How does this WPA Vol 7/Eternal Dawn & Gloaming, differ from the previous volumes?
This one is fairly more rockin’… more attitude. At least on 3 of the 6 songs. Like the WPA Vol. 6, “Rural Route,” all this new stuff has such a nice garage-y Neil Young sorta feel. Nice to play some noisy electric guitar. You know we just set the gear up in our tiny cabin and start working…Pretty soon the place is drenched in lyric sheets, guitars everywhere, a couple of amps and effects boxes; total clutter amidst this great view in the mountains. Having the drums set up means there’s very little space to slide anywhere.
“Carolina, Carolina,” “To Feel the Heat,” and “All I Need Tonight” are all folk-rockers and each has a sorta “signature” musical element. “Carolina” has a pretty sassy guitar riff and guitar solo, “To Feel the Heat” has a great groove and an eerie chorus, and “All I Need Tonight” (I think) has the best “I’m just a loser in a band” chorus I’ve written in a spell…very Byrd’s influenced.
And the quieter ones?
Muriah’s “Grace Notes,” is a gem; I truly believe she’s a major talent. Her song is loosely based on an evening we spent out west while on tour, it was a spontaneous July 4th celebration in some town we happen to wind up in in Wyoming. Beautiful night, beautiful song. She did all the voices, pianos and guitars on that one. My “Driving Machine (Take Care of That Old Heavy Heart)” is not unlike “Hard Luck & Heart Attack.” It’s another life on the road song, but I try to make these song themes that EVERY one of us can reference and feel a part of, travels or not. We’re ALL living in similar skin and it’s pretty fragile stuff. We’re all on a big journey with a story to tell, so these WPA songs try to dig that stuff out.
Has moving to a new place/state changed your songwriting, if so, how?
We left Athens in September last year, it had been a very rough year. I’ve cobbled my life together as a songwriter living on the road for 18 years, but 2009 was the worst yet. We’re in a recession and its effects were huge. My father had died in March and I’m deeply glad I got to walk him through some of those last steps to Heaven; still it took a huge toll on us to manage his life. Then Jon Guthrie, the immensely talented musician who had been playing bass and singing in VoL, died in a tragic automobile wreck. Jon and I were becoming good friends in addition to his musical prowess. There are holes that just can’t be filled and Jon’s departure was one of them. Those things didn’t “force” us to move, but for me, Athens just felt like a well that had been dry forever. The town had never really been “good’ to Vigilantes of Love. And the newly reformed VoL, which I think was every bit as solid as the other incarnations, was getting the same kinda local reception…not even lukewarm. At some point you just have to ask: “Why am I still here plugging away?”
So moving to the cabin in western North Carolina was, in a way, a “retreat.” It was a way to regain some perspective on life. The cabin is tiny, but beautifully built and warm. It was hand built by our landlord, he and his live right up the hill, he’s 100 years old and a national treasure. We live pretty “off the beaten path.” It can get a little nerve-wracking sometimes with no nearby coffeehouses, bookstores, theatres or taverns. But plenty of beautiful vistas, woods, hiking, blue sky and starry nights. We started eating home more (a great thing!) and devoured Ken Burns National Parks Series on DVD. After we got settled in, in 10 days I wrote and put out WPA Vol. 5, “Cabin Songs”. A month later WPA Vol. 6, “Rural Route,” was released; It just felt like all of these issues of sadness and mortality and seeming failure needed to be given voice. And so the move, the cabin, the area we live in, inspired all of that I think. These last 3 WPA’s have felt like a lyrical & musical “growth spurt” for me. And I’m grateful I get to “do what I do.”
When you say the idea was to ‘get immediate’ with these songs, what do you mean?
I wanna feel pulled into a song…willingly or unwillingly. When I write I try to allow for a certain “trusting of the gut.” I want the ideas and the images to be basically emotionally unfiltered and unedited. I can’t explain what happens when I get into that “mood.” I just find suddenly that one idea or phrase is leading to the next one musically and lyrically, and it’s moving me and making sense too. Sometimes its turns of phrases, sometimes it’s being able to juxtapose two incongruous ideas and have them make sense, sometimes it’s just letting our common, everyday, vernacular define the mood of a passage.
And near-future goals?
Well, we’re still booking ourselves a lot of house gigs. We do the troubadour thing pretty well, now! We’re trying to play out west and back this summer. If anyone out there would like to host a house show, please let us know!
Leave a Reply