Chatting with Jimbo Mathus – HuffPost 3.5.14
Mike Ragogna: Jimbo! Dark Night of The Soul is your new album, what makes it a step up from your last one, White Buffalo?
Jimbo Mathus: I’d like to think it’s a step up from White Buffalo because of the lyrical content as well as the simple fact that the band, The Tri-State Coalition, is another year older and better equipped to handle the material.
MR: How did you approach the Dark Night–see what I did there–creatively, with songwriting, arrangements and recording?
JM: I approached the writing of Dark Night as I always do, simply waiting on inspiration to strike. Some of my muses are in literature and nature. The recording and arranging are all really done by the band, live on the fly. We record only one or two takes and that’s what you hear. I recorded over forty titles at Bruce Watson’s Dial Back Studio, and Bruce acted as editor and even sequenced the record.
MR: Why did you need to rock this hard at this time of your life? Don’t you know you should be making Adult Contemporary/Jazz Crossover albums at this point?
JM: I guess as I get older, my outrage at national and world events grows. Besides, I think there’s too much cute ukulele music going on in America today. Dark Night of the Soul is a harsh dose of realism.
MR: What was your wife Jennifer’s reaction to the song you wrote for her, “Shine Like A Diamond”?
JM: We wrote wedding vows for each other, and “Shine” was my contribution. She had no idea I planned to sing my vows, with my dad and her brother backing me up. So, she was completely shocked and surprised, a whole row of her girlfriends and the Man of Honor crying right along with her. She really loves the song. She’s definitely my #1 supporter.
MR: You took on the legend of Casey Jone in “Casey Caught The Cannonball.” You love your Americana, don’t you.
JM: I love history and especially regional history. My philosophy of writing is alchemical, “express the macrocosm thru the microcosm.” Also, I had an epiphany much like Faulkner, “…that my own little postage stamp of native soil is worth writing about and that I would never live long enough to exhaust it.”
MR: You’ve worked with artists like Elvis Costello and performed for presidents. How much does all that affect Jimbo Mathus?
JM: I suppose that working with such a long and diverse list of projects has made me more well-prepared as an artist. The varied experiences of my career have led me to one conclusion: I treat all performances equally, be they for presidents or patrons in a catfish house. I put 100% into every job I do and am prepared for anything, really.
MR: Just three words: “Squirrel,” “Nut” and “Zipper.” Plural if you must. Go.
JM: SNZ was the culmination of much research into early American entertainment and musical forms. Sort of a pre-Melting Pot amalgamation of forms. I called it a vaudeville act. I used to buy these little candies in Morrisville, North Carolina, where I was employed as a backhoe operator. When I was pressed to name this new group I had created, someone mentioned using the name of a candy, and I immediately said, “Squirrel Nut Zippers.” The rest is history.
MR: What advice do you have for new artists?
JM: The advice I would give any artist, be they visual, musical or otherwise, would be this: Know in your soul that the artist’s life is your true calling, and never deviate from the path that the calling provides. Be fearless, work hard, and most importantly, love everybody.
MR: What does Jimbo Mathus’ future look like?
JM: The next 24 hours is gonna look like this: I’m on set through the night, playing the role of a drummer in a blues band with Leo “Bud” Welch, for the film “Mississippi Grind” being shot in New Orleans. Then I drive ten hours, swinging through Oxford to pick up my band to play in Little Rock, Arkansas, before returning home. Then Sunday, nap, homemade eggplant parmigiana and my beautiful, sweet, loving wife.
MR: Sweet. Now, you’re sure you don’t want to do that Adult Contemporary/Jazz Crossover project?
JM: As tempting as that sounds and would undoubtedly be a big seller, I’ll have to demur. How about instead a series of “uneasy listening” instrumental records, with titles such as “Twerking to Beefheart,” “Music to Hoodoo By,” “Sounds of the State Pen” or “Meth Party!”?
MR: I’m in…