A Conversation with Shawn Mullins – HuffPost 10.13.10

Mike Ragogna: Hi Shawn.

Shawn Mullins: Hello Mike, how are you?

MR: I’m pretty good, how are you doing, sir?

SM: I’m doing just great, man, I’m doing just great.

MR: I have to say, I was a fan of your music before The Thorns.

SM: That’s great. Well, I’m just grateful that you even know about The Thorns.

MR: (laughs) The Thorns absolutely was on my radar when it was first issued. Now, you’ve been the songwriter’s songwriter for a long time, care to go into some of the Shawn Mullins story?

SM: Well, I started off in around ’89, trying to write my own songs–I mean, I’ve been doing it since I was in high school, but I started getting a little bit better at it by then. I put my first record out in ’90, and then I kept making records almost every year. There were eight releases, and then Soul’s Core happened in ’98. There were already six studio albums and two live albums before that, and a few of those records are really good too. I’m sure I probably started recording before I should have, but I was just dying to get in the studio and record, you know? I was always wanting to write songs, but I was also interested in recording them and then singing them live for people, so I kind of did all of that. My first real success was in ’98 with “Lullaby,” which started as an alternative hit and crossed into the pop charts. I never had an idea that would happen, but that was cool and it went to #1 on the charts for five weeks. I did another record on Columbia, and then The Thorns happened. Matthew Sweet has always been one of my favorites, and I loved Pete’s work as well. So, when we got together–I think it was around the end of ’02 because I think the record came out in ’03–we wrote all the songs together out on this ranch in Santa Ynez, California, and that was the most fun we had–writing the songs.

MR: Pete Droge and Matthew Sweet, of course, are incredible artists, so it must have been terrific when you got together with them.

SM: Yeah, no doubt. We did that for close to three years–the writing, making the record, and then touring the world a couple of times. We opened a ton of shows for The Dixie Chicks in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, we did a proper tour of the U.S. with The Jayhawks, which was really a great tour, and then it was time for us all to get back to our individual stuff. I started writing in Nashville shortly thereafter, as well as continuing my own recording career, and I wrote a little bit with Zac Brown on the tune called “Toes.” A couple of years later, he got a deal, and it just went to #1 on the country charts last year. It’s just kind of been fun to have this other thing going, with the professional songwriting in addition to doing my own records and touring. I love both of them a lot.

MR: You also had one of my favorite songs by you, “All In My Head,” featured on Scrubs.

SM: Yeah, I actually wrote it for Scrubs. They were looking for a theme song in their first season, and Jerry and I wrote that song and sent it in. They didn’t use it for their theme song, obviously, but they ended up using it in an episode, and then I ended up putting it on a record several years later. Funny how songs can kind of come back to life.

MR: I know. And they used the demo version, right?

SM: They did, they used our original demo version, which is kind of funny because we just slapped it together really fast to see if they’d like the song. They did like it, and in fact, that used it on TV. We were kind of hoping that we would get to go back and record it properly, but I was still pretty psyched that they used it. It’s always funny when you slip someone a demo because they may like that, but you weren’t giving it to them the best way that you could, you were just doing it fast. (laughs)

MR: You also had a song on Dawson’s Creek.

SM: You know, Dawson’s Creek, Party Of Five, and a bunch of those shows in the late ’90s used a ton of songs. I think Dawson’s Creek used four songs off of Soul’s Core. They used “Shimmer,” and I know they used “And On A Rainy Night” and “Lullaby,” so they used at least three. That was kind of fun, and that really helped, actually. It helped get more and more people to know about my music. What’s weird is that I seemingly disappeared after that, but at the same time I’m doing two-hundred shows a year, and kicking as much butt as I could kick without having a major label or a huge hit. So, it was a weird predicament because I never stopped doing anything, but I’ve had so many people come up to me recently and say, “I’m so glad you’re back.” Mostly, I just think it’s funny, but it’s a strange feeling because you’re like, “Wow, I never really went anywhere. In fact, I’ve been trying to hard to stay on your radar.” It’s hard without some kind of major success, and it’s also hard to top or to keep going after having a hit that was that big. I kind of look at it similar to Aimee Mann’s career with ‘Til Tuesday, where she had this huge pop hit in the early ’80s and then she seemed to go away until the early ’90s, when Whatever came out, which is this unbelievable record that her and Jon Brion did. But I’m sure she was doing shows, writing songs, and performing and stuff. I’m thankful that anyone still knows who I am. It’s always a funny thing to go through that, you know?

