Phosphorescent
An Interview with Phosphorescent (July 27, 2005)
MP3: When We Fall
Matthew Houck is the man behind the band Phosphorescent on Misra Records. The latest Phosphorescent album, Aw Come Aw Wry, is a brilliant piece of work which will be reviewed here at Uncommon Folk in the days ahead. At only 26, Houck has lived an interesting life and creates even more interesting music. He was kind enough to answer these questions fairly last minute and provide readers with a track from his last album, The Weight Of Flight, which was released before the brand new Aw Come Aw Wry. Now on to the interview . . .
UNCOMMON FOLK: Being only 26 and already so prolific I imagine you started playing music at a young age or were at least around music at a young age. What shaped your earliest musical experiences?
Matthew Houck (MH): Well I started playing guitar when I was about 14 years old. However the first clear musical rememberings I have are of being very small, maybe three or four, in the backseat, sad and sweet over Willie Nelson’s “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys” while my parents were pulling into the gravel driveway and them getting out to open the fence gate but leaving the tape going. My mother is musically gifted and sings beautifully and very precisely and not often enough, and my father used to strum a little guitar, but he lost a finger working construction before I was born and so I never heard him play with all five fingers. I warmly remember songs like “Stewball was a Racehorse” and “Camptown Ladies” being played.
UNCOMMON FOLK: You’ve lived a very interesting life since the age of 18. What was it like living in your car trying to make money playing music, especially music that wasn’t even yours? What happened to turn things around for you?
MH: Well I don’t know about things turning around really . . . it’s just different you know? Just a different life altogether and that particular life seems so long ago to me that I can hardly remember what it was like. I was a little crazy back then I think. Maybe am now too really, who can say for sure.
UNCOMMON FOLK: Playing cover songs of country music for audiences to make ends meet I assume you often had to simply cover what people want to hear. Yet, your sound has such a historical depth to it even with the experimentation. What are some of your favorite older artists or folk and country styles that have informed yourself and your music the most?
MH: As far as folk and country artists, there’s a whole lot that have probably crept into me. I don’t think that most of it is really obscure or anything like that though. I’d guess it’s just the same as anybody else. Just going backwards and deeper from stuff that was pretty easy to come across—from Peter Paul and Mary to Bob Dylan to Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly. From Willie Nelson to Roger Miller to Hank Williams to The Carter Family.
UNCOMMON FOLK: Your latest album, Aw Come Aw Wry, was released this June on MisraRecords. Many are hailing it as a change for the band?Do you see vast differences between the new album and some of your previous work? And, if so, how did that change come about? Was it a conscious decision or a general expansion of sound and experimentation?
MH: I don’t think that there has been a very big change, but then I’m not in a position to be able see that very well. It all seems like one continuous thing to me. Maybe something like how you can’t see your own body changing though it’s obviously doing it all the time.
UNCOMMON FOLK: Aw Come Aw Wry is the first album I have come across with three title tracks. And, since they are numbered one can only assume there are more out there. What is Aw Come Aw Wry? Does it have some sort of special symbolic significance? Is it just a fun play on words?Or is it a closely guarded secret meant to stay mysterious and vague for listeners to decipher for themselves?
MH: All of those are true. Closely guarded secret is too strong though. It does mean something specific to me, but I don’t think sharing that meaning would be anything but detrimental to people’s own response, even if their response is that it’s a nonsense bunch of shit, for example.
UNCOMMON FOLK: My mother is a huge Joe Tex fan. On the song Joe Tex, These Tamin Blues your voice gets a little wild at times showing your great vocal range. Was Joe Tex an inspiration of yours or just good fodder for a song? And how do you approach your vocals having so many different tendencies and sounds?
MH: That song was coming together in my head right at a time when a friend gave me a mixtape that introduced me to some songs by Joe Tex. The way that song ended up and the way the horns go—that stuff was directly inspired by these couple of amazing Joe Tex songs. It made sense to send that song on out to him forever. As for approaching the vocals, I try to just sing as naturally as I can. Straight from the loins. Straight from the appendix. I think it works most of the time.
UNCOMMON FOLK: I’m guessing you are not the only person behind this record. Who are some of the musicians who join you on Aw Come Aw Wry? How do go putting together a band or have you always had a fairly steady lineup or musicians? Do you or any of them have other projects people should be turned on to?
MH: Phosphorescent is a very loose and revolving thing. Lately we’ve been having around 13 or so folks all banging away at things for the live shows and it seems to be growing still. Almost everyone involved does have their own projects going. There is a band called The Good Ship and a band called Viva who both put out debut records too long ago that sound nothing like their bands do now. They are both making amazing songs and their upcoming records will be heartattackers. Also an unnamed project from multi-instrumentalist Brent Jones. He has been recording an epic collection for a couple of years now that is very near completion and will earthquake everywhere whenever he decides to turn it loose.
UNCOMMON FOLK: Finally, from one 26 year old to another, how do you feel about the current landscape of folk and country music and the many different experimental layers being added to it as time passes? Is it important to move and build upon tradition in order to keep it alive in your view? Phosphorescent’s music is much more traditional than a lot of the so-called “new-folk” crowd but it still has present day experimental qualities which push the envelope. Do you enjoy artists who meld heavy electronic experimentation with past traditions? Or is it possible that technology can be used by musicians at the expense of or detriment to tradition as well?
MH: Well I’m certainly no kind of purist. I don’t feel any kind of warmth towards “traditional” music as a genre. Or any warmth towards “experimental” music as a genre either. I just like good songs and good music in whatever form they come. I don’t know how to narrow it down any further than that you know? I don’t know how to isolate what it is that makes a song good but I do know that the form or the dressings are not the essentials. I have looked for a common thread that connects all the music (and all art for that matter) that has been great to me, but that thread gets splintered all the time. People are doing amazing things all the time everywhere. I try to wade past the lazy and mediocre as quick as possible because people are definitely doing a lot of that too, but really just keeping all the senses open and ready to receive.
1 comment July 27th, 2005