Let’s start with a bit of the history of Wolfgang’s Vault. How did it come into being?

Wolfgang’s Vault began in 2003 with the acquisition of the Bill Graham archives. Bill’s real name was Wolfgang Grajonca. That’s how the site got its name. Our founder, Bill Sagan, originally acquired these assets from Clear Channel as they were spinning off Live Nation. The Bill Graham archives contained the collection of what he had amassed over his 30-year career in the music business, and then ten years after he died. Bill Graham was one of the early inventors of the rock concert, and in this archive was posters, tickets, handbills, you name it, from classic shows and classic venues like the Fillmore East, the Fillmore West, Winterland, Graham’s Day on the Green shows. There were also audio and video recordings of some of these legendary bands like the Grateful Dead, Santana, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence, the Who. It was just a who’s who list of what was out there.

Bill Graham was one of the first to present certain artists. On the site you can get Elton John playing his first show on the west coast. It’s just an amazing, awesome raw show. In addition to that, we’ve acquired another dozen or so archives that include different collections of both memorabilia, vintage posters and photography, and recordings. So we have the recordings of the King Biscuit Flower Hour, Silver Eagle Cross Country, which is the country version of King Biscuit, the Ash Grove, which was a club that was open in L.A. from 1958-1973 with just amazing early folk and delta blues performers, and the Newport Festivals. It’s just a huge array of music spanning 50-plus years, and about 20 different genres of music.

In addition to all the great music, your site has that memorabilia that you mentioned. When someone visits Wolfgang’s Vault, what will they see and hear? Give me an overview.

We’ve got about 3,000 concerts on the site right now, which range from 1963 up until 2009. The focus and the roots of this were in classic rock, but we span a ton of genres. You can stream all this stuff for free. So that’s all available to a user when they come to Wolfgang’s Vault. We also have this massive memorabilia archive that includes literally millions of items. Some of them are posters from the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s that were used to advertise these shows. Graham was a big believer in promoting his shows through this great artwork, and he commissioned artists like Rick Griffin, Wes Wilson, Lee Conklin and others to create what really are works of art, and promoted the shows through them. These now have become very valuable collectors items that you can find on our site. The posters range from $15 to $15,000.

At the beginning you encountered some resistance, in the form of lawsuits, from a small group of musicians whose music is on the site. Have those issues been resolved?

Everything from those early publicized lawsuits is behind us.

And you have all the necessary agreements in place to go forward?

We do. We own the copyrights to all the master recordings that we have and we pay everywhere that we need to both contractually and from a broad licensing agency standpoint like ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC.

So artists do get paid as a result of what takes place at Wolfgang’s Vault?

Absolutely. We’re paying for every stream that is played, and for every download.

November 3 is a big day for your company. You’re calling it “Crackin’ the Vault Day.” Tell me about it.

We’ve been adding shows to the Concert Vault every week since we started. We had about 300 shows the day we went live with Concert Vault in November, 2006, and we’re over 3,000 today. We’ve been making as many of those available for download as we could. We have signed some deals and we are in a position now to offer another huge group of shows for download. We have about 390 shows available right now for download. That number will jump to over 700 on Tuesday, November 3, and then we’ll be adding another huge chunk over the coming months. So you be seeing five to ten new shows a week being added for download over the next several months, and we hope to keep that going as we go forward. Our hope is to get everything available for download. It includes some really amazing stuff.

People will now have an even greater opportunity to purchase downloads, but will they still be able to stream the concerts for free as they’ve been doing?

Absolutely. You can stream all the shows for free. We’ve got an iPhone app where you can stream shows. For download, we’ll be offering everything in two different formats. We’ve got a 256kb mp3 download, and a flac download, which is just a little bit more. We’ve had a lot of requests for the lossless format. We’ll have both of those available for every show we’re selling.

There is twice as much music available for download in the Concert Vault then there was a year ago. This is the result of the acquisitions you’ve made. How does that process take place? How do you find things to acquire?

It depends. Some of these are large collections of recordings that were done, using King Biscuit as an example, for radio shows. So there was a huge collection of concerts that made up part of the King Biscuit Flower Hour. Silver Eagle Cross Country was the same thing on the country side. Others are smaller, and a bit more obscure. There are club owners like Ed Pearl at the Ash Grove. He had this collection of recordings from his shows that he kept over the years. So they come from different sources, both big and small, and our process is really a big mix of people internally who are looking at all different aspects. A lot of it is just listening to make sure that we’re getting high quality recordings. So we commit a lot of time from our audio engineers to look into what we’re potentially buying.

Describe the process of transferring the music that you acquire into the digital domain.

You can imagine that as the stuff goes back now 50 years in some cases that the tapes are in different forms, and the cataloging is sometimes in disarray. It’s a ton of work sometimes just to get an accurate list of what we have, and then going through the transfer and mastering process is a long and expensive process that requires people to listen to every show several times, and do a lot of work on tracking the shows and queuing what’s going up on the site. It is simply a very expensive process. To get these things from these old boxes onto the site takes a lot of time and a lot of really talented people to do the audio engineering work.

The acquisitions themselves together with the work needed to prepare the music for the site requires a lot of financial investment. What makes that investment worthwhile for Wolfgang’s Vault?

I think it’s a number of things. One of which has always been Bill Sagan’s desire to make this music available to fans, but also to make it work as a business. We’ve got three basic parts of the business, which are e-commmerce merchandise sales, the digital downloads, and then advertising. So we’ve been able to make this work through a combination of internal investment and cash flow from the business to keep this going. There are elements that are a labor of love, and there are elements that are building the business.

In addition to making available all of these new downloads, what else can we expect from Wolfgang’s Vault in the future? I know you have a lot of video to present.

We have some video on the site. We’re doing it on a very limited basis right now, so on the home page we’ll feature a couple of videos during the week. We have of newer video available on Crawdaddy!, which is our editorial site, from SXSW, Noise Pop, and a handful of other festivals that we’ve recorded in the last three years. We’re still formulating a plan for how to work with all the video archives we have, dating back to the late ’60s.

You mentioned Crawdaddy! You were able to purchase the rights to the seminal music magazine that was created by the great writer Paul Williams. Unfortunately, Paul is not in very good health these days.

I’ve had the good fortune of spending some time with Paul. Really a wonderful person and it’s very sad about his current state. We acquired the rights to the name from him and he remains an Advisory Editor. Jocelyn Hoppa is and has been the Managing Editor since the relaunch. Our general goals have been to stay true to the ideals that Paul set forth in the original Crawdaddy! — write about music we love, and support long-form journalism. We get to integrate some new media on top of that. I’m really proud of the work our team does, and I think we get some really good writing about the classics as well as introducing new bands.

You got involved as a sponsor for the annual San Francisco music festival known as Noise Pop. Do you have any plans to do more of this sort of thing?

We’re a big believer in supporting new music. Our partner site, Daytrotter, has a lot of new music. So we’ve put a lot of dollars behind that. For Noise Pop specifically, we were a premium sponsor in 2008 and 2009. We actually recorded all of the festival, so with very few exceptions we have three and four camera video shoots of every band that performed, and all the video is in hi-def. That’s from 2008 and 2009. We also have a fair bit of stuff from 2007. We’ve done sponsorships at SXSW and some other smaller events that we’ve done locally. We don’t believe that great music stopped in the ’70s. We think there’s some really cool stuff out there that is great for the site, and great for the bands to get the stuff up and promote it.

On a personal level, are there any shows on the site that you think are great, and that you wish more people would have a chance to listen to?

There are bands that are too often overlooked among the legends on our site. I’m a big fan of Delta Spirit, and there’s a great set we did from Cafe Du Nord in 2008 at Noise Pop. I’m such a sucker for a lot of the big bands among the older stuff.

That’s all right, tell me what your favorite from the older stuff is.

Well, there are a couple. There’s a great Creedence show from the Fillmore West in ‘71, and Dire Straits in San Antonio from 1985.

Thanks for your time, Eric, and good luck with your rollout.

Thanks, Ken.

Go to Wolfgang’s Vault

It’s great to talk to you, Paul. I’m a big fan.

Hi! Thank you. How are you?

I’m great. I just finished your book yesterday, and it’s fantastic.

Thank you!

Now, how long was the idea of doing an autobiography gestating?

Oh, you know, I’ve wanted to do one for years. Some ten years ago, I got a book deal and tried to do it. I wrote three stories up, and I just never had time to go back to it. So this time, when I was re-introduced to David Ritz, who is the A-list celebrity biographer, just a couple of years ago, he said, “If you ever want to do a book”… I thought, “Well, that’s the way to do it: do it with somebody, and that way, he has the responsibility of turning it in on time.” And we did! But we had fun together, the two of us, and he…besides doing all of the music biographies, like Ray Charles and Smokey Robinson, he also did Don Rickles. So I knew he had me covered. And he was able to get my voice down and, of course, we worked well together as well. It really was co-writing.

It’s a very enjoyable format. It’s predominantly chronological, but obviously you bounce back and forth for various anecdotes here and there.

Well, you don’t want to start at the beginning, because then the reader has got to learn about your childhood before he’s even interested in who you are. So, y’know, you’ve got to hit with something a little more up to date, and I think that’s really the reason for jumping around.

The opening episode of this season’s “Saturday Night Live” had Jenny Slate letting slip with an F-bomb accidentally. I’m sure you were sympathetic.

