A Conversation with Bruce Hornsby – HuffPost 10.25.12
Mike Ragogna: Today, we’ve got one of my heroes on the line, Bruce Hornsby.
Bruce Hornsby: Wow, that’s pretty nice of you, Mike.
MR: It’s all true.
BH: Where in the Midwest are you?
MR: Fairfield, Iowa, which is sort of relative to Iowa City and Des Moines.
BH: Fairfield, Iowa. I came to Des Moines in 2000 for Dollar Bill Bradley. Bill Walton and I were his shill–his opening act. I had had quite a time in Des Moines. We just played in Des Moines actually, just a few months ago at the Val Air Ballroom, a classic old joint that we just loved. We had the greatest time playing there. I haven’t played Des Moines since 1987 but I hope to come back soon to the same place because it was just a big party.
MR: Bruce, get back here, and if you don’t mind, get to Fairfield!
BH: How far is Fairfield from Des Moines or Cedar Rapids?
MR: From Cedar Rapids, it’s only about an hour and change, and from Des Moines, it’s a little less than two hours.
BH: We used to play in Cedar Rapids in the early days of The Range, because one of my old schoolmates from Miami, a guy named Pete Harris, is from Cedar Rapids, so we used to play his hometown gig in ’87, ’88, ’89. I knew Cedar Rapids pretty well, but I’ve never been to Fairfield.
MR: Well we’ve got to get you here, sir, to see our radio station’s solar array and also to play a place called The Sondheim Center. We were the first facility named The Sondheim Center actually, and I think that now there are three.
BH: What’s the connection?
MR: We have a musical director, Randy West, here who is friends with Stephen Sondheim, so he was able to arrange it.
BH: Okay! Well, we’re sort of having our Sondheim-esque attempts these days with our play that I think you know about–SCKBSTD.
MR: That’s right, a perfect excuse to interview you about that one, too.
BH: Well, we’ll do an interview when there’s more to talk about. But there are some things, some quiet, very interesting and potentially amazing things going on where SCKBSTD is concerned.
MR: SCKBSTD. Not your typical musical title.
BH: We changed it for a while. I bowed to the pressure of Broadway producers who think that SCKBSTD is too incendiary and controversial, that Maude and Myrtle would come to New York and want to see a Broadway play and SCKBSTD would be offensive to them. My experience would be the exact opposite of that. So I allowed them to change it for a while, but now we’ve changed it back. We’ve reclaimed our play from the people who are too safe.
MR: Right on. See, that’s why you’re my hero. And Sickly Illegitimate Child just wouldn’t work.
BH: [laughs] That’s right, there’s not much of a ring to that.
MR: Hey, you’re the ambassador for Spike Lee’s movie Red Hook Summer in addition to the director. As an ambassador, can you give an overview of what the adventures are for this poor thirteen year-old from Atlanta who gets stuck in Red Hook?
BH: Well he’s not really stuck in Red Hook, his mother takes him up to spend a summer with his grandfather, who, it turns out, used to be in the Atlanta area as a preacher, a pastor. He really doesn’t want to be there, he’s not too into the whole religion scenario that his grandfather is very involved with, and it sort of forces him to work around a church and pass out fliers in the Red Hook area trying to promote functions at the church. He befriends a young girl who also attends the church. There’s a lot of church in this. There’s the great Jonathan Batiste, a great New Orleans keyboard player who plays the hell out of the organ in the church. The church scenes are fantastic. Clarke Peters is the lead as the grandfather and I don’t know if you’re familiar with Clarke Peters, but he’s really famous for having been the lead on The Wire and also one of the leads on the HBO show Treme, with the New Orleans milieu. So anyway, I can’t really give it away, although there’s a great shock that occurs later on, a shocking development that occurs later on in the movie that sort of turns the whole scene. It turns the story around in a very dark and interesting way.
MR: And I hear that Mookie’s back!
BH: Yeah. You know, to me… when they showed it at Sundance, there was a lot more Mookie in there. Spike felt he needed to make it shorter and he did, and I think the cuts he made did not hurt the story, they probably helped the story. They tightened it up, but they cut out a fantastic scene of Mookie. A monologue with Spike as Mookie talking about the proper way to deliver a pizza. It’s just fantastic. Hopefully, on any DVD that comes out, they will include these cut scenes.
MR: Yeah, I’m starting to get into Blu-rays for the endless bonus material.
BH: Well, I’m a bit clueless. I’m still getting past Betamax.
MR: [laughs] So you’ve got that soundtrack, and the release date is… well, it was July 31. Uh-oh.
BH: [laughs]
MR: Oops! I’m a little late on this one, sorry.
BH: Actually, I think it was more Aug. 31. July 31 must’ve come and gone with no release, Aug. 31 would’ve been more like it. I’ve been doing some solo concerts, sort of a Red Hook Summer Fall tour promoting the record, but it’s mostly just an excuse to play solo, because I love to do it. Really, there aren’t too many record stores anymore. Maybe at Barnes and Noble you can get it, certainly at Amazon.
