Mr David Viner - London, UK, Summer 2004
By: Cat Goodwin
'Had a hair cut. Fell in love. Twice.' - posting on mrdavidviner.com
Some people make a living out of being doomed. It's not an intentional or cynical thing, it's just a sadness that overwhelms their music, or an accident-prone heart, or some kind of magnetism for trouble. For Mr. David Viner, a 24-year old blues player from London, it's dryly described as an 'ongoing f**king tragedy-cum-comedy lifestyle.' To give an example: even this interview is doomed. Viner and rockfeedback sit at opposite ends of a dusty North London pub, each thinking that the other person hasn't showed up, for no less than an hour.
A brief history of Viner is this. As a supposed van-driver and merch-seller for The Von Bondies ('actually, I can't remember driving them around anywhere...'), Viner became an adopted brother of the Detroit garage scene where he met The Dirtbombs, Soledad Brothers and 'those White Stripes' (who he insists are all lovely people and admirably refuses to be cajoled into telling secrets about). There was a brief spell on tour with The Datsuns which we don't delve into after being warned, 'I'd rather not talk about the f**king Datsuns, I just talk so much about them. All I did was be their roadie.' It became obvious during these tours that Viner, while clearly a rubbish guitar-tuner, was himself a brilliantly bruised and swaggeringly heartfelt performer.
A blues record on which the Soledad Brothers play backing, the most remarkable thing about his first album, the eponymous 'Mr. David Viner' (and the competition here includes Jason Stollmeister's credit for knocking on a door during recording and Viner's highly improbable claim in 'Sally Jay' that she was 'the only girl in the world who made me blue') is his cover of the classic blues number 'Corrina, Corrina', once made famous by Bob Dylan. The song nestles into the record like one of Viner's own songs, and no further proof was needed that his was a unique talent in the making.
These days signed to Loog Records, Viner has just released his second album, 'This Boy Don't Care'. It marks a hefty progression from elementary blues of his first record, drawing in rudiments of folk and traditional storytelling to make one of the finest cult albums of 2004, which seems to evolve and spin new threads with every play. Recorded thriftily at Toerag in two and a half days, it owes a huge debt again to the Soledad Brothers, who play as a honky tonk backing band, and especially Oliver Henry's piano.
But it's Viner's ever present dark wit, obsessions and allusions to murder that makes rockfeedback wonder if he might be heading for an early grave. If his self-proclaimed 'weakness for women' doesn't kill him, then the feminists who listen to his lyrics definitely will. And if they don't get there first, his critics just might. If he's still standing after that onslaught, then he'd better watch his back for Razorlight's Johnny Borrell. As we said, Mr. David Viner: brilliant, but also most definitely doomed...
'My weakness for women sure gonna be the death of me' - High Horse Blues
On your first album, you said you had 'a girl for every day of the week.' There are also a lot of women on your new album...
'(Laughing) Yeah. I guess every song I write's about a different girl, but there are mainly three or four on the album. It's the most unromantic record I've heard in a while, but yet there's a load of love songs on it. One of my favourite tracks is called 'Birdwhistle'. I wrote it about a girl I met at University, who I actually bumped into last night. I gave her a copy of the album and I said listen to track 10, so hopefully she'll get it. I guess I fell in love with her once. For a couple of days.'
It is quite bitter in places. Even the song about 'Getting Married in the Spring' leaves you with the feeling that you're not actually getting married at all.
'Yeah, that's exactly it. That's about a girl named Ko. She's from Detroit, she plays in The Dirtbombs. We were actually going to get married. And so I said I'd write a song for her and she said she'd write one for me, so hopefully I'll hear that one day. But I'm not going to get married to her. There was a horrible break-up... Ask me about something else.'
So tell me about the title-track, 'This Boy Don't Care'. (In the song, the protagonist fails to win the heart of a girl and meanwhile gets annoyed with her attempts to impress him. In a rage, he takes a gun and shoots her). It gets pretty nasty. Why do you kill her?
'I don't know. It's pretty mean, isn't it? Maybe too mean. I was in a bad mood. It goes from a bit of a dig and feeling sorry for someone, to killing them. But that's just an old blues thing, killing people. That's from a guy called Lonnie Johnson, who played this beautiful song called 'Careless Love': 'You cause me to weep, you cause me to moan/You cause me to leave my happy home'. It's like a beautiful lament. And then he says, 'I'm gonna get my gun and shoot you'. I got my inspiration from that. I hope it's not taken as offensive, because I don't really mean it. There's a sense of humour in it. Obviously, I'm not a woman-beater. But that's just traditional in blues. All my music comes from real experience, but is also a take on traditional stories.'
So where's the line?
'There is no line. When I listen to those old blues songs and I can relate to it, of course I don't relate to picking cotton or whatever. But I relate to the hard work, or trying to get somewhere, or this constant frustration which... yeah, I don't think there is a line. I'm really influenced by blues musicians, but that's not how I'd say I 'got the blues'. I think the older I get, the better I get at making music. I can't wait to make albums when I'm 60. Then I think I'll have the life experience to make a really truly great album. I'm just going to keep on going.'
Who are your inspirations, then?
'My all-time favourite musician is Reverend Gary Davies. He's a bluesman who was blind and the best guitar player that ever lived - the best - and also the greatest singer as well. He kind of sounds like Ray Charles and a little bit of Bessie Smith. I guess there'll be no-one quite like him. And John Hurt, and The Beatles, and Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan. And I love The Monkees. I love pop music. But not contemporary pop music. . There's no real good bands. Maybe there's a couple, or a dozen. You know there's, like, a band every week that gets famous. I think it's crap. Razorlight are shit. Who the f**k is Johnny f**king Borrell. I'd like to punch his goofy f**king face in. What an arsehole. I don't like the whole fame thing, running around. I don't like what comes with it. Them and The Libertines, they're obviously pursuing to be the biggest and best... I don't know. I don't really like much music.'
It's at this point we suspect that Mr. David Viner is doomed to be miserable. For someone who stakes his claim on bitterness so much - a tour he plays where 'everyone's walking in and thinking, 'Who the f**k is this guy?', a man who walks past the pub and Viner exclaims with glee, 'That guy doesn't like me at all. In fact, he hates me,' and he's the only person we've ever met who hates The Scissor Sisters ('because they're just a band of stage school people who decided to form a band because there's a thing going on in New York') - it seems impossible to imagine him inspired by anything other than disillusion with the modern age. Walking a fine line between antagonism (his lyric 'All I need is a woman that ain't never been touched' is the ultimate anti-feminist statement) and gentlemanly courtesy (he walks us over the road to the bus-stop and tells us proudly about his new suit), Mr. David Viner is, somehow, a charming blend of traditionalism, musical genius and boyish charm.
So why the hell is he so miserable?
'I am happy. I am happy. What can I say. I promise you, I really am.'
It seems there is poetry to be found in such untruths, after all.
Artists in this article: Mr David Viner