INTERVIEW : 2011-07-29 Striking a poesy (by Dave Jaffer)

Despite the fact that we were in New York City at the same time, Joseph Arthur and I couldn’t get together to do a real, sit-down interview. And thanks to the outrageous roaming charges I’d incur had I even thought about attempting a phoner, we did an email interview. Much to my chagrin.

Joseph Arthur, awesome dude that he is, turned it into something fun. He responded to my questions with poetry.

Without further ado, his poem-answers to my paraphrased questions:

On whether Montreal ever feels like a second home:

Alternate life
French utopia/Ethiopia
Pagan vanguard on the ledge of reality
insane sanctuary of sanity and
And the beautiful losers (thank you Leonard Cohen) fly like
Bullets
out of canvas
(The painted ones)
back to America
I shoot soot with one left boot as
Steven S makes a collage
With my dreams to be sent to the devil
And sold to the children of the world
Montreal
Yes
Second home.

On other homes outside of Brooklyn, NYC and Montreal:

Well
They are my third home
Or fourth home
Or half a home
But
Paris is my rose home
New Orleans is my locust home
Ohio is where I was born
And sent to Rome
into the earth
Without apology
Dreaming up the agony of surrender

On why he’s such a prolific creator of art and music:

I am lazy and have ignored my true calling which is dancing on words over fields of moons
I need more ritual and less habit
Our blood is limited but our dreams never are
The rumors of my prolificness are greatly exaggerated
Hype!
Like how many big macs have been sold
By a clown
Or the value of superbowl rings

On how his visual art informs his music and vice versa:

They benefit and deflect each other
Defend and annoy
(insert a story about a dying bird)
They save themselves and throw the other under a bus
Then they pretend to be saviors whilst baring fangs in the neck of a child
Though that child was me and he was already dead
Walking on a ledge singing to the holy ghost
They are like birds which fall on the heaven of the asphalt and get crushed by the semi trucks called oblivion
I live inside them like a monkey in a cage
Like animals at the zoo
I fall asleep
And let them observe me
Dreaming them into being

On whether there’s an art form he’s intimidated by or otherwise trying to dive into:

Just to simply be
To do nothing
To be a rose
With a thorn
With blood dripping off
Or the finger on the way to the mouth
To kiss the wound
To be a kiss
Or in Kiss
Breathing fire
And spitting blood
Like a thorn
That belongs to a rose

On how he goes about writing extremely personal songs:

Life has beat the lie out of me

On whether playing festivals, outside, is a good experience or whether doing so makes sound rise up and die:

I get to close my eyes
Wear shades and sing
And follow beauty into tents
Meet the inspired
And be inspired
In those tents
Of chanting romance
I get to be old and young
Absent and present
I look away and into myself
And through the crowd sing one perfect note which redeems everything
And then I eat cheap food
And burp into the corner of the moon

Favourite festivals?

Osheaga is top notch and that one in Spain
The festival of my love
Born from pain
That level headed one which drives me insane
I think it’s in Germany
I used to go to festivals and never sleep
But instead sweep the lawn
And become an alligator in the swamp of my own regret
Now I just sing and wink at the sky

On his best and worst festival experiences:

The best was meeting her
The worst was leaving her
The best was waking up
The worst was falling on scattered, mangled notes left by the lost tunes of the lost souls who only came for the money and free beer.
The best was the money and free beer
The worst was running out of money and free beer

Re: The Graduation Ceremony being a “simple” album:

I always want to make something simple but not even silence is simple

On whether there’ll be a new record with the Lonely Astronauts anytime soon:

I am changing
All the time
I am already different than then
I am already something other
And a brother
And another
Together
Still a brother
But always
Other.