Phosphorescent plays the Duke Coffeehouse tonight. While the band was driving, Matthew Houck took some time to talk with me about the their almost improvisational tour style, Willie Nelson and more.
Andrew Hibbard: You just got finished with South by Southwest. How was that?
Matthew Houck: It was amazing. We played a few shows all of which were really really good.
AH: Did you see anything particularly outstanding?
MH: We didn't get a chance to see any other bands. We were too busy playing. We didn't get to see anything.
AH: Okay. In regards to the Willie Nelson album, I know that's sort of a love letter to Willie. Do you remember your earliest exposure to Willie Nelson and how your relationship to his music has sort of developed?
MH: I don't think I do remember my earliest exposure. For the ones on the record, the majority of them I feel like I've known them for as long as I've known music.
AH: What was the process for selecting those particular songs? Any special relationship or memories?
MH: I mean there's a special relationship in the sense that they were just ... it was really an organic process of knowing which songs to sing. In terms of a selection process, there was never one of those, it was just obvious which ones to do. Once I knew I was going to do the record, the songs were all self evident immediately.
AH: To me they're great covers in that they maintain spirit of the original songs but also sound like you. Was that a sort of conscious process in your recording of them?
MH: Well, I guess so in the sense that we knew the songs so well when we got started. It never had to be a conscious choice of how to make them sound. We recorded them exactly as if they were Phosphorescent songs but we happened to not have written them.
AH: Have you heard from Willie Nelson at all about the album?
MH: Actually I haven't. I heard from his daughter and granddaughter, and they said they loved it. I think they'll play it for Willie. I imagine they will. But I haven't heard from Willie yet.
AH: Are you stilling holding out?
MH: Sure, yeah.
AH: Can you tell me about your "Little Boxes" and Righteous Brothers covers?
MH: I should clarify about that. I've never actually released any of those things. The Righteous Brothers was from something I played at a show just once and somebody put it on the internet. The Little Boxes thing was because they asked for it for that television show. So I never released either of those, they just got around on the internet. Which is fine, I don't have a problem with that. So this is the first time we've officially released covers, with the exception of another Willie Nelson song on a Phosphorescent album earlier [The Weight of Flight EP], "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys," on our second album, and that's sort of when the seeds of this process started in my mind, where maybe we can do a whole record of these songs that have always meant so much for me. So yeah, it was really a Disney experience but as I've said before, I've known these songs for as long as I've been singing songs at all so it wasn't a particularly daunting task to sit down and record them.
AH: Has this tour been mostly oriented towards playing those songs or has it been a mix of the Willie Nelson songs and older Phosphorescent stuff?
MH: Mainly Phosphorescent stuff, but we are recording with the same lineup that recorded the Willie album. We play three or four of those songs every night just because we really like to do it.
MH: They do reconvene as Virgin Forest. So, yeah. We did a tour together because we share members.
AH: So how long has that relationship been there?
MH: Scott [Stapleton], the lead singer of Virgin Forest, has been in Phosphorescent off and on for a long time now. He' been a piano player for the touring Phosphorescnet for three years or so. And the other guys have all ... once everyone was in New York and we were all together as Phosphorescent, and the other guys were into playing on Scott's material as well, 'cause it's really good.
AH: Did you all meet in New York?
MH: No, no. I knew Scott back in Athens, Georgia.
AH: Regarding your different moves, have the places you've lived dramatically affected your songwriting at all?
MH: I don't know about dramatically, but everything that one does affects their songwriting, I would imagine. Certainly that is true for me. So yes. Anything and everything that goes on ends up creeping into the songs, for sure.
AH: How has New York affected it?
MH: I don't know really about living in New York. To be honest, right now I think the thing that has affected it the most is the amount of touring that I've done over the past two years. I'd say well over half of my time in the last year and a half has been on the road. So maybe touring has been a major influence in what I'm writing right now?
AH: How has it manifested in what you are writing?
MH: All of the--I'm not sure what to say--circumstances and emotions and general sort of uprootedness of touring has crept into a lot of the writing. A lot of, I guess, reflection on that kind of life.
AH: Are you taking a break soon?
MH: Yes, kind of. We get off of this tour in about a week, and then have a month off. And then we go to Europe for about a month. But after that, we've got a pretty big break scheduled. I think I'll stay put for about five or six months.
AH: Will you be working on the fourth album then?
MH: We're actually working on it now, but we had to stop in order to come on this tour. I'm actually looking forward to getting back and continuing work on that record.
AH: Could you tell me a little bit about that record?
MH: Yeah. It's the same group recorded the To Willie album. We're recording it in the same space we recorded To Willie. I couldn't be more excited about it. I think it's the best thing Phosphorescent has ever done. I'm really excited about the sounds we're getting, and the songs I think are the strongest ones ever. As far as actually specifically what's it's going to sound like, I don't know yet. But I'm really, really excited about.
AH: Have you been playing any of the songs on this tour?
MH: We're playing a couple of them live. Maybe two or three of them. But, to be honest, not doing that a whole lot because people immediately post stuff on YouTube or whatever, which is fine. But it's a bummer if it's a brand new song and you're just figuring out how it's going to go. Phosphorescent tends to learn stuff in front of people. We don't ever really practice songs before going out on the road. We end up playing some of them for the first time in front of crowds, which is fun. But it's going to be eight, nine months before the record comes out, a demo version is floating around kind of posing as a release or an official version of that song, I think that can be kind of a bummer. But all that said, we've still been playing some of them.
AH: The decision not to rehearse really works for you guys but it's unorthodox. Why do you do that?
MH: It's kind of a practical decision. But these guys are so goddamn good. We're all kind of playing at the peak of our powers right now. I've certainly never played with a better group of musicians. Everyone's really comfortable with doing it that way. Everybody's really comfortable with jumping in there and learning things on the fly, seeing what comes up. Surprising ourselves, basically, is the general vibe. It's just a real pleasure to do that.
AH: To go back to what you were saying about the Internet, how do you feel about the way it has changed how people hear and access music?
MH: I'm 100 percent pro-Internet. If there's any negatives things that come from it, I think they're far outweighed by the fact that...I mean I grew up in Alabama, and I had no access to bands that I think would've been life-changing if I had been able to discover them at a young age or at any time. I think that just the availability of anybody who has an ounce of curiosity about things like this is an absolute blessing. It's a beautiful thing.
AH: What are some of those bands?
MH: Oh God, I don't know. All of it. Truly, all of it. All that was really available in Alabama was mainstream radio--mainstream country and mainstream rock radio. Anything and everything outside of that would have been great to get your hands on, and now you can. It's like, however obscure a band is, if you've got a phone line and an internet thing you can check them out. It's a great thing.
AH: You're rooted in a country tradition, but you are not at all purely country. How do you label yourself?
MH: To be really honest, I wouldn't do that. It's not a consideration that I take into mine. You like what you like. I think it's really my job to just make whatever I think is the best art I can make. As far as genre's that might apply to it or not apply to it, I don't think thinking down along those lines is my job. I guess it's y'all's job. Writing about it and analyzing it, I don't think, is something I should do. It seems to be a dead end for me.
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