Having been championing the enigmatically wonderful JAMES APOLLO for the past few years, W&H were delighted to catch up with the man himself at last at the culmination of the latest of his increasingly well-received UK gig campaigns.
Of course, standing still is not a condition favoured by this charismatic Arkansas native, who may currently be loosely based
in New York, but with the nomadic tendencies of a modern day hobo, metaphorically (and sometimes literally) hopping freight trains as he spreads the word the hard way, criss-crossing America with a stubborn determination. As you might imagine from one of Alt. Country's finest storytellers, he gives great interview too. Here's what he had to say in discussion with W&H editor Tim Peacock.
W&H: How did the UK tour go? Any particularly good shows or memories for you?
JAMES: Glagow was a blast. The show went well, the band went out drinkin' in a church afterwards, and then rolled up to the hotel, where drunken scots were having a biting contest in the hallway. An employee knocked out the owner and scared the hell out of a poor chinaman. Naturally I leapt to his defense but am always a bit late to do much good. They passed out of their own accord.
Oh, the shows? They were great. York, London, Manch, its getting to be like a little family reunion every night. Instead of a fight. It feels good.
W&H: 'Americana' - for wont of a better term - certainly has pockets of fanatical support in the UK and Europe in general. How do you feel about being pigeonholed as an 'Americana'-related artist and how do you feel audiences take to you over here compared with the States?
JAMES: You can pigeonhole me as an escaped convict if it'll get you out to a show, or give a solid listen to what i'm trying to say. In fact I guess it makes it easier. I'd rather whisper then shout, and when people have a few notions ahead of time, it can make them take a little extra note of the whisper.
That said, UK audiences definitely allow for that whisper to chime. It
makes for an intense show for both parties. In the US things tend to
get a lot more roadhouse. More smashed bottles and angry husbands. Maybe i'm just a little more timid when I'm out of my natural element.
W&H: Tell us a little about your early days. If I have this right, I believe you're originally from Libertyville, Arkansas, but were you from a musical background and when did you start seriously playing guitar and writing music?
JAMES: I strung rubberbands on a box like everyone else I guess. it didnt work. I sold most of my worldly posessions and got the garage sale guitar when i was about eight. My earliest songs consisted of me yelling over records my folks had. I'd line up a bunch of cans in the yard and give concerts. I've been doing that for as long as I can remember.
The music has aways been a center. I was in a music store once in
Nashville when I was maybe 15, and a guy who looked like Chet Atkins handed me a Chet Atkins signature guitar and asked me to "play lead". He said he'd been playing 100 years and couldn't do it any more. We played some Chet Atkins songs that i wouldnt learn about till later on. I never found out who that man was for sure, but i ended up buying a few of his records.
W&H: Again, if I have this right, you started playing live/ touring when you were only 16. Was this with a band or as a solo performer?
JAMES: I've toured with a band for most of my life. Best part is, a lot of the people that were on those "high school summer vacation" tours are folks i'm still making music with today. Kids I grew up with. People you can scream at and have em scream right back. Its comforting. It takes things down to a primal level.
When I started going out on my own I toured the US solo. I had moved on to a boat in the San Francisco Bay and didnt have enough friends to make a band. It was a dark time. I've gotten a lot of shanty's out of sittng alone in the foggy bay, living illegally on a boat not fit for fleas.
W&H: You're quoted in another feature I read as saying; "I'm not the sort of person who likes to stay too long in one place. I get itchy feet". From listening to your music, I personally have this image in my head of you as a romantic, hobo minstrel kinda character, but have you always had nomadic tendencies?
JAMES: It's one of those things that sounds so good to hear, feels so good to say, and i've been roaming so long it feels kind of natural, but still you miss out on things by not putting down an anchor here and there. Like taxes. And bills. And vicious landladies.
W&H: As an adjunct to the previous question, you're based in New York City at present (I think?) - how does life there compare with the Midwest for you?
JAMES: I spend most of my days dreaming about open spaces. I did that in Minneapolis. I did that in san francisco. I can't remember if i did that in Arkansas and i know i never did it in Tennessee. I gotta get back to where i was. But then what would i moan about?
W&H: Is it true that along the way you've slept in abandoned drain pipes in the Mojave and spent New Year's Day in a New Orleans jail? Can you tell me what the circumstances were concerning these events if so?
JAMES: Legally? No I cannot. I got cases pending.
W&H: I imagine you probably get people throwing similar images at you all the time, but your music is really evocative and does tend to conjure images from great American literature and the kind of landscapes the likes of, say, John Steinbeck or Cormac McCarthy might write about. How do you feel about such comparisons?
