Duncan Sheik: More than barely breathing

When I used to work as a clerk-gal / shelf-stocker / sweep-if-they-need-it person at Longs’ Drug Store in San Jose, I remember that they used to play a lot of Duncan Sheik over the PA (along with Del Amitri and other soft-pop hits. Maybe “On The Wings Of Love” too). In fact, Sheik’s 1996 song “Barely Breathing” was apparently the most-played radio song that year. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that tune, but for me it just became background music.

All this to say, I didn’t realize the depth of Duncan Sheik’s talent in producing richly multifaceted music that has some serious quality behind it. In the last few years, I’ve opened my mind a little more and been exposed a few of his other tunes which underscore his ability to craft these gorgeous symphonic songs with penetrating lyrics. (His tribute song to Jeff Buckley is astounding, as is “In Between” from 1998′s Humming, among others). Perhaps you, like me, had erroneously dismissed Duncan Sheik as boring or overly-vanilla, and maybe you missed his contributions to the Repertoire Of Good Music?

From an early age, Sheik was schooled in piano by his grandmother, a Juilliard graduate. He continued in music through his school years, but graduated with a degree in Semiotics from Brown University (trivia fact, same program as Damian Kulash from OK Go). Semiotics is the study of language, communication, and semantics — so I think it leads to some dang good songwriting.

Recently when I was in California, I stumbled by chance upon a sort of “MTV Unplugged” lunchtime session with Sheik in the Fess Parker Theater at my university. This hour-long conversation was peppered with audience questions and several acoustic performances of songs that Sheik has penned for his current musical theater endeavor, Spring Awakening.

This musical was performed at Santa Clara University last year, hence the connection and the resulting (very interesting) appearance. It is a re-imagining of a controversial German expressionist play by the same name from Frank Wedekind, and Sheik worked on the musical score for the past eight years before it finally opened in New York’s Atlantic Theater this past August, and just arriving on Broadway this past weekend.

Here is a partial transcript of the “interview” portion with the audience. I related to much more of what he had to say than I thought I would, being from a completely NON-theatre background myself (except for that junior high stint in the Anne Of Green Gables play, which I totally rocked). I always find it fascinating to see how music can permeate so many aspects of life and culture.

DUNCAN SHEIK, “UNPLUGGED”
October 20, 2006
Fess Parker Theater, Santa Clara University

Sheik opened with acoustic performances of two exceedingly lovely songs from the musical.

BLUE WIND

THE SONG OF PURPLE SUMMER

Q&A
How has it been working in theatre, which is so much more collaborative than the individual songwriting model? I imagine it must be a struggle to find solitude sometimes.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I lock people out of my house all the time. We lock the director [Michael Mayer] out of the recording studio, he’ll be banging on the door (laughs).

But I do think that in the end, it’s really great to have people’s ideas in the process because left to our own devices, [lyricist] Steven [Sater] and I — the whole show would just sound like what you’ve just heard, it would just be completely sad and melancholy and tragic, and it would not be very exciting. Having other people to force us to give the songs more energy — in the end that’s very helpful.

How did you get into the theatrical process, and how do you think it changed your writing and the concept of what a song is to go from a world recording albums to the theater?

Initially it was very difficult for the reasons I was saying, where it was so much more collaborative. When I go into the studio, I have great people around me who all give really great ideas, but at the end of the day it’s still my record so I can make the call at the end. But in the theater scenario . . . you kind of have to be political and negotiate things all the time for what your agenda is versus their agenda.

I mean, the initial thing that was exciting about the project was that, normally, being on tour and playing with four or five musicians every night is a great thing, but there is some limitation to it. You know, five guys, on stage, playing some songs. That’s what happens when you go to a rock concert. For me, it was very exciting to think that there could be this really cool narrative that you’re telling over the course of the evening, and that within the context of this story, you’re using this music to up the emotional ante of that story.

So even though sometimes it was really painful and really difficult to hear these songs — you know, I’ll be really honest with you, we had some kids who were really very “Broadway” in the initial workshops, and even some of the kids who are in the show now, they’ve done Les Mis and Ragtime and things like that. So they sing in that way, and — it was torture for me. I had to kind of crack the whip with them, “You’re not Cosette, you’re Fiona Apple.” You know, “Pretend that you’re Thom Yorke. You’re a kid in your bedroom who wants to be a rockstar.”

So the concept was that the music would be completely contemporary and modern, and it was a difficult process to get to that place. And in the end I think it did end up as kind of a hybrid, because whenever you have eleven people singing a song on stage, there is an aspect of musical theatre around it, I mean — you can’t get away from it.

But I think in a way, I’ve kind of come around a little bit and started to embrace some aspects of [musical theatre]. We started working on this almost eight years ago, and since then I’ve come to appreciate the genre a lot more. For example, seeing things like Dancer In The Dark, the Bjork movie, seeing how music can function there. Laurie Anderson did a great musical piece about Moby Dick and — to see all these kinds of possibilities within the form that are really cool. So even though it was difficult and a lot of the times I just wanted to say “Ugh! I can’t do this!” in the end, to see it on the stage at The Atlantic, it was the best and most satisfying creative feeling I’ve had. Ever.

[My question] Do you think that the experiences working with Spring Awakening affected your writing on White Limousine at all?

Yeah, I think it definitely did. I think anytime you work on your process in a different way –like, say, working with eleven singers instead of one– it changes the way you think about harmony, vocals, what the possibilities are. And I think also lyrically, it changed a lot of the ways I think about writing songs. Steven [Sater] is a lot more of a poetic writer than I am — I can tend to get more heady in my own writing, and so I think it’s helped me move away from that intellectual writing zone and to just do something that’s more about feeling.

How was it working with this project which had existing themes and lyrics that you had to include in your songwriting, and integrating them with the melodies or chords in your mind?

Actually, I tend to write chords first almost always and then the melodies kind of reveal themselves from that. But that’s just my own personal thing, I’m not sure why that is. I’m not the kind of person that just walks about and a melody pops into my head, I’m definitely a person that hears structural things first and then the melodies kind of emerge. The lyrics do suggest a rhythmic thing no matter what, so that kind of gives you something to start with in this instance.

Do you see yourself continuing to work in musical theatre?

Yeah. Steven and I have a bunch of pieces coming up. We have a show called The Nightingale which is going to be done in La Jolla next fall, and it’s based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale about a Chinese emperor and this great bird . . . it’s actually a little bit more political, a piece about how the aristocracy within a given country can really ignore the needs of the common people. And then we also did a piece about Nero the emperor that was in the theatre a few months ago and we’ll probably do another version of that in New York next year as well.

