder] and my friend Phil was helping us record it and he’d done a lot of records for Sub-pop so he knew the people there and once we were kind of like
halfway done with it, and then um—

C: Well how did you guys meet? You and the guys in the band?

R: Me and Skye with to school together, and Casey and Christian we met once we started playing music in Seattle, doing this thing called Crystal Skulls.

C: And then, I guess, so this whole year has been when everything’s sort of blown up for you guys?

R: I mean, last year was a much busier year, I think for us.

C: What’s the difference between this year and last year?

R: Well last year, the record came out in June and we toured I guess three months before that, and the whole rest of the year. This year we’ve been touring less and writing the new record.

C: And when do you expect to finish that?

R: I have no idea.

C: Is it going to be along the same vein? I guess, how would you describe what you do?

R: How would we describe what we do?

C: Yeah, how would you describe, I mean, it’s folky, but it’s not straight-up…

R: Yeah. I think that’s a pretty good description, folky, but not straight-up folky.

C: Really? You’re just gonna give me back my own words? That’s totally cheating, but hey…

R: I think that…I think that there’s like elements of folk music, or that’s the basis of it, as opposed to based in rock or something. Um, you know.

C: Is this the kind of music that you’ve always played? I mean with the other band…

R: This is the only band I’ve ever had. So I think, like, when I was a teenager I used to record a lot of Elliot Smith type songs, I was constantly obsessed with him, but yeah, it’s always kind of been in this vein for sure.

C: And you think the new record is gonna be…

R: I think it’ll be similar or at least the main difference would be songwriting, you know….

C: As in different songs or a different approach to songwriting?

R: Just kinda how you put a song together and where the chorus goes or you know, if there’s a chorus at all, how long the song is, it’s different that way, as opposed to like, now we’re gonna do a dance or a techno record or something. It’ll still be acoustic instruments and stuff.

C: And you write the songs, or everyone writes the songs?

R: I write the songs for the most part. So far I’ve written them all, but a couple on the next one, we’re working collaboratively on.

C: And where do your ideas come from?

R: I think it’s just trying to evoke an atmosphere or something, you know, like trying to, I think, um, the most inspiring thing could be just the feeling of a certain place or certain time, you know. That’s kind of what you can base stuff on, maybe—

C: So they’re not necessarily narrative, like a certain place in time in your life specifically, or like a certain place and time—

R: Yeah, like either in your life or an event in your life or just like, you want music to evoke a feeling, just like ‘night-time’ or awe or something.

C: Did you used to make seasonal mixes? Are you that guy?

R: Seasonal mixes?

C: Yeah, or do you like, have music that you only listen to at night?

R: Yeah, totally, yeah, yeah, yeah.

C: What’s some of your night music?

R: I definitely like Bert Jansch, you know, um—

C: I don’t know who that is

R: J-A-N-S-C-H, yeah, that’s a good night-time guy. John Renbourn is a good night-time…Robbie Basho, he’s like another kind of Nick Drake-y type dude.

C: I do know Nick Drake. But did you used to make seasonal mixes, or do you still—

R:I haven’t made a mix in a long time, but yes, absolutely.

C: Um, what did it feel like to see all these people, is this the biggest show you guys have played?

R: I don’t think so, we played Glastonbury which was like 100,000 people, and that was—

C: Oh yeah, Wikipedia says you’re really big in Europe.” line

R: I don’t think they were all there for us, but that was the capacity. It was just people, as far as the eye can see.

C: Do you get nervous?

R: It’s so abstract, you know. I’m maybe more nervous playing for thirty people than any more than that, you know. I think that at a certain point it just becomes this indistinguishable mass.

C: Did you eat the cake that they gave you guys? [Some fans passed a cake to the stage before Fleet Foxes played their Newport set]

R: No, they told us not to eat the cake.

C: Because it might be poison or something?

R: No, they were just like—don’t eat it!

C: What are you going to do with it?

R: I dunno, schellac it and frame it.

C: Yeah, then it’d be art.

R: Totally.

C: But, um did you know who gave it to you guys, or someone just handed it and that was it?

R: That happens every once and awhile.

C: What other things have you gotten?

R: We’ve definitely gotten a lot of food, and someone made like this weird wire cut-out thing, like they took this long thing of wire and formed it to say Fleet Foxes and made a fox, all on this one piece of wire.

C: And you guys are all still living in Seattle?

R: Yeah, yeah.

C: Are you from Seattle?

R: Yeah, I was born and raised there.

C: And you went to school there and decided to stay?

R: Me and Skye were both born there and so was Casey. Christian and Josh grew up on the east coast, and just moved to Seattle at various times.

