A Conversation with Adam Cohen – HuffPost 4.2.12

Mike Ragogna: Adam, it seems like you’re swinging for the fences with your new album,Like a Man.

Adam Cohen: I wouldn’t describe it that way. I actually feel like it’s the other way around. I think that what characterized my career up till now was swinging for the fences, and that I had high ambitions. I wanted sex drugs and rock ‘n’ roll and I wanted to participate in the mess. I wanted chart positions and radio, and essentially, you know, that’s what characterized the first part of my career. Now I just want to be good, and I’ve made a record that reflects that. I don’t think it has any commercial ambition and the song pays tribute and homage to the tradition that I come from, which notably is my father’s. And so, I think the other way around. I’m swinging to home base.

MR: (laughs) What I meant was as far as the level of the creativity and integrity, that it felt quite artistic. I should have said it that way.

AC: Oh, well I hate to have wasted your time correcting you then because in that case we’re in complete synch.

MR: (laughs) No problem, I’m glad we are because I love this record and let’s get into a couple of the topics. But before I start asking you questions about individual songs, what was the creative process for this batch?

AC: The songs on this record were one by one, written over a large span of time. And I basically abandoned all the songs.

MR: You abandoned all of the songs?

AC: Yeah. One by one, if they resembled my father’s work too much, I hid them away. The songs on this record were written over the course of twenty years. I actually didn’t really write for this record. This record is just a collection of songs that are united because A) I thought of them as my best and B) they were all songs that were rescued from a kind of oblivion.

MR: Yet you were very connected with them still?

AC: Yeah, they’re my best songs I think. They’re the best songs I’ve written over the last twenty years.

MR: On the title track–and correct me if I’m wrong–it feels to me like you’re reviewing aspects of being a man. In some respects, they’re sort of like apologies, but in other respects, they’re simply what you get because that’s what a man is.

AC: You know, really the last thing I want to seem is uncooperative. But I cannot get myself to talk about these songs themselves. I can talk about the process or I can talk about my gigs, but to go into the meaning of the song or what was intended–these are things that I’m going to sound like I’m phoning it in. And my job is to be really sincere and real. All I can tell you with that song is that the theme of becoming a man and assuming responsibility is important to me.

MR: That’s cool. Adam, you had producer Patrick Leonard with you on this project.

AC: Patrick Leonard–the great Patrick Leonard–is the person who is most responsible for this record coming alive. You know, he financed this record. He convinced me, he snake charmed me into having the courage that was so glaringly missing in making this record.

MR: What was the recording process like?

AC: He had really strict rules for how we were going to make the record. The conditions were that I had to sing and play guitar on one mic played at the same time in a room by musicians, and if we didn’t get the song in three takes, we had to move on. We’d be limited to one or two overdubs per song and most of which we used for strings and a brilliant harmony singer by the name of Jennifer Warnes. She’s well-known and rather beloved in some circles, and we were lucky to have her. And you know, the goal was to really capture something instead of create something.

MR: Right, and of course, Jennifer’s Famous Blue Raincoat was the album on which she covered many of your dad’s classic songs.

AC: Yeah, she’s great.

MR: Personally I feel like she’s one of the most underrated singers and artists. She always knows what material is perfect for her to cover.

AC: Yeah, she really understands her voice, what it does, what it evokes. She’s a pro.

MR: Let’s talk about the arrangements. You had a quartet.

AC: Yeah, the Sonus Quartet. The arrangements were written by Patrick Leonard and Sonus Quartet, which are three exquisite young ladies and a sweet and fine gentleman. They came in and got the papers, the arrangements from Patrick Leonard, executed it and overdubbed themselves once or twice. They’re glorious, really sensitive sort of avant-garde, sweet little arrangements.

MR: The pre-release buzz on this album is really good. I went to South by Southwest and I saw posters of you, so somebody’s doing their job.

AC: God I hope so, because it’s been a really, really rough trajectory up ’til now, and I didn’t think I’d even make it this far. So to be standing this close to the entrance of the bakery while having waited on the proverbial bread line this long, I hope I get in!

MR: (laughs) Do you have any kind of feel for how your dad feels about your records or your writing or this album?

AC: Yeah, he loves it. He loves them. He’s incredibly supportive.

MR: Nice. A proud papa.

AC: I think he recognizes that I’m doing my finest work and that I’ve experienced a kind of reinvention, a resurgence, rebirth, or regeneration.

MR: To me, even though electronic pop was popular, at the Grammys, Adele’s soulfulness and simplicity were also rewarded. Do you feel that there’s now a desire to get back to a “real” or “warm” approach to music?