And finally our next big crazy idea is to do a version of Frankenstein — but it would be not with the big green monster. Our idea is to have Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley and Byron, the three of them kind of sitting around telling stories on the shore of Lake Como, and the story of Frankenstein comes from their perspectives there. So lots of things in the works.

Johnny Depp has been rumored to play Sweeney Todd in a new movie musical — how would you feel about Spring Awakening being made into a movie?

Oh we definitely want to make a movie of it, for sure. It’s gonna be hard, as all of these things are. Between you and me, most musicals which are made into movies are not very successful — at least artistically I find them to be off-putting. But there are some things that are cool, so it can be done, if we get the right team of people to make this movie so that it doesn’t get too . . . Hollywood and too . . . stupid.

How has it been orchestrating your works for the musicians in the theatre? Has your process changed much from how you are used to doing it?

I made recordings of pretty much all of these songs before, so there were orchestral parts that I had written that existed on the recordings already. But I also collaborated with Simon Hale, who’s the string arranger that I work with a lot, he actually just got involved with the project and he did string arrangements for 14 of the 20 songs. We just recorded these 14 string arrangements at my studio this past Tuesday and Wednesday, and he’s amazing. I just sit there and I’m blown away by what he does. So Simon and I have kind of orchestrated it together, and it’s amazing to hear what he comes up with.

You seem to be at a really revolutionary point in musical theatre in terms of reaching out to new audiences, or younger audiences, or those who wouldn’t ordinarily be interested in musical theatre. How do you want to affect this change?

Steven and I have always –from the beginning– been interested in figuring out a way to do a piece of musical theatre and have younger people come to the show, but not just younger people, but people of all ages who kind of grew up in rock music, and yet make them feel like this kind of music is still completely relevant to them.

You know, musical theatre in the ’30s and ’40s, that was the popular music of the day, and then something happened in the ’50s and ’60s where these two genres diverged. It’s always been our goal to kind of bring these two musical forms back together again so that you’ll have a different set of people seeing it. In addition to the regular theatergoers, we’re also hoping to get a new set of people who won’t be estranged by the music because it’s their music, it’s what they’re used to hearing aesthetically.

When the kids are singing in Spring Awakening — even though it’s set in 1891, when they sing they become modern kids. And the conceit is that when they sing they’re never singing to each other, they’re not singing to the audience. It’s similar to Dancer In The Dark; when Bjork is singing she enters this fantasy world, her own kind of internal monologue is happening. So hopefully theatregoers don’t get that uncomfortable or alienating feeling of “Why is this person singing stuff that they should just be saying?“

I think that there’s been a kind of a modern tradition of that in musical theatre that’s always trying to get a foothold, whether it’s Tommy or Rent or Hedwig And The Angry Inch — there have been some successful attempts, but we’re just trying to be part of that trajectory and just get new people into the theatre, I think that’s really important.

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Sheik closed with an acoustic version of the title track off his latest album, White Limousine:

Watch also for the new double-disc retrospective album called Brighter/Later that was just released (with a nod to Nick Drake) on Rhino Records.

LISTEN:
At The Reservoir – A Live EP
(1996 US 7-track promo-only CD featuring two non-album tracks)

01. The End Of The Outside
02. In The Absence of Sun
03. Rubbed Out
04. Home
05. Barely Breathing
06. She Runs Away
07. Fake Plastic Trees (Radiohead cover)

Me with Chris Parnell from SNL Duncan Sheik

Matt Nathanson *can* get to what I need

Recently I had the pleasure of sharing some Japanese food with San Francisco singer-songwriter Matt Nathanson before his show in Boulder, catching up with him about his current tour, the music he loves, and new album coming in 2007. You’ve heard me talk about him before; a bonus discovery for me when he opened for G. Love and Special Sauce, of all people. He’s currently co-headlining a tour with Carbon Leaf, and has played with folks as varied as Fiona Apple, Toad The Wet Sprocket, O.A.R., and Train.

Matt is a compelling songwriter with a biting edge and a fiercely humorous energy. No moon-faced mopey songwriting here, he’d rather strike with a sharply incisive lyric or a driving melody. Even his acoustic shows rock pretty hard, and this current tour is with a full band, so it is exciting to see that side of his music as well. As Matt said once in concert, “Tonight is going to rock, I guarantee you. You are going to run home tonight, naked, and possibly on fire.”

How could you resist? I hear nothing but good things in the future for this fellow.

A CONVERSATION WITH MATT NATHANSON

Let’s start with a hard-hitting and serious journalistic question: If you were a white rapper, what would your street name be?

(no hesitation) MC Bitch Tits.

Niiice. I first saw you as an opening act last March in San Francisco, and the crowd was happy but not always, shall we say, attentive. What have you learned from being an opening act that you now use in your headlining shows? I imagine it must be quite an acrobatic stunt trying to hold the attention of some of these crowds.

Sometimes it’s a better fit opening for certain bands vs. others. When I opened for Tori Amos it was fantastic because the crowd was really ready to listen. G. Love can be a little bit more of a tough crowd. But I’d say I like being the opening act better, actually, than headlining. I like being the underdog and being underestimated and kind of trying to win my way. It’s much better than being in a position of, “Put on a great show. I came here to see you.” Much cooler. I mean, both are good shows, but I think opening is just fun in general. I like it.

It seems as if you are a total cover whore, which I can appreciate because I am too. Some are serious and gorgeous, like Romeo & Juliet, or Springsteen, but others are not so much (White Snake, Rick Springfield). How do you decide what covers to do, and what do you bring to it that makes it worthwhile?

People don’t always appreciate the Boss, but every crowd appreciates White Snake. For us as a band, it’s fun to do covers that are stupid, like last night for fun we did “Dancing With Myself,” didn’t really rehearse it. So it’s usually just like you’re in middle of a song and something makes you think of something, you follow the train of thought and all of a sudden you’re at “Crazy Train.” Occasionally, tags on the end of songs or at the beginning just pop into my head, like “Anna Begins” (or “Such Great Heights”) with “Bent,” or “Pictures of You” with “I Saw.”

Are there any covers you want to do that you haven’t tried yet?

Ohhhh . . . I want to do “Dreaming” by Blondie. I think that’s a great song. Ah, I love that song. But I don’t think we’ll ever do it.

Dual pronged question about music, take your pick:
-What do you find yourself listening to most often now?
-Top 5 Desert Island Discs

Oh, I buy records all the time, I go every Tuesday to the record store. It depends which one — Best Buy is cheap, but I go to Amoeba first . . . great. And Tower on Columbus, before Tower went belly up, they were great. My top albums? Man, how about…

U2 – Achtung Baby
Def Leppard – Hysteria
R.E.M. – Life’s Rich Pageant
Lou Reed – New York
Jane’s Addiction – Nothing Shocking

aaand . . . maybe Southern Harmony and Musical Companion (Black Crowes) if I can take six onto this island.