MR: Bruce, these tracks are mostly instrumental, with the exception of a couple.
BH: It’s really a nice record to put on in your house. It’s really the first solo thing I’ve ever recorded that’s strictly solo. I like it, I think it’s sort of one of those sort of mood music records.
MR: Are you on tour?
BH: Yeah, it’s just eleven days. I just did five, ending up in New York for a sixth concert as a tribute to the great Levon Helm. I was a part of it at The Meadowlands in New Jersey, now called the Izod Center, the old basketball arena. The old Brendan Byrne arena, actually. So I’ve got six more concerts to do around the country here and there.
MR: Bruce, I know Levon was kind of special to you. Can you share some thoughts about him?
BH: Well, I have a lot of thoughts about Levon. Every time I was around him, you couldn’t help but start laughing. There was always a crazy, funny old story or a joke. He was a guy kind of like I am, ready to laugh, ready for the yuck. I guess you could say we were kindred spirits in that way. I loved playing with him. He had a deep groove and of course his voice was one of the great voices; totally unique. I’ve been real lucky to work with incredibly unique voices, whether it was Levon Helm or Spike Lee, and they come from very disparate backgrounds. A lot of people are drawn to people who have completely original or completely unique takes on music or film or any art. So yeah, from Levon to Spike, it’s a great, broad musical life.
MR: What was it like working with Spike this time around?
BH: Well, I’ve been working with him for a long time. We’ve known each other for twenty years. I first worked for him, oddly enough. Branford Marsalis, Jerry Garcia, Rob Wasserman and I did some crazy space music for some Levi’s jeans ads that Spike was making in 1991. We were out there rehearsing at Front Street, the old Dead studios when I was playing with them, and we recorded this crazy space music that he used. Then I was introduced to Spike by Branford and then we decided to make the video for my song “Talk Of The Town” for the Harbor Lights record.
MR: That’s right, yeah.
BH: So I first worked with him, then in ’92 on that, then he asked me to write the end title song with Chaka Khan for his movie Clockers in ’95. That was the end title song, and we made a video for that. He made a video for my record Hot House in ’95, a song called “Swing Street.” Then in 2001, I wrote another end title song for him for his movieBamboozled and it seemed like every five or six years, he was calling me to do something. Then, about six years or so after Bamboozled, he called me, asked me to score the Kobe Bryant documentary for ESPN that he was making called Kobe Doing Work. So that was my first full score. I did that, then he asked me to do my first feature film score for him — or for anybody, for that matter — which was Red Hook Summer, and now I’m working on his next one Oldboy.
MR: Nice.
BH: We’ve been working together for years. I just think Spike gets what I do and I certainly get what he does. I’ve been a fan for years. Like I said, I think he’s one of the true originals in film. He has such a distinct point of view and an interesting way of making movies. He’s pretty much an unswerving artiste. He really has his own vision and goes to whatever lengths it takes to achieve that vision. I totally respect him. I’ve been moved so many times but what he does and has done. There are so many films I could mention — Get On The Bus, Malcolm X, Jungle Fever, Crooklyn; certainly the movies I’ve worked on. Clockers is amazing, a fantastic movie. Obviously, the old ones, She’s Gotta Have It, is a scream. Do the Right Thing… I could just go on and on.
MR: Yeah, and thank God he threw the Kobe Bryant piece your way or otherwise you’d have no exposure to sports.
BH: [laughs] Yeah. Well that’s something that Spike and I have in common. I’ve gone to Knicks games with him — hell, we went to see our mutual friend Allen Iverson when he was playing for Georgetown at The Garden. Wow, this is a long time ago. Early nineties. Right, we definitely commiserate on the sports level.
MR: Dude, I have to tell you, we have to dethrone Kevin Bacon and make it Six Degrees of Bruce Hornsby.
BH: [laughs] Well, I don’t know. I’ve met Kevin Bacon once or twice. I remember meeting him on an airplane with his beautiful wife. I don’t know Kevin, but I’m sure there’s probably a couple of degrees of separation between Kevin Bacon and me.
MR: And, of course, you know Kevin Bacon. [laughs] So you’re working on the new musical, Sick Bastards…
BH: … and the new Spike story.
MR: Right, the new Spike story, but are you working on, oh, I don’t know, another Bruce Hornsby project with full lyrical songs, all that?
BH: Well, yes and no. I am writing songs with Robert Hunter. I wrote one for my last record with Hunter called “Cyclone,” which I love, and I wrote another one that we’ve been playing called, “Might As Well Be Me.” Hunter sent me some lyrics — you know who Robert Hunter is, right?
MR: Oh, yeah.
