Glorytellers Interview November 2009
By: Stephen Maughan
Karate were one of those bands that seemed to have always existed, and many readers may not even know they actually broke up in 2005. I first saw them during a rather lost year at a U.S. university during the late 1990's at some tiny club in the American deep south, where most of the locals were at the redneck bar down the road rocking along to country tunes and shooting pool. But the few of us in that room who were lucky enough to watch Geoff Farina were hooked. Since they formed in 1993 Karate have seduced many with their dynamic experimental approach to the American alternative rock scene. In 2009 Karate have quietly dissolved into teenage memories, and a more subtler, wiser, and self assured Geoff Farina has taken the best elements of Karate to form Glorytellers, whose second album, Atone, Rockfeedback promptly stamped with five stars. To celebrate this rare occasion I caught up with Farina to talk about song writing, music, and why Ronald Reagan is to blame for creating a generation of selfish Americans!
We start by talking about Karate, and Farina tells me how although his approach to song writing has changed very little over the years, Glorytellers is “much more acoustically engaged than the power trio of Karate.” Farina, who turned 40 this year, felt that “With Karate I started to feel the music was always this baggage of being in your early twenties.” He started work on Atone about two years ago, shortly after the first Glorytellers album which he thought was heading in the right direction but “I felt that the way it was recorded wasn't quite right and I wasn't playing guitar right” Still, it gave Farina the determination to get things right the second time, “I had this concept of what I wanted to do with Glorytellers. After the first record I just opened up on what I wanted to write about, and I had the juices flowing from the first record and the tours, and it came out naturally I think. Atone is the one that I really wanted to make from the beginning of the band”
Between Karate records, Farina released a couple of gems on his own (including the wonderful Usonian Dream Sequence), and I ask him if he prefers the freedom of releasing solo albums or the security of a band setting?
“Well I like to do both, both are really different from each other. I had a great solo tour of Europe last year. I definitely want to keep doing both, both are really important to my career.” He goes on to talk about how the other band members have always liked to take a break after a tour, but he needs to keep on playing and writing new material (“I've been doing that for so many years and it seems to work out well”). Farina's gentle enthusiasm is contagious as he tells me about a new solo album he's recording, which he hopes to release “at some point” in 2010.
“I've been making music since 1988 when I moved to Boston”, Farina tells me that aside from a spell of uneasiness during his late 20's, he has remained a working musician, being involved with over 35 records in the last 15 years, crafting some mighty fine records, including Atone and the Cult Secret Stars records.
The secret stars started out as a band Farina formed with his friend Jodi Buonanno in 1993, “It was more of an art project. We would record on cassette and do shows in weird places, like someone's house or something”, full of romantic folk and love songs it was a far cry from the thundering emo rock of the early Karate records, and was the first opportunity listeners had to witness Farina's exceptional skill at a creating tender lullabies for jaded daydreamers.
In keeping with the informal and loose feel of the band, in 1998 the secret stars bought the Grange Hall – a 150 year old building (“That's old for us, I know it isn't for you!”) which they both restored and made available for working artists and photographers to live in, “They could come and live with us and do their thing. It was all quite informal, they wouldn't have to pay much and would help around the house. It was a good opportunity for them not to worry too much about money and just concentrate on their work”.
With a range of artists and photographers (including Patrick Graham and Melanie Standage) staying and working, with Farina writing his songs until 2006 when he moved back to Boston and got married after eight years residence at the Grange Hall, although he still goes back from time to time. The house is now owned by Julie Buonanno and her husband, but Farina hopes to be involved in the forthcoming ten year anniversary, “Julie has been talking about doing some things which I would like to be involved with.”
As we talk I notice that despite Farina's impressive record of releasing albums, writing them definitely seems a rather crafted and dedicated task. He agrees, “For something when I really sit down and write all the songs and the arrangements, it can definitely take years.”. I ask him a little bit about how he goes about writing, “It's working on it a little bit at a time to do it, that's really important for me, and not working on it non stop. A lot of people can write a record in a month and that's great, but it doesn't work for me.”