Oh, yes! Because I talk about in the book about how I was really the first person to make that slip (on the show). In my case, we were doing bad British accents in the sketch that we were in. It was a transcription of the famous Troggs tape, where the Troggs — the band who did “Wild Thing” — were in the studio, trying to record, and they have no musical terminology except for that F-word, so they say it all the time. We changed it, just like in the more current example. We changed the F-word into our own word (”flogging”), and then it was just that I slipped and went back to the real word. Same thing as she did. But you can tell…it’s almost a set-up in a thing like that that you’re gonna slip. You can tell that neither of us did it on purpose.

Did you feel your heart stop when you realized what you’d said?

Absolutely. And when I saw the tape of her, I saw that she did the same thing. Your face kind of goes white, and then you look off to the side and go, “Oh, boy…” (Laughs)

What’s your favorite song that you’ve used as a play-in for a guest which still makes you laugh that you got away with it?

You know, I don’t know if I “got away with it.” We don’t try to get away with things, except maybe when Ellen DeGeneres came out and we played “I’m A Girl Watcher.” Little humorous things like that keep us going. (Laughs)

I loved “When the Radio Is On“ from the first time I heard it…

Oh, thank you!

..but how disappointed were you with the reception of the Coast to Coast album?

Well, of course I was disappointed, because I’d spent a lot of time and energy and put my whole life into that for so long, but the record business is a very tough business. I didn’t know that when I got into it; I was lucky to get out alive. (Laughs)

Is there a particular session that you’ve played on that you’re most proud of?

Well, it’s something that might not be so well-known, but there was a gospel group that went to rock — it was called the New York Community Choir — with a rhythm section of Steve Gadd on drums and Will Lee on bass. We all still remember that session. Otherwise, I think that, of course, playing and recording with Miles Davis for the soundtrack of Scrooged, the Bill Murray movie. That’s gotta be it. And then, of course, there was the time I was in the studio with Phil Spector and got to be a part of his Wall of Sound. Although nothing ever came out from that session, that was incredibly significant to me.

How’s your relationship with Eric Clapton these days? From the book, it sounds like it’s been a bit tense at times over the years.

Ah, well, you know, he is a lovely British gentleman who has been really great with me over the years. I just sort of focus on the places that we sort of butted heads in a good-natured way just because it shows that I’m not used to having as much time to rehearse as he is. It’s really over that ideology that we’ve clashed.

How regularly do you have people coming up to you and asking you if they can kick your ass?

Oh, all the time. (Laughs) And it is amazing how long that movie has lasted. You’re referring, of course, to This is Spinal Tap. People still talk about it. I had only a very small cameo in that movie (as Artie Fufkin), but I’m very proud to be associated with it.

Do you think your short-lived series, A Year at the Top, will ever see its way to DVD?

Mmm. That would be, uh…talk about blackmail! (Laughs) That was a crazy summer series that played in the summer of ‘77, but it brought me to Hollywood, where I lived for about a year, and what a bizarre…well, it was full of bizarre experiences that are all laid out in the book. I was working for Norman Lear and Don Kirschner, two unlikely producers who got together to try and do a Monkees-styled rock sitcom. It didn’t work out, but I got down an impression of Don Kirshner that serves me well to this day. And I can do Lear, too.

(Laughs) Oh, really?

Yeah. It’s just not as extreme. (Laughs)

And, of course, your Cher impression remains masterful from holiday season to holiday season.

Thank you. Yes, Cher doing “O Holy Night.” It’s something that’s short but sweet.

Do you find that people are still shocked that you were one of the co-writers of “It’s Raining Men“?

Yes. But I’m very proud of that. I wrote one song, and…well, you know, Charles Chaplin wrote “Smile” and I wrote “It’s Raining Men.”

They’re very, very similar in the grand scheme of things.

Oh, yes. (Laughs)

Do you find it odd that people don’t get your schtick on Letterman sometimes? Because I have friends who are, like, “Paul Shaffer? You mean the weird guy at the keyboard…?”

Well, I hope that, if they read the book, it’ll bring them to understand why I am so weird. (Laughs) Maybe they’ll give me the benefit of the doubt. Because the book really does talk about everything.

A friend of mine on Facebook said that you used to shop at a record store where he worked in Manhattan, and that you used to buy old singles and, the next week, you’d be playing them on TV.

Yeah, in those days, before downloading…boy, what does that say about what happened to the music business, even at a retail level? Did he work at House of Oldies in the Village?

Well, the Facebook friend I’m speaking of is Peter Holsapple.

Oh! (Laughs) Well, sure, of course I know him! I didn’t realize that’s who you were talking about. I do remember that he spent some time working in a record store. Yeah, he’s a nice guy.

(Per Mr. Holsapple, “I worked for years at the Musical Maze, at 294 Third Avenue at 23rd Street. Most of my customers were from School of Visual Arts and guests of the Gramercy Park Hotel, but Paul came in from time to time. He definitely bought “Wild Weekend” by the Rockin’ Rebels from me, I know that to be a fact!”)

I know we’re coming up against the wall here, but I wanted to ask you if you had any participation in the upcoming Rock and Roll Hall of Fame DVD set?

Well, of course, it shows all of the great numbers, so many of which I was involved with with my band, since the beginning, in the days when the stuff was totally unrehearsed and it was just a totally spontaneous jam session, but with superstars. And it goes through to the days with the more polished numbers. But, oh, man, all of these great numbers that are on there”…I just got my set recently, and I’ve been having fun watching it.

Is there a particular favorite performance from those ceremonies?

I think the Righteous Brothers’ “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” and the Mamas and the Papas’ “California Dreaming.” And, of course, some of those early jams.

Okay, Paul, I know my time’s up, but, again, it’s been great to talk with you.

Thank you. My pleasure!

Although he departed the ranks of Elektra Records not long after the label released his best-of collection in 1993, Jones has continued to release records throughout the years, including Angels and Lovers (1997), People (1998), and Revolution of the Heart (2005); his latest album, Ordinary Heroes, will see release on Nov. 9th, 2009, preceded on Oct. 26th by the single, “Soon You’ll Go.” As part of the pre-release press blitz, Popdose was provided with the opportunity to do an E-mail interview, and it was an offer we could not refuse.

First, here’s the video for the aforementioned single, “Soon You’ll Go”…

…and now that the stage has been appropriately set, here’s the interview:

I’ve followed your career since the ’80s and all the way through to the present, but it will likely not surprise you that many will be shocked to hear that A) you have a new album, and B) you’ve pretty much been recording and touring all along. How would you describe the sound of Ordinary Heroes to those who’ve been out of the loop? Will it be hard to access for those who lost track of you after you departed Elektra?

The new album is very not electronic. It is a songwriter’s album with very personal themes, intense lyrics, and a strict lineup of drums, bass, piano, guitar, string quartet, and background vocals. Kind of pop chamber music…and very no synths. People who have followed my output since the early ’90s will not be surprised by this collection of tracks, as they have come to expect an eclectic output from me. (Next album: death metal meets Leonard Cohen!)

I interviewed Glenn Tilbrook several years ago, and he said that Squeeze’s final album, Domino, was actually the most profitable album of their entire career, owing to the fact that they released it themselves. Have you found that to be the case with your recent output, and how do you find the indie route overall? Do you miss the major-label lifestyle at all?

Being in control of my musical destiny is something I am happy to fight for. As an independent artist, I am responsible not only for creating the work and financing it, but also for getting it out to my audience. This is challenging and at the same time exhilarating. I am grateful to have had the major label start to my career but I love the freedom and excitement of having to make things happen myself. (And my collection of Francis Bacon Originals speaks for itself!)

How did you come to team up with Duncan Sheik for the original version of “Someone You Need“ (my guess would be the Rupert Hine connection), and what made you decide to revisit it as a solo number for the new album?

I knew Duncan Sheik before he worked with Rupert, because we met as fellow Buddhists. We then ended up at a songwriters boot camp in France and wrote “Someone You Need.” The song sits so well with the other material that it had to be included in the new album.

When I played “Love’s Never Wasted” for one of our other Popdose writers, he said, “Sounds like Keane.” I don’t know if you’d necessarily hear that particular similarity, but it does lead me to wonder if you can hear your sound within the work of any of today’s musicians, and if any artists have come to you and acknowledged a sonic debt that they may owe to you.

I suppose the new rash of ’80s-sounding records is where I hear the influence the most. I have no idea whether today’s artists cite me as an influence, but I am sure I saw Brandon Flowers at a gig in Salt Lake City circa 1985 taking notes.

My wife and I saw you perform in Blackpool in 2001 while we were in the UK on our honeymoon, and we were positively blown away by the performance of your background vocalist, Shaz Sparks, on “All I Want.” (She also does a great solo version of “All I Want,” which is available on her self-titled EP, and has contributed vocals to three songs on John B’s upcoming album.) How did you first cross paths with Shaz, and does she appear on Ordinary Heroes?

Shaz – as part of dba – was signed to my dtox label, and I made a record with them (Spectrum), which is fabulous and still available at the website. But I wanted a male background vocal sound to the new album, and Daniel Pearce (yes, that Daniel…Simon, are you deaf?) is amazing on this record.

Speaking of my wife, I don’t think she would mind if I revealed that your first Pianosolos album helped immeasurably to soothe her spirit in the hours leading up to the birth of our daughter. I can only presume that the idea of an instrumental album was something you had considered in the past, but what led you to finally release one?

