- Fri, 2011-03-18 16:42
Josh T. Pearson first entered the public eye as the frontman of Lift To Experience, a critically acclaimed avant-garde rock band whose only remaining legacy is their lone album, 2001’s The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads. Ten years later Pearson has returned to the limelight, this time with an album that reflects and collects his explorations into country music; Last Of The Country Gentlemen. Critically acclaimed once again, Pearson is doubtless a unique musical talent, whatever he puts his hand to.
I Like Music caught up with Josh to chat about his lyrical and musical inspirations, the catharsis of playing live and his troubled relationship with life as a musician.
“I Like Music because...I don’t like music. I hate it. It’s cursed my life forever. It’s ruined love, it’s made me lose a job.” Josh T. Pearson
ILM: Can you tell us a bit about the process behind Last Of The Country Gentlemen?
Josh: Well I write what’s in front of me, and I have done for years now. I switched from post-rock, arty stuff to straight song-writing about ten years ago after leaving the old band that I was in and going back to regular tuning. I challenged myself to write a decent song with regular chords and a standard format. Those have been the rules for my songwriting; regular tuning and words that make sense and that’s what I’ve been working on since a few years back.
ILM: How do you approach writing lyrics?
Josh: I come up with lyrics in daily life and through my normal physical experience. You just write down themes that you’re dealing with at the time. Words that sound good together, but mainly just the essence. That’s a framework, then it’s about finding music that matches up to those themes. This stuff just happened to be the personal things I was dealing with at the time. And then it’s a give or take from there… I’ll write the music; mainly I’ll have the music there and start applying lyric and then I’ll re-write the music to fit the lyric, and then re-write the lyric to fit the music. It’s just a pattern that goes on between the two, asking the question “which has more impact here; the better musical melody or the better lyrical melody?”
ILM: What do you look forward to about playing your music live?
Josh: I don’t look forward to it at all.
ILM: What is it that you don’t look forward to then?
Josh: Well...you’re stood up there naked in front of people you don’t know. It’s just a cathartic process and you do it with the hopes that it’s gonna touch somebody. People are… we’re hurt creatures, you know? We’re desperate creatures, and it’s a normal thing that you make fun of something you don’t understand. It’s tricky because stuff hurts, but those are normal responses.
ILM: Have you seen any live performances as a fan that stick in your memory as having touched you?
Josh: Sure… I do go see bands, I just don’t listen to the stuff at home so much. I see bands all the time; bands that come through town that I know, usually personally, or that come highly recommended to me. It’s just who happens to be playing nearby. The Black Angels are playing tonight, I might go see them. Mogwai are playing tomorrow, they always put on a great show. Very strong, powerful stuff… But anything as long as it’s real. I like taking things in that way. But it’s more for the interest in watching other people that I enjoy it. I enjoy watching other people watching it.
ILM: What are your future plans?
Josh: I don’t know, I couldn’t tell you. I hope to put out more records; I wasn’t honestly planning to put this one out. It’s a little old school of me, but I think music should be performance art. That’s what I’ve been doing for five years, just making it something where you had to really go see the person to hear the music. Like an old blues player that you could only see live. But live my music seemed to really affect people on an emotional level, and I had to reconsider my stance. That and my back pain; I’ve got some nerve trapped there and I need surgery. They offered to pay me for a record, so…
ILM: Who and what are your inspirations?
Josh: Bob Wills. He’s a fiddle player, a godfather of Western swing. He’s really good. Nietzsche’s a good person to read. The New Testament’s good. I try to conquer those two things and see where I end up. I like television, I like pop culture now. I like commercials – I like the commercials for films more than the films themselves. Bedhead was a good band from Texas, they were pretty inspiring to me. They were from Dallas in the early ‘90s. They put out three or four records of post-Fugazi kind of stuff. Loveless by My Bloody Valentine is great; the guitar-work, the soundscapes. Pet Sounds is a great album. Neutral Milk Hotel – that record In The Aeroplane Over The Sea they did.
ILM: Can you talk to us about your guitars?
Josh: Well I started off with a five dollar electric guitar I bought from a friend down the street. My standards were set pretty low because I had a cheap acoustic. It was the cheapest one. I kind of played whatever was in front of me as far as acoustics go. And that kind of gave me a challenge - it was always more about writing the songs rather than the instrument. As far as electric guitars go, I like Fenders. The Jaguar just ‘cause it's got a good tremolo. Really ‘cause Kevin Shields played it [My Bloody Valentine]. I’ve got a ’66 Jaguar and a ’66 Jazzmaster. I bought the first one for $700 when I was 19 and the second one ten years later. They’ve gone up in price considerably, back then they were cheaper. I couldn’t afford them now! I like guitars – I just bought an acoustic for $300 just because it was black and it has a tuner in it. Those were the selling points; it comes with a built in tuner and it’s black!
ILM: Judging by your quote at the top of this interview, you seem to have a fairly complicated relationship with music…
Josh: I mean, it’s a curse. I really wish I could be something else, but I have to do this. Part of why I didn’t want to put out any records for what, ten years, was that music was already 99.9% of my life. It’s the air I breathe. So to make it in the industry and have it become your work force… That’s taking that last little percent of your life away. So all I do is sit around and play guitar. As long as I have a roof over my head nothing else seems to take priority. And that’s a real set-back.
ILM: What would be your advice to young musicians?
Josh: I’d say sell your guitar, get a job, go to college. I don’t know… I’d try to fight it. And if you can’t fight it, go with it with all of your heart. Decide on what kind of music you want to make and be your own boss. That’s a good rule to make in any aspect of life. If you want to make music as an art, or in more of a classic kind of way, then maybe get some sort of cool trade that can support you. That way money won’t convolute your mind, and you can always make the sort of music you want to make. But if you just want to be a pop star then go for it. You can do whatever you want. It’s an amazing thing, music, and it’s a dreadful thing. Do as much as you can, read as much as you can. If nothing new’s been done then just try it and find out. Lester Bangs wrote a great collection of essays; that’s something for young people interested in music to read. If you’re going to do it, then do it all the way. Don’t question, don’t worry about if you can or can’t make it. Just do it like you can. Pretend like you are a rock star and you’ll become a rock star.
ILM: Do you feel like you’re still learning new things about music?
Josh: Yeah, yeah. I explore what I can explore. One of the things about the guitar as an instrument is that it’s like a language, slight inflections can change meaning. I altered guitar tunings after about six years of playing guitar and that really helped, that opened up a whole new music ‘cause there’s a complete different colour to it. After seven years of playing with that I knew the aesthetic of that one particular guitar tuning. Then I switched all that and went to a different sort of manifesto, trying to make it sound interesting with just one man and his guitar. That took me a long time I guess...