C: Do you think you’ll be there forever or do you think—

R: I think it’d be nice to live somewhere else for awhile, but I don’t think anywhere else would really feel like home, I guess. I like being from Seattle, and I like staying in Seattle…I feel like, moving somewhere else, you would have to be plugging into something that wasn’t fully your own…

C: Just because it’s home, or because it’s your scene and your friends…

R: Yeah, your friends, your family’s there.

C: What’s the first music that you remember really getting into?

R: Probably the first stuff that I was like ‘okay I wanna play music’ was Bob Dylan, Bringing It All Back Home and Blood on the Tracks. For sure.

C: Remember how old you were?

R: I was 13. I was like, I wanna play music like now.

C: So you went and got a guitar?

R: Yeah, well, my dad got us, me and my brother and sister, all guitars when we were, well I think that Christmas, when I was 13.

C: In Mississippi you get a deer rifle when you turn 13.

R: Deer rifle? (laughs)  And a driver’s license?

C: That’s 15, they moved the age up though, but yeah, I got mine at 15. Um, okay, I guess, your experience here…

R: Yeah, it was great, it was really fun. It’s definitely somewhere that, as a Dylan fan, I’ve read about Newport in ’65 and it even hit when he would play Newport the years before that, just all the crazy stuff that went down. So it was definitely an honor to be asked to play, and Gillian Welch is just amazing…So I was glad to see, I’d never gotten a chance to see her.

C: When you say a feeling of a certain event or a time in your life, this might be a complex question, you don’t have to answer it, but um, is there a particular song that you associate, well I guess, can you elaborate on that with specifics?

R: You mean, with songs that I’ve written or…

C: Yeah.

R: I think that like, ah…

C: It’s a tough question.

R: There’s like, the second to last song on the album, “Blue Ridge Mountains”, my granddad had just died and…it was just kind of reminiscence about times me and my brother had been with him, and yeah, it was trying to evoke that place I guess.

C: So they’re really personal, but also…I don’t know, I feel like they’re really intuitive and universally evocative, in the sense that…I’m really big into myth of place, that’s why I move so much…

R: Yeah.

C: Yeah, but, is there anything else you need to say about the festival?

R: Um, to say about the festival…

C: Or about anything, is there anything you feel you need to share—

R: That I need to get off my chest?

C: Yeah.

R: Um…it’s definitely a beautiful place…and it’s kind of, I’m looking forward to Pete Seeger absolutely.

C: Yeah, because he’s 90.

R: And yeah, it’s just nice to be outside…

C: That’s true…okay, I do have two more things actually.

R: Okay.

C: Your dynamic with the rest of the guys in the band, I mean not your dynamic specifically, but how does the dynamic of the band work?

R: Um…you mean in terms of?

C: I mean in terms of, are you friends, or it’s more of a professional relationship and you used to hang out but you don’t really hang out now that you’re, or I dunno, band dynamics can be really messy or raw or sometimes they’re really professional…

R: I think it’s like, we definitely hang out for fun, it’s not like we never see each other when we’re not working on music or playing shows. I think everyone’s pretty easy-going, no one takes it too seriously, no one’s too self-involved to have fun with it and, yeah, I mean I think it’s like, sustainable, you know? That’s how we treat it.
Nobody’s too insane, everyone’s kind of interested in, like—

C: That’s important. A lot of great bands self destruct.

R: (laughing) Yeah.

C: Do you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert?

R: Definitely an introvert I would say, I think…that that’s kind of where music comes from or something, introverts.

C: So then, to be onstage, giving, exerting so much, is that strange for you?

R: I think that everybody has different sides to themselves. I think um, I think…I dunno, I think you can either make music for yourself and other people identify with something in it, and it’s not like you’re doing it for them, but they can find the value in it and then they’re kind of sharing that experience together, you know. It’s not like you’re really pandering to them. I don’t think we’re performers in the sense that we’re trying to make people enjoy themselves and like put a show on, we’re just trying to play the songs as they were written and you know, do it well, and hopefully people will enjoy it, but it’s not really for, you know, we’re not setting shit on fire and
doing cartwheels.

C: Do you think you’d write the songs anyhow, even if you weren’t playing them publicly?

R: Oh yeah, absolutely. Songs are just like what you do after a certain amount of time’s past in you life and stuff has happened to you, you write songs about it.

Justin Townes Earle.  Being the natural skeptic and usual hater of most things, I was fully prepared to sneer and silently judge this musical offspring of a very remarkable and renowned country singer (I’ve made a clipped choice not to mention his father’s name in this piece.)  While it’s an honor to be compared to his Daddy, I’m certain JTE is over the comparison and name-dropping.  And JTE is due his own respect as he’s earned his right with me to stand alone. The very thought of a kid of some famous musician tinkering with notes makes me bristle—Lennon, Dylan—don’t know, don’t care.  This one’s the exception.

