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Asking for Success
Kathleen Edwards Returns to Santa Barbara

By Brett Leigh Dicks

When John Doe came through town a couple of weeks ago, he referred to Kathleen Edwards as “the Katharine Hepburn of music.” It seems to be the perfect analogy for her, as Edwards possesses all the grace and elegance of the Hollywood queen, while still managing to stay completely straightforward. Edwards’s songs tell poignant and poetic tales of everyday life, each delivered in a clear-cut fashion. It is exactly how good music is meant to be. Having spent her childhood roaming the world with her diplomat parents, Edwards found refuge in music, and the tunes of Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and Tom Petty became the soundtrack to her life. So when it came time for Edwards to set out on her own, it seemed only natural for traveling and music to once again combine. And, as her latest album, Asking for Flowers, once again affirms, they have done so with affecting force.

Your last visit to Santa Barbara was part of the Gram Parson’s Tribute Concert. That is not a bad introduction to the place.

Yeah, I got really spoiled. I now have very high expectations [laughs]. I think that’s a good thing, to have very high expectations, so I’m very excited to come back to Santa Barbara. But that was a pretty unbelievable night for me.

What made it so unbelievable? Was it the people you were keeping company with? The songs you were singing?

Everything. I got asked to do that show, and that alone was mind-blowing. Then, when I showed up, John Doe asked if I was gonna come sing with him. I was on the bill with Keith Richards and Norah Jones. I’m this Canadian girl, and I felt like I had landed at Ground Zero of California’s country rock scene. It was a pretty wild trip! Was that what led you to your friendship and collaboration with John Doe? Yeah, that’s when we met, and since then we’ve become great pals. I love him to pieces.

It’s quite an interesting connection you two have forged. You have sung on his records and he has acted in your videos.

There have been a lot of cosmic meetings — for lack of a better word — here and there, having mutual friends and not knowing it. It was just meant to be. We were meant to meet each other and be friends. I’m hoping he and I will be able to do a tour together this fall. I was hoping the two of us could just go out and play each other’s songs and back each other up and have fun. I think we have a long friendship ahead of us.

Talk me through the genisis of Asking for Flowers ...

Firstly, I didn’t book any studio time. I stayed at home for a while and worked on songs without a deadline. I didn’t know when I was gonna make my record, so I really made a point of just allowing it to appear before me.

In the period between albums, did you take time off or do you find yourself always picking up the guitar?

I definitely left my guitar alone for a while. I needed a break from it, and I needed to do stuff that wasn’t music-related so that I could enjoy making music again. I wanted to spend my summer at home, which I hadn’t really had the chance to do in a long time. So I spent a lot of time in the garden and doing little things that get taken for granted until you don’t actually get the time to do them. I sat on the patio and drank white wine and worked on my garden.

Before you turned 20, you were out on the road, sleeping in your car, managing yourself, and booking your own shows. What planted the desire to adopt that type of lifestyle?

I think I just knew that if I didn’t take that step I was destined to be a local singer/songwriter and play a random gig here and there. I was ready to bite off more. Looking back now, I realize it was a turning point for me taking control, and I was actively saying, “Yes, this is what I wanna do,” not “Oh, this is fun and I enjoy doing it, but on Tuesday I have to go back to my job.” Looking back, there were a lot of stupid things that I did, like going on tour with only enough money in my pocket to pay for gas to get me to the next gig. I had no backup plan, and it just ended up working out.

Given that Sings Like Hell is a singer/songwriter series, can you tell me a little about your approach to songwriting? What inspires you?

I think that, for me, it just arises from something that’s real and human. Lately, a lot of the stuff that gets me thinking about songs is sometimes the most innocent of interactions between people. I find that sometimes you can have a conversation with somebody and they tell you something about themselves and that then leads you somewhere. I like the idea of writing songs that fill out all the holes of all the things you imagine that people just don’t get around to telling you…

Is there a conscious balance in songwriting between art and commerce?

I’m not re-inventing the wheel. There is a commercial sensibility to what I’m doing which allowed certain doors to be opened to me in my creative life. I choose to walk through those doors sometimes, and other times I choose not to. I don’t know how else to explain it, except to say that at some point listening to music became such an intense experience for me that I haven’t really thought about how else I would live my life except to participate in it.

What was it that led music to become such an intense experience for you? You traveled around a lot as a child; did music provide a sort of safe haven for you?

