INTERVIEW : 2003-01-16 Arthur and the old school (by Dave Kirby)
For all his detailed and lyrical descents into uncertainty, hopelessness and bitter desolation, there’s still little doubt that Joseph Arthur dreams large and in color.
After a three-month run of success in the European market, which has embraced his meticulous hymns to loss and skepticism, Arthur’s latest CD, Redemption’s Son, finally hit stateside store shelves last November to a flurry of accolades and hyperbole that’s becoming routine for the NYC-based songwriter. The CD follows the heavy critical acclaim that rolled in after his 2000 breakthrough, Come to Where I’m From, a broadly drawn collection of damaged lives and pleas for renewal that wound up on top 10 lists from the New York Times to Entertainment Weekly to CMJ.
The Akron, Ohio, native, who spent years woodshedding in Georgia before relocating to New York, says that he managed to stay focused despite all the attention.
"I’m writing and recording more or less all the time, so even while all that was happening I was already working on new material," Arthur says. "I had piles of material left over, so I put out four EPs after Come to Where I’m From (Junkyard Hearts I-IV, available as imports), and I had another pile of material when it came time to work on Redemption’s Son.
"I guess I just come from that old school, where you’d write something and then get it out. I just don’t understand this thing of waiting two to three years between albums. I’d put something out every nine months if I could.
"For me, it’s kind of rejecting whatever I just did. Not rejecting it completely–if it’s a good song, I like to play it and it stays fresh for me. But I like to get these songs down as a way to work through where I’m at in a particular period of time, then move on. It can drive me nuts when it takes a long time to get them out and let them be heard, because I’m already in a different place and writing different songs."
Like the last CD, Redemption’s Son is a production tour-de-force. Arthur’s songs, first- and second-person treatises on capitulation and faithlessness ("You Could Be in Jail," "Nation of Slaves"), unresolved childhood resentment ("Redemption’s Son"), and emotional exile ("Termite Song") represent the kind of material that carries a dangerously substantial gravitas all its own; yet Arthur keeps the vibe afloat with effortless melodies and richly detailed arrangements brimming with shimmering guitar phrases, multi-tracked vocal harmonies, and sheets of mellotron and synth washes.
He dutifully credits veteran producer Tchad Blake (Paul McCartney, Los Lobos) with trimming his excesses, pulling a staggering amount of material and tracks into a single, purposeful statement. Blake’s deft hand at turning heavy productions into buoyant, cogent vignettes is evident throughout the release, although Arthur says it’s an indirect influence.
"Most of it had been recorded before we got Tchad in there, but it was a lot of material to go through," he says. "Some of the songs had 60 tracks to them. You can just keep going and going and going, trying to see how far you can take something. Tchad sort of reintroduced me to reality, and, yeah, you can really hear his touch throughout the record. I think he lent the whole project a kind of cohesiveness that it didn’t have before–I recorded it over a period of two years, in a lot of different places, and he sort of made it all into a single statement."
Arthur has managed a perspective on his success... or relative success, anyway. To an extent, he’s even somewhat suspicious of it. He accepts the critical accolades for his deft alchemy of lyrical substance and melodic facility, and he’ll shrug off references that reviewers have found in his singing and arrangements ranging from Nick Cave to Beck to Richard Ashcroft to Nick Drake. Yet he reserves some skepticism about what it all really means.
"We worship success in this culture, not so much artistic achievement," Arthur says. "They can give Madonna rewards for being ‘successful’ and selling millions of records without ever mentioning whether or not her art is worthwhile. To me, the song is important. And lyrics are important–people don’t seem to pay that much attention to lyrics anymore. This is the era of the blockbuster.
"The songs are my focus. Everything else is secondary."
And how, exactly, does a songwriter keep himself alive and supported in these days of barren, preprogrammed radio and short attention spans?