AC: Um, I feel like Adele is a sensational artist, and I’m so glad that she across the board is recognized for being great. I don’t know that if the appreciation that people have for her is symptomatic or emblematic of the times that we’re in. But does that address your question at all?

MR: Yeah, it does. So, in other words, you think it’s just people appreciating it, it’s not so much a new trend that’s going to be happening.

AC: No, I don’t think that she is an emblem of this sort of dire times that we’re in, that people are affixing their interests or love to her because of how impoverished or artificial the times are. I think she’s great for all the right reasons. She just is great. She has one of those voices that’s hardwired to the heart and she makes you believe. Those voices don’t come around that often, and when they do, people tend to clamor around it. I mean, the last one that came around like her was someone who’s no longer with us, and that’s the girl in Britain who passed away. Mark Ronson made her record. Amy Winehouse had this incredible and remarkable voice, and I don’t think it’s the style of what accompanied her and how that style was playing to or against the sort of current trends; it was her voice. And Adele has that. She’s just magnificent. And the fact that she’s not some pinup model, that’s even better for the story, because it’s like we have to like her for who she truly is, not what she looks like, not what she genre she belongs to. And, I think we’re also seeing a backlash against shoe gazers and the tragically hipster bands that end up on Saturday Night Live orLetterman and suck.

MR: That’s a very good point.

AC: We want context, not style.

MR: Well, this is an interesting point. Now that we’re at this moment where we’ve been talking about artists like this, and you might have just covered it, what advice do you have for new artists?

AC: Advice I wish had been given to me is what I’d give, which is to say there is no consensus about what is great today. The only consensus there seems to be is that there was an era in which stuff was truly great, and that ranges from the ’60s and mid-’70s. And those people, we all agree, were great, and belong to some sort of golden era of recording, and represent a kind of truth and social consciousness and vulnerability. What those records have in common is that they were not made for format. They were not made to get onto specific radio stations. They were made by artists who were encouraged by institutions. They were made by artists who didn’t expect overnight success, but were career artists who didn’t go onto some television show hoping to be recognized overnight and sensationalized. They worked at their craft. But more importantly than anything, they were not scared to be truly themselves, and that sounds like one of those clichés that goes in one ear and out the other because it’s so overused, it’s like we squeezed the meaning out of the sentence.

But if someone had just told me, “Hey man, be yourself–don’t try to make an impressive record, don’t try to make a record where you’re going to be seductive, just really be yourself,” but who was I? I was the son of my father. I was a young man. I was, in many ways, given the opportunity to have a coming out party that I squandered by wanting to sound slick or sound big or sound this or sound that, whereas the kind of vulnerability and the denuded approach of any artists, you know the problems with their voice, the problems with pitch or the problems with their time are the true revelation of some kind of situation that they found themselves in. Those are the things that we really, really resonate with.

MR: Nice, beautifully said. That’s one of the best answers to that question I think I’ve ever heard.

AC: Wow.

MR: (laughs) What is the immediate future for Mr. Cohen?

AC: I’m going to continue trying to peddle my little project with as much dignity as I can. And, you know, it’s hard. It’s so seductive, this lifestyle and this gig–having people call you and being on stage, seeing your posters on streets and in stores. You can easily be seduced that you actually mean something, but you don’t mean anything until you mean something. How you become to mean something is a matter of a kind of devotion, and I’m trying to be devoted. I’m trying to be faithful to my record. I’m trying to continue learning, I’m trying to continue to be humble, I’m trying to be sober, and I’m actually really enjoying the ride. To answer your question more specifically, I hope to continue along the path that I’ve found, which is brand new to me.

MR: Beautiful. If there’s one description or way that you feel when you listen to Like A Man–and this may even be partly when you listen to it back, perhaps with a glass of wine or whatever, sitting in front of a beautiful stereo system–well, what is your take on it as a whole?

AC: I love it! I’m just so surprised that it was even made at all. I was so disillusioned with my career, so lacking in the confidence that I would ever record something that was meaningful or that would show how good I think of myself as because I had failed so many times before. The fact that this record exists and that my son can consult it the same way I consulted my father’s work and know that daddy doesn’t suck–in fact, daddy’s pretty good–it’s just a tremendous, tremendous feeling.

MR: Well you know, with that I’m wishing you all the best with your new album. Personally, there are so many songs on this project I can relate to.

AR: Awesome. I really appreciated the endorsement, and you know, I am fully aware of the fact that I can’t do the job I’m doing without your interest and time and questions, so I appreciate it.

MR: Adam, thank you so much for talking with us.

AC: My pleasure.

Transcribed by Kyle Pognan