BH: Okay, good, because a lot of people don’t know Hunter’s a great lyricist. He wrote so many great songs for The Dead. New Year’s Day of this year, I got an email from Hunter: “Happy New Year, here’s some words.” I loved that. I love his writing, so I’ve written another one with him and now I’ve written another one with him this year called “Tropical Cashmere Sweater.” We’re still working that one up, we haven’t had a lot of time. I hope to continue working with Hunter because I love it. And I’m working with my Sick Bastard lyric partner, my old childhood friend Chip deMatteo. We had a band booking company called Zappo Productions in our junior high school and high school years, where we would only book the worst bands in our town. We’d only book a band if they were terrible. We had a lot of fun with that. We reserved the right to name the band. We had such bands as The Benign Tumor, The Uncommon Cold, Polly Nomial and the Logarithms. That was sort of a “Chick Singer” band, quote unquote.
MR: Is this the kind of humor you and your brothers would be slinging when you were kids and it just stuck?
BH: Well, yeah, my friend deMatteo and I still consider that we’re doing Zappo Productions, just on a higher level here.
MR: [laughs]
BH: A lot of the SCKBSTD songs are attempts at humor. As we get older, we just like to write funny stuff with weirder chords.
MR: Bruce. The traditional question. I’ve asked you two other times, but let’s do it again. What advice do you have for new artists?
BH: Oh boy, it’s so hard now. I get a lot of — I was going to say “tapes,” but I don’t get too many cassettes anymore. I get a lot of CDs and people sending me things on the Internet. I find that the level of musicianship is pretty good. it’s pretty strong. The people sing well, sing in tune, the players play solidly, but I guess this ties into the sort of theme of the day, when we were talking about Levon Helm or Spike or many other people I could mention. Robert Hunter or Garcia, all these people have something in common: They are original voices in whatever they do. They have a unique take, a unique point of view, a unique perspective on what they’re writing about and a unique way of performing this if they’re performers, whether it was Garcia or Levon or Spike in his film making. That’s what I find mostly lacking is a sense of artfulness, a sense of style and uniqueness of style. We see on TV all these music competitions, these singing competitions and it’s all about the great melodramatic moments [hums soulfully] you know, all that sort of thing and you go, “Well that’s great, and it’s very skillful and nice technique there,” but it’s sort of generic now. Everyone does it. It’s a lot of style and not a lot of substance. A lot of flash. And so I guess I would encourage people to dig deeper on an intellectual curiosity level and broaden their horizons in every way. If they’re songwriters who write words, read the great writers. Be inspired and broaden your horizons lyrically, and musically, the same way. I’m a lifelong student and I’m always looking to be inspired, looking for the next inspirational area to deal in, the next area that inspires me. Some of my fans wish the area that I’ve moved into lately I wouldn’t be into, which is modern classical music, which is very dissonant and chromatic. There’s a lot of utilization of chromaticism in harmonic language, meaning, you know, “weird” to people, not straight and safe.
MR: You’ve always been adventurous, and you got more adventurous once you started doing the more focused solo albums.
BH: I’ve never been interested in being that guy who was the reliable record-maker who was going to give you that same feeling and that same musical style every time. I did that my first two records and then moved away from that forever. Anyway, getting back to what I said, this is a long answer but it’s a complex answer because it’s a complex area, but actually, in the end, it comes down to something very simple: Prize uniqueness. Search for yourself, don’t search for commercial success. The least commercial tape I ever made was the one that got me signed to a major label. I’m a sort of walking example of this idea.
MR: Nice. Yeah, there’s a guy who reminds me of you as far as he literally climbs into the piano and plays the soundboard and he’s also playing chords and chord structures that are not similar to what you’re doing, but he has the same sort of spirit as you. He’s a guy named Marco Benevento.
BH: Marco! Yeah, he played with us in New York last year. He is very adventurous and forward-thinking. Yeah, I like Marco. His band’s great.
MR: Yeah. He reminded me of you and where you’ve gone. Okay, I think we’re going to wrap it up here, but what do we still need to know desperately about either your new soundtrack for Red Hook Summer or the movie itself.
BH: You desperately need to know that I was influenced by the great modern classical composers, like Ligeti from Hungary. He’s got the Ligeti Etudes, definitely an influence on this music in a couple of spots. Also the great composer and arranger Claus Ogerman. There’s actually a piece you’ll see called “Ogerman” because the chord structures reminded me of Claus Ogerman and his work with the great jazz pianist Bill Evans. Since there’s a lot of church in this film, there’s a good bit of church in the music. There are two or three very hymn-like moments. So for people who like the hymnal, there’s definitely some hymnal-esque moments in here.
MR: Including, you might say, “Hymn in C”?
BH: I think that’s clearly one of them.
MR: [laughs] All right, Bruce. Again, you’re one of my heroes. I really appreciate you continuing to make music through the years and being a voice the way you continue to be. You’re great.
BH: Well I appreciate it, Mike. Thanks a lot.
Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne