Well, this is a bit of a departure, isn’t it?
Photo credit: Michael Wilson
This may or may not be the start of something irregular here, although that completely depends on my level of cheek in walking up to people at gigs and asking them if they’d mind being subjected to a line of odd and inane questions. Thankfully, I so far have a 100% record in doing this, but that’s because I’ve only ever asked two people so far (the other one was a couple of years ago for another site). It’s certainly something I enjoy – well, eventually, anyway. Worries about questions bounce around for ages, but then the answers (which of course is, lest we forget, the important bit) come back and it’s great.
Anyway, thankyou so much to Daniel Martin Moore for agreeing to do this! In a relatively short career so far, he’s managed to come up with a favourite album of mine for each of the last three years: the charming Stray Age, the politely angry Dear Companion (with Ben Sollee and My Morning Jacket’s Yim Yames) and this year’s spiritually cheerful In the Cool of the Day, all quietly moving works that deserve the widest audience possible.
Since the release of In the Cool of the Day, Daniel has been very busy touring here, there and everywhere (and coming back here very soon), contributing photographs for the accompanying bits and bobs with My Morning Jacket’s last record and has somehow also managed to find the time to set up his own label, Ol Kentuck Recordings. All of which makes it even more of a surprise that he’s found the time to contribute to this! I’ve rambled on enough, so without further ado (but with a quick acknowledgement to Aaron and Todd who helped out by chipping in with a couple of questions!) etc….
First things first: your deal with Sub Pop came about from your sending of a demo tape to their office. Was this the only place you sent it, and if so, why Sub Pop?
I was at my brother’s house and we tuned in to watch Saturday Night Live. The episode’s musical guest was The Shins, and I hadn’t heard their music before. That was January of 2007. It sounded great to my ears, there was something about James Mercer’s voice that soaked into my mind. Anyhow, as fate would have it, I was in a store the next afternoon and their latest record, Wincing the Night Away, was on the end cap and caught my eye. I flipped it over to check out the track list to see if the song they had played on SNL was there, and noticed the Sub Pop logo & address printed there on the packaging. That was it. The next afternoon I sent them 4 recordings I had recently made with some of my brother’s gear. And they listened.
In places, Stray Age comes across as a particularly “English” album in its folk approach – most obviously in the Sandy Denny cover, but there are also more than a few subtle hints of Nick Drake in amongst the more local American-based grooves. Was that era and genre much of an influence overall?
Sandy Denny’s & Nick Drake’s music are so important to me, and I’m sure have influenced my music in ways I may not be able to articulate, or even understand. But yes, I do love their works, and had enjoyed singing, “Who Knows Where the Time Goes” for a while when we recorded it. It was one of several covers we tracked, was the only one we ended up keeping for the album.
With the new album, the inspiration came from a piano during an in-studio performance and interview. Was that the absolute starting point for In the Cool of the Day, or something that coalesced already existing ideas?
The idea of making the recordings that eventually became, ‘In the Cool of the Day’ was much older than the interview & session – it was the little studio and that piano that made the plan materialize and fall into place. I knew immediately upon sitting down at the keys that it would be the perfect spot to bring everyone together.
The songs that you wrote for In the Cool… dovetail incredibly well with the older songs from other artists you recorded for the record. Are these all new compositions of yours specifically for this project or do these come from an earlier period?
They’re all songs that came about as the project unfolded. So in a sense, they were all written with this album in mind.
The collaborative album Dear Companion seems to differ greatly from the gentle tone of your individual albums. Did the emotional motivations behind these albums differ and do they come from a different place within when performing?
It’s all similar in my eyes, the place the songs come from, and how they’re performed – you give whatever the song asks of you. There’s a very specific purpose underpinning the Dear Companion album, but the songs (hopefully) can exist on their own. All that being said, I think there are many ways a person can react when their water is being filled with poison and the people charged to protect them are corrupt. One can feel hopeless, be mad, be motivated to make a positive change, etc. This wretched situation has pushed me & Ben to work for something better. I think a lot of folks are angry about MTR (ed. Mountain Top Removal, an especially vandalous form of coal mining that does exactly what it sounds like it does) and the destruction it causes, but the real frustration comes from having protections in place that are not enforced due to greed & payoffs & cronyism & short-sightedness. Unfortunately, in modern day America, money is the only factor used to measure anything. That is what we are battling. Some things are beyond a monetary value, it’s even insulting to use money as a way to describe them. Cultural identity, family, clean water (!) & homeplace are all along those sacred things that transcend being valued by dollars and cents. That’s the struggle at the heart of the fight to stop MTR. And it’s the same struggle that I hear echoing all around the world.
On the subject of Dear Companion, the message behind it is a very clear warning about the environmental and community impact of Mountaintop Removal coal mining methods. With recent events in Japan possibly steering electricity production back to coal-powered methods, do you see this as a setback or an opportunity to start taking a more serious look at renewable sources of energy?
I think it’s an opportunity, if approached honestly. We have seen yet again that there are no quick fixes to our growing energy needs. Mining coal destroys everything around it & burning it causes asthma & cancer. Nuclear reactors are dangerous in unfathomable ways – the risk of accident is too great. We can hope & work to make sure that as these dangerous truths come to light, we take the chance to redesign our methods, to localize power production, to reduce the amount of power we’re using, to become more efficient. Our friends in the EU are doing a much better job at that than we are, currently. It’s especially inspiring to see what’s happening with efficiency initiatives in Germany and Sweden, for example. If we’re going to be giving out taxpayer funded subsidies, they should be future-oriented & funding things that will allow us to flourish indefinitely. It’s challenging because the economic powers in the USA have an interest (their entire interest) in keeping the current systems in play for as long as possible (and even though they claim to be conservative, the love cashing those publicly funded subsidy checks…). It’s the same deal in the banking/investment sector. We’re making the flat-out wrong choices for the only reason that those bad choices enrich the folks who have the power. That sort of corruption must be stamped out. That is what we should all be working for.
At the show I saw you at in Manchester, you told a story (with souvenir mug as visual aid!) about a diversion to the Welsh town of Portmeirion, home of ‘60s TV show The Prisoner. Did the visit meet with your expectations of The Village, and – more importantly – did the show ever make any sense to you? It completely lost me, even though I loved it…
I LOVE THE PRISONER. Seriously it was such a thrill to be strolling around The Village. I could not believe that I was actually there. I can’t say that I understand how the program ended, it was terribly (purposefully?) confusing. But that didn’t render it any less enjoyable overall.
Your grandfather’s banjo is a beautiful instrument. How’s the practice coming along?
Slowly but surely. I’ve been learning a thing or two from some pals who are all darn good players. I’ve even done a little bit of recording with it!
What new/recent records are you listening to right now? And do you have any “This record changed everything!” favourites?
The new albums I’ve been listening to of late are:
1. Lullabies by Maiden Radio (the first album to come out on my new label, Ol Kentuck!)
2. Circuital by My Morning Jacket
3. Gramma’s Boyfriend (self-titled)
as far as records that changed everything… Bridges by Gil Scott Heron recently blew me away.
You’ve certainly been busy this past 12 months, promoting both your previous album with Ben Sollee as well as your new one alongside high-profile artists such as Billy Bragg and Iron and Wine. How were your experiences of these tours, and what do you have planned for the immediate future?
Traveling around the UK with Mr. Billy Bragg was an experience I will not soon forget. He’s a kind-hearted soul and a scholar of history and spared no effort to show Ben & me great hospitality and endless glimpses into the culture, both past and present, of Great Britain. You’re lucky to have him as one of your own!
As for the immediate future: lunch. But looking out a little further than that, I’m headed back to the UK for 8 shows in early September., including The End of the Road Festival It’ll be a duo tour with my long-time bandmate Daniel Joseph Dorff, who’ll play drums & keys along the way. We can’t wait to get back.
And there you have it. Thanks again to DMM for taking the time to do this, it’s truly appreciated!
For further reading, listening and current tour info, pop on over to www.danielmartinmoore.com and www.subpop.com
For more info on Mountain Top Removal coal mining and how you (wherever you are) can add your voice, please visit ilovemountains.org/
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