Eliot Bronson interviewed David Wilcox before a performance at the Rams Head Tavern, Annapolis, Maryland. BRONSON: You’re a Marylander now? WILCOX: Well I still like to think that we live in North Carolina and we are on sabbatical because our place in North Carolina is really beautiful and it captures our hearts, but Nance is up here for acupuncture school so for 3 more years we will be in Columbia MD and it’s cool. BRONSON: You have a new album out and it’s a great album. WILCOX: A lot of things came together in this record. Mostly it was meeting this wonderful producer, Steve Buckingham, and also I really am on a roll. I figured out this past year the way that I write songs. I figured out my real method for getting to the heart of it and it’s been great. I’ve been on a real hot streak and I’ve had a lot of songs to choose from, probably 32 or 35 songs. We recorded 22 of them and picked 13 for the record just on how they fit with each other. BRONSON: I saw you a year and a half ago in that Timonium Mays Chapel. I remember you said just gone through the equivalent of losing your religion in songwriting. WILCOX: Wow good for me! I don’t remember saying that but it makes sense now in retrospect. BRONSON: My question is , "Is the new album a return to your faith?" WILCOX: I would say yes in many ways. It seems like what I was doing with the last record was looking at what else I could do; trying to break out of the things that I had made a habit of doing in terms of the writing and the arrangements, and trying to stretch out and see what else I could do musically. And that phrase about losing my religion in terms of songwriting probably was referring to not having a strict set of values about what is good and what is bad in terms of songwriting. I was really opened up to a lot of different ways of writing. Ways that I had always done it, I had always done it that way because I thought that’s the only way. All of a sudden I could appreciate so many other writers. I could really hear the truth of what they were saying, even though it was so different from the way I had always written and that was great. It was confusing in a way, but it was really good for me. This new record feels to me like after looking at all the different facets of the outside of this jam of songwriting, I finally came back to the center question, which is not the how to but the why to. And that is what gave me back my sense of grounding and purpose. Because although it is true that I could do things many different ways, when I got back to the reason of why to do it in the first place it made me a lot more comfortable realizing the limitations or if you want to call them the strengths of what I do. And so on this record I wasn’t as concerned with just trying to do something different because it’s different; I was always concerned with thinking about how these songs are going to serve the listener and making sure that I had something that was worth putting up on the wall. Some lyrics that really give people and angle on a new way of seeing or a new way of seeing some hope in a tough situation. So it feels like I got my religion back, but in a very different way. Not because I do what I do because I think it’s the only way, but because I see that there are songs that just really need to be written. When your passion for an issue gets stronger than your fear, suddenly you have to try to write; not fear, but resistance. BRONSON: The title track really embodies that I think. Also a lot of people who are into your music and have heard everything since Night Shift Watchman, say that this album is considerably darker, or that’s the term I’ve heard used and I may or may agree, but how do you feel about people saying that about your new album? WILCOX: At first I very much disagreed, because to me I was hearing some inflections in that word as if the record lacks hope, which is not true, but when I thought of the inverse, I guess I would be really insulted if people called "light," you know? What I think the better word is is "deep." I think it does have a lot of layers to it and it does ring true on some deeper levels about some tough issues but the songs do have a playful side, and they are offering up a perspective that I think is really good for people. BRONSON: I don’t know if you intended this, but it seems like in the new album you don’t quite answer all the problems necessarily; you bring them up and you talk about them and you sink into them, but like some of your earlier work given an answer or a resolution in your opinion, but in this album you kind of just "here it is; it’s on the table, and what do you think about it?" WILCOX: Uh huh! [yes] In my old writing I was writing for the metaphorically impaired and I would always have a very plain spelled out "the moral of this story…" but if you have a good metaphor, the lesson is implied and so you don’t have to get so pedantic, is that the word? BRONSON: Also, the other thing about the new album is that it seemed there was considerably more co-writing on it than some of the previous albums. Have you come to a place in your writing where you are comfortable enough to maybe let go a little bit and say, "I don’t have to own this song, and this song needs whatever is best for it"? WILCOX: No, actually, the real change is just that I’m getting more sociable. I have friends, and I love writing with friends. I wrote with L.J. on Turning Point, and I wrote one with my wife on Turning Point, and one with Rich Rodinsky. And this time there is one with my wife, and one with Tim Lahr, and a couple with my friend Gary Nicholson who is in Nashville. And it was just a great experience and I really am getting comfortable with opening up with other people, and getting to the heart of it. I think that co-writing is a great excuse to deepen a friendship. BRONSON: Also on the new album, "Slipping through my fist" that was written for a movie? WILCOX: Yes. BRONSON: And will we ever see the movie? WILCOX: Oh, probably not. It’s a film that didn’t get distribution, but it is a great story and it was really fun to write for it. BRONSON: How did that come about? WILCOX: Somebody who liked my music got a movie deal to film this script that he wrote, so he was talking to the producer about wouldn’t it be great if we could get some music, for example, and the producer said, "How about David Wilcox?" The guy was so amazed because he didn’t think the producer would ever have heard of me. So with two of them on the case they managed to talk everybody else into it. BRONSON: You mentioned earlier that you now know your method. Talk about how it has changed