MR: I guess it depends on how you measure success and what kind of success you are looking for, huh?

SM: Well, the way I measure success, and probably you as well, is probably really different from the masses out there, you know? They’re watching American Idol every week, and that is kind of the pinnacle of success–to be the winner of American Idol. Hey, big things grow and change, and also they’re cyclical. It’s a very similar thing to Star Search back in the ’80s, it’s just bigger. I’ve never looked at my success in terms of how many people know about it. It’s more of how good I’m getting or not getting, and my trying to become a better songwriter, singer, and a better entertainer live. I look at the masters–people that are just great at being onstage acoustic, like John Hiatt or Lyle Lovett, and Shawn Colvin is another one. There are people out there who are just master singer-songwriter-entertainers, and these are people that I’ve always looked up to and studied. And the more shows I do, hopefully, I’ll get better at it. I think that’s how I measure success, you know?

MR: Nice. You and those names you mention are all in a higher caliber of “artist” that I really wish the masses could hear more of.

SM: Thanks for saying that. Those people are like serious masters, and they’ve been doing it long enough that they just keep getting better and better. John Hiatt is the perfect example of these people who just kind of do what they do, and that grow and change, and their audience grows and changes with them. Yeah, it’s not American Idol, but I think that’s just another thing, you know? It’s TV, it’s hype, and sometimes on American Idol, it’s a great artist that slips through and wins.

MR: Yeah, like Daughtry and Josiah Leming, I said sarcastically.

SM: Yeah, I mean there are some great singers that end up doing that, but typically, they’re not also writers or whatever. Working in Nashville as much as I have in the last couple of years, I’ve seen a lot of really great singers that no one may ever hear about and musicians as well. There’s something to be said for those people who kind of transcend all that, stick with it, and don’t try to change what they’re doing according to whatever fad is happening at the time. I think that’s why John Hiatt, Lyle Lovett, Emmylou Harris…well, Emmylou doesn’t write a lot, but what an interpreter of song, you know? She’s one of the best. Her doing a Townes Van Zandt song is one of my favorite things to hear. But yeah, I think they are classic performers, writers, and singers. It’s just that the audience is not the every day masses, and I think that most great art is like that–the masses don’t get it until years later, and maybe they don’t ever get it, you know?

MR: Yeah, a very good point. When you have a choice between commerce and art, in a lot of cases you have to make your choice.

SM: Absolutely. It’s funny, I’m constantly being asked for my music to be licensed in commercials or things that like, and you know, times are hard. I would prefer to have more of the Bill Hicks mentality, which is that no artist should ever support a corporation with their art. But since we’ve had a kid, all that’s changed for me. Of course, I have to be picky about what I support and endorse; but at the same time, we’ve got to make a living as artists, and, obviously, it’s harder and harder to do that with record sales. So, if you’re a songwriter, any way your song can be worked as a copyright is a good thing.

MR: You downplay your level of writing with regards to being in a class with John Hiatt, Nancy Griffith, and the rest. But anybody who can turn a traffic jam in California into a wonderful love song is amazing. You, sir, did just that with “California.”

SM: Listen, I appreciate that, and I do work hard at it. Also, I have to give Chuck Cannon some credit on that because Chuck and I wrote some of these songs on this record, and “California,” in particular, is one that we wrote together and we really both brought it. Often times when you’re co-writing a song, one person is kind of the leader on it, and the other person is filling in the gaps. “California” and “Light You Up,” both of the songs that Chuck Cannon and I wrote, were truly equal, collaborative efforts. I’m glad you like it, it was fun. We were talking about Prince’s “Little Red Corvette” and how we loved that double meaning of a woman and a car, and the whole rock ‘n’ roll imagery, and then I had mentioned that we had done a video of mine, years ago, in an old El Camino, where I was getting to race it down the desert highways. The next thing we knew, we had the El Camino, and then we had a red Trans Am instead of a Corvette, which you obviously wouldn’t want to do.