The piano solos started as a series of gifts that I did for people for special occasions. A gift that was totally unique to them. I found after a while that I had quite a few of them, so that became Pianosolos Vol. 1 and Pianosolos Vol. 2.

Not to in any way diminish your recent and, indeed, current musical accomplishments, but what is life like for a musician who is generally perceived as an “’80s artist,” and do you find it hard to walk the line between making the casual fans happy and thrilling those who’ve come to hear the new material as well?

There are, broadly speaking, 2 parts to my audience. The first group are the fans that are actively engaged with my output for the whole 26 years, and the second a more general or casual audience that only knows the ’80s work. I don’t find this a problem. I’m happy to have an audience that knows me at all!

Of your major-label output, which overall album do you think is the most underrated, and what album track from that era still leaves you thinking, “That really should have been a single”?

One to One is a very interesting album produced by Arif Mardin. There is a lot of experimentation going on with sampling, and some interesting grooves and amazing musicians. Saying that, In the Running and Cross that Line row my boat as well.

You didn’t really tackle a great number of outside projects in the ’80s. You made the occasional cameo here and there (such as on Chris DeBurgh’s “The Head and the Heart“), but were you ever tempted to step out a bit and do more guest appearances, production work, and so forth?

In the whirlwind that was the ’80s for me, there was hardly time to catch my breath, let alone work with others. Saying that, I did do an awful lot of Prince’s Trust concerts with the great and the good of the pop and rock world.

And, lastly, I’m looking at your Live Aid performance right now, and I’m torn between two thoughts: “Is it really true that the piano belonged to Freddie Mercury, and did he actually give you permission to use it?” and “If Howard’s mullet and Nik Kershaw’s mullet had gotten into a fight that day, which would have come out the victor?” Any comment on either matter?

The piano was Freddie’s, no permission was granted. And Nik and I would take on Bono’s do as a tag team.

In closing, our Popdose readers in the UK may be interested to know that Howard Jones will be embarking upon a tour to support the release of Ordinary Heroes. You can catch him at The IndigO2 in London on Nov. 6th, at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester on Nov. 12th, and at St. David’s Hall in Cardiff – featuring special guests The Morriston Orpheus Choir – on Nov. 13th.

Hi, Clarence. Are you there?

I’m here. I didn’t do it. I’m innocent. (laughs)

Are you on the road today?

I’m in Philadelphia. We have two more shows here, then I’ll go back to New York.

Let me first ask you about your health. You had both knees replaced about a year ago, and there were some other issues as well. There was even some question about whether you would make it for the Super Bowl show. How are you?

Everything is fine. It’s amazing what the stage can do for you. It heals me, that time up on stage. I’m doing great.

In your book there’s a full page list of things that are required in the Temple of Soul (Clarence’s dressing room) to get you up and running. Tell me about that.

It takes about half of that now. There’s not so much involved anymore since I got the knees done, and I’ve got a pretty good handle on my back. Everything is going pretty well, thank God. For an old man I’m doing pretty good.

I’m happy to hear it. Your book opens with a great story, told to you by your mom, about how you started playing the saxophone.

I didn’t want a saxophone. I wanted electric trains. But my father decided to get the saxophone. He heard this saxophone player, and he decided that that was what he wanted his son to do. Thank God.

The book closes with a “legend” about you and Bruce meeting in a bar in the southwest. It’s a moving story about your relationship with Bruce. At one point you say to him, “as long as I’m breathing, you’ll never be alone.” I found that incredibly moving.

It is a spectacular relationship. I do love him. There’s a story in the book about when my girlfriend first met him. She accused us of being gay. We hung out together so much. My love for him began on the first day I met him, and it’s only grown more since then.

Your book is certainly not a typical autobiography. It includes these “legends” that contain some modicum of truth, along with a bit of myth mixed in. You’ve hung out with some amazing people.

I’ve had an amazing life. It all comes from my relationship with Bruce. If Bruce and I had never met, I would never have met these people or lived the kind of life that I live right now.

There’s a story about you playing pool in Havana with Fidel Castro, while hanging out with Hunter S. Thompson. It might not have happened exactly the way you described it, but you did play pool with Castro, and you obviously did know Hunter Thompson.

I live 90 miles from Cuba. That’s how things like that happen. It’s right in my backyard, we are kind of neighbors. But a lot of the stories are legends because I added to them to give you a little more vision. I think a book should be entertaining. It’s for the entertainment value. It makes it exciting. Some of the legends are metaphors for what really happened. If it didn’t really happen, it kind of happened that way, or that’s what came out of it.

But what about the story about riding big waves with Oprah? I don’t know, Clarence.

(laughs) But it’s a great story, isn’t it?

They’re all great stories. Groucho Marx, Robert De Niro, Sinatra, all these amazing people that you’ve known.

When I first met De Niro, it was at a concert before I did the movie. I got a call to come out to Hollywood saying we want you to try out for this film. The film was New York, New York. When I met him there, I had already met him backstage. I didn’t know him as an actor then. I knew him as a great guy. So when we did the movie, it was pretty natural. We hung out together for a couple of months doing the movie. We played some music … I played some music, and he made noise on the saxophone. There were some funny things that happened. You read in the book about (De Niro’s famous speech from the film Taxi Driver) “you talkin’ to me?” That’s great stuff.

Did you actually give De Niro saxophone lessons?

The man who actually played the saxophone on his part was Georgie Auld. But we did talk about sax. I showed him some of the moves that a saxophone player has, the actual things that we do, and you saw them in the movie. The way you stand when you’re not playing, what you do when you’re grooving along to the music, the way you hold the horn, and stuff like that. The natural things that happen.

Another thing that makes your book unusual is that your co-writer, Don Reo, isn’t just a ghostwriter. He injects his own experiences into the book, and he sees things from a different vantage point. In some ways he represents us, the fans. How did that come about?

It was a natural thing. Don and I became really good friends. My hobby is fishing. I love to fish. So I’d be out on the flats in Florida, and a couple of times Don and I just hung out. Everywhere around the world we’ve hung out together, and just had some drinks and talked. Then just being out on the boat kind of summed it all up. He said, “we should write this stuff down. We should write a book.” He jokingly said it, but then when I thought about it, I said, yeah, this would make an interesting book. So we took off with it.

The band was blessed with good luck for many years in terms of everyone’s health, then recently you’ve lost not only Danny Federici, but also Terry McGovern, who was Bruce’s assistant. Terry was your assistant before he worked for Bruce, right?

Yeah, he was my assistant. He ran my club for awhile, Big Man’s West (which was located in Red Bank, N.J.).

I spent many nights there.

There are many stories about Terry. Some of them will be in my next book, which I’m in the process of putting together.

So there will be another book?

There will be another one. It will have a lot more Terry, and a lot more Danny. My mom used to say to me that the older you get, the more friends you lose. That’s the way life is. You keep doing it until your time comes. I’m trying to enjoy my life, and keep doing what I love to do until my time comes. Hopefully I will inspire somebody along the way to keep it going.

You certainly seem to be leading a wonderful life. You have 12 or 13 shows left on this part of the tour. Do you know at this point what happens next?

Rest. Rest and recuperation. That’s next in line for me. I haven’t had a chance to go on my honeymoon, so I’m looking forward to that. That’s an important part of my life, too. Then the next book, and then we’ll follow through on the next tour.

I’m sure all the fans will be looking forward to another tour.

Every time we go out it’s different. You wonder about the change. What’s it going to be like the next time? So I’m pretty excited to see that happen too.

You’re in Philadelphia today. That’s one of the first places outside of New Jersey that the band broke big.

Exactly. Bryn Mawr. The Main Point. So many memories. So many funny stories about the Main Point. (sadly, the Main Point is no more. Its successor, the Point, which was located a few doors down from the original location, lost its lease and had to close in 2005).

Some places are not as easy to explain. Philadelphia is in close proximity to New Jersey, but Arizona is another place where the band was big early on, and obviously that’s nowhere close to Jersey.

Yeah, it’s not close to New Jersey, but I think N.J.’s chief export is people. We’re all over the world. I don’t think I’ve been anywhere where there wasn’t someone from New Jersey.

That’s all I have for today. Thanks for your time. I really enjoyed the book.

Thank you so much. All right my friend. Where are you now?

I’m in New Jersey. I live in north Jersey, but I spend a lot of time in Asbury Park working. So I’m part of that whole thing.

All right, homeboy. I’ll see you down the road, man.

Take care of yourself, Clarence.

God bless.

A few weeks ago, I had a chance to chat with Mike Meadows from the group porterdavis. Mike has a varied background:  he studied music at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston where he fell in love with hand percussion and the rhythms from India, Africa and also Arabic grooves. He’s been to Ghana twice to absorb the music and wider culture and, partly because of his travels and the desire to produce a versatile drum that can be used in a variety of settings, he created his own unique drum called “The Black Swan.”

Because I’m a drummer, I wanted to interview Mike about “The Black Swan,” drumming in general, and the way in which his influences (from rock to world beats) have woven their way into the music he makes with his band, porterdavis — and his own solo work.  The conversation was wide ranging and it touched on a number of topics that include his early childhood, drumming influences, the glories of street performing, the use and misuse of more exotic beats in Americana music, and the ongoing education of an accomplished musician. So, load up your iPod, Zune, laptop or whatever the hell you use to play audio, and get ready for a Popdose interview with Mike Meadows.

