INTERVIEW : 2000-06-03 JOSEPH ARTHUR: A Peter Gabriel Discovery Releases his Finest Work (by Bryan Thomas)

Like a handful of contemporary singer/songwriters -- Elliott Smith, Jim White, Mark Cohn, etc. -- Joseph Arthur doesn't have a very rock n' roll sounding name. But, other than, say. Elvis.. who does??

Arthur may look the part of a modern rocker -- in press kit photos and the CD booklet for his third full-length album (by famed rock photog Anton Corbijn), the recently-released Come To Where I'm From [Virgin/Real World], Arthur comes across looking like the pale, weedy long-lost brother of the brothers Gallagher from Oasis -- but where his real strengths lie is in his skillful ability to write songs that stand apart from the dross and fodder quite a few singer-songwriters are trying to pass off as über-hip these days.

Arthur co-produced Come To, along with singer-songwriter T-Bone Burnett (probably best known for producing the Counting Crows' August And Everything After and the Wallflowers' Bringing Down The Horse) and Rick Will, who also engineered and mixed most of the album's dozen tracks; three others were mixed by producer Tchad Blake, the man responsible for helping the Latin Playboys achieve those Tom Waits-ian carnivalesque sounds.

During a phone interview from his New York apartment, Arthur discussed Come To's various influences: "I feel like my generation grew up listening to a whole array of musical styles, and so I don't wanna feel like I'm tied to any one style myself. I liked Nirvana, but I also liked Nick Drake, and I'd like to think that their influences come together in my music somehow." When hard-pressed to pick a genre, Arthur somewhat uncomfortably settles for "experimental folk-rock."

Come To's mostly-downbeat narratives are, by turns, cynical, haunting and introspective, and often murky with Southern Gothic atmospherics. Strummed acoustic guitars are layered over electric guitars with distortion and echo effects, and often embellished with crackling drum beat loops, textured keyboards, harmonica, honky-tonk piano, and cello.

Arthur usually sings from a confessional first person perspective. His songs often lament unfulfilled dreams while wholly drenched in the bittersweet flopsweat of failure and desperation. Arthur's world-weary baritone may even remind some of Leonard Cohen, the so-called patron saint of "beautiful loser"-type songsmiths, or Beck at his most laconic.

"Chemical," the album's first single, is Come To's finest pure pop moment, and crackles with offbeat "Devil's Haircut"-like hooks floating aloft on a chorus of soaring multi-tracked harmonies and phasers-set-to-"stun" production.

Joseph Arthur grew up in Akron, Ohio, where he spent his nights playing "hippy rock" (his term) in local bands like Ten Zen Men or Frankie Starr's band. After splitting with his girlfriend of three years, he moved to Atlanta, Georgia, and got a job working the door of a nightclub. He stapled old sleeping bags to his walls and covered his windows to keep the light out, then spent his daytime hours four-tracking songs.

Months went by, and he amassed an impressive collection of those songs, and got a new job working at Clark Music, a musical instrument store, but was depressed to find himself so far away from what he really wanted to be doing ("it was like hitting an impossible brick wall" Arthur says).

One evening, he checked his answering machine to see if anyone had called about demo tapes he'd sent out. Surprisingly, there was one from Peter Gabriel, who'd been sent one by a mutual friend. Arthur recalled how the message hit him like a proverbial ton of bricks: "I must have sat in that room listening to that message for an hour, reading meaning into each word, each pause, and each breath."

Gabriel ended up calling Arthur several times, but their first meeting came when he was playing at a club called The Fez in New York. Gabriel was even bringing a family friend named Lou with him.

Later, he saw Gabriel and "Lou" - none other than Lou Reed -- walk into the club together. Arthur approached Gabriel ("with the grace of a duck on fire"), and was finally about to meet the man who had praised his music. They shook hands. What did Gabriel say?, I wondered. Joseph laughs. He said "I imagined you being a lot shorter."

Gabriel was so impressed with Arthur he invited him to play the WOMAD festival, and not too much later, he signed to Gabriel's eclectic Real World Records (he was the first American artist to do so!), then exiled himself to the UK to work with producer Marcus Dravs on his debut, Big City Secrets. The album was released in the U.S. via Caroline Distribution, but failed to connect largely due to the minimal promotion.

Last year, Undercover Records, the Portland-based indie, released Arthur's second album, Vacancy, under a licensing deal with Real World. Only 5,000 copies were initially pressed by the small project-by-project label, but it earned Arthur his first Grammy Nomination --- for "Best Recording Package" -- something he's still quite proud of. For the new album, Arthur also did the paintings and drawings of Dios De Las Muerta-style devils, skeletons and ghostly apparitions that were used in the cover art, booklet and digipak himself.

Come To has been garnering excellent press and good college radio airplay for the most part, but due to the fact that it's on Real World, it's occasionally being misfiled in the bricks & mortar retail stores: "I go into record stores occasionally when I'm on tour and because I'm on Real World, I'll find my stuff filed in the World Music section," Arthur laughs. "But, the way I see it, what I'm doing is the result of a conglomeration of indigenous American influences, so in that respect its a good representation of what America is offering the world."

Arthur recently concluded a European tour, playing large stadium shows with Virgin labelmate Ben Harper (there's another of those humdrum non-rock sounding names!). Arthur kept a daily record of his travels -- called "Notes From The Road" -- while traveling through cities like Madrid, Barcelona, Paris, Milan, etc. You can read these poetic observations on his unofficial fansite, dedicated to all things Arthur: www.josepharthur.com.

This month, Arthur begins a series of mini-residencies in several U.S cities., playing with 300 miles of a centrally located homebase, including Royal Oak, Michigan, New York City and Cleveland, Ohio. He's also doing a West Coast loop (San Francisco, Seattle, etc.), and returning to the Los Angeles area in mid-July, where he'll be showcasing at Luna Park.

Arthur will take the stage alone at these shows, playing his artwork-encrusted acoustic guitar and accompanying himself solely with samplers. "I'm doing live samples with these machines called Jam Mans that were made by a company called Lexicon," Arthur explains. "They have a built-in tape delay.I pound out a beat on the acoustic guitar, then loop it until it creates a backing rhythm, then add a supporting melody line, loop it, and then sing on top of that."

Arthur, meanwhile, will continue maintaining his road journal, and also continue painting. He's interested in doing work he'll be able to post directly to websites. "The music and art thing go together very well. There's always a need for art in music, and its something I feel very free about."

Source www.musicconnection.com