Music that’s blowing my mind; John Darnielle / The Mountain Goats. I’ve known him for a really long time, since college and he’s just soooo good (see A Violently Perfect Song). The first song on the new Ani DiFranco record blew my mind. I was really excited about that new Black Crowes double record thing that came out. I bought the My Morning Jacket live record, and last week I bought ummmm . . . Fergie (yeah), and Luna’s greatest hits. It just piles on, stacks and stacks of CDs, and eventually I get there and find time to listen to it all.

Are there any songs that you ever don’t feel like performing because they are so wrenching and, well, a lot of the situations are pretty crappy? Like, Ryan Adams wrote:
“there are just some songs that are too painful, not in an emo-core way or whatev, but in a personal way, that i see in a way that makes me uneasy and unable to translate from the frame of mind i am in now . . . and that song [Come Pick Me Up] doesnt speak to me. it isnt what i would say if i were being myself . . . i respect the song enough not to sing it and lie.”

Can you relate to that at all with any of your songs?

There may be songs that I don’t sing, just ones that don’t translate anymore . . .But that stuff’s all still in there, inside me. It hasn’t been solved. You know, it’s all kind of still — you can get to it pretty easy. It just sort of sits in a corner and waits for you to sort of be like, “Heyyyy!”

I don’t think I’ve had any trouble relating still to my songs. That’s probably not a good sign for my development as a human, but I can still pretty much relate to everything in there, all the ones I play.

In the past 11 years that you’ve lived in San Francisco, are you finding any specific influences from the city in the music you’ve written? Is there a sense of place that comes from songs written in different locales?

Unh-unh. Songs may be about different places, that happens. Like this song’s kind of a New York song or that one is somewhere else, based on the characters in it or whoever I wrote about. But most of my songs are just really specific about events, they’re mostly letters to people.

Like, a record from me will be, like, 12 letters to the same person. They’re not hybrids of different situations in the same song — I try not to do that because I want to communicate something to that person that the song is written about, that’s usually how it works. Almost to a fault, I feel that I really adhere to that concept, like trying to explain this situation in a song, what’s really going on in my life.

As far as San Francisco goes, as a songwriter I haven’t really written any songs that for me feel like San Francisco. I tour a lot. I try but — in songwriting I am working on kind of expanding the palette a little bit, so things get a little more dynamic, a little more soundscapey, you know?

I was talking to my friend today and I feel like I do a lot of, like, “Here’s a song. Here it’s delivered, here it is.” And it’s time to stop doing that, it’s time to start delivering them in a little bit more of a — Like making greatness, or trying to make greatness. It’s like when you have a record like the first Sheryl Crow record, that’s pretty much a singer-songwriter record, but like “Strong Enough” is just amazing because they totally went left field with how they made it, like what kind of guitar they used, and rhythm.

Once you’re confident in the songs, I think the next step (and I’ve never been able to do this) is to sort of step outside the confines of the song and see what it can be. There’s a couple on the new record that feel like they’re closer to that.

What do you think it would look like to reach that elusive quality of “greatness” in a song that you spoke of?

Ohhh, I don’t know. Like . . . Springsteen. Springsteen has moments. Springsteen is actually an example of someone who does the opposite of that concept. He adheres to strongly to the traditional structure — they sound like a rock band, but the lyrics, that’s where he gets away with it. “Born To Run” makes you feel like you’re on the Jersey shore, but it’s not because of the music, I don’t think. It’s more about his lyrics. Or like with U2, you hear “Trying To Throw Your Arms Around The World” and, holy shit, it’s like it’s 6am on some street corner somewhere, like you are actually there.

When can we expect a follow-up to Beneath These Fireworks?

It’s almost done, actually. There are 11 songs done, and we’ll record another 4. We’re recording it in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and it’ll probably be out in April of 2007. I’ve got a couple of titles floating around; it can be hard to name the album but eventually it just comes to you. I was thinking The Knife-Thrower’s Wife, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen now. I don’t actually know what it will be called right now.

Here are some unreleased songs you’ve done live that we’re curious about. Can you tell me which of these might be on the new album?

(Looks at paper)

*Prove to Me — “that’s never gonna make a record”
*So Long — “that’s so long gone”
*Car Crash — “that’s new, yep”
*Bulletproof Weeks
*Stay
*I Can’t Get to What You Need
*Winter Dress — “that’s called Wedding Dress now”
*Detroit Waves
*Come On Get Higher
*This Heartbreak World

So, yeah, pretty much all of those except “Prove to Me” and “So Long”.

You’ve worked with some awesome musicians on your last album: Matt Chamberlain, Glen Phillips, David Garza. Who would be on your dream team of collaborators for the future?

A couple of records ago I had Charlie [Gillingham] from the Counting Crows come in and play piano and he is just great. I loved working with Matt [Chamberlain], who was in Pearl Jam for like three weeks. I just totally just saw Pearl Jam in Irving Plaza, it was a fucking incredible show.

David Garza is amazing, just constantly creating. Our bass player John played with his band for a while around the time of This Euphoria.

And Glen Phillips sang some backup for me, and that was great. I’ve known Glen for a really long time, I just played a bunch of shows with Toad and we had a great time. He and I have known each other for like 14 years, and we had a fucking good hang, it was great.

There’s not many guests on the new album — my friend Susie sings backup on a couple songs, she was on that show Rockstar. I’ve never seen the show but she just has a great voice.

The new one, it’s kind of a mix of electric and acoustic. We’ve been debuting some of the songs at shows recently, we’ll play a bunch of them tonight.

Last question. I love your “Starfish & Coffee” Prince cover, it is an inspired flash of glory. So . . . what’s the best Prince song ever, and why?

“Never Take The Place of Your Man” live from Sign ‘o’ the Times the movie. Now that’s a great song. Prince is just great.

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Matt and his band did indeed rock Boulder that night with a crowd that was extremely attentive and tuned in to the vibe of the show. It was a pretty powerful aura of connection with the audience that evening, and the band seemed to be completely jelling together and really hitting their stride.

Matt played a mix of old and new songs, as well as a nice Violent Femmes cover and their cover of “Laid” by James. Of the new material, “Detroit Waves” was absolutely scorching, and I really liked the maturity and honest incisiveness of “I Can’t Get To What You Need.” Check it out, I think it’s great:

Here’s “Sad Songs,” one of my favorite songs of his off Beneath These Fireworks:

Finally, here’s a bit of his performance of “Bare,” another great song:

As a completely irrelevant postscript, I have to say that one of the funniest parts of the conversation we shared (and my personal favorite quote of the night because I am a total dog person): A golden retriever puppy comes up to our outside table. Matt asks the dog, very enthusiastically, “What are you doing?! Why are you perfect? Oh my god, you’re awesome. You’re so soft. What happened?!”