over the years and how you have refined it. WILCOX: One aspect is to favor the weak side. For example, if your lyric strength is stronger than your musical strength, instead of writing the words first and making the weak side follow the strong side, I think it’s best to go the opposite way and let the musical ideas have their free rein and give them as much leeway as you can, and then use your strength, your strong side to match to that, since you are more agile. Just like when you are making a chord that’s a big stretch, you stretch your strong finger more, and favor the weak finger so that you can come out with the right balance. BRONSON: How many songs do you actually keep? Maybe not even as a recording, but how many songs do you write that you say, "Okay this is a song that I’m going to keep, perform, use, and how many just don’t make it? WILCOX: About half I would bet don’t make it. Songs like "Good Together" we got a great recording of it and it might show up in another record. But on this record it was definitely out of place. This record turned out a lot more intense than I thought it would. BRONSON: What is it that inspires you these days to write these kinds of songs? WILCOX: Today I wrote a song that was inspired by going to a movie and [opens his guitar case]… BRONSON: I thought you were going to play it for us… WILCOX: I haven’t learned the music yet, but : Secrets to a happy marriage maybe you should write this down you want to keep a love together it’s best to end it now ‘cause when you know it’s over and then the truth at last comes out you confess your secret passions and your restlessness and doubt after you’ve decided it just wasn’t meant to be the things you really wanted get easier to see when all the expectations are shattered on the floor you see each other clearly like you’ve never seen before so if you want to keep it going you’d better end it first not take it for granted for better or for worst we’ve got to let it lose us it’s the only way to win once you first get past the ending is the best way to begin… I don’t know how it will turn out … So any kind of inspiration for me. I think output equals input. I think you’ve got to stay inspired. You’ve got to really work at listening to all the music you can and be surprised and be led. Trust coincidence. You know, it’s interesting but creativity has its seasons and if they lined up like the weather it would be easier to understand but you can be in the winter of your writing when it’s summer outside and it’s kind of confusing. Creativity spins on its own axis. But sometimes you’ll be in the springtime of writing and you’ll be thrilled with these brand new ideas that are popping out, and sometimes you’ve be busy with the harvest and gathering up and finishing all these cool ideas, and sometimes it will be winter. And when it’s winter, it’s time for the best work of all. Because that’s when you concentrate on input. You concentrate on nurturing your creativity and that comes with making your life more full. You’ve got to have a life worth singing about. You’ve got to have a life that is fertile ground for songs to come from. And you can say, "All I want to do is write another song, and that’s a big assignment to ask someone to live deeper and higher and fuller. My perspective on it is why do you think songs move you in the first place? The world doesn’t need another song; maybe the world needs people who have something to sing about and have a real vision to offer, and that requires just stirring up you life; being more daring, taking chances, telling the truth. And I think that the reason why music moves us if we are writers is that our heart has just found a way to bribe us into being more alive. And the goal is not really the song; the song is just something that we love so much that we’re willing to do the work. And the work, especially in the winter of writing is finding inspiration, is being and living an inspired life. And that’s the best gift that a life of working with music can give you. BRONSON: I’m sure our songwriters will appreciate all of that. Another note: You talked about the way the writing has progressed because you’ve just been writing for so long, but what about your performing? It seems like that’s a crucial aspect of your writing. People who have just heard your recordings on CD don’t really know the full David Wilcox because it’s really the performance, being with the crowd that seems where you really put out the most. How do you nurture that side? WILCOX: It’s the inverse of theatre training. [Theatre teacher] Stanislavsky revolutionized theater by convincing people that the audience didn’t want to see people pretending to have emotions; the audience wanted to see people who could delve into the character deep enough that the character could move them. And they would then be watching people having emotions, not pretending to have emotions. The inverse is true. If you are performing as your own character, you still need to get inside it; you still need to bring it out. And so since we are writing our own script, all you have to do is tell the absolute truth. All you have to do is not be afraid to get to the heart of the issues. And that’s giving you stuff worth singing about. The performances are a crucial part. It’s sort of the in breath and the out breath. You can’t do one without the other. The writing is the inspiration, and the performing is the expression, and you could never write if you didn’t believe it was going to be heard, and you could never perform if you didn’t have something you passionately believed in to sing, so they need each other. That’s what fun about this record, because these songs feel like they have a mission of their own so I don’t have to just stand up there and justify me playing for people because of the way I sing feels like these songs have a strong enough message that they can just sing themselves. All I have to do is just get out of the way. BRONSON: Ellis Paul said he thinks of his albums as his children. And I wondered, do you love all your children equally? WILCOX: I wouldn’t say they are children. I would say albums are invitations to a concert, and an album just says "Meet me here." And the metaphor of children says that they have a life of their own, and it says that they go away and live an prosper apart from your actions, but the limitation of that metaphor is, now that I know what it’s like to have a kid, I would say that albums pale in comparison. BRONSON: On the albums themselves, I guess you are on Vanguard now so maybe things have changed, but how much creative control do you have as far as