Acoustic or Electric?
I don`t play acoustic much any more. I like it but I got hemmed into a sorta singer songwriter because I play acoustic sometimes and so I wanted to rip that name tag off even though I like it. I don`t dislike that style but I grew up listening to the Beatles and the Clash and Wound up playing alone default because my band broke up.......
How do you feel about playing in the UK?
I`ve only played a few times in the UK so it may be better for me to talk about the US...lets see...I like playing in places like Minneapolis called the 400 bar that's actually quite small, couple hundred people maybe, and it has all kinds of shows. In its history it has all kinds of shows. In its history it has had the Replacements and bands like that play there, but its easy to play alone there its less ostentatious then a lot of venues. The Satiricon in Portland, Oregon is a lot like that, kind of like an old punk club.
In England I`m not too sure though I've played at ULU, Shepherds Bush Empire more hype. I don`t dislike playing in larger places, but there's something much more comfortable about playing in a punk club.
Before I set out on all this I got myself into this state where I can`t see doing anything, because it seemed like anything that I was gonna do would just be getting in the way of somebody else. I couldn`t think of anything very useful to do, particularly because I had a friend who wanted me to be in a band with him but every time I would turn on the radio it would be - oh shit - oh Jesus you know? It seemed like the music business was really contrived and male orientated. Just kinda of unfair I thought it would be silly getting up on stage and being like "look at me, look at me, look at me" so I narrowed it all down to firemen. That's a function that has to be done. That's something that is clearly and undeniably useful. If somebodys house in fire somebody has to go put it out. Obviously I had become hyper self critical!
But its always difficult to judge what effect your record may have. You may well have saved someones life through music but not known it?
Perhaps. But its hard to say..you may have exasperated there bad mood by listening to a song of mine which is kinda dark. Yeah so for a while I was going to be a fireman but then my friend was like look, your talking yourself out of the one thing that you love to do, which was true. Music is the only thing that I really wanted to do since I was a kid, just thought that the whole situation was too fucked up.
Most interviews or press things barely touch on the music they are more about the cult of personality around someone. Or about trying to turn someone into a recognisable product or stars so usually the music press generally doesn`t write about music that much I don`t think. But there is no point in complaining about that because everybody already knows.
What goes through your head when your performing live?
Most of the time, especially if the show is going well, what's going through my head is pretty strictly the songs. The song that I`m playing at the time. Then, when its over and I haven`t started the next one yet, then all kinds of things flash, a million things "what's that person saying?" Am I going to say something back? Its weird to be up here! How does that person know that song, it isn`t out yet! is my shirt tucked in?" Weird things mundane things bizarre things but most of the time luckily I`m staying inside the song.
Do you enjoy playing live?
Yeah a lot, but if I couldn`t stay inside the song then I wouldn`t. If I had to think all the time about how I look, or trying to imagine how people that I`ve never met might perceive me right now, then I wouldn`t get totally paranoid. Fortunately, I`m not just sitting up there with nothing to do I have songs to play and I can stay within them.
Who would you most like to meet in a bar?
I`m not particularly big in trying to meet particular people, even if they are people I really like cause its just so weird - famous people make me nervous. I`ve been lucky enough to have met a couple of people that have been really important to me musically but a lot of my most interesting conversations I`ve had have been with people I have never met before and maybe they work at a lab or something. I met someone last week who worked in Genetics and was explaining things that I could barley follow. Thankfully enough that it was incredibly interesting and far from anything that I do or usually get the chance to have a conversation about.
Its strange to have to concentrate on this one aspect. And its not a whole lot of fun for me, or most people I imagine, to talk about themselves for hours on end. But this is only a while. In a couple of weeks I`ll be back where I live with my friends, hanging out talking about whatever and if we ran into each other at a different time we would have a different conversation.
Would Mama be proud of you?
Thats a good question. That song is a constellation that revolves around that question and I wasn`t particularly interested in answering it because I think its an interesting question. My instinct is no. Maybe yes. I wasn`t trying to pose that question to my parents, rather some abstract authority that represents the mainstream television culture. Something that represents the normal way of looking at things. The whole idea of being proud is an odd one. I think my own parent is happy, now. But for a longtime I think it worried her.
Eleanor Rigby or Ruby Tuesday
Definitely both I really like both songs a lot. They`re very different. Eleanor Rigby is more within my natural inclination, but Ruby Tuesday is a great song and I like hearing it. Eleanor Rigby, I really like how it has a creepy semi classical thing, and a lot of time people don`t focus on the lyric, I think its really enigmatic in a cool way, just a kind of weird cloudy mood going on in that song. Its particularly English. Its probably part of the reason I was attracted to it when I was little. Its far from a song that would come out of Dallas, Texas. You can attach yourself to it all the more more because its far from your surroundings and takes you out of the boredom of repetitiveness of living in one place over and over every day. I heard a lot of country music, and I was 20 years old before I could like it because I heard so much. So something like Eleanor Rigby or Ruby Tuesday when I was a kid was great. Much later I was like, oh, I really like Hank Williams.
What were the first songs you learn on the guitar?
It was a combination of hard rock songs and gospel song and some finger picking things. I had learnt to play guitar along with a friend of mine. We wanted to play AC/DC songs but we all had acoustic guitars at first, and you know hells bells doesn`t sound quite the same. Then we would learn songs like Amazing Grace, stuff like that. We were particularly interested in finger picking because for a lot of kids playing fast seems to equal being good. There was something that impressed us if could finger pick quickly even if its not that hard to do.
Which dead pop star would you like to be?
Well, none because there dead. I don`t want to be dead. Not at the moment. A lot of people that I really like seem to have wound up dead. This would surprise no-one, but John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Chris Bell. "I Am The Cosmos" is such a cool record. Its sad in a way, but there`s a stubborn, happy quality to it that lives inside the melancholy part of it. At least, when I hear it. it sounds like that to me. Its a weird mix of things, obviously he was in love with some things about being alive, you know like music and that in and of its self is a happy thing and no matter how melancholy some of those songs are they still make me kinda of happy to hear them.
The singer not the song?
Not to me ! To me the song is the thing and I`m only marginally interested in knowing about the singer.
Best band this millennium ?
Quasi, but not because they have played with me.
Should Music be free?
Of course, if it was then there wouldn`t be all this press about peoples personalities, this constant building up this fake facade. It should be free, and it seems like it might be. I don`t understand that much about the internet, but it seems like at the moment its hard to control the distribution as long as people keep making the technology too complicated to regulate. That would be good, then people could distribute it. On the other hand, if it is free, then I`ll have to go back to the bakery. But I could still play shows, I`ve lived on ten dollars a week for years, and I know how to do that, so it wouldn`t be too tough.
Why do fools fall in Love?
I don`t know but I`m sure glad they do
Daniel Ford
Published by Circuit
Further info crispin.p@virgin.net
ou
|
