Does everyone need a record label to be a successful songwriter and artist? That depends on how you define success. More than that, it depends on how great a songwriter and performer you are. It’s a sad day when large record labels with a lot of money can force feed their latest ‘star’ to America long enough and loud enough that people actually start aquiring a taste for it. There’s some concern that real music and great songs are no longer important, just sex appeal and sales. As long as money runs the show, the music and its quality are in great jeopardy. Money means radio. Money means slick ads, photo shoots, air-brushing and packaging. Money means the music industry has succeeded in creating a culture of people who are willing to keep giving their money to the few at the top who define what’s cool and then charge you to own a piece of it. It’s scary and it’s huge. But, thank goodness, there is a different approach to the whole music thing. And there’s a new environment that is changing how people find and acquire music. There’s a shift happening in the music scene that has labels scared and trying to re-invent themselves to make sure they still have a piece of the pie when it’s all said and done. The shift? Indie! Indie! Indie! Labels used to have a lock on getting music to the ears of consumers. They don’t anymore. It used to be that only signed artists had any chance to be heard outside of their own local club, or church. It used to be that radio was the only way for music to be heard all over the country at the same time. Not anymore. The environment, thanks to the internet, has suddenly changed in favor of independent artists, who can now reach thousands, actually millions of fans all over the world without having to rely on the big record executives. Where is this going to lead? Some say a sad day for the music industry. But some say a brighter day for music! Better music is on the way. Because the decisions about what we listen to are no longer being made by the few at the top of the industry…the gatekeepers…the decision-makers. No, now the decisions are being made by us, individual consumers. The individuals. More choices! Faster word-of-mouth! What a great time it is for the independent artist! What a great time for Dave Barnes! Mississippi to Knoxville, to Nashville. His dad’s a pastor. I don’t even really know how he actually got started in the music thing. I forgot to ask. But his CD “Brother Bring The Sun” has spent more time in my player than any CD I’ve ever bought. And he is about to release a new one, “Chasing Mississippi.” All I can say is, check his music out (awarestore.com), and love it. I’ve known Dave Barnes for many years. Met him at a fraternity date night at his college in Tennessee where I was performing, maybe 10 years ago. (I forgot to ask that too.) I’ve seen him grow in talent, faith, maturity, and a few weeks ago attended his wedding in Mississippi. We’ve written and recorded (with Matt Wertz) a song together for a specialty project based on the Psalms. Lots of history here. So much so, that I fear a thorough interview would fill volumes. So here’s the plan. I asked Dave to sit with me and discuss some things about himself and his music, just as an introduction to people. You’ll have to discover all there is to Dave for yourself! But hopefully, our conversation will intrigue you enough to get you started on your own discovery of Dave Barnes. We tried to find the best place to do this. Dave’s new wife dropped him off at Starbucks to wait for me, while she went off to do some shopping, and return a few wedding gifts. Starbucks was too loud, and the tables were so close together. I knew that would hamper Dave’s energetic explanations and stories. Let’s try Borders. Nope, too quiet. We would disturb the whole store. Ok, I’ve got a little metal café table with two chairs in my back yard. Let’s go there! Good plan. We get to my house and get comfortable out in the back yard. It’s an unseasonably warm day in January, so we only need a light jacket. I’m fumbling with the mini-disc recorder to make sure it is recording properly, and I’m hoping the wind doesn’t mask our voices when I play it back. Dave and I are already laughing. That’s usually what happens around Dave. He slips in and out of wild and subtle characters while you marvel at the scenarios playing out in his head, and now before your very eyes. What made me think we’d ever get through an interview!? There’s finally a pause. We immediately, without prompting, begin whistling each other’s songs. I’m whistling a song called “Everybody Knows But You” from Dave’s new CD, and he’s whistling “When Did You Fall” from mine. We’re in the same key, and notice a similarity in the melody at the beginning of the choruses. We’re still laughing. I finally hit record and off we go. Hang on. ************************ CR: Ok, I’m keeping this to 30 minutes so I have time to transcribe! (Editor’s note: That did NOT happen!) DAVE: I’m like looking [at my watch] and it’s 3:33. CR: Go! DAVE: (in fake British accent) Well, Chris, I was born in Brookhaven … Brook … Brookshire, New..Eng…England. CR: (in a worse fake British accent) This is historic. This will be listened to hundreds of years from now, and they’ll be saying, ‘These legends, two legends, were talking in their backyard, let’s