MR: I especially love the lyrics, “Her stereo was blaring Dylan, The Bootleg Sessions, and oh ‘The Times They Are A Changin” made a pretty good impression. She looked over and caught him smiling. Under the California setting sun they fell in love on the 101.” Sweet!

SM: The verse before that basically uses two cars to kind of describe the characters. You’re not ever sure which one is driving which, but you can kind of take a good guess at it.

MR: Right. Let’s get into “Light You Up,” the title track of this album. Shawn, you know that if you build a man a fire he’s warm for a day, but if you set a man on fire he’s warm for the rest of his life, right?

SM: (laughs) Exactly. I like that, that’s the old “teaching a man to fish” thing taken a little bit further.

MR: But the title track is another great song, can you go into it a little bit?

SM: Yeah, that’s another one that Chuck Cannon and I wrote together. It started off in weird sort of way that has only happened to me two other times out of all the songs I’ve written, which is about eight-hundred songs at this point. It’s only happened a couple of other times where I dream the song or I wake up with part of a song kind of playing as a soundtrack to a dream, and that’s what happened with “Light You Up.” I woke up one morning and I had all that “I just want to write you a…” It had been kind of playing over and over as the background of whatever dream I had, which I soon forgot about, but luckily the song kind of hung out. I sang it for my friend Chuck, and he said, “Man, are you asking me in on that?” Which is kind of a songwriter’s way of saying, “Are you opening that song up to me? Because that’s great, and I want to be a part of it.” And I was like, “Yeah, man, let’s write it together.” So, we stayed up all night in Nashville–typically that’s how Chuck and I write. We don’t do a three or four hour songwriting session, we kind of do it in a day or two, and it’s a very long, drawn out, concentrated deal. I’ve seen so many other writers try to write with the two of us, and it’s a matter of concentration. You have to take breaks, but you have to stick with it, and you’re not satisfied if the song’s just okay, you just keep working on it. You don’t want to take it too far, where you’ve worked it to death because that’s part of the art too, knowing when to quit. I love that song, and Chuck and I write the lyrics to the verses together just staying up, having a little scotch, and just kind of trying to think of the most random things that we could think of that everybody wants, putting it together in a song, and making it rhyme.

MR: So, no surprise, I’m a big fan of yours. I’m also a big fan of Matthew Sweet’s as well as Pete Droge’s. Now, when the three of you got together, that was a celebration for me, when you guys formed The Thorns on Aware Records. You said that was what, ’03?

SM: Yeah, I think that’s when the record came out. We got together a little bit before that.

MR: What’s the story behind that? How did that all come about?

SM: Well, it originally was a writing exercise. Originally, it was myself, Pete Droge, Marshall Altman–who is a songwriter, producer, and has been in A&R for Columbia too–and Glen Phillips from Toad (The Wet Sprocket). It was the four of us originally writing together, and we wrote “No Blue Sky” together, and a couple others. Then, when we sent those demos in, Aware and Columbia all kind of flipped out over the sound. They were like, “Hey, would you guys be into doing kind of a vocal, acoustic band?” You know, we all had to kind of think about it, and Glen Phillips in particular was like, “Man, I just got out of a band, and I’m trying to solo stuff.” So, he punched out of it, and Marshall ended up having another obligation, but Pete and I were into the idea. So, my manager, Russell Carter, asked Matthew Sweet to join in and see what would happen if the three of us wrote together. So, that’s really how it started, and when we wrote together, it was even more magical than before. It was just like the right combination. I have to give Russell Carter credit because he was a big part of it–he and Greg Latterman who really kind of thought this whole thing up. So, that’s kind of how it started. We wrote a bunch of songs together–we wrote twenty songs in ten days, and eleven of them ended up on The Thorns record, I think. Then, we toured really hard for about two years. That was the hard part, I think, for The Thorns. It was just hard because you’ve got three guys that are used to being their own boss, and now no one is really in charge, but we’re all kind of used to having things the way we want it on the road. So, that was the harder part, I think–the traveling.

