A Conversation with Jackie Greene – HuffPost 6.29.10
Mike Ragogna: There are a few songs on your new album that come off as anthems. For instance, a song such as “Shaky Ground” seems to be saying everyone’s on shaky ground, so try your best to navigate it.
Jackie Greene: There’s that, and it also weaves through different stories. It’s one of those songs that I didn’t really have trouble tying it all together, and it sort of came at the very last moment. And, in my mind, it’s all about the, “it all goes around part,” for me.
MR: What’s your approach when you go into the studio and make your records? Is it basically just fleshing out your songs, or do you have a clear concept of your sound and what your album should be from the beginning?
JG: Well, I guess it’s a little push and pull of both of those things. It would be one thing if it were more of a science experiment in that, all the albums were made in the same place with the same people, but they’re not. So the consistency part, I think, is just me and the way I do things. I guess it’s pretty normal, it is me making the record after all.
There are definitely some songs that I would have more of a clear concept of what they should sound like, what they should feel like. But, having said that, I’ve always been really, really open to seeing what happens to a song after we put it under a microscope in the studio and have at it. It’s a little bit of both, like I said, it’s sort of a push and pull thing. I might be pulling one way for this song and then it really wants to go another way, so I have to give in to the song because I feel like a lot of them know what they want, the songs themselves. They usually win.
MR: Though I wouldn’t classify you as a blues artist, I would say you can hear the blues in your music. And during your career, you’ve toured with B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Taj Mahal…
JG: Well, B.B. King is definitely a hero of mine, Buddy Guy, and Taj Mahal as well. When I was a kid, I was really into blues music. I was really into Ray Charles, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and a lot of the British stuff like Cream and Zeppelin, and stuff like that. And I realized as a young man that it all sort of came out of the Mississippi one way or another. I sort of rediscovered all that stuff on my own, and it was magical for me. A lot of that stuff is deeply, deeply ingrained into how I play and how I sing. At the same time, I really like The Beatles and I really like Wilco.
MR: You mentioned The Beatles. Your song “Grindstone” definitely Liverpools it up a bit, and it’s another anthem about…
JG: (laughs) Yeah, it’s about being bored, having to do the same thing – the day job thing. I haven’t actually had a day job in a really long time, but I do remember what it feels like to do it and to write about it.
MR: The other thing I wanted to run by you was “Medicine.” That song could have come off a little differently, but you took a subtler approach. What’s going on in “Medicine”?
JG: It’s one of those messed-up drug songs. It’s more like a tantrum, you know saying, “I don’t want your bulls**t.” I don’t know, it’s sort of hard to explain… “Stranger In Sand” is a good example. It’s a song that’s literally about the first time I took acid when I was in high school, and it took me years to even think about it. I had this really strong feeling of what it felt like and what it meant about a year ago when I was writing this song, and it’s of an experience that was nine, ten years ago. So, some of the songs on the record are almost–I don’t want to say flashbacks because that’s not what I’m talking about–but I guess they’re remembrances of feelings. And with that song, in particular, I was overcome with what it felt like and that’s what came out.
MR: It seems a lot of people that don’t do drugs anymore or have moved on to other, more positive things, look back at those years and it’s kind of painful.
JG: I’m definitely not trying to tell kids to do drugs, but to be honest, that’s what that song was about. It’s just sort of like, “What do you think about it now?” And I don’t know. What do I think about it now?
MR: It seems like you’ve been on the precipice of -and I hate this term-“breaking” for years. One of your songs, “Honey I Been Thinking About You” from the Sweet Somewhere Boundalbum, should have been a big hit. At this point, when you put out a single, what are your expectations?
JG: I don’t really have any. I gave up on the whole idea of the single a while ago, and to be honest about it, I’ve been “breaking” for like six years. I’m a little older now, I’m turning thirty, and I just realized that there’s always the next big thing somewhere. I’ve heard all that crap, you know, “Come on kid, you’re going to be great. They’re going to love you. You’re going to be a star.” And I used to believe it when I was like twenty-three, but I just don’t care about that anymore. I’m more interested in music, really, and more particularly, the music I’m trying to make. So as far as singles and stuff, they choose those and I have input. They can say, “What about this one?” and I can say, “No, absolutely not.” But usually I say, “Great.”
