INTERVIEW : 2011-03-27 Joseph Arthur Emerges In Australia (by Andrew Watt)

So where have I been for the last decade or so? I’ve recently discovered an artist namedJoseph Arthur. He’s extraordinary. Maybe you have heard of him and already know what I am talking about. I hadn’t until recently. The whole world should. Listening through his extensive back catalogue of music, virtually all of which is on independent labels, I’m hearing traces of numerous other artists who I either love or respect, or both. Here’s a few discernable influences: Lou Reed, Mark Bolan, David Bowie, Jim Carroll, old blues greats like John Lee Hooker, the Rolling Stones, more obscure artists like Garland Jeffrey and more contemporary names like Ben Harper, David Gray and Grant Lee Phillips. But he’s not a copy of any of them, in fact, he’s brilliantly original.

I became aware of Joseph Arthur because he’s touring Australian soon as a part of Bluesfest – in a kinda supergroup thingy with Ben Harper and Dhani Harrison (son of George) called Fistful of Mercy. Arthur is going to do his own solo shows in Melbourne and Sydney where he is likely to both play music and paint on stage. Oh, didn’t I mention he was also a prolific and highly regarded visual artist as well?

I need to find a big mirror and have a damn good look at myself.

Andrew meet Jo, Jo meet Andrew…

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HHMM: With so much output, both as a musician and as a visual artist, how would you describe your approach to art? Is it an obsession, a compulsion, a job?

JA: It occupies my mind all the time. Visual art works the same way as music. You care about each project individually and then when its done you’re on to the next. There is a compulsive aspect to it but it’s a healthy compulsion like exercising your spirit or something. These things evolve through you and you evolve through them, you know? You can trace personal growth through your history of making art. It’s also a process of becoming more genuine all the time and getting more down to it hopefully and becoming more truthful and more profound. It’s also a way to kill time. It’s like the most serious thing and the most frivolous thing at the same time. It’s packed with meaning and it’s meaningless. It’s almost like a play of opposites. That’s what I like about painting and making music. One is coming through your eyes and one is coming through your ears. It’s interesting.

HHMM: Something else you seem to have done well is to solve that dichotomy between art and commerce. Your art remains very pure but your willingness to share it and provide people with commercial access to it seems to be working really well.

JA: Thank you for saying it. It’s interesting, I haven’t had a whole lot of commercial success but I still can make a living. I think I’m kind of shameless about trying to make a living with it. I think there might be more shame attached to it if you were like stinking rich! But if you are not and you are living hand to mouth or maybe a little better than that sometimes, or not as quite that sometimes, then you can maybe be more open about trying to make some money. But I think that is maybe the times we are living in too. The wall between being an artist and being, say, a plumber is less. There’s no distinction any more. There used to be some kind of invisible wall between being and artist and the rest of the world and I don’t think there is that anymore.

HHMM: It is an exciting time now in music because the access to the audience is clearly no longer solely determined by corporations.

JA: Yeah, but it is and it isn’t. If you look at most of the most successful bands in the world they are all still deeply affiliated with corporations. But there are other possibilities now. I remember when I first got my first record deal we had cassettes. You couldn’t even dream about making a CD, you had to have money to do that. We’d make cassettes and the way of getting that out to a wider range of people than beyond your thirty friends was by getting a magical thing called a ‘record deal’. From there it was anybody’s guess what was going to happen. But getting that record deal was like lightning striking. Now you don’t need to have a record deal but you do need to be a internet sensation, but that’s like lightning striking too. So it’s sort of the same as it ever was but it’s different. It’s still impossible, but it’s always been impossible.

HHMM: Bob Geldof was recently talking about the lack of powerful voices in contemporary music and how society was worse off for the lack of those voices. He was suggesting that there was ‘entertainers’ and there was ‘artists’ and there were more entertainers and less artists. How do you see that division?

JA: I hear people sometimes say stuff like that and I think, ‘hang on a minute, I’m an artist, but you just don’t know who I am!’ Maybe it’s harder for legit artists to get out there than it was. Maybe we are just more underground now. Back in Bob Dylan’s time, well it still is Bob Dylan’s time, but back when he became like the biggest thing ever, it was just a time and a place. Who knows what it all means? I’m sure there are just as many talented people doing just as much great art now as ever, maybe more, but knowing who they are and hearing of them is another thing.

HHMM: You originally came from Ohio, but now you live in Brooklyn. Have you found that you’ve been able to be a part of a creative community and find like-minded individuals in New York, in a way you couldn’t have done at home?