MR: Yeah, you were three grownups as opposed to three brothers. When bands start out together really young, it’s a different vibe.

SM: Yeah, that’s totally true. We’re three guys with three different types of successes, but we all produced our own records. We all were songwriters and leaders of our own bands, so it was interesting. Matthew really likes to be ahead of the beat, and Pete actually is the other way, where he likes to be on the very back end of the beat–for all you musicians out there, you know what I’m talking about. So, I was in the middle of them on stage, so there was always this like three beat thing happening. It was the funniest thing in the world, and both of them would be yelling at the drummer–not yelling, but going, “Come on, man, speed up!” And the other guy would be like, “Come on, man, slow down!” (laughs)

MR: (laughs) Nice.

SM: Yeah, it was a blast. I love the songs we wrote, and “No Blue Sky” I always felt like didn’t get it’s proper tracking. I felt like it was done too fast on The Thorns record because they wanted it to be a single and they didn’t want it to be too slow. I think we kind of didn’t do it right because we recorded it too fast, and the production was just too big and slick. So, that’s why I put that song on my new record–to kind of do it like I always heard it, which was really stripped down. You know, my drummer is playing with his hands on the kit, and it’s just a very acoustic-based song that way.

MR: Now, you have a song on Light You Up that you’re not the author of called “The Ghost Of Johnny Cash.” Can you talk about what inspired you to cover that song, and also about the song itself?

SM: Well, first of all, I’ve never been afraid to put a cover song on a record. You have to be careful about what kind of cover song you put on a record if you’re a singer-songwriter. But James Taylor’s biggest songs ever were not his songs, and he’s obviously a great songwriter, so I’ve never had a real problem with it. The trick is to pick one that’s right, and I had first heard Chuck Cannon do this song, he was one of the writers on it, and it just blew me away. I just felt like this was the song that we all needed to hear, that mentions Johnny Cash. This is the one that really describes, from what I know–and I’m pretty good friends with Kris Kristofferson, and he’s told me a lot about Johnny–it just nails the whole deal, you know? So, typically, if I’m going to cover a song on a record, it’s one that I wished I had written. That’s part of it, and the other thing is that it needs to fit. We kind of had a place on the record for something like this, so I felt like it was the perfect song to do, and it hasn’t been recorded other than on Chuck’s album. So, I thought, “Hey, here’s an opportunity to get the song out there, hopefully with a lot more listeners too.” I really wish I had written that one, and I love interpreting it.

MR: It’s a great song, and you give it such a personal spin, it’s as if you had written it. Now, “Tinseltown” is sort of a reflection on the L.A. scene and all that. That had something to do with the thought behind this album as a whole, right?

SM: Well, here’s what happened. As the songs were coming together and being written, they just started being written about Southern California, specifically, Los Angeles and Hollywood. It just kind of happened. I didn’t set out to write a record–I never do that. It would probably be an interesting way to write a record, to go, “Okay, this record is going to be about the Midwest.” I just typically start to have themes that roll in, and I start to notice it. This one was definitely L.A. and Hollywood heavy, and I kept asking myself why. I was like, “Gosh, you’ve never lived out there, and you’ve always had kind of a love-hate relationship.” Maybe that’s it, that I am fascinated by it, and I also kind of don’t want to be there for very long before I’m ready to get back home. “Tinseltown” I wrote with Max Gomez, who is a great young singer-songwriter. He’s twenty-three, and he’s out of Taos, New Mexico. We wrote a few of the songs that are on this record, actually. He just has this fresh perspective that’s very hip, and also very old school–his favorite artist is John Prine. He’s a twenty-three-year-old songwriter, and you just don’t have that a lot, you know? So, Max and I wrote that, and you know who I was thinking about? The character in the song who I was thinking about when singing it was Matthew Sweet because he’s kind of a homebody. He lives up in the canyons, he doesn’t really like getting out that much unless it’s something really special, and I was kind of embodying him a little bit when we were writing that song. I was thinking, “Gosh, if somebody wanted to go downtown, down to Hollywood or whatever, what would Matthew say?” He would be like, “Man, I don’t want to go downtown tonight.” So, that was a little bit of an influence on that song–just knowing Matthew as well as I had in the past.