choosing songs? WILCOX: I always was left alone and made records just the way I wanted, and I was pretty lucky. I think it was easy for me because I flew in under their radar. They never expected me to be their nest egg so they pretty much left me alone. BRONSON: This album you don’t have any covers, but you pretty much always had at least one for almost every album. What did it take for you to want to cover someone else’s material? WILCOX: I think the songs were all on equal standing. My songs, other people’s songs, if a song stirs me and feels true, I will sing it. And especially if I feel I can do something that hasn’t been done before. Take a song somewhere it hasn’t been before and I love to try that. I pretty much started writing songs because I started realizing that I needed to have songs that were completely true to be able to sing them convincingly. And when I was singing other people’s songs I would be tempted to change parts. There’d be one verse that I would get, but then that third verse just didn’t make any sense to me and I’d think, well maybe I should re-write it, and then I started to realize if it doesn’t fit, you can’t sing that song, you have to start from scratch, writing your own. So it’s much easier to sing if you have songs that you believe in and that’s the only reason to write; just to make the songs fit you so right that they’re easy to sing. BRONSON: You said that your first song ever was "Common as the Rain"? WILCOX: Yes. BRONSON: That’s astounding for a first effort. WILCOX: The interesting thing about songwriting is that you can either have a lot of talent or a lot of time. The key is to let the song remain embryonic; to let it evolve, to not rush it into; as soon as it’s born you don’t hitch it up to the wagon and say "Mush!" You don’t put it to work right away; you let it stay in its dream state and keep trying this and trying that, and don’t keep following down the first path you try. And the reason why is that as you get better at songwriting, you r navigation gets better in terms of what to try to give it the emotion that you want. But when you are starting you have to just get lost and try again and start over. The longer you can stay with an emotion before it gets solidified in a musical form, the truer it will get. The more choices you have. Because everything that you try in a song is always guided by that same force of "does it make the emotion stronger or not?" It’s this game of warmer, warmer, cooler, cooler…and the longer you let yourself be guided by that and the more choices you give that emotion before you put it into a certain song form, the closer it can get. So that first song was a long time coming; I think I probably worked on it for 2 weeks, and it was really wonderful time. And still, I can tell it’s a first song. I’m a sucker for a song that has a story to tell. That has an idea that you could describe even with out the song, even without the poetry you could just paraphrase the idea and still have something that’s emotionally moving. Something that has some conflict and resolution in it. BRONSON: I’m sure you know you have a huge Christian following. Do you see yourself as a Christian artist, or is that something that someone else puts on you? WILCOX: I
think that trying to breathe a living faith into music is the highest
goal. If you can get a song that is transcendent…Okay, "Christian
artist" was the phrase that you used? The interesting thing about
it is that in my opinion if a musician accurately communicates something
really true and beautiful and transcendent, if people can receive the
message, and the message is in good hands because songs contain are
mystical in their very nature, and when you hear a song that has to
do with great timing with a capital T, and a magical choreography of
the coincidence, and so I think that if you are searching you are always
easily guided by the right song that finds you at the right time. So
there is spirituality that gets communicated in music. Take that, set
it aside for a second. Now look at the other side of the other phrase
that you used, "Christian artist." Now if you look at that
in terms of what it means, like when you walk into a record company,
what it means is segregation and demographics and target marketing.
What it means is closing off your work with a protectionist view of
saying, "I ‘m not like them, I’m not like them. We’re
just like us over here. This little group inside these walls. And any
time that the industry figures out how to target market people, they
separate them against the imagined enemy in order to get this kin of
target marketing mentality going where you can get people buying things
because they want to belong to a certain group. And if you market county
songs that way, you have songs like "I’m a member of the country
club; I drive a pickup truck…"And what you’re doing is
"We are like us, we’re not like them." And dividing people
against each other is a really good idea if you are marketing things
that have no intrinsic value. If you are trying to market Pepsi and
your competitor is Coca Cola, and there is no difference, then what
you have to do is play on the fears of people and say, "If you
want to belong to this group, you have to drink this drink." Now
the difference between marketing Coca Cola which has no intrinsic value,
and putting a spiritual transcendent message in a song; the message
does have an intrinsic value, and it is more important than target marketing.
It is more important than separating people against each other and so
to reduce a message of compassion and unification to a target marketing
strategy of division in order to conquer is totally against Christianity.
So I would say, a Christian artist is a contradiction in terms. In terms
of how that phrase is used in terms of marketing. Any time you have
a music that is designed to divide people against each other it tends
to work on protectionist ideas. It tends to keep people safe, keep them
away from what they are afraid of. If you’re a country artist,
you’re all very much against urban music, which again, "segregationist"
saying "those people are bad. We have to stay away from them. We
don’t listen to rap music; we’re country." And that’s
illegal in every industry except music. So the interesting thing is
that when you target market people according to their safety and their
fears, the music gets more and more restrictive and it has less human
experience and more kind of cookie cutter format. Eliot: Thank
you.
Copyright © 2000 Baltimore Songwriters Association. All Rights Reserved. |
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