The Popdose Interview-Mike Meadows (Download) 26:18

Is it true that you did both Wilson sisters at the same time but only after you finished a three-day four-way with Bananarama?

Carnie Wilson put a right angle on my dong, dude. No lie — I was north and south while me-will-willy was looking around the corner! I’d do it all over again given the opportunity. In fact, Carnie, call me, love. Let’s get twisted on fried foods, perks, and Arsenio Hall reruns. You know, see what happens. The ladies in Bananarama are into some strange stuff too. I’ve never been able to look at latex or eat oatmeal in the same way since. True story. (We meant Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart, but we’ll take any gossip we can get. —Ed.)

Is it true what you sang about Italian girls, or was that just a marketing scheme?

Well, I did write the line “I eat so much pasta pasta, I am so full and yet so lonely.” The autonomy of art, man. Leave it there, homes.

Thoughts on the Gary Dell’Abate comparisons?

Gary’s people have reached out to my people on several occasions. Finally, I took one meeting — they were crazy for us to partner up. However, after getting a look at his horse teeth and smelling his barn-fresh breath, I turned down a high six-figure deal and haven’t spoken to him since. I will say this: I know John Oates. Gary is no J.O.

Wax or shave?

Finally, an intelligent question. I assume you mean “How should a lady care for her garden?” Of course. Well, I think nothing shags like a shaving. To make good use of either method, your lady friend must take the solid all-fours position to really get at those nooks and crannies depilated with all the subtle detail we’ve come to enjoy in the postgrunge era of lady parts. Get yourself a good razor, a fresh copy of Hall & Oates’s H2O, and get to work.

If you could work with any other ’staches, which ones would you choose?

I think you mean “If I could have any ’staches work for me, which ones would I choose,” right? Anyway, I would definitely make Selleck-Stache my house boy. I’d put him in a banana hammock and flip-flops to clean the pool. He could make me mint mojitos. I’d wait for the intro of Magnum, P.I. [to come on TV] and quickly change the station to Hawaii Five-O, just to watch him sulk like a little girl. Outside of that, I’d like to hang with Morgan Spurlock’s lip duster — I think his name is Bones or Barry. I have it on a napkin in my briefcase. I hear he can hold his whiskey.

What’s J-Stache’s favorite cookie?

Ah! Cookie Jenkins, Philly’s oldest street walker-slash-poet. Thank you, Cookie, for introducing me to the beauty of the word — and the depravity of the clap.

Brandon was kind enough to take some time to talk with Popdose about what went into the making of Dandelion, which arrives in all the finer digital outlets today.

Okay, let’s start at the beginning: “Seasons Turn,” Dandelion’s opening track. It’s beautiful — more of an invocation than a first song. Can you talk about how it came together?

Thanks! I definitely wanted it to feel like an opening prayer, set that kind of tone for the record. It was written a cappella in the car one afternoon — very shortly after finishing treatment and finding out I was officially in remission. The lyrics and melody all came in that one sitting — just kind of poured through me (I had to pull over a few times to keep up). The track was one of the only ones on the project that wasn’t initiated from scratch for the record during our sessions in the church — a good bit of the song was initially completed at home. When we started tracking the rest of Dandelion in the church the intention was to go in and just record the lead vocal on this one and call it. However, being that we had a pipe organ at our disposal that was aching to be part of the tune, and the harmonium and piano sounded so glorious in this space, the textures kept getting deeper and deeper — and naturally evolved into where it rests now.

You know what’s great? I hadn’t read the press release in so long that I’d forgotten it was recorded in a church. I guess that says something about how successfully you were able to get that “opening prayer” vibe across, doesn’t it?

So let’s talk about where and how Dandelion was recorded. How did you settle on this particular building? And how did recording there color your performances? I’m not a religious person, but I think if I’d been in your position, I would have spent most of my time overcome with emotion.

The past year and a half has been an extremely emotionally overwhelming time, overall. The care and consideration my family and I were shown by others showed me the very best of people, kind of reawakened a deep appreciation of all the beauty we have to offer each other — pulled the veil off. Consequently, the songs I wrote while I was ill had a very strong spiritual pull to them, as I truly felt like I was connecting with something larger than myself throughout my cancer journey. It made sense then to record the material in a space that was reflective of that.

So, we recorded basic tracks live as an ensemble (including a string section on a couple tracks), and handled 80% of all the overdubs there at St Mark’s Church in Glendale, CA over 6 sessions between November 2008 and January 2009. I wanted the music to be immediate, raw — vulnerable. Seven of the songs on the record actually have a live lead vocal. The whole experience for me was very cathartic, like I was letting go. The way the songs reflected back at us in real time — you can’t get that kind of energy from a plug in. I don’t think the weight of our surroundings were lost on any of us — it became another supporting player, another instrument on the record.

It’s interesting to me that these songs were written in a time of such turmoil, and yet they sound so peaceful. Did you ever have moments where you found yourself writing from a more reactive, aggressive perspective?

There are definitely some darker passages in there — “Fire Season” comes to mind right away. But it wasn’t an energy I wanted to perpetuate or hold onto. My writing became a place of solace, a counter balance. It was more important for me to explore the shadows from a point of light and not to immerse myself in despair or fear — “Turning Toward the Sun” definitely speaks to that. This was true not only for my own music, but also in other albums I found myself returning to for comfort — like Marc Cohn’s record, Join the Parade, or the Candy Butchers’ Hang On, Mike. All in all, it really deepened my relationship with music – brought me more than I ever thought possible before. And then maybe there was more that I could offer in return.

Continuing with the theme of offering more in return, have you been able to find ways of using your music as an outreach tool? Have you found that your story has made it easier to get people’s attention? And do you feel like you need to walk a line between honesty and self-exploitation, or do you feel more like, “This is my story, I own it, and it deserves to be part of my public face”?

Well, I do feel that as a songwriter and as a performer I signed on for a little emotional publicity long before now – it’s kinda part of the gig, writing songs – putting yourself out there. It’s always been deeply personal for me. So by extension, since my illness was such a large part of my life and this record, it’s an honest part of the dialog. These songs were my prayers during a trying time. And I didn’t go through this alone, I may have had the disease but everyone I love was affected by it and this music is just as much a tribute to their spirit as well. I’m just a small part of a greater picture. And if Dandelion and its history somehow connect with others, maybe it can do some good along the way.

There’s definitely comfort in knowing I’m not alone, I’m not the first one to have to walk this road. Over the past year or so I’ve I’ve been working with an organization called I’m Too Young For This, a young adult cancer collective that’s doing amazing work in bringing people together, providing resources, support and perspective for young adults affected by cancer. I’m greatly inspired by their dedication to the ‘greater picture,’ and proud to play whatever small role I can.

But, all said and done, I do feel that this album has a universal language — many of the songs were written months before I was diagnosed. We’ve all got physical and emotional obstacles to overcome daily — cancer happened to be the biggest one I’ve had to deal with in the last two years of my life. In the end, I just set out to make the best, truthful record I could with my friends.

Photo Credit: Michael Reppert

I’m not sure that I’d call myself an Internet guru of any kind, but it’s definitely the most opportunistic and convenient way for us indies to spread our wings. I mean, the amount of music ‘fan’ centers that have sprung up in the last couple years is pretty incredible (iLike, Reverb Nation, imeem, Facebook, etc.) – I’m just trying to stay ahead of the curve, looking for new ways to reach out to folks. We’re unfortunately past the golden era of popping down to the local record store and having the clerk there hip you to what’s new and exciting; now the online music blogs and podcasts have kind of taken on that spirit. And I *love* those kinds of dialogues (especially being that I’m a former record store clerk myeelf) — I’m still a music geek at heart. Many of the writers that have posted about my work have introduced me to some great artists in return, I love that give and take. You yourself actually just turned me onto the new record by the Guggenheim Grotto not too long ago, so thanks for that! It’s a very exciting time in the way we can access and share our love of music.

It’s also an interesting challenge because the market is SO rich in content — a fan of Crowded House or Josh Ritter or Mike Viola now has endless choices when it comes to hearing new artists with similar influences and tastes. I think what I’m learning is that the creative ambition *has* to somehow cross over into the marketing world as well — one’s online spirit or personality is everything, it’s the first impression. I’m also lucky that I have a great partner with my digital distributor, IODA (via Burnside Distribution) that has great promotional partnerships available for its artists. The Homegrown Series over at Too Poppy has been really fun, been really interesting to see how folks respond to various sides of my work. And that was born out of the writers there stumbling across my last record, Golden State, and posting updates of my various announcements and subsequent releases — then working together on Homegrown kind of naturally evolved out of that. It’s been a blast.

So more than anything it still comes back to making connections with people, even if it’s via e-mail or talkbacks. I’ve found that more often than not people respond to the ‘person’ before they respond to the music, so I just try to keep my online self open, humble and more than anything honest. The fact that I have the ability to make those kinds of connections around the world with my music is a pretty awesome gift — I just hope I can keep growing with all the changes and continue to have fun.

What would you like to tell our readers about the new album? Sort of a closing statement/introduction, if you will?