Come on, fuzzy puppies and good music. How could that not make for an excellent evening? Definitely go see Matt on tour if you can, and I am looking forward to hearing all of his new album next year. The strength of his lyricism and the goodness of the melodies make Nathanson one that I plan to keep an eye on.

TUNES: A few new ones from the Live Music Archive

Car Crash

Detroit Waves
(I think Matt said this was about being in an airplane over Detroit and not able to text message someone who you couldn’t control anymore)

Bulletproof Weeks
(Matt said this was about sleeping with someone that you really shouldn’t be sleeping with, and how it gets bad)

Come On Get Higher
(such a pretty, simple song)

All the Pete Yorn you can handle

Ah, where to begin? I have just spent a fantabulous two days saturated with all the Pete Yorn I can handle (although yes, I’d go for more). Two in-store appearances packed with acoustic rarities, two fantastic concerts with the full repertoire of songs, and a one fine interview for y’all – an insight into the mind of the man behind the music.

Pete Yorn is an authentic, quality singer-songwriter (slash drummer, slash guitarist, slash multi-instrumentalist) with heartfelt passion for his music. This 32-year-old from Jersey combines raw urgency with melodic beauty, and I think that he is currently making and performing some of the best music of his career. If you can catch some of the remaining tour dates or in-stores, I urge you to do so. Many of the shows are sold out, but beg borrow and steal, baby.

If you have not yet read my massive post on Pete Yorn from a few months ago (or are unfamiliar with him), you must do so immediately. Full stop. The coolest thing to happen to me in recent memory is discovering on Monday night that Pete Yorn himself has previously read that very post on my very own little blog (and apparently the version of “Knew Enough To Know Nothing At All” that I have on there is a remix with Velvet Underground loops, not the original). Huh. Sweet beard of Zeus.

After some shuffling of schedules Monday night out on the open-air patio of the Walnut Room in Denver with Pete, we finally found some time to sit down together on Tuesday afternoon up in Boulder on a couch backstage at the Fox Theatre and chat a bit about what he has been up to. What I saw revealed was a rather pensive (but funny) musician with a lot of interesting things to say while he rubbed his guitar-string calloused fingertips.
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Pete Yorn Interview, July 25, 2006
Fox Theatre, Boulder, Colorado

So, tell me about your new album Nightcrawler. What is the musical progression or evolution from your two previous records, Musicforthemorningafter and Day I Forgot, to the new Nightcrawler?

It’s a completely different record than either of the other two records. The natural progression for me is just being older, living more, experiencing more. Right from the first song on Nightcrawler (“Vampyre”), it’s definitely a darker tone than what I’ve set with other records, but there’s a lot of bright spots on there too. But I mean, with any record if you just listen to the first song and think that’s what the whole record is going to sound like, you’d be missing a lot, it’s a pretty diverse. And I work on the order of the songs to make a flow that I like, so yeah, that’s something that’s important to me.

The vibe during the recording was everything from free-and-easy to real pain in the ass. We recorded something like fifty songs for Nightcrawler, so it was hard for me to pick. I have that problem with every record, its always hard for me to pick what’s gonna make it and what’s not gonna make it. I try to put together a group of songs that’s gonna fit well together, ones that kind of enhance each other. I started recording songs for Nightcrawler at the end of 2003, beginning of 2004, so it’s been a few years in the making, lots of songs recorded.

Were the Westerns EP songs recorded during the Nightcrawler sessions? Or do you look at that as a separate project?

A bunch of those songs were done & recorded in Jersey. Some of that stuff was like the first stuff I did when I got inspired to record again, and it always just stayed with me. Then I kinda went and started doin’ the other stuff, but then when it was time to put the record together I was like, “Man, I really want that [Westerns] stuff to get out there.” It just has an innocence to it, to my ear anyway, that I like. Westerns just feels a little more rootsy to me than Nightcrawler.

And the Dixie Chicks got involved because I was writing songs with them for their record, and we were friends through that. Then, they came out to L.A. to do their record with Rick Rubin, and that’s where I was recording at the time, so I asked them to come . . . I thought they would just be perfect for those songs.

Do you think there is more freedom in doing an EP than a full-length album because perhaps there aren’t the same commerical pressures with an EP?

Hmmmm. No. That’s never why I do it anyway, so I mean – maybe other people are pressured to market it. But I just want to put forward music that I am into, music that I want to play, that captures a good vibe. So whether its Westerns or Nightcrawler, it’s the same approach.

You opened for Bon Jovi in 2003 . . .

Yeah (laughs)…

And you’ve played hundreds of shows, both large and small. Is there one that stands out in your mind as being particularly memorable?

Yeah, uh . . . last night in Denver? I always remember my last show the most vividly. But they’re all different in their own way. It’s weird with me, like sometimes I’ll be havin’ a bad time during the show, and then I get offstage and everyone thinks it’s like the greatest show we’ve ever played. Then there’ll be times when we’ll be having the best time on stage and everyone’s like, “Eh, it was just alright …” So my perception of a good time might be different than what’s going on in front, but I try to make every show stand out in its own way.

What excites you about music today?

I listen to mostly older stuff. I haven’t really been listening to much new stuff at all. It’s like I do so much music that it’s all I do, so I haven’t been listening to music that much. I kind of like to take a break from it on my downtime. So like, driving around I listen to talk radio.

Can you list any of your top desert island discs?

Oh man, it changes a lot.
London Calling I love, always have, still do. Sounds great.
The Stones — Sticky Fingers, Let it Bleed, Exile On Main Street. I like the Stones a lot.
Uh, Beach Boys, Pet Sounds

What was the first song you remember learning? Either on drums or guitar, since I know you do both.

On drums I remember learning “Dance The Night Away” by Van Halen when I was like nine. On guitar, like at 12 or 13, I learned maybe like “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” or something. Those first chords. And I remember learning bass lines, like I could play “Smoke On The Water” or Violent Femmes’ “Blister in the Sun” (sings tune). But then I learned chords and I remember that Poison song was two chords, it was like G and C, so it was easy. And I told my mom that I wrote it (laughs).

You’ve performed a variety of interesting covers, from Mark James’ “Suspicious Minds” to Beach Boys to The Smiths. How do you pick covers? Are there just songs that you can see through to the core of it and know it conveys something for you?

