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WILLARD
GRANT CONSPIRACY
Paul
Austin
(guitarist)
The core of WGC is made up of Robert Fisher and Paul Austin. How did the two of you meet? How did the other members join the band ?
I was living in Maine, where I grew up. Robert drifted there from Los Angeles out of self preservation, wanting, as he said, to get 'as geographically far from that evil city as possible' while still in the US. And that was the cold, woodsy backwater of Maine.
The name of your band refers to a conspiracy, and on the first two albums, the names of the members are not given. Was WGC from the outset planned to be a core (Robert, Paul) with many acquaintances orbiting it ?
I don't think we even *had* a plan. We just got together to write songs. After playing loud, noisy music along the lines of bands we loved like Pere Ubu, we wanted to try a softer sonic palette. So we pulled out acoustic guitars and just sat around with a pot of coffee, playing and singing. When someone asked us to do a show we asked friends to help out. And when we decided to record this first batch of songs over a weekend at a friend's house, we asked them out there, too.
What bands did you play in before forming WGC ? What were the influences on these bands ?
Well, Robert and James from WGC had a band where Robert played drums and sang and James played bass. They were both beginners really, learning to play so they could write songs, not learning to play so they could copy songs of the radio. It was the punk rock ethic. D.I.Y. I saw them play and we became friends and played together from then on. James wandered off to art school but years later we all ended up in Boston, living in the same old house on Myrtle St. and started playing again.
Did you intend to play this kind of music from the outset ? What do you think of the evolution of the group after three albums ?
Speaking for myself, there was no intention at all style-wise. It was just songs coming out and it was fun and exciting and it felt like something special was falling together. I think 3 AM has a warmth, an intimacy, that came from recording it in a dark little basement all at one time. Flying Low was us spreading our wings a little bit, and some of our best songs so far are on there I think. By Mojave we had an idea what we wanted to do and how to do it. You can hear that we're more confident putting our ideas across, I guess. At least I hope you can.
In France, before the arrival of artists like Will Oldham and Vic Chesnutt, American folk-country was often seen in a negative light. What is it like in the
USA ? Has that 'scene' - which seems to be very active presently - always existed ?
Always, but it was always flying low under the radar. Songwriters without a slick modern sound and supercool clever lyrics have always been around. Look at John Prine. Townes Van Zandt. But right after Uncle Tupelo peaked and broke up, lots of younger bands kind of came out of the woodwork playing a more rootsy style of music, unapologetically non-modern-rock. And I guess when they weren't punished, beaten or laughed back into the woodshed, more came out and said, "man I love this raw music but no-one wanted to hear it before'. At least in the cities where people always think they're quite sophisticated.
You know you can have a little piece of art you make out of wood and a blob of paint and whatever. And out in the middle of nowheresville, it's just a thing you made, and if you like it you put it up somewhere so people can see it. You don't give a shit what it "is", it just *is*. That's enough. But in the hipster circles, they don't trust that lack of classification. So then it's "folk art" and that makes them more comfortable, because it's raw but raw because it's symbolic, it's making a comment on society. But all the time we're talking about this same object, you know ?
You are influenced both by folk-country music and by less 'rural' groups, such as the Velvet Underground; how do you reconcile both kinds of
music ?
Honest music, with an emotional rawness to it, is what's real. Doesn't matter if it's got a string section or atonal New York guitar noise or just two banjos. If the emotion's there, the musical platform can be anything.
Similarly, the band comprises folk-oriented members (Paul Austin), electric-oriented members (James Apt) and more experimental characters (David Michael Curry). How can you combine these different personalities ?
The alchemy is what makes it a special thing. I like it when people say we definitely have our own sound, whether they love it or hate it. It's something that comes from this group of people and we couldn't sound any other way and have it be as direct. The alchemy is so important.
On each album, there are digressions like firework noises for 15 minutes at the end of the first album, recordings of people talking and radio sounds on 'Flying Low', and recordings of violin between the songs on 'Mojave'. Do you enjoy creating these changes in the 'rhythm', which tend to destabilize the audience ?
Well, given the darkness of many of our songs, I'd say lots of people who really like WGC must be already pretty well destabilized...
Robert's lyrics are usually moody and disenchanted. What do the other members of WGC think of
them ?
They're the absolutely the single most important element of our songs and our sound. If we don't create a musical backdrop with swells and dynamic movement that support the lyric without being a distraction, then we've let him down. That's how I feel.
After attending several WGC concerts with different line-ups and listening to the live album ('Weevils In The Captain's Biscuit'), one feels that your songs are even more powerful onstage. Do you have the same impression? Do you enjoy playing your songs in front of an audience ?
I love playing for people. The immediacy of it is a great thing. But my favorite way of listening to music is all alone, in the dark, with headphones on, with the door locked. Then I can get lost in the songs. And I like to think there are people out there that listen to WGC that way too.
After touring Europe several times, what is your perception of the Old Continent? Do you feel a difference in the way your music is perceived in the different countries ?
In some countries people seem really really intent on knowing all the lyrics and asking questions about them. A real intellectual approach. Some places people just let the mood wash over them. And some places people stand there with their hands folded looking at us like they have absolutely no idea why we'd want to sound like this, like we must have serious problems. Of course, maybe we do :-)
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Apt
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