I’m so proud of Dandelion and for everyone’s role in its creation. Every record I’ve made has been a beautiful convergence of talent and love, and Dandelion is no exception — I’m honored to stand amongst such company. This album was a very healing journey for us, and I hope it can perhaps also shine a little light for others along its way. Thank you to everyone for listening!

Visit Brandon at his official site, and purchase his music at Amazon. (Photo credit for front-page image: Suzan Jones)

The album comes by those characteristics naturally. Finn and his family opened their home (and his home studio) in New Zealand for three weeks last Christmastime to most of the crew from the previous 7 Worlds incarnation — Johnny Marr, Ed O’Brien and Phil Selway from Radiohead, Sebastian Steinberg, Lisa Germano — as well as newbies including Wilco, KT Tunstall, and down-under singer-songwriters Don McGlashan, Bic Runga, and Glenn Richards. The sessions were, by all accounts, full of frivolity, on-the-spot collaboration, and various forms (this being the holiday season) of good cheer; they also marked a musical reunion for various Finn family members including brother Tim, sons Liam and Elroy, and — singing on record for the first time — Neil’s wife Sharon.

In addition to preparing and publicizing The Sun Came Out (which emerges tomorrow in the U.S.), Finn has been readying a new Crowded House album for release this winter and has recently found time to play a few gigs (with and without his 7 Worlds compatriots) in London and Los Angeles. His interview with Popdose, patched in from New Zealand through his U.S. publicist’s office (thus saving your intrepid interviewer a whopping phone bill), found him answering queries about the minutiae of long-past Crowded House gigs as well as reader questions ranging from the profound to the ridiculous. (Sadly, dear reader who calls himself “maxus,” he had no answer whatsoever for the question, “Imagine if writing songs in flat keys suddenly became a major felony. How would you imagine a day in Neil Finn’s Violent Life of Crime, circa September 2010?”) Here’s a live clip from the first 7 Worlds Collide project:

I was at one of the solo shows you did at Largo here in L.A. last month, but unfortunately didn’t make the 7 Worlds Collide show the night before. How did you come to play that series of gigs, considering there was no tour attached?
I was there to do some mixing with Jim Scott [who produced The Sun Came Out], at his studio in [suburban] Santa Clarita. I hadn’t had a chance to play in the new Largo since it moved, though I had been in the old place a number of times. Originally I was just going to do the two solo shows, but as it turned out we had an opportunity to bring several of the 7 Worlds artists in and do that Sunday-night show. It suddenly became a very intense experience – it was a lot of repertoire to learn in a very short time.

The set lists for those weeknight gigs were sort of a wet dream for Neil Finn cultists – mostly album tracks from One Nil/One All and the Finn Brothers albums. Were you looking to accomplish something in particular with them, or were you just testing [Largo resident renaissance man] Jon Brion’s ability to master your back catalog?
It’s always appealing to put Jon through his paces, because he’s really at his best when he barely knows the song. There’s also the attraction of performing a set like that in a small venue like the Largo — it’s a room that responds really well to quiet, reverential music. I like to drag some of those old songs out once in a while and give them an airing.

It was a joyous thing, those shows. We barely had any monitoring up onstage, as you might have noticed. We had to listen very intently to one another, and Elroy was hitting the drums as lightly as he possibly could. But it worked out very well in that room.

Tell me about the impetus behind the new album – why did it happen now? Was it difficult to lure the various artists to your place at the same time?
It was something that had been brewing for a while, actually. I’d been talking to various 7 Worlds people, and there was generally a great desire to get back together and do another album. Finally somebody said, “I’m free at Christmas,” and I thought that would be great. That’s the beginning of summertime here, and I thought, why not bring everybody to my place? I thought it was a cool idea for a happening.

As it turned out, only one person couldn’t make it from the first time – Eddie Vedder’s wife was having a baby around that time. But we were great fans of Wilco, and I had sent them a wishful e-mail, and they turned up, which was fantastic. The whole thing just seemed to gather its own momentum. The logistics of actually getting everybody there aside, I was amazed at the willingness and the energy on the ground.

Recording the album on your “home turf,” as we call it here – did that make the sessions easier for you, or more challenging? And how did it affect the others?
It’s hard to relate everybody’s experiences, but for me it was a really nice time. They flew in, and then they were blown away to be at Piha [a beach hear Finn’s house] at Christmastime with the sun out, with waves crashing and a lot of good people around. We spent a couple days just sitting around getting to know each other, and then it took a while to gear up – there was a bit of circling, finding a rhythm. But once a few songs started to get made, everybody settled into it. I wasn’t always in the studio – I had to be a bit more involved at the fringes, making runs to the airport and things like that.

The album has a laid-back, family-and-friends vibe that’s very unusual for a charity album. To me, it feels in some ways like the McGarrigle Hour album from about a decade ago [which featured a bevy of McGarrigles, Wainwrights, Roches and others]. Was that a feeling you were going for during the sessions?
I’m only dimly familiar with the album you’re talking about, and I wasn’t thinking along any particular lines when we set out. But the album certainly turned out that way. I’ve been asked a bit about [the sessions] since then, and I’ve realized that we created quite a unique situation. There have been many compilations done for charities, but usually the acts contribute from wherever they’re recording at the moment, or songs come from a variety of places. There’s not usually the sense of an actual happening, a gathering of people in this sort of communal environment. It really was special. We had people going off in groups to work on specific things together, or somebody would be writing a song with one person and then would be called in to do backing vocals on something else.

Switching subjects … My favorite track on One Nil is “Turn and Run.” I know you wrote it before 9/11, and you probably wrote it about personal issues, but to me that song is all about what started out as, and should have remained, America’s reaction to that day. (Not in a Glenn Beck way, of course.) Do you hear that from people a lot?
You know, no one’s ever said that to me before. But I have made that connection myself — the lyrics do lend themselves to that interpretation. Of course, that’s not something you would go and talk about, as the person who wrote the song — I wasn’t about to offer up to someone in the press, “Isn’t it interesting how ‘Turn and Run’ sounds like it’s about 9/11?” But I thought about it afterward – there are some lines on that track that turned out to be prescient. I’m happy about it, as long as the sentiment that comes out of that connection is a positive one.

That was a weird time. I wrote the song “Human Kindness” afterward – I believe it was on the album when it came out in the States [as One All]. It references 9/11 only indirectly, but I couldn’t help but write something in the aftermath. All the creative people I knew were affected by it – though, obviously, different people responded to it in different ways, and I don’t know too many who wrote specifically about it.

What’s your attitude now toward the changes that turned One Nil into One All? Was that your idea, to make the changes once the album was finally getting a U.S. release, or were the changes suggested by the label?
I’m trying to remember exactly what happened with that – it’s been a while.

A number of the tracks were remixed, and a couple were replaced with new songs.
Right. Well, the remixes came about because, when you sit with something you’ve done and then have an opportunity to try and improve it … I can’t resist tinkering. The label didn’t have much to do with it – but considering the time that had passed between the initial release and getting a deal for the U.S., maybe the idea of freshening [the album] up a bit was a good thing. I’m sure there are people that prefer each version over the other.

OK, I’m going to move on to some reader questions, then circle back around to some more of my own. Here’s one: Were there things that you didn’t like (creatively or managerially) when you were in Split Enz, swore you’d do differently the next time, yet found yourself doing all over again in Crowded House and as a solo act?
Well … hmm … that’s an interesting question. It’s a long time ago, now. Management-wise, through both Split Enz and Crowded House we were not blessed with great management, to be honest. But one thing I’ve become aware of is how important it is for a manager to manage relationships within a band. That really should be a primary focus. Getting the band to submit to a particular program [of events] should be secondary. We definitely suffered from that exploitative attitude, of people trying to program us too heavily.

Creatively, in Crowded House I was obviously able to be a lot more in control than I was in Split Enz. There were a lot of issues in Split Enz, things I would write that didn’t sound much like what I imagined them to be by the time the band had gotten through with them.

Was that a communication problem between you and Tim?
Well, not entirely. That was a forceful band. Everyone was very opinionated, and we had a way of presenting things [in terms of production] that didn’t allow a lot of space or openness in the songs. We got a lot more layered in Crowded House. I don’t know — any time you’re working with a group of people you end up with some of the same dilemmas. But I like to think we didn’t end up polishing things so much with Crowded House. We let the songs breathe more, and we didn’t mind if the final product wound up a little unkempt.

You know, sometimes it’s … it’s like dealing with people who are obsessed with cleaning house. After a while, you can walk through and everything is spotless, but it winds up seeming … a little too formal. It can seem like nobody actually lives there.

That’s a pretty good analogy. Did you just come up with that one?
Yeah, I guess. Cleaning house … I guess that’s maybe too close a metaphor for my history …

Well, speaking of which, is there a release date for the new Crowded House album? And what sort of mood will it have?
Huh … another interesting question … I don’t know if I can describe what kind of mood it will have. It will be out early next year, I can tell you that. It’s hard to say what mood it has, but it’s definitely an album made by a band. It has some exotic elements on it … hmmm … well, anything I do is going to have some melancholy, and some buoyancy as well. There’s some of both those things on it.

Might there be a Split Enz reunion tour outside Australia and New Zealand in the future?
I would never say never, but it’s very unlikely. There are a number of things stopping it from happening – there’s everything going on in other people’s lives, and I have a lot of things I’m working on over the next 12 months. Don’t get me wrong — I’m sure it’d be a lot of fun, I’m not saying it wouldn’t be, but I’d be worried that it might be too much of a nostalgic exercise. Beyond that, we’d have to work out a lot of things, particularly how we could do a tour in a way that would allow us to make some money. You know, it’s not like here, where we know there’s a built-in audience for anything we’d do. To go to Europe or the States, it’s hard to know what types of venues we’d be able to play, and whether it would be worth the effort financially.