MR: Nice, I got to work with Matthew on a project called To Understand, which was a collection of all his material up to the A&M stuff, and it included the demos for “Divine Intervention” and “Girlfriend,” which, at that time, I think was called “Good Friend.”

SM: Yeah, and it’s really slow, right?

MR: Yeah, it’s a different vibe, but I know what you’re talking about with the home body thing because I was at his house a couple of times when we worked on his collection together. By the way, one of the many enviable things he has is that old Fender Rhodes.

SM: Oh yeah, he’s got so many things and so many instruments. There are two sitars, a real Fender Rhodes, and a couple of different organs. Was he a collector of the “Big-Eyed Children” paintings when you visited him last?

MR: Yes, I think he was. The animation on his early videos were perfect for him too. He really injects himself into his art personally, and I love that.

SM: It is really cool. He’s definitely kind of multi-canvased that way. There’s a lot going on. He’s an interesting guy to work with, and he’s very fast at songwriting too. I remember him coming up with certain lines with The Thorns where I was like, “How did you come up with that just like that?” I typically have to work kind of hard at the lyric before it’s like I like it, so I was always fascinated by that. Melodies tend to come a lot easier for me, naturally. But yeah, I really like that song “Tinseltown,” and Max Gomez is somebody you guys should check out because something’s going to happen for Max. It’s just a matter of time because he’s so talented and such a good guy.

MR: You’ve got it. Send him our way.

SM: Yeah, I will. Also, he’s from Taos, which I believe may be one of the only other solar-powered radio stations in the whole country. I know there’s you guys, and the one in Taos is a really interesting place too. I don’t know if you guys know each other.

MR: Yeah, we know of them, it’s terrific. Let’s talk about that for a second. I don’t know how into it or not you are, but for me, it’s just a bizarre thing that every business and home isn’t using solar power and getting off the grid, especially in the Southwest. The sun is shining virtually every day of the year.

SM: You’re talking about an energy source that, well, we will probably go before it will. I’ve wanted to do a solar tour, and I’m looking for sponsorship this next year to try and do that. Basically, you put on all the concerts with solar power, you’ve got the panels on top of the bus, you’re going down the highway collecting energy, and then the shows can be powered with it. We have done a few shows solar-powered with a company in Atlanta that is a solar-powered recording studio called Tree Sound. Those guys are really, really hip, and they’re into wind power as well. So, that’s something that I’m kind of looking into doing, and I agree with you. I guess it’s because it’s still kind of expensive. The initial buy I think scares people off.

MR: But in the old days people used to invest in things for their home that were as expensive, it’s just that the concept of solar power is a little more complicated than turning on the TV. There is an expense, of course, but if you have to replace your septic system, well, that’s going to be an expense. You have your daily spending rituals and you have your expenses for your home, and my feeling is that this should just be one of them, you know?

SM: Yeah, and in a lot of states, you can get a break by doing that anyway. Obviously, you’re going to save money, but you can also get a rebate to help pay for that initial cost. It’s an interesting thing, I think it will happen, and I think it’s starting to get more and more into the population. I’m hearing more and more people talk about it, and I feel like the more people like me that can tour around the country talk a little bit about it, and maybe even put it into action, hopefully, the better.

MR: It feels like a steadily building thing. Sometimes “green” issues end up being a ten minute concept. But solar power is always discussed, I guess because of the energy crisis that we always seem to be in–aka manipulated prices at the pump–and the real cost spikes of oil.