Absolutely, I think that’s a major part of that. I wasn’t a dysfunctional teenager, but I definitely lived a life that was not what I wanted for myself. In a way, they were great experiences, and I was very privileged to have those experiences. I recall [that] wherever I ended up, music was my companion through it. So that plays a part in where it comes from.

Santa Barbara Independent

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Orbital Path
Celestral fantasy brings Glen Phillips full circle

By Brett Leigh Dicks

Having just spent the best part of April touting his musical wares through a series of solo shows along the American east coast and mid west, local troubadour Glen Phillips then jetted off upon a lightening tour of Japan. Now back in Santa Barbara for a well earned break, what better way is there to celebrate a homecoming of this magnitude than with a performance at SOhO? While the road has certainly featured prominently within Glen Phillips recent past, for the past year, so too has the studio.

When Phillips sets up his merchandise table at SOhO, a new recorded undertaking - Secrets of the New Explorers - will be conspicuously on display. Along with laying the foundations for the afore mentioned solo recording, the singer-songwriter has also been immersed in a collaboration with Garrison Starr and Neilson Hubbard, under the moniker of Plover, as well as prominently featuring within The Scrolls - an Americana who’s who that includes the likes of Sean and Sara Watkins, Benmont Tench, and Greg Leisz.

Such collaborations are an apt reflection of the esteem in which Phillips’ undertakings, both as a solo artist and frontman for Toad the Wet Sprocket, are held. But no matter through which mode the singer-songwriter is expressing himself, he continues to do so with both conviction and grace. But, in fashioning a career out of melodies that seduce the heart and lyrics that pierce the soul, Phillips has always dived heart first into his various undertakings.

That approach also extends to his collaborative undertakings as well. After returning from six months in Europe early last year, he was invited to stage a night of music as part of the Sings Like Hell. In rounding up a collection of his colleagues, he inadvertently set the wheels in motion for a much more encompassing musical escapade. For the past few months, Phillips, the Watkins, Tench, and Leisz, along with Elvis Costello and the Attraction’s drummer Pete Thomas and multi-instrumentalist and Jerry Douglas sidekick Luke Bulla, have been socializing in the studio together.

“We played that show in Santa Barbara and had such a good time that we decided to take it on the road,” explains Phillips. “But even before that tour we had talked about doing a record. We gelled on the tour and the record developed more and more from being just a few of us to the point where it became a band with all the players.”

Having spent the majority of his musical career in a single band with the same members, being left to his own devices as a solo artists threw up a new offering of challenges. Not only is he relishing the chance to collaborate with some respected contemporaries, that also happen to be treasured friends, but he is also excited with the sense of unity within the collective.

“We are all ambitious musically and would love it to do really well,” Phillips confides. “And we will try to be savvy and careful and we want to put it out in a way that will work for everybody. We all have other things that we are activity involved with and committed to, but we’re trying not to treat this as a side project either. Everybody feels a real sense of ownership.”

Under the guiding hand of Benmont Tench, the collective are tackling a musical offering both borrowed and born. With such a unique pedigree of writers and performers bringing material of their own, writing collectively, and embracing a handful of other people’s classics, one senses the hardest part of the undertaking will reside in the editing process. Which is something that Phillips fears given how much fun the ensemble are having.

“The songs are coming from everywhere,” enthuses Phillips. “I have co-written one song with Luke and another will Sean. Sean has a couple of songs and Luke has a song of his. Sara has sung some covers and also one of Benmont’s called “The Price” - which is a great song. And maybe it is just because it’s new, but it has been a really exciting thing to be a part of.”

While the inspiration for the undertaking arose during the collective’s Santa Barbara collaboration, one must dig deeper into the past in order to explore origins of their union. Emerging from a corner of a pizza restaurant in southern California, Nickel Creek features the siblings Sean and Sara Watkins and childhood friend Chris Thile. Raised amongst traditional roots music and playing bluegrass, it wasn’t until much later in their musical evolution that the threesome encountered more contemporary sounds.

“They never listened to rock music until around the time they were sixteen and they discovered Toad The Wet Sprocket and Counting Crows,” explains Phillips. “That was their introduction into the world of rock music. Sean had written a song that he wanted me to sing upon and (a friend) put us in contact. Their first record wasn’t out yet. I invited them along to a show I was doing at Largo and they ended up playing half of my set on the first night we met.”

Having spent much of the past year on the road with just an acoustic guitar, Phillips recently set himself a very specific goal when he ventured back into the studio for his next solo undertaking. And that was simply to have fun. What has emerged is a layered and intricate recording of cosmic proportions. And with a recording that boasts what must surely be the first ever song about radiation sickness, “Solar Flare”, his goal was easily met.

“I’ve been wanting to record and get something out of my own and not take it so seriously,” offers Phillips. “I spent a few days in the studio with my friend John Askew and then just kept going on my own. I chose this space travel theme to see where it led me. And it’s been great to have a theme to write on instead of my typical navel gazing here is why I’m depressed kind of songs.” It has been a liberating experience for Phillips. One that has finally seen his music come full circle.

“Since I’ve been a solo artist I haven’t often been in state of mind where I was feeling light about what I was doing musically,” he adds. “For so many years now I have felt like I’ve been auditioning for my job or trying to get back and old audience or making some statement. I wasn’t thinking about what would be fun. When I was a kid and doing well, that was my attitude and it has been hard for me to win that back again. But now I feel like I am finally doing that.” .

Santa Barbara Independent

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David Ford Goes to Hell
English Singer/Songwriter Launches New Series of Sings Like Hell

By Brett Leigh Dicks

David Ford knows a thing or two about life on the road. Since releasing his debut album in 2005, I Sincerely Apologize for All the Trouble I’ve Caused, the Englishman has spent countless months touring America. He has played support for the likes of KT Tunstall, Richard Ashcroft, Elvis Costello, and even stopped by Santa Barbara with Ray LaMontagne. Given the amount of time Ford has spent traveling as of late, it comes as no surprise that his experiences have seeped into his most recent work. Case in point, 2007’s Songs for the Road. Halfway through another American tour, Ford is returning to Santa Barbara. This time, it’s to launch a new season of Sings Like Hell, something he was perhaps always destined to do.

The first single from your new album is titled “Go to Hell.” Was that a shrewd ploy to headline the series?

That was an entirely fortunate coincidence.

What is it like to be playing to audiences that are not as familiar with your music?

I’m in the fortunate position of not having any fans in this country. So it kind of means that every show I do is like that! Most of the time I travel around and open for more established artists, so, in America anyway, pretty much all I know is playing to rooms full of people who don’t know who the hell I am and probably really don’t care at first. So it’s the challenge to have them know who I am and show some kind of interest in my music in the end. That I enjoy.

How has the response from American audiences been in general?

I was very surprised to find that American audiences are a lot more open-minded and welcoming of stuff that they haven’t heard before. The British music business has become arrogant and fashion-based and it’s hard to get on back home unless you have certain distinct things going for you in your checklist. I think there’s more respect in America for the classics, which I think is something that is dwindling in Europe to the detriment of the British scene.

In what way?

I think people honor the heroes of yesteryear more over here, which I also think means, as a musical nation, there’s more of a grounding in the classics of songwriting. And that has helped me to become accepted over here. … I think in Britain a lot of people have forgotten that Bob Dylan or Neil Young or even the Beatles were ever around. Everything seems caught up in the here and now and trying to be fashionable.

Is that why you record in such a self-contained manner?

The smallest amount of business involved in music is the aim for me. I try to keep it a creative process. … I try for the least amount of involvement that I can possibility get away with from the likes of record labels and publishers, and also producers and studios. I try to take as much out of the equation as I possibly can and just have it be about songs and about music.

You also take a very minimalist approach to your live shows. What are the pluses and minuses of that?

The greatest opportunity I have is the opportunity to not have a drummer. My shows can go anyway I want them to, and I can play whatever songs I want to. I don’t have to only play stuff that I rehearsed with the band. I can go at my pace and indulge my whims and fantasies, which is cool. The downside is that if I want to do a big, self-indulgent rock-out, it is pretty much impossible because I don’t have the means to do that.

What are some of your more memorable experiences from touring around America?

The pancakes. The amount of batter-based breakfasts will certainly be something that will live long in my memory. But it doesn’t just stop at breakfast. You can have pancakes for any meal of the day — and sometimes for every meal of the day. That’s been illuminating to me. But for me the experience is the road itself. That hobo lifestyle of living out of a bag and stopping wherever you find a motel takes on a sick sort of glamour. But the fact that it is such a non-glamorous existence actually makes it kind of glamorous to me.

And what does the immediate future hold for you?

I hope to see my wife again and maybe spend a week with her. But I imagine most of my year will probably be spent in America and on the road. All the same things really, in an attempt to pimp my record to the masses and have them universally acclaim it as the work of genius I believe it is.

And the opportunity to indulge in a few more pancakes?

Absolutely — but I’m also thinking of branching out into French toast and waffles.