Hmmm, well sometimes lyrically something will really hit home, like “Oh, I wish I said that” and then you’ll want to sing it. Like with [The Smiths'] “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out,” I’ve always loved that song so much. It’s kind of dark imagery in it, but the other night somewhere I did [Warren Zevon's] “Splendid Isolation” into “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” and lyrically they are such strong statements, they’re like polar opposites. Like one’s this too-super-cynical guy who just wants to be alone and be a hermit, and then on the other side of someone who is so lonesome they just want to go out and don’t even care if they crash and die next to the person — they are so desperate for contact. And I never realized that until I sang them both back to back, I was like “holy shit.” Then I see the parallels in a lot of my own songs, when I’ll go into a song and then the next song for some reason will pop into my head as a polar opposites.

Are there any songs that you think would be cool to cover that you haven’t done yet?

“Unsatisfied” by Paul Westerberg – The Replacements. Definitely.

I always appreciate the interesting layers of percussion that you use in all of your songs, and I know that your roots are as a drummer. When it comes to songwriting, what comes first in your mind? Do you ever think of the drum portion first and then go into the melody or the lyric?

Yeah, “Strange Condition” was a drumbeat, it was just like (“slap, pat, tap tap, pat” on his knees) and I was like, “I like that beat, I’m gonna write a song to that.” Um, “Committed” was a drumbeat. Committed was actually the drumbeat to “Surrender” by Cheap Trick, exactly. I mean, literally, it was The Drums from Surrender — we got the tracks of Bun E. Carlos playing it, just the drum track, and Surrender is a great song, great rhythm, great tempo, and I just threw it down and wrote Committed – just played into it. Someone emailed me saying that they heard Bun E. Carlos on XM Radio or something the other day — or maybe it was Sirius or something – and he was saying, “Oh yeah, I played drums on ‘Committed’ with Pete Yorn,” even though it was just his drum disc. Well, it IS him, but it wasn’t like he was there. I was surprised he even knew about it. In the credits I did put Bun E. Carlos on it. But it is as it is.

So you do work from those different perspectives when you’re writing songs . . .

Yeah, like, “Black” I wrote on the bass, it’s just a bass line — you know, like (imitates bass line) — and immediately that drumbeat just came right in (slaps his knees in time). But yeah, a lot of stuff starts from that bass and rhythm.

You played a gorgeous version of Bandstand In The Sky last night, and I know that you’ve said that was written the day Jeff Buckley died.

Yeah, I wrote that when I heard the news. I didn’t know him, but it just popped out. I’m a fan of Grace. I remember the first time I heard it, I was in school still, college. I ‘member this friend of mine was a film major and asked me to be in his student film and I was like, “Alright, sure.” And I remember we were filming at a gas station and I had to just sit in the car and throw a tennis ball at the dashboard and catch it, for like, hours. It took them forever to set up the shot, they were just learning how to use all the stuff and nothing would work. So I’m just sitting in the car for hours and I remember just playing “Last Goodbye” on repeat. Just over and over and over and over again, loving that song, and loving the whole record.

[Pauses] . . . But just having a night with that. It would end and I’d start it again.

The last song on Nightcrawler is a studio version of “Bandstand.” It’s kind of slow, mid-tempo. It’s a cool version.

You’ve had a lot of songs on movie soundtracks in the past few years. Do you have anything new coming up?

Yeah, I just did a, uh, Paul Westerberg song. He scored this new animated movie that’s coming out called Open Season, and they called me and asked me to sing one of the songs, so I recorded it and sang it. In the movie there’s an orchestrated version, then I recorded one for the soundtrack, like my own version. The song is called “I Belong,” and I think it comes out September 29th.

One last thing – speaking of movies; How in the world did you end up playing bongo drums on the Anchorman video for “Afternoon Delight”?

(Laughs) Yeah, how did that come about?
Um, my friend recorded the song for them, for “Afternoon Delight,” my buddy Doc. And he called me one day and he was like, “Dude, they need people to be in this video they’re shooting!” and I was like, “What is it?’ and he’s like “It’s fuckin’ Will Ferrell in Anchorman!” and I was like “No shit, really? Hell yeah, let’s do it!” I had nothing to do, so I headed down and they slapped some big old moustache on me and a turtleneck. Actually if you notice, I’m not playing with my hands, I’m playing with mallets! I’m playing mallets on the bongo, it’s really . . . silly.

[Commence laughing, general thanking, and farewells as we realize the time and Pete heads off to his in-store; you know, poor form to be late to those]

Additional photos from Dave Ventimiglia, taken at Blueberry Hill in St. Louis, 7/1/06.
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Now I’ve amassed such a collection of songs & video from the last two days that it is hard to filter (hence the exercise in complete excess which follows shortly). The live shows were absolutely amazing; Pete is backed by an excellent band that knows their shiz — they are cohesive and tight, but they also are having a good time (the proof is right here).

I have picked out some of my favorites from the two shows here (caveat — I taped it again myself so don’t expect excellent audio, just a document of the occasion that is listenable, except maybe for the warbling girls next to me):

FOUR HIGHLIGHTS FROM DENVER
Crystal Village
This song is absolutely anthemic in concert, an elevating experience. Listen to the crowd sing along. “Take my hand, come with me, I see the lights so brightly. And we fall as if we never really mattered.”

Good Advice
A rocker off the Westerns EP, full of lyrics about showin’ the world you can dance. Even if you can’t. Bassist Sid Jordan manages to thrum out the hip-shakin’ bass line, sing harmonies throughout the show, and all without taking the cigarette out of his mouth. It’s a gift, really.

There Is A Light That Never Goes Out (Smiths cover)
I had never really listened to these lyrics before Pete played it because I was not a goth kid in high school (you know the two camps, goth or rock?) but now I am glad to have it in my musical knowledge because it is so evocative & urgent.

Bandstand In The Sky
I can’t express how breathless I was when he announced this song, since it was written about Jeff Buckley and I had just been thinking as I drove up to the concert how much I would love to hear this live. Stunning.

THREE HIGHLIGHTS FROM BOULDER
A Girl Like You
One of the things I had said to Pete the night before was that I had missed the inclusion of “Girl Like You” (after which he asked if I had green eyes, but I didn’t get the lyrical reference until about an hour later when I was driving home and I had a smack-the-forehead moment). This is such a perfect little song.

For Nancy (‘Cos It Already Is)
This song rocks hard live, and watching drummer Mal Cross furiously cut loose at the end just exhausted me in one of the best ways possible.

Lose You
The opening piano notes of this song just hang in the air with such a sense of anticipation, it almost knocked the wind out of me. Another absolute gem. Joe Kennedy rocks on the piano.

IN-STORE PERFORMANCES
Then I will post the complete sets for both in-store performances, since the audio quality is better on these and the songs are generally pretty rare.