JA: I think I could have maybe, but I was ready to leave Ohio. I left Ohio four days after I graduated high school. I needed to go explore the world. I love Akron, Ohio actually. I’ve very proud of it, I love going back there and I would even consider moving there again, but I needed to go explore the world. But now I find a real collaborative spirit when I go out to California, even more than New York. Maybe cos New York is my home and when I’m at home I tend to do my own thing more and isolate more. Maybe when you travel, life is more of a celebration in a way and so when I’m in California and I’m there for a month, maybe I look for people to work with. I don’t know if I look for it or open my energy up to it more, but every time I go out to California there is some wild collaborative thing that happens.

HHMM: Speaking of collaborations at Bluesfest you are going to be playing with Ben Harper and Dhani Harrison in Fistful Of Mercy. How would you describe that collaboration? Is it democratic or organic or how does it work?

JA: It’s democratic, organic, collaborative thing that just sort of happened. It happened to happen. It’s actually what I’m saying about California. I was in san Francisco preparing to play two nights at the Troubadour in Los Angeles and I called Ben to see if he wanted to sit in with me and he was open to that. And then we decided to write some songs together and he said, ‘do you know Dhani Harrison?’ And I actually didn’t and I said “Why? Is he in our band?” So he introduced me to Dhani and then we were a band.

HHMM: It’s nice how it works like that sometimes.

JA: It’s unbelievable actually.

HHMM: In Melbourne and Sydney you are doing solo shows, which will be really exciting. What can we expect from those shows? Do you have the scope to do music and painting as you sometimes do?

JA: I don’t know if we are going to go for that or not. I kinda hope we do. I’m actually sitting on the floor building the ultimate pedal board. I’m actually a super guitar geek working on this pedal board for a while now. It’s like paints on my pallet basically. I’m going to do looping and stuff like that, so hopefully I’ll paint too.

HHMM: Interesting you mention the looping. I got to see Eddie Vedder last night in Melbourne doing a solo show and he was trying to do some live vocal looping, but the machine didn’t work for him. So it’s risky.

JA: It is risky. But that’s what makes it good. Without the risk things aren’t any good. People tend to like it when things go awry. It’s a bit of excitement.

HHMM: I want to mention someone else. I kind of feel like Jim Carroll was a kindred spirit to what you do, combining the music with another form. In his case it was poetry, in your case it’s painting. Is he someone you feel a connection with?

JA: Well I hope so. I mean, I take that as a complement. All I can say is that I respect him a lot.

HHMM: The other guy that comes to mind when I hear your music is another New York guy named Garland Jeffrey. Is he someone you are aware of?

JA: I know Garland, yeah. I actually met him through Lou Reed, cos he’s a friend of Lou’s. I actually met him and I know him as a person more than I know his music, just as a guy around New York. That is New York.

HHMM: And I understand you have a new record of your own on the way, called The Graduation Ceremony? Can you tell me about that?

JA: I’ve been working on this futuristic gospel concept record called The Ballad of Boogie Christ, which is about this guy who is either insane or becoming Jesus Christ. It’s this very wordy record with back up singers and horns and super production and Garth Hudson playing organ on it. I was working on it for about two years and then I wrote a couple of new songs on an acoustic guitar. I recorded one of them and I really liked the way it came out, it was so relieving to have something so simple. So I called up the studio and said do you have any time when I can come in and record some more acoustic songs. And he was like ‘yeah come by’ and I was like sat his front door. So I walked in the studio and cut the record in an afternoon with first and second takes. Then Jim Keltner came by to play drums on some of the Boogie Christ tracks and I played him some of the other songs and he played on a song and then we went through the whole record and he played on all the other songs. Then I gave the record to John Alasia and we ended up working in his studio in Santa Monica for about a month I guess and it became a beautiful record. At the same time I ended up finishing the Boogie Christ record, so I mastered both of them. So there’s two records waiting in the wings.

HHMM: It’s nice to have these journeys without a roadmap.

JA: That’s what its all about, its like let the unconscious guide you. I believe in that. I believe in the wisdom of the unconscious.

JOSEPH ARTHUR AUSTRALIAN SOLO PERFORMANCE DATES

Wednesday 27 April – Northcote Social Club, Melbourne

Friday 29 April – The Vanguard, Sydney

Also Appearing at Bluesfest with Fistful of Mercy – Easter Friday 22