As long as we’re on the subject of reunions, is there any chance of another Finn Brothers project sometime soon, or perhaps a Finns record with Liam, Elroy and Tim?
Well, I guess anything’s possible — and obviously, with all the questions you’re asking, there’s a lot for me to think about. There are no plans now for a Finn Brothers record, but there are some things circling around in my mind, in terms of family-related projects. We have a terrific time working together, Liam and Elroy and myself, and we’re always looking for opportunities to do things. And now that Sharon has sort of announced herself, that adds another level of possibilities.

So she wasn’t shy about being part of The Sun Came Out?
Oh, she loved it! It’s just a question of maintaining the same feel we had when we were working on that. You know, we started “Little By Little” as a jam upstairs, in our pajamas. We wouldn’t want to leap straight from something like that into anything too formal or structured.

Well, here’s a corollary question from a reader: It seems like everyone in the family is thriving creatively. Is it something in the water down there? Or are we someday going to hear stories from Liam and Elroy about what an awful stage dad you are?
(laughs) Well, as long as it’s a good story, I don’t mind. You know, when it comes to this business, you find that a good story is always more important than the truth.

I don’t think there’s anything in the water — but I do think there’s something in the genes. When we play together something is understood, something is instinctive, that you don’t get when you’re working with other people. Sharon is certainly less of a “musician,” in terms of being trained formally, but she has an unshakable feel, and that’s a great discovery. With the boys, we’ve always given them an open-door policy to do whatever they choose. They’ve become excellent musicians themselves – and anytime they want to work together, all the better.

Here’s an interesting question: Imagine Bill Gates became your patron, gave you an unlimited budget, and said, “Go make an album in a completely different style, something you’ve always wanted to try.” In what direction do you think you might turn?
I think I would do something that’s totally instrumental. Something completely, willfully obscure would be quite a good alternative, I’d think. I wouldn’t have to face any of the normal dilemmas.

Such as?
Well, in terms of finishing lyrics, matching the middle eight to the third verse, the things that give me trouble in my normal songwriting process. I’d love to do a record that’s totally … well, not obscure, I don’t mean that it would lack melody or be completely inaccessible, but it would be interesting to do something where I didn’t have to worry at all about its commercial prospects. I have music like that tucked away in a drawer, of course.

Well, thinking back to the opposite extreme … I saw Crowded House a couple times on your first American tour back in 1987, and I don’t think I’ve ever attended shows that made me so giddy as an audience member. The three of you at the front of the stage together so much of the time, clowning around, and Paul mostly using the brushes. How do you look back on those days?
Those gigs are one of the strongest and best memories, for me, of that whole period. That’s where we learned to be a band, really. We stripped away all the artifice and polish and got down to what we actually do. We learned to sing together. We could tell we were pulling people in with us — that intimacy between us extended out to the audiences. It’s a pretty amazing feeling, to look out and see them leaning forward in their seats — you can see it happening in front of you. And then, when you mix in the humor of someone like Paul, a sense of anarchy ensues.

Why do you think the whole world is so fascinated with Kanye’s outburst? It wasn’t something people were expecting – it didn’t follow the script. I think about that and I think, Don’t we all want things to go wrong now and then? That’s what makes life interesting. And that’s what we were looking for in Crowded House, when we were playing in that format in particular. We were so free in that format, and we were delighted when things would go wrong.

And then I go from thinking about that to thinking of a show I saw you play at the Roseland Ballroom in New York on the last tour [in 1994], and all of that spirit seemed to be gone.
I remember that night – it was one of the last shows we played with Paul in the band. That wasn’t a particularly happy night for us. Paul was in bad shape. Kurt Cobain had just killed himself a couple days before, if I remember. There wasn’t much positive going on that night. Really, it was not a particularly happy tour overall. I remember one thing, though — there was no better show on that tour than Paul’s last night with us, in Atlanta. We knew he was going, and the breaking of that tension helped us all have a very good, very fun night. Once he had left the tour we had some buoyant nights, though I’m not sure the quality of the performances was the same as it had been before. But Paul wasn’t a happy man, and that kind of dominated that tour for us.

[Here's some more-lighthearted banter from a post-Atlanta TV appearance in Australia:]

I remember a show in Philadelphia on the Woodface tour, when you played “Sister Madly” and then forlornly said, “Temple of Low Men wasn’t such a bad little album, was it?” Was that indicative of some frustration with Americans’ failure to stick with Crowded House after the success of the first album?
I don’t remember that specifically – I suppose that comment might have been connected with any number of thoughts I was having at that time. But you can wake up on the wrong side of the bed one morning and wonder why people aren’t paying attention to you the way you think they ought to, or why this album wasn’t as successful as that album. But that way lies madness. If you start fixating on what should have been, you lose focus on what you’re doing now, and that’s not a good way to move forward.

Everybody has those kinds of dilemmas, anyway. If you have mega-success you just have different dilemmas. Nobody’s home free. I bet you that U2, for all their success, have been pissed off that some record didn’t do as well as the one before that. Aspirations shift continually — from making great music, to being recognized, to winning awards, to selling lots of records. It’s part of the territory.

Anybody who says they don’t have ambitions for success either has a monk-like demeanor — and good on them if they can do that! — but everybody else has status anxiety. The trick is turning those things into positive action, rather than moping about. Jealousy, anger, all the negative emotions, can be turned into positives if you use them to push you onward.

Gorge on Neil Finn / Crowded House / Split Enz / 7 Worlds Collide product at Amazon.

Desktop came together earlier this year, releasing an EP of synthified pop jams that meet, in the words of the duo, “somewhere between Stevie
Wonder, New Order and ’80s Detroit techno.” And then they went and gave it away for free at their website. Naturally, we were intrigued — both by the EP and Desktop’s marketing plan — and jumped at the opportunity to interview Zach Curd, especially when Desktop agreed to provide Popdose with an exclusive Desktop track, a cover of Ghost Town DJs’ “My Boo” (download). We had a wide-ranging chat that covered the band, the music, and the state of online music marketing in general — and it’s all right here. Read on!

Okay, let’s start with the obvious: How did Desktop come together? Having heard some of your earlier stuff, the new project’s sound is an unexpected twist.

The Detroit indie music scene is super tiny (and the non-”DETROIT ROCK” scene is even smaller), so I knew of Keith’s projects (Johnny Headband, Electric Six), but hadn’t met him. We met at a show in January 08, and agreed to make some music together. We initially had the intention of working on stuff together in real life, but I’m pretty busy doing Suburban Sprawl stuff, and Keith is also kind of perpetually on tour with E6, so it ended up being an Internet thing.

Yeah, the dance music angle is different from both of our bands, and I guess seems like a twist to non-me people. For me, my musical influence trajectory kind of makes sense. Starting at age 15 (I’m 27 now): hardcore punk > proto-punk > garage-rock > psychedelic music > progressive rock > Steely Dan > various yacht rock > disco > house and dance music. I’m also super into Top 40 stuff, so I think that pops up every now and then in both The Pop Project and Desktop. As you can see, Steely Dan is the linchpin. The Dan is always the linchpin.

I dare you to make t-shirts that say “Steely Dan is the linchpin.” (And if I’d known you felt that way, I would have asked you guys to do a cover of “Peg”!) So once you decided to turn this into a Web-powered supergroup, how long did it take the EP to come together? And how did you decide how to determine the division of labor, so to speak?

Hahaha. The four people on earth who would buy that shirt would love it.

The EP took a little while, actually — “Liberty” and “Too Much” went pretty quickly, but we didn’t get around to finishing “Fired Up” for a number of months. I recall SXSW planning and craziness was my “problem” and Keith’s “problem” was a few European tours with E6.

There hasn’t been a standard method for how we’ve approached tracks. Keith came up with the “Liberty” and “Fired Up” backing tracks. He sent over mp3s of 1-2 minutes of music, I cut up the tracks into “song form” and came up with the vocal arrangements. I overdubbed an instrument or two sometimes, like the rhodes solo on “Fired Up.” After I did my contributions, Keith replaced my crude edits with real editing. “Too Much” I started, and sent to him. Everything was mastered by our friend Jon Weier from a Detroit band called the Dead Bodies. Jon is helping with mixing lately too.

Oh, and also! How great is “Glamour Profession” on Gaucho? That was the Steely Dan track that led me into the dark world of disco.

You mentioned Suburban Sprawl. I ran a label in the ’90s, and although recording, manufacturing, and distribution costs were higher then, it was also probably a little easier to sell music. I admire Suburban Sprawl’s ability to make a go of it, and the giveaway nature of this EP makes me wonder: what’s your philosophy for dealing with the Wild West nature of the Web? I mean, you aren’t dealing with piracy on a Sony or Universal level, but it’s still got to be a concern. Music is much more of a casual commodity for a lot of people now — how do you find the listeners who still really need it?

Around the office we often talk about how awesome it would have been to run a label in the ’90s. Remember when NSYNC sold like 2 copies per person of No Strings Attached when it came out? That is insane.