Denver, Twist ‘N’ Shout
July 24, 2006
1. Knew Enough To Know Nothing At All
2. James in Liverpool(very rare, not played in years)
3. Hunter Green
4. Golden Road (off the new Westerns EP, great video coming)
5. Search Your Heart (another new one, possible b-side)

Boulder, Bart’s Records
July 25, 2006
1. Splendid Isolation (Warren Zevon cover)
2. Baby I’m Gone (yeah!)
3. I Feel Good Again (Junior Kimbrough cover)
4. June (Pete refers to this as one of his favorite songs)
5. Alive (from the new album Nightcrawler)

COMPLETE SETS
Finally, I also uploaded and zipped the full shows:

7/25/06 at the Walnut Room, Denver (setlist here)
7/26/06 at the Fox Theatre, Boulder (setlist here)

And if by some absolute anomaly you are still not sated, videos will come once I can beat YouTube into some sort of submission.

And happy birthday today, Pete. Keep on rockin’ that goood music.

Roger Clyne Interview: “It’s beautiful, and it’s life, and there’s no incongruity in my mind.”

If you’ve been with this blog since the beginning (all two of you), or else you’ve clicked through the archives, you might know that Roger Clyne was the first artist I wrote about on I AM FUEL, YOU ARE FRIENDS (in a charmingly rambling & naive piece), because I had just gone to see him in concert the day before I started this blog. I’ve also followed up with another, more proper and biographical post about him here.

Why do I like Roger Clyne so much? I’ve only been listening to him for a year or so. The first time I heard two of his songs on a mix CD, I was drawn to his energy and his great rock sound. I vividly remember driving home along the California freeway, windows down, springtime air, thinking that Clyne was a perfect soundtrack to that moment.

That’s why I am pleased to present to y’all an interview with the man himself, my first artist interview for FUEL. This will probably be my longest post of the year (unless I, uh, get that interview with Vedder), but hang with me. Something is encapsulated within Roger — his passion for making some truly excellent music, the way he articulates everyday beauty in poetic ways, and his good, good heart — that compels me to encourage you to get turned on to him too. Whether or not you specifically like his work, I think that the things he has to say will appeal and speak to anyone who truly loves music.

Roger Clyne is one of the hardest working artists in rock ‘n’ roll, and he isn’t tired of it yet. The independent model for the operation of his current band Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers (previously The Refreshments) is something that countless other independent artists are also living on a daily basis. It is relentless, involving long months of touring, being away from family and home, working to get your music out there and your voice heard. But Roger would rather do this than anything. You see, it’s his calling.

I believe that through this kind of passion and urgency – therein may lie the salvation of rock ‘n’ roll.
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INTERVIEW WITH ROGER CLYNE

I think you are certainly one of the busiest and most active musicians that I have seen in terms of touring and releasing. I wonder is it more work, necessarily, being in an independent rock ‘n’ roll band, versus your time with the Refreshments?

Yeah, touring for a good part of the year is pretty typical — that’s both a necessity and a blessing in an independent band. We don’t operate with any parent company or tour support. Every dollar that we spend on a bus repair – hallelujah – or recording comes from our relationship to the art and to the audience. So it’s really organic, definitely often very very close to the bottom line, but I enjoy it. It’s a thrill. It’s a thrilling ride.

It’s the ultimate litmus test to see if art can really lead commerce, and quality can lead quantity. And so far so good. I’m . . . I’m proud.

You quoted Paul Westerberg once when he said that rock ‘n’ roll looks a lot easier than it is. You certainly make it look enjoyable, if not easy.

Oh, it’s absolutely enjoyable, but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy. There’s another wonderful paradox: it’s an incredibly difficult sport, but once I’m up there, it’s effortless.

All the things that get you to the stage – all the planning and logistics, all the budgeting and spreadsheets and phone calls and Mapquest and reservations and contracts that have to fall into place to make a two-hour show happen – that stuff is far more difficult than when I finally get up there, and I get let out of the chute, and I get to take the stage. Then performance seems to me like . . . the closest thing I can conceptualize what Zen is. I think that the timelessness that the masters talk about in the state of Zen, that all-consumptive one-moment feeling, I think that I am coming close to that feeling sometimes when I am on that stage.

Sometimes I am interrupted by a technical difficulty or who knows what, but there are times when I’ll have a really really effortless show. I may be physically working hard, but it seems to me like nothing has happened between start and stop, two and a half hours have gone by in a state of just total rapture, I love it.

Sometimes in songwriting I’ve had that experience as well. I have an hourglass in my writing room, and typically I require that I turn it over four times when I arrange time for my writing so that I will be there for four hours. There have been times when I will turn the hourglass over and turn to my guitar to mess with the melody or poetry or cadence or whatever part of the song it will be that day, and I’ll look up and the hourglass is empty and I won’t know how long it’s been. And that’s also just a really great feeling.

You mentioned your writing room, and you’ve also got a lyric (in “Feeling“) about writing a song on a front porch… is there a specific place where you like to do your songwriting?

When I am at home, I have a small piece of my garage that was the former owner’s woodshop. Basically I just painted it a lot of bright colors and hung some stuff in it and put a small uncomfortable chair and my guitar in there for writing. Uncomfortable chair because if I get too far into my creative trance, I’ll go into my sleep mode! If I can get away, I can really write anywhere. I find that the best place and time for me to write is where there are no interruptions from routine things at home – like taking the kids to school, checking email, or answering the phone — I find those things very, very interruptive to my creative process. I used to be a nighttime creator, but now I find that I work better very early in the morning, like 4am, right out of a sleep. I think it’s the pre-clutter clarity.

I read that you wrote “Leaky Little Boat” after waking up from a sleep like that?

I did, it was after a show in Mexico and there were a whole bunch of people crashed at our pad down there. It was weird, I’ve had this happen a couple of times, but it was like you know the song by heart before you’ve even heard it. It was sort of playing out in my head. It was like seeing a picture or looking at a painting and not even seeing the process, I don’t know what the process of creation was, it was just – BOOM, the song was streaming from my head.

So I jumped over whoever was sleeping on the floor there and ran out on the patio and grabbed the guitar and hit ‘go’ on my little Radio Shack cassette recorder and started singing it – kind of whispering it – and playing it, best I could find the key, and made it a song. Somebody said, “Hey, what is that?” and I was like, “Sshh, I don’t know, I don’t know!” But I still have that tape.

That sounds amazing, being a conduit for this music that comes from somewhere, that wants to be heard.