I ask him how intense the recording process is for him.
“I work maybe 3 hours a day in the morning writing. In the afternoon I still practice a lot, I'm doing some shows so I spend a couple of hours practising for those shows. As far as the writing goes, I'll do that every morning 7 days a week for about two months until I get tired of it and I have enough songs to choose from., and then I start to demo the song which will take a few months, and then I realise I have to learn some guitar parts so I will take a few months on that. It's not something that's all consuming at all, it's a natural pace. When you do something creative with writing songs or painting it's not something you can work on all the time.”
I wonder if he finds it difficult being on tour, away from the creative routine he enjoys at home?
“Well I think being on tour is a whole other great thing. My songs are difficult for me to play. When I write a record I learn to play a new way, at some point when I go out and play those songs I might have to struggle through for the first few songs but by the time we get to the 11th or 12th show it sounds like music and that in a way is it's own challenge to get to that point. And then it's another thing because the songs started as ideas I had that I couldn't play, and the other band members put their spin on it and it changes, and then it all comes out and people listen to it and have a reaction to it. That's its own challenge. I love really long tours, going out for a month and playing the same 8 songs night after night.”
Farina's lyrics have always seemed intelligent and deliberate, does he actively seek inspiration from other writers or if it is just a natural process to write words?
“The way I write lyrics is that when I do that I'm generally not listening to other music, it's something that just grows. It's very much about playing the guitar and singing and just doing that over and over again. As for writers at some point I was really interested in novelists, there's a French writer called Georges Perec who wrote a couple of fascinating novels, and he was part of the Oulipo movement, at some point I was really into that and used that in my song writing. I think the music I'm most interested in lyrically is probably really old, old blues from the twenties and thirties. People really write about their environment, a blues singer would sing a song about a fork sitting on a table, but the way he sings it you really know it's there. I think when a songwriter can really pull you into their world with lyrics, it's authentic.”
Before I called Farina, the news had an item about the rising unemployment in America, and I know it's a dangerous risk to ask musicians about politics, but in these uncertain times I can't resist asking him for his views. Farina seems happy to talk about something other than music for a while, he tells me how “for me and my family the recession is not a huge surprise” and feels Americans have for too long lived far beyond their means “like spoilt children” wanting things they can't afford. He blames it on the Republican president Ronald Reagan, “Reagan's message was as an American you have the right to live and go out and do whatever you want without any suffering any consequences. People thought, 'wow that's great!', but now it's coming to bite them on the ass!”. He says everyone knows someone who is going through severe financial problems or is unemployed. We talk a little about the general mood in America, and Farina feels we can all learn a lesson from the banking crisis. I ask him if he is hopeful for the future?
“Well, I'm not hopeful. In fact I'm not hopeful for America in general. Everyone was really happy when Obama got elected but I'm not sure that fundamentally people are ready for change. In 1960's America what really happened was that Americans were not ready to change in the way people hoped, and I think it's the same way now. There is something about America that is fundamentally panicky, and a sense of entitlement that people aren't ready to let go. I think it might take a generation, that when my generation is in their 60's it will be a different America. But right now people feel a sense of entitlement to things that they just can't let go of, they can't understand how America can not be the centre of the world, and until people stop thinking that way I'm not really hopeful about it.”
If, as Farina says, we have another twenty years before things start changing in America at least we have music and poetry and lyrics when things get tough. Atone is a masterpiece in freedom and expression, actually the same freedom that Reagan promised all those years ago – only it isn't to be found in the pursuit of materialism , it is to be found in art and music. Atone is not only one of the best records of the year, it does what the very best records do – it brings a wave of peace and contentment to your ears and reminds you why you fell in love with music in the first place.
Artists in this article: Glorytellers