see what they have to say.’” DAVE: Ha! And then there’s nothing but laughing and nonsense. CR: And they’ll have CG (computer generated characters) down so well, they’ll replicate us perfectly… DAVE: Ha! By our voice! (back to British accent) “We can tell by their voices they were sitting down together and they had jackets on, you can tell there’s some interference because their chest voice is hampered.” CR: (Laughs) (Ok, rather than me typing the word “Laughs” a thousand times, just assume for the rest of this interview that we are laughing pretty much most of the time! Use your imagination!) DAVE: If you ask me hard questions I’m gonna be mad. CR: They’re not hard questions… DAVE: No, I’m talkin’, like Physics. If you’ve gotten in your physics book, and you’re like, “Dave, explain the interplanetary motion of the rings of Saturn.” CR: You couldn’t answer that? DAVE: How hysterical…ok…so let’s say that I go to…the TODAY SHOW is having me on. I don’t realize that it’s like their ‘Science Week’. Somehow I was booked on there… CR: …because there’s some scientist somewhere named Dr. David Barnes… DAVE: Hhhhaw…how PERFECT is that! And I get on and I’m like, I’m ready, and all my fans are watching… CR: …and you flip into that mode that you and Brad (Dave’s brother) go into, where you come up with an answer, whether you know what it is or not… DAVE: (scientific professor-like voice) “It’s funny you ask me that Mr. Gumbel…there ARE that many suns…” CR: (Laughs—sorry!) DAVE: Could you imagine?…and I don’t know anything! (Then Dave launches into this pretend dialogue between himself and Bryant Gumbel.) BRYANT: So, you don’t know that? DAVE: Mmmmmm (shakes his head) What’s your next question? BRYANT: Well, they’re ALL science questions. DAVE: (scared look on his face) Can I play a song? BRYANT: You look young for a doctor. DAVE: What? (thinks it’s a joke) Thanks, good one. Well, you look old for a TV host! BRYANT: Hey, touché, touché! (The dialogue ends, both of us are laughing.) CR: Ok, I’m gonna go back to when we first met. I think I remember it right, because this [interview] really isn’t about YOU, it’s really about ME… DAVE: (laughs) CR: Tell me what you think of me. (Dave is still laughing.) CR: Tell me what’s your favorite song of mine. DAVE: (Laughs) I would love it so much, more than you could know, if this interview was like that. I get on the site and I see that your entire interview [consists of] you asking me, ‘So, do you remember hearing my first record? What were your thoughts? Has it influenced the way that you write?’ CR: ‘How has it changed your life? ‘Cause I know it has…’ DAVE: And then there’s one question that’s real vague, ‘So tell me about your music.” And that’s the only questions at all that’s not about you. CR: I remember I was playing at a fraternity at your college, MTSU (Middle Tennessee State Univeristy), and you were playing too. But I was so overwhelmed by you. DAVE: Imagine that! CR: ‘Cause I was in an element I wasn’t familiar with, the fraternity thing, and you were totally comfortable with that. But you were so energetic and funny, and I’m this introvert, and here’s your personality and my personality, and I’m like, ‘Aw, he scares me!” DAVE: I can only imagine how you felt! You know what’s so funny, what you probably don’t realize, is that I specifically remember how…I have a theory that those [years], probably ’95 to ’97 in Christian music, were like, the heyday. That’s when “Jesus Freak” came out, when your first record came out, Audio Adrenaline’s “Bloom” came out. There was so much cool music that was happening in Christian music. I don’t know what happened, I don’t know if the label A&R guys got cool all of a sudden…but I remember the church I was going to, this Baptist church in Knoxville, we went on this “secular music fast”…which is a whole ‘nother conversation…but the good that really came out of it was that our whole youth group had to listen to Christian music…and it was really good at the time. CR: That was a very small window of time. DAVE: Jars came out with their first record. But I remember yours was one of about 10 records that I was really excited about. So when Trevor came to me about doing that show with you, I was so amped! I was like, “I know his music, this is gonna be so great!” So I can only imagine the cylinders I was hitting! CR: You had every cylinder, every possible cylinder in you, firing rapidly! And I was scared of you. DAVE: I think God gave me some success just to dampen that. I’m convinced of that! ‘Wait a minute, I actually have some talent, so there’s no reason for me to absolutely lose my mind when I’m meeting some of these people.’ [My success] wasn’t so I could pay for my kids or be married, it was just so I wouldn’t make a complete fool of myself over and over. CR: Well between then and now, without going the direction of the industry and a label, you have met tons of very influential and important music people, through nothing short of your raw talent, and people finding out about it, and wanting to meet you. I think on the front end of anybody’s music thing, there’s this question: “How do I meet these people, how do I get in?” I always have people asking me, “What do I do to get into the business, or how do I meet the right people?” I keep wanting to answer that with, “Don’t spend so much time trying to figure out who are the right people to know, and how to make the connections. Spend all that energy and time on creating and communicating, and that other stuff will figure itself out.” You’re an amazing example of that. You have been extremely successful, but not by going through the routes that everybody thinks they have to follow in order to be successful at music. You’ve done it without a label. You’ve done it without the ‘industry’ thing. And yet, everywhere I go, people know your name. Everywhere I go people are raving about your music. Has it been purposeful on your part to stay away from all that? Or is that kind of just where you are for right now? Talk to me about independence versus label and industry. DAVE: I think [this] has benefited me; all these things have met to create the time we have right now in music: Napster, iTunes, the internet, the fact that kids can make demos on their computer for no money at all basically that sound pretty good. It kinda creates this playing field that I can play on, and not need the financial backing and guidance [of a label]. For me it’s been a humongous blessing. There are times that the speed at which you are successful is probably one tenth of what a label artist would be, which is hard because when you’re trying to make a living doing it, it’s hard not to go, “Gosh, this guy’s got a deal, and it took him a year and a half, and I’ve done this for four [years]!" And I’m successful as an indie, but I’m nowhere near the success of some of these guys. That can be hard. But you trade one for one, though, because I have complete freedom. There are no fences to what I’m doing. But the money involved is significantly different. So thank God for the internet thing--for Myspace and Facebook. These places where people can…Well, you’re the underdog, so you can’t lose. You’re perpetually the guy that everyone wants to get on the side of, because they see that you need help, that you HAVE to have these kids as record labels. It’s funny because yesterday I was at this party, and this girl was telling me how she and her friends just discovered, two years after I put it out, my first CD “Brother Bring The Sun.” I’m amazed that after two years people are still discovering this record. That’s a beautiful thing, but you wonder if you put some gunpowder behind it, if you could speed up the process of people discovering it, but at the same time possibly losing what’s cool about it, and the reason [they] want to discover it. CR: Which leads me to say this about that record, “Brother Bring The Sun”—you’re gonna love me after I say this—That’s probably my favorite record of all time. DAVE: Shut up. CR: “Brother Bring The Sun.” DAVE: Are you serious? CR: Yup. DAVE: Wow! CR: I love it. DAVE: Can you tell me why? Can I ask you that? (who's doing the interview here?) CR: It’s such a visceral experience for me to have something that I can play over and over and over and over and over, and still laugh and smile at what you did with your voice, what you did with this melody. It’s such a human record. DAVE: That’s a great thought. CR: A completely human record. And music nowadays, in a lot of ways, has lost its humanity. It’s real produced, and it tries so hard to be what somebody else did, and what someone else had success with. But your record is completely YOU. There’s simplicity to what your saying, and yet it goes really deep and communicates heartfelt stuff. I just love it, and I think that’s why people are still discovering it, and will for years. Because you haven’t had the benefit of mass marketing, radio, stores… but the music itself is doing something. And that’s a slow-burn kind of thing, that carries your music from person to person to person to person. And through those channels of person to person as well as, like you said, the scene or environment for music to flourish has a lot less to do with labels and industry now, and a lot more to do with people…because people now have the power through the internet, through Myspace, through Facebook, to do that. So it’s a different kind of success, but I think it’s a better success. Again, your bank account doesn’t swell as quickly, but I think it’s amazing success. DAVE: I really believe this: when you choose to do a career in music, you have one shot. You have one first chance, which is kind of redundant to say. But I could not in a million years want a better first chance than that record. It’s so [stylistically] all over the place, and it’s real…but somehow those eleven songs capture [who I am.] I heard someone say it this way, “Your first record is prayerfully the way you forecast the rest of your career, if it’s a good record,” and I think that record does that. It’s diverse enough that, if I have a reggae song on the next record people don’t wonder where it came from, or if I have a ballad that’s me and a piano, or something really funky, it’s good. There’s no greater gift to me than something I’m proud of…[and I have this] in that record. And I would give that record to anybody! And I have, just about. CR: And I have too, by the way. DAVE: Well thanks…and I will say this till I die--I sleep better at night knowing that I’m respected, fifty times over knowing that I have a million bucks in the bank. That, to me, is a stronger currency. For me knowing that the people I respect also respect me is far better than playing for fifty thousand people in Madison Square Garden. CR: That leads me to the next thing. You have another record you just finished. And using the words that you "want the people you respect to respect you"…you’ve done something that few people get to do, in that you have pretty much an all-star cast on this record too. In production, in players and singers, again people who have heard your music who are heavy hitters in the music industry who have said, ‘I love this stuff.’ So tell me about that, and please…drop names! DAVE: In any industry, you gauge how you’re doing in some sense by how well you sell. But also by how your competitors, (not competitors, but the people around you) how well they say you’re doing. I’m a big believer in that. The people I respect are like the great sages, who go, “We’ve been there, and we’ve seen this...” I put a lot into what they think. There’s a lot of experience to wisdom, and there’s a lot of wisdom to experience. Hearing [them say], “We think this is good,” means a lot. Specifically with Amy, I don’t know if I told you this or not, when she called… CR: Amy who? (laughs) DAVE: (sheepishly, dragging out her name) Amy Grant. CR: OK, you’ve got permission to do as much name-dropping as you want for the next five minutes. DAVE: [Here’s] the thing that blew my doors off. When I met her I gave her a record at a bookstore in town (‘cause literally, if I met somebody, I gave them that record.) I’ve given that record to Robert Randolph (in an airport) to Amy, to tons of people. And 8 out of 10 of those people I gave the record to I would hear from, which is pretty significant. That’s a cool thing. The most fun part of that story is when I finally got connected with Amy. Someone told me that she had mentioned my name at a benefit show she was doing in Nashville. So I called her and I’m like, what do I say? To say that she was a ‘soundtrack’ of my childhood is a severe understatement. So I call her and I’m thinking, “How do I do this? Should I sing “Baby, Baby?” She picks up and I say, “Amy, this is Dave Barnes, how are you doing,” and (it was so kind) she said, “Well, you’re gonna have to let me talk for a second.” And I was like, “OK.” And she was like, “I have called every single Barnes in the phonebook.” And I was like, “What?” She goes, “I had to stop because I was being obsessed. Literally I had to like put the phone down, sit down…” and I was like, “You are kidding me!” and she was like, “No, literally I have gone through the phone book and asked ‘Dave Barnes? Do you have a CD? No? Ok, thank you.’ What would these people do if they knew it was Amy Grant? But it was such and honor. She was such a…and you are the same way…these people that had success in the industry that look behind them means so much to me. I want to be so much like that. I want to champion the cause of those guys that are trying to do it. She was just overwhelmingly so generous and kind. She sings on my record, and she convinced Vince [Gill] to come out and sing and play, and of course he’s phenomenal. The funnest part to me, honestly, is the friends that got to play on it. Like Micah [Kandros] my best roommate and best friend, and then Wertz [Matt] sings on it, and it was kind of …those were sort of last minute calls, we were thinking of who would it be great to have. We had Amy and Vince, but we didn’t want it to become like a Santana record… “Dave Barnes—sung by…” but we were thinking who would be some good people who would serve their purpose, and it was ju… CR: Yeah, I’m sorry my manager told ya’ll ‘no’ (kidding….just trying to secure my spot on Dave’s next record.) DAVE: No that’s the next record. (it worked!) I’ve got to space it out…can’t use everybody all at once. We kind of did all that in the last week, no joke. We almost got done… CR: This is the new record “Chasing Mississippi?” DAVE: Yeah, so we put those calls in and it happened. The end of the sentence is that it was a huge honor, because indies don’t get to do that. Like me, independent artists, no barcode, no label, don’t get to do that. It helps being in this town [Nashville] but that is just a tremendous honor. CR: Being in this town helps in a lot of ways, especially with connections, but talk about this aspect: the artistic community that we have, that’s not just the professionals or the big guys, but just people who are developing art and creativity, everything mixed in with that. How important is that…the artistic community? DAVE: I think it’s great because it’s accountability…which sounds stupid…but there’s this underlying pulse in this town (and especially among the people we know and love) that you HAVE to do well, in an encouraging way, ‘cause I got friends who are just killin’ it--writing phenomenal songs, singing great melodies, playing great parts--and you realize EVERYBODY’s moving forward, and YOU have to too. CR: I feel that too, and I’ve already got a label thing going, I’ve already got sales going, and I’m part of the ‘industry.’ But I look at you guys and I’m thinking the same thing, there’s a wave of creativity and greatness that is passing me by if I don’t stay connected…and stay accountable… DAVE: That’s exactly the thought… CR: And it makes me think differently and write differently. Boy, I eat up everything you guys come up with because I want to nurture this in myself. I don’t want to just rest on what I know I can already sell. I want to do great work, which isn’t measured this way, not measured by what stores you’re in or what stations play your songs, or what label you’re on. It really has to come back to the individual song, your voice on the song, the way you wrote that song, how you recorded it. We’ve got to get back to the piece of art that’s there. It’s so easy in the current culture to really do very poor stuff and be able to sell it…slap a cross or fish on it, or a Jesus sticker on it, which makes it somehow legitimate, and I think you lose when you do that. DAVE: And that’s the beauty of the accountability. When you have people around you who agree to the same values, they’re around you going, ‘this feels a little half-baked.’ CR: Yeah, instead of applauding you. DAVE: They’re saying, ‘C’mon man.’ CR: Whether they ever say it or not, the community keeps you thinking that way. DAVE: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. CR: And we could name a hundred people, we could name Andy Davis, Matt Wertz, photographers…Jeremy Cowart, Micah Kandros… DAVE: That’s what I love about this town. You may take a guy like Micah [Kandros], my old roommate, or Cowart, who are phenomenally gifted graphic media arts photographer people, but they are just as good at hearing music and enjoying music. I’m overwhelmingly blessed that they’ll come to me and ask, ‘Hey, what do you think of this [photo] shoot or this CD cover?” It’s really fun, because it’s not just my musician friends, it’s my friends that are involved in the arts and even friends that aren’t. There’s such a steep curve on the talent, ‘cause like your roommate or your next door neighbor or the guy you work with…this town tends to attract the kind of people who are interested in music. So everytime I play in Nashville, I feel like I’m playing in front of a panel of judges. And it’s good! If I can pass THIS…I’m telling you WAY beyond New York and L.A…’cause this town is a writers’ town. So if you can pull off selling some CDs and getting people excited here, then in my opinion you’re doing some good things. CR: Which comes back to what you were saying earlier about…if you have this town’s respect then you have the kind of respect that far outweighs the rest. DAVE: Oh yes. Absolutely. Absolutely, that’s what I believe. CR: And YOU have it, that respect! And it’s pretty obvious. And it spreads. There are other people, from outside of this town, like the guy…when you were opening for James Taylor, his background singer, this amazing musician from outside of Nashville, and he came up to you and he was just beaming because he wanted to meet YOU and he loves your stuff. And as much as it means for any person or any fan to love what you do, when there are people in the same realm that you are in, and they respect you and actually know your name and have actually heard what you do… DAVE: …that’s a potent little…like the Christmas gift…you’re like “Yay!” CR: Let’s talk about your live performances. I love watching you live. Experiencing you on the stage is not just hearing you play a bunch of songs. As worthy as the songs are and as great as you are at delivering them, and how you pull it off, and how you play…(phone interruption…his wife needs directions…we’ll NEVER get through this interview!!!) DAVE: I love you too….bye. (real cute, paaaleeeeaase!) CR: Ok, back to your live performances. If you just sang your songs one after another it would be an amazing experience. However, you have this other element in your show which absolutely floors me, and makes me see a talent in a completely different area. You tell stories, you tell about your life, you absolutely crack up the audience. You have this…I love watching your face light up when I use the words “comic genius” around you. DAVE: (laughs) I forgot that you’re the lone person that gives me that! CR: I’ll give you the “comic genius” props! I really believe that there’s a whole experience of a live performance that is far different from buying the CD and loving the songs, as great as that is, and I try to incorporate that into my r…I don’t just do records just to have people buy my records, but it sets me up to have two hours with a crowd of people. DAVE: Right. That’s a good thought. CR: And to have this whole two hour communication…songs are part of that, talking is part of that, joking with them is part of that, interacting. And you do that so superbly, in large settings, small settings, I’ve seen you in clubs, at a church banquet, in a fraternity function…and you touch on something in EVERYBODY with your humor that elevates that whole experience exponentially, and makes you walk away going, “I love this guy, I love the music, I love everything about it!” You don’t get all that just listening to your songs. Your songs have an element of laid back, enjoying life, and some are deep and heartfelt and romantic and make you want to smooch whoever’s close by…you’ve got all that going on. And then it’s almost the surprise in the live setting to see another whole thing here! The humor! Tell me about the differences in writing the songs, and the preparation for telling humorous stories. Is that the same thing in you, or