You’re right about costs, they’ve come down significantly, even over the course of subsprawl’s lifetime. And you’re right about it becoming harder to sell music. At least CDs. The problem with CDs is that they’re not as special as they once were, I think. Again, that’s likely because of costs going down, but mp3-dom has to have had an impact too. Again, you’re right about us not being in the piracy trenches like Warner or anything, but it’s always a little tough to see Javelins on sendspace or wherever. They could really really use that 10 dollars! So could I! But you’ve just gotta hope that it comes around. Maybe someone who downloaded a Javelins record will come see them on tour and buy a shirt. They probably won’t, but maybe they will!

There’s gotta be some sacrifice on the customer end of things, though, because if all you do is take take take, there won’t be any more Javelins albums! If people stop buying stuff completely, the only bands that will get to exist will be trustfund bands. So one of my problems with filesharing is the shortsightedness of the act. Yes, you get to hear Dirty Projectors RIGHT NOW, but Dave Longstreth would like to eat, I’m guessing. I guarantee you he’s not doing as well as you think he is.

Like every indie on the planet right now, we’re experimenting with lots of different stuff. We’ll soon be launching a fan club, we’ve been doing these free releases (the Christmas compilations; Quack — our parent company — released the newest record by Office for free; Desktop), and of course we’re playing around with vinyl right now. I can’t pretend to know the answer to the the problem of the Web, but we’re trying to just make things easy for the customer. One way is to make the digital version free and release a limited physical copy in conjunction. So right now my answer is that Free Digital/Limited Edition Vinyl combo. The vinyl demand is there, I know this because I wait patiently myself for new records to come out on vinyl, then I special order them at the record store. I had to wait easily a month each for 808s and Heartbreak and the new Major Lazer record, but when they finally came in, it was an EVENT.

What’s insane is that those are major label acts with huge distribution avenues available to them, and I still had to wait a month. That was eye-opening, because obviously the majors are having a tough time right now too. Another eye-opening thing is seeing how people still buy our records on iTunes, even when they are freely available on the Web. To me that makes iTunes kind of serve as the modern day record store. Feature page of iTunes = endcap/listening station at the record store.

How do you find the listeners who still really need music? Ultimately there’s no substitution for hard work, so I think part of the solution is a very old idea: convincing journalists to write about our music, and then hope readers are captivated enough by the description to check it out. Also, having a good end-product is massive. It’s got to be good music.

You actually probably run into similar “value” issues with Popdose, no? Getting people to care about a website is probably just as hard as getting people to care about bands they’ve never heard of!

Well, it’s funny that you brought the conversation around to sites like Popdose, because we’re part of the problem as much as we’re part of the solution. I mean, I guess in a way we’re no different from the radio stations that I used to tape REO Speedwagon songs off of when I was a kid, but back then, you had to put some effort into making your free copy of the song. These days, all you need to do is point your browser at the Hype Machine — or, God forbid, your favorite Bittorrent client — and dive in.

Broadband and mp3 technology have been boons for music lovers, but they’ve also helped create a culture of — well, not disposable music, because the labels did that themselves when they started spending too much on stars’ contracts to pay for quality A&R staff. But a culture where most music feels disposable, where a lot of people just sort of blindly acquire and forget about songs. I have more than 90,000 songs in my collection, and my relationship with music is far, far different from what it was when I was 10 and obsessing over the same handful of LPs and cassettes.

Then again, as you say, we’re trying to make people care about bands, some of which they’ve never heard of — and that wasn’t really happening under the old model. The only way you heard a band that wasn’t in heavy rotation was by being proactive and getting lucky with a listening booth at your favorite mom & pop record store…and now they’re all gone.

We’re digressing, though. Let’s get back to Desktop, and how this whole “free EP” experiment is working out for you. Have you been able to track the effectiveness of your promotional campaign? How many copies have you “sold”? And how, if at all, is the response going to change the way you promote things going forward?

Totally. I pretty much restrict my music buying to iTunes and vinyl now, which sounds snobby, but I just wanted to get back to obsessive music consumption. Getting excited about something and listening to it over and over again until I’m even more excited about it.

Regarding the free EP experiment, we’ll see, I guess. Desktop is serving two purposes, because this EP is basically an introduction to a new act, and I can experiment with a new sales model at the same time. We only have 200 copies of this EP, so the overall profit from physical sales will be pretty small. Since the run is so small the turnaround is fast, so that’s a positive.

Preorder sales are fine, considering it’s a genre I’ve never touched before, so we’ve been seeking out blogs/publications we’ve never had a reason to contact in the past. Some electronic music press folks are genuinely into it, while some others aren’t, probably because it’s still a pop record deep down. The writers who obsess over, say, trance are probably not going to give us much credit, which is expected and totally fine with me.

So to answer your question, the effect of giving it away for free seems to be positive. I think I’ll have a better idea once we do our next thing (probably another EP). Debut releases are often a crapshoot. Regarding changing how we promote stuff, Desktop might change that, it might not. I think it really depends on the band. Keith and I don’t have any immediate plans to play live or tour, so that’s a huge factor to consider. Some bands sell nothing in release week, but do really well on tour. That was something we thought about before making it free. Does making the digital version free maybe make up for the fact that we probably won’t tour? That makes sense to me.

I suppose we should talk about the musical content of the EP, shouldn’t we?

My favorite track is “Too Much” — I love the way it goes off in another direction toward the end, and I think it might be the only song where you can really hear the Steely Dan linchpin coming out. Two questions: One, how in the world does a jam like that come out of an Internet collaboration, and two, what are the odds of getting more of this kind of thing out of Desktop?

It’s cool that you mention that’s your favorite track. I’m getting a lot of positive feedback on that song in particular from friends. As far as how it came about, I can try and break down how the track grew.

I recorded the basic track (the synth percussion loop that starts the song and continues throughout/rhodes/vocals) and sent it Keith’s way. He added the bass, all of the synths, the beat and some random stuff like panting and palm muted guitar. He also added the cymbal crashes. This one doesn’t have any editing as far as “move this section here, and this one here” like the others did.

What I do like is how the song is sort of a ballad, but it stays in dance territory. I’d love to make more songs like that actually, so I’d say the odds are good. Jessica 6 (Nomi from Hercules and Love Affair’s newish project) have a gorgeous ballad called “Not Anymore” on the B-side of an uptempo dance jam, so maybe this will turn into a mini-trend that only nerds notice.

Desktop started as a side project, and you’re obviously both very busy. What’s next for the two of you?

Keith heads back out on the road soon with both Johnny Headband and Electric Six. The E6 tourdates look particularly insane, 10/14-12/19. Full US and UK tour.

The Pop Project did the music for five Dickies commercials not too long ago, so we’re picking up more commercial music gigs. Bandwise, we’re in writing mode. Hopefully we’ll have a new record done in a shorter period of time than the last one. And, the next time you’ll hear from me regarding Suburban Sprawl will likely be our annual holiday music compilation, which we put online for free every year.

As far as Desktop goes, we’re still working on new material, but we’re not sure of any sort of larger plan at the moment. The idea floating around in my head right now is doing a “mixtape” in early 2010. We just finished a remix for O’Spada from Sweden. I’m not sure when/if that will see the light of day. Also starting work on a remix for an Ann Arbor band called My Dear Disco.

Okay, now let’s bring this puppy home. You guys were good enough to record an exclusive track for Popdose, a cover of Ghost Town DJs’ “My Boo” (download). We talked about you doing a cover, but why this particular song?

I basically forced “My Boo” on Keith because it’s one of my favorite songs ever. What I love about it is that it’s so tuneful for a Miami Bass booty jam. Most of that stuff isn’t as “pretty.” It should also be noted that the video features both huge ass cordless phones and huge ass cellular phones. On our end, we had been talking about fitting autotune into something of ours for a while, so this seemed like a great opportunity to finally do that. It took a few revisions by starting out super-super slow and ending up Dance Dance Revolution fast.

Thanks for letting me blab for so long!

I thought something similar in 2005, about the work of another UK singer/songwriter, David Gray. That year, he released Life in Slow Motion, a devastatingly gorgeous collection of songs that extended a winning streak begun with White Ladder, his breakout record of six years previous (you remember “Babylon,” don’t you?), and continued through 2002’s New Day at Midnight. Each of them set Gray’s reedy, plaintive voice against a musical backdrop that melded acoustic instrumentation with electronic flourishes, in the service of deeply personal, deeply resonant songs. Combined with a compilation of the best early tracks from his decade-plus career (Lost Songs, 2001), these exceptional discs alluded to a talent whose excellence we could take for granted.

Four years have passed since Life in Slow Motion, and, if anything, Gray’s new record, Draw the Line, raises the bar even higher. Sporting a new band with a fuller, richer sound than he’s managed previously (as well as guest turns from Jolie Holland and Annie Lennox), Gray has written a record that easily stands with his best work, perhaps even surpasses it. You get the feeling he knows it, too—he’s put on a full-court promotional press in advance of the record’s release (September 22), including a ton of interviews (a metric ton, actually—he’s British, after all), showcase gigs, and an appearance on Letterman, and will be returning to the U.S. this fall for a more extensive tour.

Gray was doing promo work in London when I spoke with him on the phone, about two and a half weeks before Draw the Line’s release.

Congratulations on the new record—it’s really quite something.

Thank you very much.

Why did it take four years to follow up Life in Slow Motion?