MR: In a way, it’s almost like you have to let go when it comes to the promotion and marketing games.
JG: Yeah, because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter to me what song they want to try to push to whomever they’re trying to push it to because I like them all, that’s why they’re there. I don’t really favor any of them, you know?
MR: Yeah. Let’s discuss a couple more songs on this record such as “The Holy Land.” Now, that’s a pretty intense song.
JG: Yeah, that’s an intense song, it’s about struggles in the Middle East. There’s a time when that stuff was on my mind a lot, for some reason or another, and I think I must have been reading some books about that topic on the tour because I sort of started writing this tune. I was just trying to put a human perspective on it. It’s not really political, it’s just, “What would that actually feel like?” And it’s awful, obviously.
MR: Lyrics like, “How am I to hear my babes a-callin’ when the death planes fly and bombs come falling down every night?” It’s so intense but sadly, a very true concept.
JG: I don’t know. I’ve never visited. It’s pretty shocking to me, just my imagination of it. I’m a peaceful guy, same as everybody else, but I don’t know…It’s hard to really talk about, I guess. It is what it is, and that’s the kind of song it is.
MR: You mentioned earlier that you’re turning thirty, right?
JG: (laughs) I am. Don’t tell anyone, okay?
MR: Oh, you’re so old. In the title track “Till the Light Comes,” there’s a great verse includes the lines, “my friends don’t know me, cook me in the fire, give me the third degree, I ain’t nothin’ like I used to be.” I don’t know if your getting older was part of the inspiration, but on the other hand I think everybody has that experience as you mature. You find yourself in marriages, in different arrangements, and all of a sudden, you’re either the person who is making judgments about your friends, or you find yourself being judged. It’s almost like a weird human nature thing.
JG: It’s very true for me, you know? Most of my friends around my age are married and have kids or have been married and have kids.
MR: So, Jackie Boy, what’s keeping you?
JG: (laughs) I don’t know. Haven’t found the right girl I guess.
MR: And what kind of girl would you be looking for?
JG: My dream girl is Dana Scully from The X-Files. I’m actually not kidding, The X-Fileswas my favorite show of all time and I was, what, ten or something when it came out. I love Dana Scully.
MR: Well, I loved in a non-restraining order way Fox Mulder’s real life wife, Tea Leoni, ever since her series Flying Blind, but I digress.
JG: Um…what were we talking about? You got me thinking about Dana Scully. (laughs)
MR: And that’s a bad thing? Something about people get older, things change, yadda yadda.
JG: Yeah, people are getting older and they change, it happens to everybody, you know. I’m sort of at that point. Like I was saying, a lot of my friends are married and have kids, and I’m still living on the road. And there is a part of me that does feel like it wants to settle down. When I was twenty-five, twenty-four, twenty-three, I could play a show and stay out all night long and be fine, you know? I can’t, not even close anymore. After the show, I’m asleep within an hour, and if I don’t get my sleep, I’m a wreck. Just in the last few years, it just hit me.
MR: Well, I hear you, brother. And I’d bet “the guy that loved her back in 1961” in “1961” goes to bed early now as well.
JG: He does. That’s a song that’s also sort of a remembrance. In a way, it’s a story of my mother and father. I obviously wasn’t born in 1961, but I think that it’s a pretty common story and a lot of people can relate to that. I wrote that song in literally three hours one night. The feeling was really strong and there was almost no editing, it just sort of spilled out that way. It’s a really simple song, each verse is a different stage of the life.
MR: It’s very sweet. It reminds me of a Joni Mitchell song called “Tea Leaf Prophecy” that had a similar approach to storytelling.
JG: I love that. I love Joni Mitchell, who doesn’t?
Transcribed by Ryan Gaffney