are those different things that take a different kind of attention? DAVE: I feel like there are two pretty severe functions that those come from. One is I just tend to look at things pretty weird, call it humor or whatever, and I’ve always been like that. So that’s a very natural function for me. It doesn’t take any work. It is like breathing. It’s fun for me to see the humor in things. But the songwriting thing…because humor has been there longer, songwriting is a lot more engaging to me and it requires so much more work. They come from two different places. I engage completely different parts of my brain and my heart and soul and spirit, and other elements of the body…ha… CR: Toenails… DAVE: Yeah, and really, they are two different places. People say, “You should really write some funny songs.” But to me, you can’t do that. I think I’m such a respecter of music and such a fan, that that’s like playing putt-putt on the Masters. You just don’t do that. They’re two different things for two different places, though they’re related. The fun about a live show is, and this is kind of a controversial thought, that people aren’t just buying music, they’re buying a little piece of me. When you come to a show, I don’t want it to be just playing songs. Some people do that fantastically well, and I’d almost be disappointed if they talked, because I’m so enamored with their performance. With me, though, there’s always a running commentary in my brain of whatever’s going on. No matter what I’m doing there’s a narrative. And I either let people into that or I don’t. And in a show, it’s too much fun…I have to comment on the fact that I just spat all over myself when I sang that lyric…YOU saw it, I saw it, it’s funny, let’s talk about this. And so, I put some of my success in the fact that I was built that way. I put a lot of eggs in this basket: the more people relate to you, the more effective you are. There’s another [school of] thought…like Radiohead, mysterious, the farther you are from people the more people are enamored by you. And they actually have some of the same affect. People buy your records and are interested in you. I’m not mysterious and cool enough to pull that off. So the only angle I have is: I’m just like you. Just like you. Just like you. I really believe the potency to what I do is in that place. That’s kind of the whole point of this thing--for a guy who’s sixteen, who’s writing songs, and meets me at a show (and Lord knows I’ve been a jerk tons of times) that he goes, “I talked to Dave for a few minutes and he’s the nicest guy and actually he’s almost boring ‘cause he’s so normal.” You know what I mean? I think there’s something attractive about that as opposed to [me being] hidden in the corner with a veiled face and speaking in hushed sentences. CR: You’re available. DAVE: That’s why I do that. Ricky Jackson (The Daylights) told me one time, “The bands I like the most are the bands that after the show I want to go eat with.” And I try to live by that. I really want people to not just like the songs, but to see that there’s safety behind the songs The guy who created the songs is not some weirdo or whatever. I think that’s why the show is like it is…it’s entertainment! You’re being paid to entertain that crowd, and that’s what I love to do. And if that means making them laugh and singing some songs, then that’s what I’ll do. And that’s definitely me. That’s me you’re seeing. CR: Yeah, I’ll vouch for that. When I think of the two elements you combine in your live thing [songs and humor], if there is a unifying factor, they are both born in your observation of people. DAVE: Yeah, that’s a good thought. CR: Humor is humorous because, when you hear the joke or story, you see yourself in it, or you know people like that. Songs relate to people because you’re giving them words to bring out what they’re feeling inside. You observe people. You’ve been able to capture in both ways, a very humorous and sometimes very deep and moving snapshot of humanness. And people relate to that. And people love that. And that makes me want more people to hear your music, and more people to find out Dave Barnes is in town, and to go experience more of him. DAVE: I’ll say this too. It’s kind of a fun juxtaposition too. There’s something kind of weird and off-putting in the fact that this guy that writes sort of cerebral, heartfelt songs can be like a total idiot. CR: Do you find people want you to be one or the other? DAVE: The hard thing for me…you can say sexy or maybe a better word is mysterious…the hard thing for me is, as a singer/songwriter to not be sexy or mysterious. It is such an alluring title. To come out on stage with your duds on and sing these songs…it’s hard not to play that [sexy, mysterious] part because it’s so empowering…in a worldly and sinfully empowering way…because it vanishes, obviously. So with this new record I have done everything I can to position myself to NOT be able to pull that off. So the posters we made (I’ll show you when Annie gets here) is a picture of me doing a jump flying kick. The new record doesn’t have my face on the front, the packaging is humorous and fun, but not inappropriately, not stupid and gaggy. That [mysterious guy]’s just not me. In my insecurity I want to be that way…I want to step on stage and be (slips into