Well, it was three years, really, insomuch as I was on the road for a year or so after Slow Motion came out. That took a while. And then I consciously wanted to step away from touring for a while, for sure. I got to the point when you have young kids and you’ve been doing it so naturally, you get a bit jaded and it sort of tears you in half. If you’re feeling anything less than super-positive about traveling around the world doing shows, then you should think twice, because it’s the best job in the world and to be wearing anything less than a smile is wrong.

I also needed to make some changes, and that just takes time. So I spent a long time making the record, finding a new band, and we were interrupted for six months by the Greatest Hits which came out, and we toured a bit on that. All these things have an effect.

Then once the record was finished, the world entered its financial crisis, when the old Wizard of Oz factor came up and someone realized it was all just a little man behind the curtain [laughs], making stuff up. Everything seemed to go into a state of paralysis for a while and that was when we were trying to get a new deal sorted out. It’s just taken a lot longer. The record could really have come out in the spring, but as it is, it’s coming out now, in September. I think it’s better that it comes out properly; the whole thing needs to be done right, so it’s better to wait.

Absolutely.

I wasn’t in a hurry—that’s one thing, and also I was having a ball making the record. We recorded a huge swathe of material, of which Draw the Line is the first release.

Oh, wow. How many songs?

Well, we probably recorded and finished around 35.

Oh my God.

I’m not saying there’s another three albums to come out, or whatever, but there probably will be another record somewhere else down the line. We’ll have to see.

That’s awesome. Talk a little bit about your new band. What are they bringing to the table that makes them the right personnel for your music now?

It was a big decision to end the era that had been running since White Ladder and before. I felt that the sort of creative spark was on the wane so I needed a new challenge. I don’t know. You pick people because you sense something in them that you think is compatible, or there’s a hunger there. I don’t really like “musos,” people who have a great facility to play music but don’t seem to know why. It’s something leaner and slightly more gnarled that I’m looking for—the misfits. Someone who puts their soul into it and it looks like it hurts when it doesn’t go right. You look for people who have a kind of hunger about them. It’s the sound, what they do. They have to light you up with their playing. That’s what I was looking for.

There’s a line by Tom Waits, “You never hear the melody until you needed the song.” I think it’s true of people and singers as well—when you really need somebody, they turn up. We did some auditions and the drummer, Keith Pryor, was the first really big discovery. His sound and his whole angle really lights up the record. That was a giant thing, getting him. I kept the same bass player from before, and I got the guitarist who played on my first record, Neill [MacColl]. But it just worked, straight away.

“Draw the Line” and “Fugitive,” the first two songs on the record, were also the first things that really came together. And when I heard this sound, which had so much more attitude and presence and sounded so driving, I just realized this is it—this is what I’ve been waiting for. You get rid of one thing to replace it with you don’t know what, but as soon as I heard that—man, I just felt so alive.

It also provided a vehicle for me to say so many different things—a different voice and a different angle in my writing completely that I had not been able to find an outlet for, for years. Suddenly, I felt free; I felt completely liberated by this new sound. There’s so much space in the music to sing into. I just go so much off my chest. It’s great when you get something off you chest that’s been on your mind for a while, but this was like getting a hundred things off your chest all at once. It was fantastic. So as a writer, I’ve never enjoyed making a record as much as this one.

I love the opening line of “Jackdaw”: “I’m like a jackdaw / Cawing at your back door / Scratching at your windowpane.” I have to ask you, from a creative aspect, where did that come from? Did the image actually occur to you? Was it the sound of the words? Did you dare yourself to write a song called “Jackdaw?”

It’s a little crow that always would fly around down in Wales on the coast where I was brought up. A friendly looking little crow. I’m always using nature references; I’m a huge nature person. That line just popped out. The driving riff on the piano, the uplift of it, the emotion of it, and then this line and melody that came flying out in that song—it was just born in a very easy way.

That’s great.

I don’t know where these things come from. The weirdest thing, this sort of synchronicity almost, was when I looked up the word jackdaw , just out of curiosity, in the dictionary, and it said, “amorous bird.” [laughs] I had no idea it was renown for mating for life; all these things—it was famous for being very amorous with its partner. It was perfect. That song takes me to Wales—it takes me home when I sing that song. That’s where I am when I’m singing that one—my soul is back in Wales.

Jolie Holland was a really inspired choice to use in “Kathleen,” but I understand she wasn’t your first choice. Who was?

When I wrote that song, I sang the backing vocals, and I said, “Gee, this thing is so country. I should forget ‘Kathleen’—this sounds like ‘Jolene.’ It’s got to be Dolly Parton. So I rushed home and wrote her this email, telling her how much I loved her, etc., and would she ever consider singing on my record. I sent it into the office and said, “Listen, what do you think of this?” Without knowing that I didn’t want them to, they sent it straight away.

Next morning, I ran out and said, “Don’t send that fucking letter—it’s embarrassing; it’s far too sycophantic. I’ve written a new one.” And they said, “It’s too late; we sent it last night. But it’s all right—we’ve already heard back. Dolly’s busy for the next five years.” So she never got anywhere near the music. But anyway, skip Dolly—I got Jolie, which was even better; I changed a few letters, and the outcome was even better.

Did you get on Dolly’s calendar for 2014?

[Laughs] I can’t think that far ahead. I don’t think Dolly can, either. She’ll probably have retired by then.

I read a comment from you about how Annie Lennox’s presence on “Full Steam” brought energy to your sessions. Can you explain that? What did she bring to your music?

She just has this terrific zest—when Annie sings something, she sings it like she means it, but it just sounds like so much fun. In the way that Freddie Mercury could sing anything, even a very emotional line, and made it fun. She makes “bullied, suckered, pimped and patronized” sound like a good idea—it’s like, “Yeah, I’ll have some of that.” She just lifted the song; her pop sensibility lifted the whole thing.

I think my vision for it was another man singing in a Righteous Brothers style. That was my first take on the whole thing. Now I think it would have really sunk under its own weight with some other words and another singer. It could have probably got far too stuck into the deep meaning, where now you don’t notice almost what the lyrics are saying until the second or third listen. She just carries through the song beautifully. She gave us the chorus. She just lifted everything up. She someone with just amazing energy, an amazing voice; she’s totally undiminished. And she just worked like a trooper; she wouldn’t stop until she was completely happy. We did marathon sessions on it.

Without trying very hard, I found 20 or so instances of your music being used in television or film. Can you talk about the importance of those media in getting your music out to the public?

Well to be totally honest, I don’t know what it is. Does it make a big difference? I think it can be. Let’s say there’s a heart-stopping moment on an episode of E.R. Someone’s laid out on the operating table, dead, and they choose to play the entire full-length version of “Life in Slow Motion.” Yeah—that could do some good. There’s not going to be a dry eye in the house. If I can aid human suffering in that way—[laughs].

In the general sort of “throw a bit in here or a bit in there,” I don’t know. I don’t know how much of a connection it makes. It’s something that I wouldn’t say troubles me, but you don’t want to just throw your music around like confetti. You feel that holding it back might have more effect. It’s funny, with the film thing, you get asked to do it all the time, and most of the time it doesn’t happen. Film is what it is. To be honest, I don’t know exactly where it’s at; I don’t know that it makes much of a difference.

People would have you believe that certain programs like Grey’s Anatomy are like the holy grail—you get a bit of a track on there and your life will be made. But I’ve never found any of that to be true. Maybe it will help, but I’m not quite sure to what extent. I think it does, because the perfect marriage of the perfect music at the perfect moment on a well-made program, it does seem to do something. Most of the time, that doesn’t quite happen.

On a more serious note, last year, you spoke out about the use of your music and others’ music by US forces in Guantanamo interrogations. I remember that story being told on the news here with a kind of chuckle; you rightly pointed out the shamefulness of it. Can you comment on that?

I’ve nothing to add, really, to what I said at the time. It’s always treated as a bit of novelty or joke: “Isn’t it funny that they thought the people used this song?” As if the joke is on the fucking artist, rather than our own people have dropped to a level lower than the people they’re torturing. This whole issue goes on and on and on. It wasn’t just used in Guantanamo; it was used in all these different camps.

The issue of rendition, the issue of torture, the abuse of human rights and the total lack of availability of legal advice, et cetera, et cetera, is unacceptable. But yeah, the media choose to treat this story as a novelty story, which is worked for amusing angles.

What always makes me laugh is when these heavy rock bands kind of go, “We’re damn proud to have our music used to torture people!” [laughs] There’s always two sides to every argument, aren’t there? I’m firmly in the “Please don’t torture people with my music” camp. [laughs]

I have one last question for you—we’re going to have to cut off in a second. You’re releasing Draw the Line at a time when the record industry is, by all indications, in dire straits. How will you define the success of this record?

I think we’re about to find out. Anything less than total success will be a disappointment with this record and me. What that now means, if you want to play the numbers game, you’re going to be disappointed. You’ll sense it in people—in your ticket sales, in the way the audience reacts to the music. Does it build? Does it feel like your star is in the ascendant, and it’s really out there, connecting with people? These are the ways will gauge it. At the concerts, watching the ticket sales, watching the thing grow—that’s the only way I know how. Numbers-wise, we’re not going to hit the heights we once hit, simple as that.

Again, I thank you so much for your time. This is a wonderful album, and I wish you the best of luck with it.

Thank you Robert. Cheers!

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