ERIC TAYLOR PHONE INTERVIEW 1998
I called up Eric Taylor who has a relatively new album out called Resurrect on Koch, and I had been wondering why on earth you ended up on Koch so long after you had an album out in Europe. How did that work? The album was originally financed by a European label and I did it for a European label called Munich Records, which is one of oldest I guess, they've been around for almost 30 years, they're one of the oldest r&b and I guess you'd call it American roots music labels.that's in Europe and I became involved with them when they were distributing the Watermelon album, the album that came out in '95 and I really liked them and I really liked the company a lot and I wanted to do an album for them. I think the original idea was for European distribution, and as we got more and more into the project, it became apparent that we wanted an American label to pick it up and Koch was certainly one of the ones I was interested in. So Koch basically licensed the record from the European label. And now its on 2 labels. I probably should go back now...and for those people out there that arent Texas music people necessarily, can you briefly in about 5 sentences go over your life? My life? Well...I was born in Georgia, I came to Texas in 1970 and fell in with a bunch of songwriters Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Vince Bell and later on Nancy Griffith and Lyle was coming up. I been writing songs ever since. I took 10 years out of the business back in '83. I stopped touring back in '83, because it's a pretty well known fact that I had a heavy drug problem back in those days and ended up staying out of the business for a while and then back in '94 came back into it. Is that when you made the album that just says "Eric Taylor" on it? Yeh, the Watermelon album, that came out in late '95 I think. There's one song, I think it's "Hemingway's Shotgun" which seems to be a real classic and I've always wondered exactly where that came from. Well, Hemingway's Shotgun is...a songwriter friend of mine, Richard Dobson, I don't know if you know him or not but he's a great songwriter and a great friend of mine. We used to argue about Hemingway all the time. Richard was a big fan of Hemingway's, I wasn't. He sent me a book one time after we'd had an argument late night argument, about Hemingway, it was a coffee table type of book about Hemingway's life. In the back of that book there was a very expensive Abercrombie and Fitch shotgun that was very beautifully done...it was a work of art. I don't know whether you happen to like guns or not, I happen not to. It was just a beautiful thing to look at, but as you read on you discover that's the shotgun that he committed suicide with in Ketchum, Idaho. And it struck me as metaphorical for a lot of misuse of beautiful things. No matter how beautiful anything is, there can be an incredible element of danger in it. So the song is sort of about that, sort of about relationships, its sort of a metaphorical song. That's what I was gonna say, it sounded metaphorical to me. Can you sort of go into your new album and i had been talking to you about...you said you had been in Birmingham a little bit back in the 60s. You mention Birmingham a lot and it seems you might be going back a little bit into your... Well, this record, I still call them records, it takes on...I certainly wouldnt say it's a catharsis of any kind...I guess there might be a couple songs on there that might be cathartic...but I think this record took a personal tone from the standpoint of the writing than the '95 record did. The '95 record being mostly characters and story lines and things, little plays, this one has been more of a personal thing, you know, I spent most of my life in and out of the South, grew up in the South, and as we were producing the record, as we were in the studio, my European manager was listening to some of the tapes as we made the record and said "Sounds like you're making a concept album about the south. I think we did that without really knowing it until we were about three quarters of the way through the record and then I sorta thought, "I think Frank is right, this could be a concept record about the South". And I think I did that primarily because most writers tend to write about what they know about, or I think the good writers, and having spent so much time there I think there are bound to have so many songs written about it and I had no idea there were so many. They seem to all come together on the record, so... What's the difference between the Southeast and Texas, anyway. Do you have any ideas on that? Well, Texas is sort of its...especially when I came to Texas back in '70. I'm not so sure that it's the same anymore, but I think in some ways its different than other parts of the country becuase it's so big, it's so wide open. And when I came here, you know, the only rule was that there were no rules, you know. Especially from the standpoint of music and songwriting. I think, the South is a place that's full of rules. And you know, the Northeast and the Northwest are...sort of have their own personalities as well, especially musically. The Northeast I find real confining. It seems like the writers there tend to write in a real...with a real narrow gap, whereas in Texas, it seems like the writing is