| Page 1 2 3 4 A Happy-Go-Lucky Guy Wandering Into A Shitstorm: A Conversation With Josh Ritter by Ross Langager & Natalia Manzocco Josh Ritter wears many hats: musician, songwriter, historical enthusiast, and avid marathon runner. The Idahoan balladeer’s profile has increased steadily since the release of his eponymous debut album in 1999, and his musical craftsmanship has grown in step. Ritter's early songs are marked by charming pastiches of his dominant influences: Leonard Cohen, the Band, Neil Young, Pete Seeger, Tom Waits, and the always-inescapable Bob Dylan (a comparison Ritter has often balked at). But the breadth of Ritter’s work has spread over time, like a wide Western sunrise blazing on some vast horizon. Whether evoking crackling snatches of Americana in “Golden Age of Radio” (from the 2001 album of the same name) or weaving sparkling narratives of small-town romance on 2003’s Hello Starling, Ritter never loses his charm or his rustic eloquence. 2006’s The Animal Years was a career quantum leap, a nearly impeccable collection of songs that wander through fields, valleys, and foothills in a patient search for love, for hope, for truth, and for God. His latest effort, The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter, marries Ritter's storytelling skill with raucous rock and roll, kicking up a carefree boardwalk jig in response to The Animal Years’ mournful, lonely waltz. In the midst of a blizzard that whited-out the streets of downtown Toronto, Being There contributors Natalia Manzocco and Ross Langager met Ritter in a darkened lounge room in the then-empty Phoenix Concert Theatre. The cavernous side room at the Phoenix (a clear upgrade in size from Ritter's last show at the considerably smaller Horseshoe Tavern) is rarely used, but it's the most convenient place for a chat, despite the fact that the only light in the room comes from a single, stark light bulb over the booth where the interview takes place. Battered, overturned couches litter the floor, an angelic Art Deco mural looms on the far wall, and a quiet buzz from the machinery at the bar hums beneath the conversation. It’s part country-roadside diner, part decrepit riverboat saloon, part police interrogation room - where better to talk to Josh Ritter? Ross Langager: So how's the tour been going? Josh Ritter: Great. All the tours kind of run together, but typically there's the break around Christmastime. But it had been about six months on the road straight. The time has just kind of exploded recently, you know? You just try to stay healthy, play every night, get a good night's sleep. It's funny how you tend to sacrifice certain things that you used to do when you tour, so you can have a good show every night. Natalia Manzocco: How do you deal with six months on the road? JR: I run. I run. Every day - seven miles a day. That helps. And I don't do any serious drugs. [The reporters giggle.] Ross: From that we can keep talking about touring, I guess. You're touring with Emm Gryner, a Canadian singer-songwriter, and I guess I wanted to know about your engagement with Canadian music, since it's Canadian Music Week here. Natalia: The show's not part of Canadian Music Week, is it? Ross: No. JR: Well, I am secretly Canadian. It's all part of the secret. Ross: They want you on that label. JR: Well, I've always thought that most writers I really liked tend to come from places that are secluded, you know? A lot of writing is about entertaining yourself for long periods of time. I grew up in a really small town about 150 miles from the Canadian border, and we had a couple TV channels and a couple radio channels and that was it. And I think part of being a writer is kind of growing up in a certain place where you're forced to be on your own a lot, and I do think that's something I typically tend to share with a lot of other Canadian artists, even though I'm not Canadian. There's a lot of country up here where there's nobody, and I think that spawns good writing. I think people like Guy Vanderhaeghe or Robert Kroetsch or all the great writers that have come out of Canada are certainly more than its fair share. It's amazing. Ross: I had a question about Idaho and being from there. Hemingway's from there, Ezra Pound's from there – JR: Well, Hemingway died there, and Ezra Pound was born there. And Rosalie Sorrels is from there, Doug Martsch from Built To Spill, Nikki Sixx...you know, we've got all of them. Ross: Is there something about, like what you were talking about, secluded places, that inspire creativity? JR: I think so. I've found that since I moved away from Idaho that when I moved back that's a real fertile time in my writing, because I've got nothing else around and I can focus on what I'm doing. And that quietness breeds ambition in my book. You're sitting there with just your writing and nothing else, and you get angry, and you work hard on what you're doing. People like Ezra Pound – he obviously had to get out of Hailey, Idaho – ended up in Ireland and then became a fascist and he went nuts and everything, just like most Idaho people go nuts. It inspires you to dream big. Ross: I read in one of the interviews you did in Edmonton, which is where I'm from… you mentioned something about working on a novel. I was going to ask… not exactly about the process of writing song versus a novel, but what are the differences, and what are the similarities? JR: They're so different. I can't claim to know anything about writing the novel. I'm finding my way in the dark. But I do know that I'm asking myself questions about writing that I never asked about songwriting. For me, I'm doing it as an exercise because there are things in my life that I want to do, that I set out to do, and I'm going to do them. If it's runnin' marathons, if it's writin' records, if it's doin' a novel - I want to experience all of those things, and I want to know about how they work, because they're things that inform my songwriting, which is definitely my main focus of my life. But there's a lot of things that have come out of working on this novel, which is definitely not an easy process. It makes you question how you do other things in your life, and not just creatively. I don't understand it yet, but I'm working my way slowly through it, and it's definitely pretty exciting. I definitely feel a lot more naked with a book page than I do with the song. Page 1 2 3 4 |  |
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