I am still in wonder. There are some artists that create and they just don’t know what the source is, it just comes through them. For the longest time, and this is my ego in a way, but I didn’t know what the hell they were talking about, I thought that some of them were making it up. Until I actually had the experience — if you allow yourself to be open to it long enough, it comes. And it didn’t come to me in a single flash, it came to me moment by moment. I love that part of the process when you look back on what you did for the day or for the hour, it’s hard to believe that you were part of that creative process – like, I don’t know where I came up with THAT idea. And the more surprising they are, I think the more fun it is.

I would wonder if it is like learning another language, that moment when you realize that you have slipped naturally into speaking it, and thinking in it, and you are no longer struggling over the mechanics of how to express yourself.

Yes, that’s a great, fantastic analogy — that sounds very, very close to the experience I had. You become fluent in whatever that creative language really is.

I was excited recently to unexpectedly find your new EP Four Unlike Before on iTunes, and I really am enjoying the summertime/ acoustic/beach versions of some of the older songs. Is the opening track Mexicosis a new song?

Mexicosis is a brand-new track, I wrote it this year. As soon as I get stuff written, I always want to share it. There’s a part of me that goes, “Well, you’ve got to record it right, and let it evolve, etc. etc,” and I always have to be reminded of that by my band and management. But this whole Four Unlike Before thing has basically been a way to placate my drive to keep sharing music, and yet at the same time not give the surprise away, so to speak – let the fruit ripen on the vine with the new album.

We put the music together – that’s just us in PH’s bedroom with a whatchamacallit . . . it’s like a computer thing? iTunes? Or, not iTunes, a Mac, or an Apple, no…I don’t know what it’s called, some high-tech digital thing that expedites recording.

I feel that our relationship with the audience is good enough that we don’t have to be perfect in our presentation. I think that if you listen to a lot of recordings today, now not all of them – they’re so homogenized and so perfected it takes some of the spirit away, it takes some of the danger out of it, it takes some of the latitude of the expression away. Cuz sometimes with the mistakes – now, this is old cliché – but sometimes the mistakes are part of the art.

I think your fans appreciate the excitement in seeing your music evolve and take risks – I’d rather see that any day than something that’s candy-coated perfection.

I would too. You know, there’s something to be said for – when you get really good at something, it’s good to somehow keep growing within it. And every song offers that possibility, and so does every performance. If you allow it to become rote, it will be. You have the same relationship with anything for that long, whether it’s a person, or a place, or a performance – It can become mundane, but only if you let it.

Anyways, that’s a big tangent (laughs) – it was Mexicosis. I wanted to put it out and the guys, and Chris over at management, said alright let’s do that, let’s find a way. Releasing it through iTunes, we didn’t have to spend time doing a photo shoot and approving artwork and all sorts of liner notes and credits, etc etc. You’re allowed to get it out really quickly, without all of the physical limitations, I think it’s a cool format.

It must have also been interesting to revisit and rework some of your older songs as well for this EP, and to allow them to evolve in this new context.

Those things happen when sometimes we’ll mess around with songs before a show or rehearsal, warming up, and those are just ideas that stick. For example on “Sleep Like a Baby” if you listen to the rhythm guitar, it’s sort of done in a reggae beat, and the rest of the stuff is just the band’s creativity – we wanted to slow it down and see what the song would feel like with a reggae finish.

That La Playa version of “Counterclockwise” was one we did for a benefit that was actually laying around. I liked it a lot when we did it and it wasn’t widely released. It was for a now-defunct radio station in Phoenix called KZON, and only about 5000 copies were released, and we wanted to get it out there. It actually surprised us how fast it came out, and with little fanfare from us, though I had announced it in a letter. How fast it went through the iTunes channels was just excellent.

Technology is changing the way that many people learn about and listen to new music. You may have heard about the recent litigation against two Ryan Adams fans who are facing up to 11 years in prison for posting some of his songs on a fansite. How do you, as an artist, think that the growing technology of being able to share music online is helpful or harmful? Is it both? From your perspective, what’s it like?

It’s a dangerous genie, but I think ultimately it is going to be helpful. If art is going to have any value, it should be shared. If it’s going to be a conspirator in creating culture, if it’s gonna have any influence with the people then it needs to be shared, and not just from an economic or commercial point of view. The RIAA isn’t interested in culture creation or maintenance or improvement, they’re interested in commerce. Well, maybe that’s the culture they want to create. But it’s a very, very narrow culture, it’s not a humanistic culture.

I think that art needs to be shared. I think I’m involved in some way – I hope, I don’t want to sound self-important – in narrowing the gap, by removing middlemen from the process. I think it creates a healthier relationship between art and artist. I think the middleman in art and artistry is new, and by new I mean it’s only a few hundred years old that people have had to find a patron between art and artist. The way art came about is that it was good illumination, it was good guide, it was good expression, it was good fun. Sometimes the middleman in art can facilitate in a wonderful way, i.e. I think iTunes is a great thing, I think it creates an equitable relationship and you can go straight to an artist. I mean, you do have to pay a dollar, but I think a dollar is reasonable to find a song and learn about an artist.

But I don’t understand . . . it would be difficult for me to side with the RIAA on threatening to put someone in prison, taking 11 years away from a person’s life for posting a song that was meaningful to them on a fansite. It just seems so backwards and short-sighted. I mean, if they were caught bootlegging the entire Ryan Adams catalog and sending it to Taiwan, that’s clearly a different kind of violation. But come on, eleven years? Really, what kind of message are they sending about themselves? They are so involved in chasing down the dollar that they’re willing to say that we are personally going to imprison someone for celebrating what they thought was good about music, and I think that’s backwards.

It’s a tough knot to untie. There may always be a price tag associated with buying music, but not every piece all the time. If we look at the core relationship between art and audience and what that should be, money should play a very small role in the music being good and enduring and helpful in creating a culture whereby human beings begin to understand their relationship with music. The dollar bill is necessary in this society. . . we have to put gas in the bus, and studio time is not cheap. However, to prosecute fans is really a mistake and misguided.

Now, you had mentioned a new album and you’ve said would hopefully be released this year. Is that still on track?

Yes, it is still in the works. I have seventeen songs written for it, that the band and I are trying out and have have been doing them at soundchecks on these last two tours. Our big plan was to get a basic familiarity with them at soundchecks, working them through live, and then go into [guitarist] Steve [Larson]‘s little home studio and work up rough drafts so that we could all stand back and listen to what was going on, and simultaneously choose a producer, pick a budget, and a studio to record in.

Anyways, then [drummer] PH [Naffah] broke his collarbone (chuckles) and rehearsals for Mexico next weekend are actually taking precedence because it’s an immediate need. So we’re woodshedding again starting tomorrow morning. We are still planning for a release later this year — I don’t like to let too much time pass between studio releases. I know that Live at Billy Bob’s came out and we had to do a round of touring for that. But I like to keep the creative spark fanned and so, yeah, I really want to put out this album this year.

