Checking Up with Simon Joyner

(photo by Dana Damewood)

Simon Joyner is one of those guys whose name always comes up in conversation about others. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Be it Beck, Conor Oberst, or even John Peel, if one is affected by the music of Simon Joyner they will certainly reveal it. However, even when Joyner is discussed by himself... reviews and write-ups can often be covered with references to Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and other big figures of the "singer/songwriter" domain.

Maybe that's not a bad thing either... because once the listener finally gets to listen to his music, they will find Joyner surely stands on his own. Joyner's music is intelligent, lyrical, and constantly changing, not unlike the man who writes it. Perhaps the most admirable trait of this man is the eloquence of which he can speak about his craft... and Simon Joyner is certainly a craftsman.

Being someone who is frequently labeled in the singer/songwriter bracket, do ever you feel some sort of audience lust for kinds of confessionary elements they could scope out in your songs? It seems like a singer/songwriter would be the most "personal" listening experience for many people... but often I feel like that's just because there is only one person's name on the record.

 

Like, "Open Window Blues", the first song on "Skeleton Blues", it's a really great number, and a good portion of that song is an awesome instrumental part... but I feel for some listeners really "hearing" elements like that could be lost in the shuffle of the "singer/songwriter" label. How do you feel about this? Are you comfortable being referred to as a singer/songwriter?

 People definitely have a need to classify things for purposes of understanding them better. As much as I would like to resist being categorized one way or another, I understand that it's a necessary thing the mind does so I try not to be too upset about it. Artists of all types generally view creativity as a mercurial, ever-changing thing so there's a tendency to be insulted by attempts to label what they do. I write my songs and I sing them too, so as far as that goes, "singer-songwriter" is an accurate definition and on the surface isn't as limiting a term as genre-specific terms such as, "folk" artist or "rock and roll" artist or "avant-garde" artist

When Mayo Thompson made his "Corky's Debt To His Father" record, all of his Art & Language artist friends teased him for making an AOR solo LP, though I doubt many others would view the record that way at all. So, every one is guilty of it, this classifying of things to understand them (or dismiss them, more often than not, unfortunately). I don't think the singer-songwriter term has to imply that the music will be sparse and confessional, although it certainly can be. Once Bob Dylan "went electric", the whole stereotype of the singer-songwriter as solitary figure was thankfully made irrelevant, even while the notion of it wasn't put to rest (and in fact, expanded in the 70's with the popularity of James Taylor, Jackson Browne and other commercially successful solo artists).

I read an interview with Lou Reed once where he said that he feels the safest and most appropriate term for what he does is "Lou Reed music." I'm sure everyone who makes things would enjoy the freedom of embracing that kind of label but it won't stop people from labeling what you do so that's more of a wish than anything. As far as audience lust for confessional elements, that's as old as the day is long too, and it's to be expected. Again, it's just a convenient access point for people to get into a song (or film, or painting, whatever it happens to be). In my experience, it rarely matters except in a prurient way. "Sister Morphine" may sort of be based on Marianne Faithful but my guess is it's 90% something else, with that autobiographical element serving as a springboard, a stepping off point to create something else entirely.

 

Even Bob Dylan's "Sara", which you would think would be so confessional in subject matter as to be uncomfortable to listen to, is actually composed of mostly abstract notions of womanhood and much self-mythologizing which is actually the opposite of confession because it's intentionally leading his audience off track. Neo-realism, it aint. As a songwriter, even when I've written about events in my life, the finished song is something else, it's never reportorial. If published as memoir and investigated, it would certainly not pass scrutiny as such. Any kind of commentary or subjective treatment of the facts leads to a new creation and that's inevitably more interesting anyway. I understand people's desire to interpret songs or film as autobiographical and I've been guilty of the same thing with other people's work but all that really boils down to is an acknowledgement that you appreciate what someone does enough to want to know them personally a little bit, and that's really the only way you feel you can do it. 

 

Your project Spiritual Rags has been getting a lot of plays on WFMU. How did the group come about? Do you view ventures like this as "side projects" or entirely different things?

 

It makes me really happy that Spiritual Rags is getting airplay on WFMU. It used to be that for me getting played on John Peel's BBC show was the ultimate affirmation and now that he's gone, I feel like airplay on WFMU means a similar thing to me.