sexy whispery accent voice and sighs) “…so anyway this next song I wrote in Napal, watching the sunset…” (back to normal voice) It’s so Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I know that if I take this [potion] I will turn into this thing. So what can I do to lock up every vial that I can? It is in putting myself in a place of letting people see more and more of that humorous, idiotic side of me… CR: Where they won’t ever let you go back to… DAVE: and they can’t…it’s not mysterious and sexy. It’s not sexy to be funny, which is great in so many ways. So I’m doing everything I can, especially being married now, to protect myself from that pull to be…(back to sexy voice, mimicking a long drag on a cigarette) “…hey this next song is ‘Nothin’ Fancy.’” This is me. Take it for what you want. These are the songs I have. There’s nothing more fun, in the whole world, with performing live shows, even more than doing the show, when I hit the last chord, walk of stage, and people are like, “Man, we love your music!” and me just going, (circus clown music and motions) “Hey, but-d-dut, d-dut, d-dut” and they’re like, “Oh my gosh, you’re an idiot! This is great!” I love watching people slough off that nervousness to realize, “Man, you’re really like this! You’re this weird, quirky guy that writes songs! That’s great. Let’s take a picture together, and it was great meeting you.” I love watching that happen. It’s so much of a joy doing that because we’re all the same. I’ve done the thing where I’ve gotten off stage and not talked to people because I was too cool for the moment, or whatever. And it was such an empty feeling. We know that’s not who I am! CR: This [question] may or may not work, but…What have you been criticized for?...and…defend yourself. DAVE: Uh, what a great question. CR: And there may not be anything there. DAVE: No, I’ve definitely been criticized for talking too much at shows. I think there’s some validity to that. Because when I’m the most nervous, [it] causes me to talk. Other than that, I haven’t been in a position yet to be criticized a lot. So thank the Lord I haven’t gotten a lot of that. I’m sure I will the more I do this. And I’m terrified to see when… CR: When people start writing and reviewing… DAVE: Yeah, yeah. That’s a great question. You should ask that to a lot of people. CR: What keeps you doing music? You’re in a new place in your life…recently got married, which probably changes a lot about supporting more than just yourself. You have to live somewhere. All this could make someone want to find something different. So, what keeps you doing music? DAVE: A few things. I think the thing that keeps me going, honestly, is discovery. I’m a firm believer, and I don’t know how you feel about this, but I’m a firm believer in the fact that I am, at best, a conduit. I am not the originator of anything. At the most, God let’s me perform and think the things that He thinks, or that He thinks is funny. But it’s just that feeling of ‘what’s next?’ 'Lord, what’s the next song You have, or what’s the next thought that You have that’s pretty humorous.' Because there’s so much stuff I want to do. I really feel like, at 27, I’m just beginning to start to realize some of the things I want to do with my life and my career. And so what keeps me going is that…like, “The Best Song Ever”…that idea…what more can I do? I think, 'What are my fences?' It’s hard, but I love hitting those [fences]. “Grace’s Amazing Hands” is one of the best things that I’ll probably ever be able to write. “On a Night Like This”…there’s a lot of songs that I feel like I’m walking that fence and I know that I cannot do better than this…Dave Barnes cannot write a better song than this. CR: You think so… DAVE: Well, but the fence is long. How far down does it go? What if there’s this amazing country song I have? Or what if I write an instrumental that’s picked up by ESPN to be…you know.. CR: I love the word you used, discovery. DAVE: I feel like I’ve been given this humongous field… CR: To play in… DAVE: Like it’s San Francisco [during the Gold Rush] and there could be gold everywhere, I could have found just the one pocket of it, but I’ve just started…I was just handed the deed. And the last four years, at most I’ve maybe spec’d the land out, and I’ve found one place, and, “Oh my gosh I’ve already found a little bit of this gold!” Is there gold everywhere? Or is this the only pocket of gold? I look at those guys like the Don Henleys, the Elton Johns, Billy Joels, Jackson Browns, that era of songwriters, and their opus, catalog of work is so great, and I want to be like one of those guys. I want to sit down when I’m like sixty years old, and this is what I had, and I want to discover all that. I don’t want to just feel like, 'I had a few great records, and that was fun.' But I really want to know how far can I go. Can I write like an amazing blues song? Can I write an amazing ballad? All these things. That’s a propelling, kind of constant thing. CR: I love that! I feel the same way. At my age, and where I am, I still feel like I’m on the front end. It’s not that I think I’m gonna be so great down the road. It’s that there’s so much to discover and there’s this process, and I want to stay at it. There’s so much to write about. It’s such a worthy thing. DAVE: Oh yeah, And too, I love the word ‘music’ because it comes from the word ‘muse.’ And it is…I’m seduced by songwriting, especially. And the older I get [I’m also seduced] by humor. Doing stand-up sometime will happen. That’s incredibly attractive to me. But there’s nothing in the world that I love more, as far as my profession, than when I sit down and I have an idea for a song, and the veil starts to move out a little bit, and I see there’s a tree there in that painting, an ooo, is there a river?...there IS a river, here’s the river! and here’s…And every time I do it, it feels the same. It’s exciting, it’s electrifying every time I do it. And I love the process. CR: It’s your drug. DAVE: It is! It is absolutely my drug. And so I never get tired of doing that. And I never think that I will. I think at 85, if I live that long, I will still sit down at a piano or guitar and be thinking of ways to express whatever is going on in my head. CR: Please do...but I’ll be gone. DAVE: No you won’t. CR: If you’re 85, I’ll be 112. (Laughter!) DAVE: (imitating an old Chris) “Dave, I really did get the best song ever. I got it! You gotta come over, I’m not feeling good, but I put it on my mini disc…sorry….” CR: (laughs) DAVE: That’s so encouraging, that you’ve done records and have had success and yet there’s still the pull. There’s nothing that scares me more than that feeling where guys blow-out, or get jaded, or some events lead to them not caring anymore. CR: I can see that happening for other reasons than just the love of the music. It happens because of fame, being tired of the expectations of celebrity, interviewing, fans. I can see someone tiring of that, but I can’t see tiring of the creativity. DAVE: I think there’s a mathematical approach to staying inspired. It takes looking backwards and looking around you, your peripheral. It takes looking backwards to like, oh, Stevie Wonder’s records. So much of that stuff was limitless. There were no fences. Nobody going, “You can’t change keys four times in a song! You can’t change keys in the middle of a chorus, Stevie!” (on ‘Boogie On Reggae Woman.’) Today you can’t. People say, “That’s the dumbest thing, nobody will get it.” And it’s [Stevie’s] biggest…you gotta go back there because of the energy, and because anything went. “Desparado.” “Stairway to Heaven.” That song is like… CR: Thirty-five minutes long…ha DAVE: Yeah, like an hour and a half! You can put it on with the “Lord of the Rings” and watch the whole thing! CR: And it lines up! DAVE: It does! It does! Oh, we may be on to something! [Those songs] were like the North Stars, and they still are. Or if they weren’t then, they are now. That music is timeless, so much because the palette was empty, use whatever colors you wanted. And the music industry has changed so much that now, you have four colors, and “we’d really rather you only use three of ‘em.” But it’s so fun to go back. I almost have to live in that world. The more I come back here [to the present, I start thinking], "Oh...singles...I’ve got to write a two-and-a-half minute song." The peripheral is [made up of] the things that are happening right now, that are so cool. The things my friends are writing, electronic stuff, programming, hip-hop being fused into pop, and pop being fused into rap. There are just cool progressive things happening that make you go, “This is inspiring.” CR: And you’re paying attention to it. DAVE: Sadly too much of today’s generation is a peripheral inspiration. It’s not looking backwards. In my opinion, down to every writer, the guys that make you go, “Man! This guy is [amazing!]” I guarantee you he’s listening to stuff from twenty or thirty years ago. CR: Griffin House comes to mind. DAVE: Exactly! Griffin will sit and tell you…Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, these are the guys he’s listened to…Van Morrison. He’s not sitting around listening to the newest. I’m convinced there’s still a wealth of that stuff out there that I haven’t heard yet, that these guys have created, and you have to stay there to keep creating stuff that interests yourself, that interests people, and it’s fascinating. I was listening to an interview with John Mayer, and he was talking about how all he’s been listening to is Jimmy Hendrix and some of these guys. You hear the new record Mayer has done, this blues record, and it’s like “Yeah! That’s amazing!” And it’s because he’s been listening to some of that stuff that was created under that freedom of “no walls, do what’s great!” It’s sad because today that [freedom] is winnowing so fast. There’s no room to get through anymore…EXCEPT in the indie world, which brings this full circle. CR: Power to the people…it brings it back to people. Takes it out of the hands of the people that restrict the creativity and puts it back to what moves humanity. DAVE: And what a fun thing! And not at all to toot my own horn and all our friends’ horns, but what a fun thing to be proof of that, to be one of the faces that proves “this works!” It really works. It’s good proof that [freedom leading to good music] is still alive. CR: Well, you will continue to prove it, I know. DAVE: I hope so. ******************* Check out Dave Barnes music at Awarestore.com. If you like it, keep indie music alive and keep yourself smiling by buying “Brother Bring The Sun.”