larger. Its done on a larger scale. Not exactly, but it's interesting anyway. Do you think there's more stories down here? Yeh. I think there's more stories. Not only do I think there's more stories but I thing there's more people willing to tell them than there are in the South. The Deep South tends to be a real closed area. They stay in their back yards, real tight, you know, they're pretty closed mouthed out there. Do you tour all over the country now? Tour all over the world now. I'm having a great time. Last couple of years have been a lot of fun for me. I've gotten to tour all over Europe and the UK and I'm ready to go back to Ireland and England for 2 weeks here this next week. I catch a plane tomorrow morning for Albuquerque, New Mexico, and I'm there until Sunday come back and then I leave for England for a couple of weeks so... When you're over in England, since I'm a British Isles dj, what's different over there, what are audiences like? The British audiences? I think the British have always had a great interest in American songwriters and American music, I think all the great bands and artists that have come by here have most of 'em have claimed to be almost inordinately interested in American blues and roots music or American rock and roll or songwirters, so I think the audiences by and large are very attentive, very knowledgeable. European audiences are even more so than British audiences. The European audiences probably know more of my songs than I do. Oh really. Yeh. They sing a long with them. They'll show up with an old '81 record in pristine condition wanting you to sign it even before you get off the stage. And they're very very knowledgeable people about American music. So the audiences are very good. Most American artists love to go to Europe because its...they're very attentive to you and they're very intentive to your needs. Is it hard to get over there? Do you need to get visas and green cards? You need work permits and passports and things like that. England's real sticky about the work permits. The European countries aren't so much...Italy is. I have a lot of friends that tour Europe and I go about twice a year. Wow. So what do you listen to, yourself? I listen to everything from classical music to straight blues. I crank up the Rolling Stones, you know, listen to Keith Richards. There are..there's a lot of good writers out there these days and a lot of them undiscovered, so a lot of what I listen to these days are certainly not even on Texas radio...even on public stations here. There's a great writer from Tennessee, a guy named Malcolm Holcomb that I've been listening to a great deal. It's blank in my mind. He hasn't gotten a major record deal yet, so probably won't hear him for a while, but I think you will. I listen to songwriters like....Mike Sumler I like his work a lot. He's on your...you have a number of people on your album that I've heard of as well, I think. Yeh. Mike plays on most of the cuts on it I think, plays piano. I guess I havent formed this question too well! Um...what leads you to put the instrumentation you have on there? I guess its not quite folk and its not quite country... I think it's very difficult for people to identify what that is and I that that's a shame, I think that's a major difference in writers today and producers today and the way people were writing and producing back in the older days. You know like I said when I first came to Houston things were wide open, there wasnt this folk clique thing that goes on a lot, there wasn't...music wasn't so pigeonholed. As a kid growing up, Top 40 Radio, you'd hear a Frank Sinatra song or a Nat King Cole song and then you'd hear a Rolling Stone song. Or you'd hear the Temptations, or Aretha Franklin, or you would hear the Beatles...and everything...or you'd hear a Hank Williams song. And everything was popular radio when I was coming up as a young writer, there was so many kinds of music on the same station, that you were subjected to it, and I think that's really hurt writers and I think it has hurt the music business in a way. That record stores and record distributors and buyers don't quite know what to do with something that they can't... I guess Waterloo bunches a whole bunch of stuff together in that room. It's hard for them to think of what bin to put my records in. "Well, he's not quite folk and..." You know. But I picked the instrumentation for the record because I really like the musicians a lot and I wanted to use them. And I wanted a record that wasn't overly produced, but one that could portray more of the feelings from the lyrics than the music I wrote. So I mean its...I guess it's what any producer does, kind of has an idea in his head and tries not to stick to it too much. I mean I went in with a lot of preconceived ideas and came out with a...having learned a lot. Sort of different, huh? Um-huh. Any parting words, "Buy my album?" Certainly do that. Buy my album. I'll be back in Texas in December. Playing around in Texas again. I hope people come around to see me and buy the album and I really appreciate your radio station. Really glad that you and Gary and all the people there are doing what ypu're doing. I think it's good for us. Well, it's fun for us too. Well, if there's anything I can ever do for you, let me know. Aw gee. Thanks a lot!