Spiritual Rags was a project put together a few years ago. I had a three month residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts program and was recording a series of collaborations with other musicians for a big project which has never actually seen the light of day. I had a free weekend at my studio space there and all the recording gear set up when my friend Lonnie Eugene Methe returned to Omaha to visit his family. He was living in Austin at the time and just in town for a brief visit. I asked him if he wanted to record some music while he was in town and the idea to do a record as a band evolved from there.

 

We asked Chris Deden to join us and Lonnie and I each brought in a bunch of songs and approached them as a band instead of as solo songs. I've always loved Lonnie's brief, beautiful pop songs so it was exciting to me to be in a band with him, even if only for a weekend. He and Chris have both played on my records in the past but the Spiritual Rags record was a total collaboration. I guess it was a "side project," strictly speaking, since we only played in front of people as a group once, for the album release party. I would love to do it again, maybe every few years put out another Spiritual Rags record and keep it going at least as a recording project.

 

I saw an interview with Nick Cave where he said writing songs had little to with inspiration and a lot more to do with hard work and determination. How do you feel about this? What draws you to make new music?

I can half agree with that statement. A talented songwriter can write good songs by getting to work and laboring over the material. By working hard, good stuff does get even better. However, if there's no talent/inspiration, hard work and determination isn't ever going to be enough. I'm sure the DJs at WFMU know this more than anybody with all the music sent your way to listen to. There are a lot of records made with hundreds of hours of determination, hard work and excellent technique invested, and the songs are still terrible, even if they sound "good."

 

Meanwhile, Alastair Galbraith runs a barely rosined bow over a single violin string, improvises a lyric and can change a listener's life forever. Not that he doesn't  work hard on his music, I don't mean to imply that at all. I just mean that his talent is such that even with minimal work and determination his music would be alive, and most people won't get there ever, let alone just by working hard. That's a pull yourself up by your bootstraps notion that easily deteriorates into a New Age notion that every one is talented and capable which isn't really true and what's more, doesn't need to be true.

 

I think that Nick Cave was great when he was a more visceral force, in the Birthday Party, but his desire to be a different kind of writer required a forced, mannered approach to songwriting that doesn't suit his talents as well. Everything is very on-the-nose, as if he were impersonating someone he'd really like to be naturally, but it's never been convincing to me, the solo stuff. Given his quote, it makes a lot more sense to me why he's never seemed to measure up to his early promise. He's always seemed determined to betray his actual gifts for the sake of becoming a "respectable," serious songwriter, or his idea of that kind of songwriter, a Leonard Cohen figure. But I don't think his mind really works that way, you know, so I can see why he views his craft as relying so much on hard work and determination.

 

You've played with Conor Oberst, who cites you as a huge influence. Do you think you could play with someone who you really looked up to? 

Sure. I think it's important to get to know someone before really collaborating with them though. With someone whose music I like a lot, I'd need to spend enough time with them that I'd be able to be myself and communicate with the actual person instead of communicating with a body of work I'm in awe of, if that makes any sense. After that, it would be fine, I think.

 

Do you piece your lyrics together as sort of poetic units and then transform them into songs, or do you write songs in the more "fitting your phrases into a melody" way?

Generally, I write a draft of complete lyrics before thinking about chords or melody. Then I work on the music and that usually necessitates a round of revisions, and it goes back and forth that way until they work well enough together. I usually go through several drafts of lyrics before a song is complete and then I tweak words here and there as I perform the song again and again, to get it to flow well. Very occasionally I come up with music I need words for but that's not generally how it works for me.

 

Has Omaha had a big impact on your musical life? Do you think Simon Joyner would sound like a much different artist had he been born in New York?

I definitely think I'd sound different had I been born in New York. The Midwest is a special place and the 
rhythms and spaces of this place certainly played a role in my development. Omaha is a medium sized town but if you live here, you're familiar with small towns because Nebraska is all open spaces, farmland, and sparsely populated towns except for Omaha and Lincoln. My family is from Alabama originally so I spent a lot of time in Prattville and Clanton visiting family in Alabama growing up too. The South and the Midwest are similar in some ways and I think the spookiness or mystery of place that I'm drawn to in my songs probably stems from my relationship to the South and the Midwest.

There's a pace to life that I appreciate and a connection to nature which is important for writing expressively, for me anyway. I don't know what I'd be like if I had grown up in New York. It's a good question but so hard to know how directly my environment has altered or determined things for me. My gut feeling is that it has a lot to do with it. If a random event can alter things dramatically, a prolonged total saturation in a distinct place has to shape us much more, right?

 

 

Comments

[tarasabrina]

great post, i love Simon's work