I got my grubby paws on his two solo albums, The Good Life and Midnight At The Movies.  I say solo, because he also fronted two bands:  The Swindlers and The Distributors before venturing out onto his own simply as Justin Townes Earle.  What bludgeoned my auditory senses were the incredible depth and his capacity to tell a story as if he were an old man.  The guy is only 27 years old!  The sound is stripped-down, no bullshit resplendence.  Then I became an all-out YouTube lurker, checking out his live performances.  He’s tall, rail-thin but has a commanding presence and owns the mike and stage like a seasoned pro.  Accompanied by his multi-finger pickin’ sidekick Cory Younts, who plays a mean mandolin,  Earle’s a capella delivery is an Ali-like smooth punch right into your gut.  It’s simple and restrained, but the sound is excessively absolute.

I had the great pleasure of getting Earle on the phone for a quick interview.  He was on his tour bus riding through downtown Seattle.  The phone connection sucked, but he was ever so patient and gracious.  Our conversation went from the sublime to the rather silly:

When You Awake:  You pay tribute to the great American folk hero in your song “They Killed John Henry.”  What is it about his legend and persona do you identify with?

Justin Townes Earle:  I think that it all relates to my grandfather.  He told better stories than anyone.  One was the story of John Henry.  The other was Joe Hill.  Those were big ones.  He spoke about these men that were bigger than life.  And that’s what Papa was.  He could solve everything and he really was untouchable.  He died a lot earlier that I thought he should.  Papa was just like those guys: one mythic and one very real.

Continue reading the interview after the jump….

WYA:  Why the choice to do without a full band in your live performance?

JTE:  Mainly, that’s just a pure economic decision.  If I were a member of a band, everyone in the band would starve together.  But when you’re a singer/ songwriter—the band, they get paid first.  They are independent contractors and I have to pay them no matter how much I make.  In the last few years, this current set up has become the show and it’s what people have come to expect at my shows.  Most people that come to the shows are about the songs anyway.  It’s not about the band.

WYA:  The Replacements are one of your favorite bands and you cover one of their songs “Can’t Hardly Wait” on your sophomore album Midnight At The Movies.  Why?

JTE:  It’s just one of those things that comes down to…if you’re my age, born in ’82—that’s about the time—1986 -1990—when they were really at the height of their fame.  And if you had parents that were remotely hip, they had Replacements records in the house.  My mom even had Metallica records.  She just liked what she liked.  I was just listening to what my mom was playing around the house.  Without a doubt,  “Can’t Hardly Wait” is the closest thing to a hit that they ever had.  In 1990 that song was everywhere.  Hell, it could’ve been on a tampon commercial, it was so-everywhere!

WYA:  You mentioned your musical influences to name but a few, Woody Guthrie, Charlie Pool and even hip hop and Motorhead, as well as the obvious Townes Van Zandt whom you are named after.  What is the commonality for you of all these varied sources?

JTE:  I’m a songwriter.  Most of what I go for is just good songs, good lyrics and good structure.  Proper instrumentations that represent the song, most people have difficulty with.  Often you hear a record with a great song, but the record sucks.  Like Motorhead:  I would never say they are great musicians, but Lemmy is the living embodiment of metal and Rock ‘n’ Roll.  Motorhead does Motorhead better than anyone, you know?  The Roots or Outkast…hell…Anybody, any musician that can listen to that and say it’s not good music can kiss my ass.  The last Outkast record was the best I’ve ever heard.  That stuff holds the same quality that Woody had back in the day—it’s just very urban music to a different beat.

WYA:  Was it a conscious choice to not be on your father’s record label, E-Squared, and to go your own way with Bloodshot instead?

JTE:  I feel that’s one of the most important decisions I’ve made as an artist, and how involved I got in my career with my dad’s.  I’ve found over the years that in order for us to maintain whatever father-son relationship, we have to keep the business world very separate.  Because it’s money and people fight over that.  We don’t need that.  We’ve always had a rocky relationship—it’s been great over the past several years, but it still gets pushed to the edge.

WYA:  You sang a song as guest artist on your father’s recently released tribute album to Townes Van Zandt.  I know you’ve performed with your father previously, how was working on this album different?

JTE: It was actually something where I was in town for a few hours.  I had to run into the studio real quick—literally for two hours—while I was in the city to do that.  When we go on the road, it’s really, really stressful as it is.  It’s just not a good idea to work with my dad.  I’m not saying we’ll never perform together again.  His career is very established and we stand where we stand individually, as individuals.  And as artists, we have our particulars and we both have things that are very deep set.  We live and tour very differently.  I mean look, two bands that aren’t related, but with co-billing—one of them in that group dynamic is going to be an asshole at some point.  There’s so much ego tied up in this business.  I’ve never had a problem with treating people different, but it’s a stressful way of life.  You just get down-right sick of shaking people’s hands and just want to lock yourself up in the hotel room and be able to…no, you have to say, “No, not today.”

WYA:  You mentioned your paternal grandfather as being “the model of a man,” as well as believing that he’s an exceptional storyteller.  What character attributes make him a model man?  And do you see any of him in yourself?

JTE:  I sure hope that there are some of my grandfather’s qualities in me, but I’m no way near anywhere he was as a man.  He raised five children on an air traffic controller’s pay in the 50’s and 60’s.  My dad was raised by a really great man, but he made specific moves to really fuck up and unfortunately, I inherited that.  My Papa took his children to state parks, ate apple pie with them.  My point being that he was a true family man…I hope somewhere in there, I think that I’m carrying some of his attributes.  He was a great man.  But I don’t think I am near what he was.  I haven’t even lived enough for that, not real life.

WYA:  What hip hop artist’s persona speaks to your style of storytelling and song writing?  Would you agree that hip hop is storytelling at some of its best?

JTE:  I would say it’s those guys that are really, really good writers.  I think hip hop is absolutely full of imagery. Some guys—the way that they lay out that imagery through their lyrics is truly a unique style of writing.

WYA:  Having performed at the oldest continuous radio program in the U.S. –The Grand Ole Opry –what was that experience like?  How many times have you performed there?

JTE:  I performed at the Grand Ole Opry just one time.  I was really surprised we were invited even once.  I mean, my dad’s never even been invited to the Grand Ole Opry.  Yeah, he’s performed there, but that’s cause Emmylou Harris said, “____[his dad’s name] is performing with me.”  It was just one of those moments in my life where it was everything that I thought it would be.   When I was a kid…I mean, it’s absolutely one of those most thrilling moments in your life that you won’t forget.

WYA:  With due respect, at age 27, you’re really in the spring of your life.  How does someone so relatively young, manage to write lyrics that speak of more mature experiences of desolation, anguish, and dispiritedness?  It’s as if you’ve lived many lives to give you the depth and understanding of someone who’s at the winter of his years?

JTE:  One thing is that I really screwed up.  I was in a position where my mom worked a lot and left me alone a lot of the time.  I grew up really fast.  I had friends  that were much older than me.   I know how to be an adult and a junkie, but one thing I don’t know how to be is a kid.  When I was 13, I was shooting heroin, selling weed—that ain’t much of a childhood.  And you lose those years.  So I write what I write.  I could never write a lullaby.  Maybe I could, but I’d have to get a lullaby manual or somethin’.

WYA:  Now some silly, fun questions, if you’ll humor us:

•    What hair product do you use to slick your hair?

JTE:  It’s called “Olive Oil.”  It’s a lotion, but it’s made for Black women’s hair.  And it’s made with pure olive oil.

•    Gram Parsons or Neil Young?

(It took him a minute to answer this, he had to think about it long and hard)
JTE:  I’m gonna have to say Neil Young, because he’s just got more work.   I think Gram Parsons was great, but his great stuff isn’t as good as Neil Young’s great stuff.

•    Nina Simone or Billie Holiday?

JTE:  Billie Holiday! I love my Nina Simone, but nobody sings like Billie.

•    Have you ever hopped a freight train?

JTE:  I have one time in my life hopped a freight train.  It was at a rail yard  in south Nashville.  I ended up in Lebanon, Tennessee. My mom had to come and get me. I was 10 years old.

•    What’s your biggest pet peeve of the minutia of being on the road?

JTE:  It’s probably when I show up at a venue and often, nothing is what it’s suppose to be.  You’ll show up and there won’t be no bottled water.  And you have to ask,  “Um, excuse me, but can we get water?” And they look at you like you’re the jerk, “You want water?” I mean, it’s Austin, in the middle of the dead summer’s heat…they act like we‘re animals where we run around doing nothing.

•    What’s the most disgusting thing you’ve ever eaten?

JTE:  Hmmm…Some stuff from England.  Because they have some of the most favor-less food I’ve ever encountered in my life.  But, I guess it’d have to be haggis. That was really bad.  It’s a Scottish delicacy.

Forget all the damn hipsters who front like musicians and who can barely play a chord.  Come down to McCabe’s in Santa Monica on Sunday, May 24 and see for yourself why I’ve decided that Justin Townes Earl is The Real Deal. Show starts at 7 pm with Charlie Wadhams and Frank Fairfield supporting. You can buy tix by clicking here. And don’t forget to pick up Justin Townes Earle’s latest record, Midnight at the Movies (out now via Bloodshoot Records.)