JAMES: They are definitely influences. i've always cited events rather than bands or musicians as having the most impact. Did it hurt more when she walked out, or when you heard it on the radio? I'm a "hands on" kind of guy. A slap in the face is more effective on me. So those images that Steinbeck wrote about; those were real things. I felt that Grapes of Wrath was kind of a history of my own family. I remember my Ma telling me very pointedly to not mention this to my father.
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W&H: According to your press notes, the recording of your new album 'Hide Your Heart In A Hive' was rather chaotic - ten people crammed into one room,a guy playing a marching drums while another guy poured whiskey into him etc. Sounds remarkable, but are such scenes typical at James Apollo recording sessions?
JAMES: Find something that works and stick with it. There are usually some very intimate moments, me and the bare essentials, then there are those drunken bashes. If you want a drunken
song, get a drunken singer.
W&H: Do you deliberately set out to try and strip back the sound of your records? Your albums sound wonderfully earthy and passionate, and mostly real old and dusty (I mean this very much as a compliment, by the way!) and as a listener I always feel like I'm in the room with you. Is that the kind of way you'd like people to hear your music?
JAMES: There has definitely been a progression. I want things to be timeless. Studio trickery is not timeless, but the human condition is. Yeah, they're earthy, dusty, and if you feel like you're in the room, that's a place you can always get to.
I love to tell this story to engineers. Apparently when 'ol Edison was
previewing his new playable cylinders, early records, or whatever they were, he put on a big show in a theater. Had a trumpeter sit on a chair in front of the closed curtain and play. Then, halfway through the song, the curtain was opened and it was revealed that it was Edison's music machine that was playing, not the trumpeter. The audience couldnt tell the difference.
But have you ever HEARD one of those Edison cylinders? They are barely audible. The only way that sounded like a trumpet was because there was nothing like it before. So the best we can fake today may still be the running joke of tomorrow.
W&H: Do you have any specific 'method' for writing songs? Travelling so much, I imagine you probably stumble on a lot of situations and characters as you pass along? Do you write songs in hotels/ motels a lot, for example?
JAMES: I carry a book of thrills. Its labeled thrills. I Jot down little
pieces of brilliance i pick up along the way. Its usually not till i
get home that the mess gets sorted out.
Then there or the punch-in-the-face songs, that just kind of bleed out as a result of the things that happen. Its pretty simple to tell which is which. at least to me.
W&H: You were injured in a motorcycle crash a little while back, I think you said? Are you fully recovered now? I'm a little tempted to make comparisons with Bob Dylan in his post-"Judas"/ 'Blonde On Blonde period...
JAMES: Breaking both my legs in a motorcycle crash, facing 6 months of intense physical therapy, redeveloping my muscles and then getting back to touring and running and climbing and living...the whole experience is definitely the best thing that's happened to me in thelast, say, 5-10 years.
I guess i wouldnt have said it that way lying in a pool of my own blood, screaming, on Empire Blvd in Brooklyn, but now, my perspective has changed. I thought i was living rough before,
but to lose it all, get it all back, it really makes a foundation for
a whole new level of chaos, life, loving, breaking, feeling. I get a
bit zenned out about it. Its hard not to. I wanted to use a cane
because i thought it was cool, then i needed one. Then I didn't. I'll
never use a cane when i dont need one. Or an eyepatch, for that
matter. Its funny, i dont know exactly what it did to Dylan, but i'm
more Freewheelin' than ever before.
W&H: Finally, what are your plans for the next album? How do you envisage it will sound and can you imagine making a New York album?
JAMES: Hive was recorded in New York. But i wouldnt call it a New York album. The troupe is headed into the studio next month to do an EP that'll be released on vinyl and digital in the Fall. It'll be recorded in New York. But it will not be a New York album. Its just a good place to hole up for awhile. I'm working on putting an adobe castle/studio together in Colorado at the moment. But will it be a Colorado album? Doubt it. It'll just be a snapshot of a desperate man, in desperate times. I can hear the howling against the sillouette on top of the hill. Stand strong so the wind won't blow it all away.
Say, if you don't mind, since this is loosely related to the UK dates
we just finished, i should probably give a little credit to those who
came along. Lord knows i didn't pay them anywhere near their worth. 'Course i did have to pay for all the damage they caused.
Matt Palin played bass, Austin Schumacher played drums, Gary Atturio played organ, Andre Escalante played steel, and I just sat back and yelled expletives at the lot.
(http://www.myspace.com/jamesapollo)
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