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 Gillian Welch December 1999 / January 2000 By Brendan Doherty
Are you getting much radio play? Our music is definitely not on the radio most of the time, and most people aren't in record stores buying it cold. [Radio] is basically not a part of our world right now. There are just a few public and community and college stations that take a chance on us, and they're very supportive. My main gauge of how things are going are the live shows. It's very common to meet people who say, "My friend dragged me along or told me that I had to come." I think our reputation in that sphere is pretty good. How did you and David Rawlings meet? We met in Boston. We actually met at an audition. We started playing old-time country together in 1991. The main things we realized when we met were that we dug the same music, we had a lot of the same records, and liked a lot of the same stuff, and more importantly, we hated a lot of the same stuff. We started playing bluegrass. We were attending Berklee. I can't imagine you fitting in there. It's all about jazz and that. There was a real closely knit group of bluegrass freaks. A handful of them. That's how we started playing together. It was Johnny Cash and Lefty Frizzell, Merle Haggard who made our hearts beat. Then we moved to Nashville in '92. I bet you were the only one from Berklee with an actual record contract. Did you learn much there that proved valuable? I took all of the songwriting classes, and then didn't feel like sticking around. I had visited Nashville and liked it. I don't think Dave had really formulated a plan, but that's when we started playing as a duo. Shortly after moving to Nashville, we toured in an old car and recorded the first CD, Revival... We tour in a Cadillac and a Lincoln. For the first few tours we went in a '65 Impala. It was good because there was lots and lots of room. But then we were putting the miles on this nice old car and we felt bad for a while. We retired it after the first year. It seems that acoustic music is back in vogue. There are many reasons why it's a great time to be playing this kind of music. Look at who was nominated in the Contemporary Folk category [at the Grammy Awards]: a bunch of people who didn't align themselves in that category. Emmylou Harris, she was always in country. There's Steve Earle, and he used to be in country or rock. Lyle Lovett, and he was in country. [Contemporary Folk] has never been an established genre or movement, but it's encompassing a lot of very interesting things. It's not just a fringe. Your appearance—from the old guitars to the haircuts to the flowing flower dresses—makes it seem as if you stepped out of a time machine. I think people look at the way we present ourselves, and they are lulled by our acoustic demeanor into assuming that we are more old time and traditional than we are. I don't think that our music is that traditional at all, really. There is a lot of stuff going on that isn't with the Carter Family. We grew up listening to Neil Young, so it'll never be as pure as the Carter Family. The songs are different. Even though I work in that older format, what's actually going on, the story and the subject matter and the emotional tone are very modern to me. I can't tell anyone else how to react to it. My god, the stuff that David is doing, it's not traditional at all. It's all a question of degree. If we change one note, we hear it as not traditional. We're playing acoustic instruments. If we were playing through amplifiers with the very same notes, you would change your mind. How would you qualify yourselves? We play as an acoustic duet, and so it's hard to pin down. When you flesh it out as a band, it's a little easier to categorize. Maybe we're just pigeon-holed as Appalachian traditional. If you add a banjo and a fiddle, we're bluegrass. Add a bass and drums, and we're in that alternative country thing. Ever wish you had a few good people playing behind you? Dave and I both have a super aversion to picking up a studio band, or studio musicians. We're both really band oriented. If they're not going to go out on the road with you and live with you then I don't want to make the record with them. We have really had to work to keep the side musicians at bay. They are everywhere, and those slide guitar players just beg us to put a few licks into our songs. Talk about getting on the radio and selling records. [laughs] That's just like the quick recipe for greater commercial appeal, so screw it. |
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