Speaking of [drummer/superb photographer] PH, how is he doing?

He’s doing well. I spoke with him this morning. He said he still feels like he got hit by a truck, but it goes away after a while. He’s like the kind of guy who won’t take painkillers. He is going to be able to play in Mexico, and what’s he’s going to do is he’s got a percussionist, kind of a supplemental drummer who will be his left-hand-man, so to speak. He is such a hard-working drummer – it’s pure concentration, yet somehow he’s still so spontaneous. When you see him play you say, “Wow – that’s what that guy was meant to do!”

I know you are a proud father of three kids, I’ve seen their painted handprints on your guitar in concert. Has the process of being a dad informed or changed your musicianship or songwriting at all?

Well, they are obviously such a huge part of my life, being a husband and a father and a provider (aside) – What? Wait, hold on – I’ve got one kid here with an arm full of stuffed animals asking me a question.

(In the background: “What? A bath? . . . Yeah, if you do it OUTSIDE. And don’t use the black tub. Be careful cuz the black tub will rub off and get them dirty. (child talking in the background) – Use a tin tub – Yes, you can, but dry them outside.”)

[Back to interview] . . . Sorry, there is going to be a stuffed animal bath in our backyard. It sounds like fun! Anyway, that is so big that it is hard to answer. I guess I did have a realization at one point, I was on tour and I hung up the phone after saying goodnight to the kids and my wife, and I knew it was going to be a long tour. There was a moment when I kind of let out a sigh to myself and I thought, “Crap, I’d really rather be at home.” And then I thought – Shame on me for saying that. I have this incredible opportunity, this incredible vocation & calling that I mustn’t turn away from.

I actually have a very good balance in my life, although being a musician presents a challenge of how to balance your life and how to answer a call like that, and how to become what you think you should become on all fronts. Because there are a lot of fronts: fatherhood and husbandhood and citizenship and peacemaking and rock ‘n’ roll and then just . . . fun.

But I thought to myself after I let that sigh go, you know what? I’m not going to waste a moment out here in regret. And I am certainly not going to waste a moment out here singing ‘woe is me,’ when I am spending my most valuable currency – time away from my family – or letting that affect in any way my performance here tonight to this audience, who have carved time out of their life to come and see what this band has to say as artists. Wow, but that’s a big question . . . kind of like “How has gravity affected the way you locomote?”

Okay, well, here’s another broad, tough one! Looking back, what is the neatest or best thing that you have gotten to be a part of because of your music?

Well, it may sound corny, but honestly, it’s just become who I am. I couldn’t be who I am speaking to you now without that music, speaking to you now, with my kids outside washing their stuffed animals in an old keg tub from my college days, writing up the setlist for the Mexico shows, none of this great stuff would be here if I hadn’t chosen to follow music. It all started when I just said yes to that scary question: “Are you really gonna do it?”

There was a moment in my life I recall, I was free of college, I had two degrees, I had a stipend waiting at CSU Long Beach, a paid ride to study psychology, and my dad asked me, “Well, what are you gonna do?” I was going to travel in Southeast Asia, I had the backup plan at CSULB, but I said to him, “I think I’m gonna try to be in a band, I think I’m gonna try music.” I remember that he looked at me and said, “Well then you’ve already failed.” And I was shocked, and I said, “Well, what do you mean?”

He replied, “Because you said you’re gonna try. I don’t care what you do, and actually you won’t care what you do, but whatever you do you’d better be the best you can be at it.” He’d always said that my whole life, but it was this big Yoda moment. It almost made me cry, I had to think about it a long time and had to figure it out; all these weights, all these other voices.

So I let the stipend go and burned all those bridges, I re-formed a band AGAIN, straight out of college in my mid-twenties, at a time when a lot of people are starting to settle down and listen to societal calls. You know, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood . . .and I chose the one less traveled by and it has made all the difference.” The imperative was that simple. For me it was just to answer that call.

My last question is a literary one. In “Green & Dumb” you have a beautiful lyric, “All the pretty horses come running to her.” That is also the title of a novel by one of my favorite authors, Cormac McCarthy, and I was wondering if by chance there was a connection there. I ask because his books are like the literary equivalent of a lot of your songs, that whole part of the borderlands country and some of the wild outlaw beauty . . .

Wow, that’s a huge compliment to me. Yeah, I have read the Border Trilogy, and I don’t know if I was reading All The Pretty Horses at the time I wrote that, but definitely, his book is on my shelf right now. I love the themes, so romantic and adventurous – on the run, and on the road, away from society. And yet with a real mission and purpose and beauty.

I remember in reading his book, my imagination was so wide open because of the figures he uses in his writing. I was hoping that someday I could create or evoke a sense of physical place the way that he did. I still try to work it like that. I hope I can.

Well, you should go and assess the stuffed animal damage.

I know! Isn’t it great? It’s so weird, you know, like – here I am making up a setlist for a rock show, and fishing stuffed animals out of a keg tub. It’s beautiful, and it’s life, and there’s no incongruity in my mind.

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MUSIC: There are three tracks for download within the text of the interview, and you should check out their new EP Four Unlike Before, full of harmonica and handclaps. Their 2004 release Americano! is highly recommended ’round these parts as indispensable.

eMusic also has their 2000 disc Honky Tonk Union and their live disc from last year, both excellent.

And don’t forget the Live Music Archive – try the recent Cinco de Mayo acoustic show in San Francisco for some good starters. Nothing compares to a live Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers show. Everything Roger talks about in this interview, brought to life, in vivid color.

June 2 – Cheyenne Saloon, Las Vegas, NV
June 3 – Fiesta del Sol (free show!) – Solana Beach, CA
June 8 – Launchpad, Albuquerque, NM
June 9 – Wormy Dog Saloon, Oklahoma City
June 10-11 – Wakarusa Festival, Lawrence, KS
June 13 – Blueberry Hill, St. Louis, MO
June 14 – Jillian’s Lounge Life, Covington, KY
June 15 – Gatsby’s Café & Saloon, Johnson City, TN
June 16 – Freebird Café, Jacksonville Beach, FL
June 17 – Maltz Jupiter Theatre, Jupiter, FL
June 18 – The Social, Orlando, FL
June 20 – The Parish at House of Blues, New Orleans, LA
June 21 – Continental Club, Houston, TX
June 23 – Gypsy Tea Room, Dallas, TX
June 24 – Antone’s, Austin, TX
August 19 – Fort Tuthill County Park Amphitheatre, Flagstaff, AZ
October 14 – Circus Mexicus, Puerto Penasco, Mexico
October 28 – BB Kings, New York, NY
May 19, 2007 – Circus Mexicus, Puerto Penasco, Mexico