Santa Barbara Independent

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Songs from the Heartland
Kris Kristofferson Offers a Personal View of the World

By Brett Leigh Dicks

When Kris Kristofferson comes to the Lobero Theatre Thursday night, not only will he be offering up songs as personal as any you are likely to encounter, but they will be wrapped in a musical legacy quite unlike any other country artist’s. A Rhodes scholar who studied literature at Oxford, Kristofferson once intended to teach at West Point. Instead, he headed for Nashville. With the likes of Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings, he embraced the Outlaw Country movement, but his literary approach to songwriting also brought a more personal sound to the Nashville scene. Few stars shine brighter or more passionately than Kristofferson, a veteran of some two dozen albums and more than 50 films.

Your most recent album, This Old Road, is a very intimate affair, and a lot of that comes through in your more reserved use of instrumentation. Why strip down your sound?

That’s pretty much the way I am doing the shows now. It’s pretty bare, just me and my guitar and harmonica on most of the stuff.

What sparked this approach?

I have been doing it for about three or four years now. I was over in England making a film and got [offered] a job in Ireland. I didn’t have time to mobilize all the troops, so I went over by myself. It was a little scary at first — there were a couple thousand people each night, and I didn’t have a band to hide behind, but it put a focus on songs that worked, and so I kept doing it that way and it’s just working.

The approach serves the songs on this album particularly well, given their personal nature. Is songwriting a cathartic experience for you?

Every album that I have made has been sort of like a journal of what’s going down in my life right then and trying to make sense out of my experience. This album is the view from this end of the road. I notice that Bob Dylan has been doing that. I have always used my songs to make sense out of whatever I’m going through, or whatever the world is going through, at the time.

One of the most compelling songs on the album is “Burden of Freedom.” How has freedom changed since the era of Bobby McGee?

Personal freedom was what I was talking about there; the burden of freedom and the freedom to be who you feel it’s your responsibility to be. In my case, it was being a creative artist. I felt I was going against a lot of people’s expectations in order to do that. I think that your own personal freedom is important. And it’s a reflection of the need for freedom for other people in the same way. It comes from believing in political freedom and freedom to live and breathe and grow.

Freedom is a theme that comes up a lot in your work. What is freedom for you?

Freedom is used a lot to justify things that I think it doesn’t have anything to do with. It’s used to justify wars and to say that America stands for freedom and that’s why we are bombing Iraq. It needs to be examined closely because freedom for the individual has to expand to freedom for every individual.

And freedom of speech?

It’s really upsetting for me to see in the news today that people were all upset about the president of Iran speaking on 9/11. They were all upset because he was invited to speak at Columbia [University] and, to me, we are supposed to stand for freedom of speech. So if we can’t hear people speaking their own ideas, the only choice we then have is to take someone else’s word for what they said. We’re in a country that’s supposed to stand for freedom of speech, so we should be able to listen and make our own decisions. But certainly we should be able to talk with people before they become our military enemies.

You are refreshingly liberal in your views. How does that work out in places like back in your home state?

It’s probably cost me some sales. I know that back when I was starting [to get] vocal about what was going on in Nicaragua and El Salvador, it made me unmarketable, according to some of the people in the music business, because they felt that my market is a little more conservative than that. I know that years ago I really pissed some people off enough to not want to buy tickets, or to want their money back. But I’ve found today the audience is really open to what I am saying. And that’s probably why I am still going out.

This year you added the Johnny Cash Visionary Award to an armory of accolades you have already received. What did that one in particular mean to you?

It was really an emotional thing for me because John was my hero before I ever went to Nashville. He never got smaller in my eyes and even though we got to be good friends, he was always larger than life to me. He stood up for underdogs; he stood up for Native Americans before that was a hip thing to do, and for people behind bars. And he stood up for me when I was getting criticized by everybody in country music for some of the things I was standing up for. It was the same thing he did for Dylan [in the] early days, so getting something in his name means more to me than anything else.

I believe you first met him when you were a janitor at Columbia Records?

I was there for almost two years and got to know him a little. In fact, he kept me from getting fired. They never wanted people pitching songs at his sessions, but a couple of songwriters got into a session and had John cornered in a stairway trying to pitch him a song. Some folks thought I had let them in and tried to get me fired. The president decided not to fire me but told me to stay away from the next session. So I was down in the basement demagnetizing tapes or something, and John came down and asked if I was coming up. I told him I was really busy. He knew that I had got in trouble, and he wasn’t going to start singing until I got up there. I thought that was really something.

Santa Barbara Independent