SM: Absolutely. I think it’s totally building. I don’t think it’s going to go away. It’s been around. When I was a little kid, my brother was really into the idea of solar power when he was twelve or thirteen and had built this little model home that was solar-powered. It was a really cool thing and that was the late ’70s or whatever. So, it’s been around, obviously, a long time. It’s just going to take a little while, but it’s also going to take the corporations. G.E. is one of the biggest solar power companies in America. They have a huge solar power sector, but they need to start talking about that, and commercials need to start happening related to that because, let’s face it, everyone is sitting in front of their flat screen TV at this point. I’ve got to be the only person in the city of Atlanta who doesn’t have a flat screen TV–we just try not to watch it a lot. I like them and whenever I see them, I go, “Wow, that’s so cool. Look how big.” But we just had our son a year ago, and I got to thinking that I’m not sure if I really want him growing up, sitting in front of this massive screen.

MR: Very smart. When you do that solar-powered tour, you come back and let’s talk again, okay?

SM: That would be great. I’m going to keep working on it. I’m going to keep working on G.E.–they’ve got a pretty big base here in Atlanta, and I’m going to keep working on them, to try to help sponsor this whole thing.

MR: It’s important, it just seems like we had a lot of energy to do something once, and now we’re petering out. Like we said before, I think solar power is building, but I just wish there was a little bit more of a national initiative. So, I have a traditional question which is what is your advice for new artists coming up now?

SM: I always love the story I hear that Tom Waits told some kid. Some guy spotted Tom Waits a few years ago, went up to him, told him he was a fan, and said, “Listen, what is your advice for young, upcoming artists?” Tom was like, “Forget about it kid. Go home. Be a doctor. Be a lawyer.” I don’t know if I would say that though. What’s kept me going this long–being in and out of popularity and having my own definition of success–is kind of always trying to remain true to what I’m doing, and not to change with the times. You’re going to find something that you think is really cool, that you can utilize in the studio–an instrument, a sound, or a recording technique. But for the most part, you just need to do what you do and keep doing it. Those are the people that grow and change over the years, but they’re not doing it to follow trends, you know? So, I think the big thing is to do what you do and do it well. For songwriters, you need to be reading because you’ve got to have words pouring in for words to pour out, and I think people don’t even think about that sometimes. Stephen King talked about that in his book on writing. You’ve got to read, you know?

MR: I love how you phrased that, “You have to have words pouring in before you can have words pouring out.”

SM: Yeah, and old school songwriters that I’ve met within Nashville say the exact same thing. You know, the Harlan Howards and the Hank Cochrans. Those guys were old school and they were great songwriters, and they read a ton, you know?

MR: It does seem like a lot of people are reading still–that’s not going away. It just also seems like there is a lot of video game time and having to go through the complete season of whatever television show you’re watching on DVD to compete.

SM: I played video games growing up, and I went to the arcade whenever I could to play Pac-Man and Battlezone, or whatever. But I also loved to read, always, and my dad really encouraged that. I think, just as a songwriter, you need to be able to take in words to pour them back out. It just taps into another part of the brain that sitting in front of a screen and taking in the images does not.

MR: Very wise advice. Sir, You’re smart as a whip, as they say.

SM: Man, thanks so much for having me on. I can’t wait to come and visit you guys (KRUU) again. Maybe when I do this solar tour we can meet up.

MR: Absolutely. Let’s end with a discussion of one of your favorite songs from your new album. What should that be?

SM: I really like “Can’t Remember Summer,” the Michigan auto worker song.

MR: Nice. What’s the story on that?

SM: Well, basically, when I was watching TV at some point, I was flipping on CNN and I saw a helicopter view of a soup line going into a church in Michigan. It was like scenes from the depression, and I was like, “Oh my God, this is really…”–I kind of tapped-in for a second and got that this is a huge thing. This industry that we once had in our country that was driving the whole thing, to a degree, is for the most part gone, and all those jobs are gone. A lot of these people were counting on a few more years, then retiring. So, this song’s about one of those characters. It’s a song sung from that person’s point of view, and it has a chill about it, and you can kind of feel Michigan in the Winter somehow.

Transcribed by Ryan Gaffney