First, he provided the usual, decade-old anti-piracy statement: “If someone pretends that something I have created should be available to them free, they may as well come and steal my son’s bike while they’re at it. I wonder what has gone wrong with human morality and social justice.”

Of course, this goes back to the well-proven argument that, in modern times, piracy can be good, and several artists would be unheard of if it weren’t for free music. An increasing number of fans only spend money on their favorite artists’ albums/tickets/merch because they ilegally downloaded the music first. Townshend half-admitted this (in a bit of a crude manner), by saying: “A creative person would prefer their music to be stolen and enjoyed than ignored. This is the dilemma for every creative soul: he or she would prefer to starve and be heard than to eat well and be ignored.” He even admitted his difficulty of speaking out on the subject, having been clearly benefited by the antiquated record label model: “It’s tricky to argue for the innate value of copyright from a position of good fortune, as I do. I’ve done all right.”

However, Townshend’s speech got really interesting when he touched on the subject of iTunes – footage of which can be seen below:

Pete said that Apple’s service “bleeds” the artist’s work “like a digital vampire, like a digital Northern Rock, for its enormous commission. It decides, ‘we shall take 30%.’” However, he went on to provide suggestions on how to improve iTunes, carrying over certain practices from the ever-shrinking record labels.

First off, he advises starting an “editorial guidance”, by employing 20 A&R people who would tell certain artists, “kindly and constructively”, the ways in which they suck. He adds that artists should be provided guidance towards other helpful resources, instead of sending them to “Blogland”, where a lot of the bad music criticism comes from “people who could just be drunk, or nuts”. [Ed- neither is the case here, at least not at the same time.] In addition, these 20 iTunes A&R employees would also select a group of 500 or so artists every year, which they felt “merited” of support. He suggests giving out computers containing music software to the artists, as well as educating them on how to use it. In addition to that, the A&R people would provide “creative nurturance”, helping whenever possible, and act inside online communities to give the artist notoriety.

Having a small group of professionals telling artists what they should and shouldn’t do is obviously tricky, because, first of all, people make mistakes. Even with all the “drunk bloggers” out there, the internet still provides an endless amount of opinions that can be worth just as much (or as little) as a single A&R professional’s. No amount of “expertise” should have too much influences on the artistic choices a musician makes. Besides all that, A&R people hired by Apple won’t necessarily be immune to external influences (such as bribing), so there’d always be the chance that shitty bands would be picked to get free assistance and Macbooks.

Perhaps most importantly, Townshend stated that Apple should give every artist the opportunity to share their music, with other people, for free, providing all listeners with a chance to “stream” the albums before buying them. But…wait, isn’t that precisely what torrent trackers have been doing for ten years now? Providing entire albums to people who may or may not want to purchase them after listening? Towshend even goes on to say that “bandwith is very expensive,” as the reason to why iTunes provides only a few seconds of preview for each song on its store – yet, he doesn’t mention that torrenting costs nothing to Apple. He adds that The Who’s rock operas Tommy and Quadrophenia would likely never get any support if it weren’t for “renegade radio stations in America playing it, albeit in the middle of the night, all the way through.” Basically, he just said that free music as a way of gaining customers isn’t even a concept from this century.

Sure, everything indicates that music streaming services are the future (and are already diminishing piracy), so Towshend is definitely right in suggesting them. It’s only conflicting to hear it from the same guy who just lashed out the old, tired, inaccurate accusations that “piracy is theft”, when, in principle, it’s the same basic practice of sharing music that’s been helping people get to know new artists for decades now.

The Who played a show at the Gaumont State Theater in London on December 15th 1977, 9 days after I was born. It was recorded on 35mm for the Who rockumentary film The Kids Are Alright, and PBS aired the whole thing for the first time- remastered, digitally restored, the works- last night.

I was astonished.

I consider myself a Who fan; I own just about all their records (except the more recent ones), and my favorite band ever is fronted by one of their most celebrated disciples (Eddie Vedder), who pulls from their catalog frequently onstage, giving the unexposed a crash course in Whoology. I’ve even seen ‘em live a couple times, but that was on this side of the millennium- long after the fire, long after Moon checked out, and way after the group’s original venom lost its sweet potency.

The Kilburn show was the band’s first in fourteen months, and it was evident to all that Pete Townshend was on edge. Clearly irritated with the performance, he ended the solo to My Wife by knocking over a bunch of shit, screaming at one of the stagehands and shoving his amp head off the stack- right at the tech. After a flawless, blistering rendition of I’m Free, he said “This wasn’t worth filming, you might as well send the cameraman home.”

This was not the ornery old man in the wilting horrors of today’s reality- that man was still decades away, tucked into some nightmare vision of the future where tabloids define the political landscape and bands declare war on their fans. This man was still every bit the windmilling, vitriolic living legend in his prime, a bell-bottomed mix of boiling fury and effortless swagger. And he wasn’t happy with the performance.

Who biographer Dave Marsh wrote this about the show: “The Kilburn show was a disaster. Moon hadn’t practised ‘in three years’ (in John’s words), and he was a nervous wreck, distraught at having to face a public appearance in such gruesome physical condition. For the first time, there was no way to conceal his weaknesses: They showed in his potbelly and in his playing. The rest of the band was almost as nervous- it had been fourteen months since Toronto. ‘That was the first time I can remember being drunk before a show,’ said Entwistle. Between their ragged playing and the necessity of stopping and starting while camera angles and lenses were changed, the show was such a negative experience that no one could have blamed them if none of the Who ever took a stage again.” (Dave Marsh, Before I Get Old: The Story of The Who, p.494).

If this was the Who at their worst, I’ll never roll my eyes again when I hear the old-timers lament over “the real spirit” and “how things used to be” in rock n’ roll. Because this rusty, nervous and frustrated band kicks the shit out of 95% of the live acts I’ve seen in my entire life.

Before an extra-somber Behind Blue Eyes, a shifty, purple-sequined Keith Moon addressed the audience: “This is about the only song I don’t actually do main vocals on, to give the other guys, you know… a bit of a go. So I’m gonna go backstage and OD, and I’ll be back in about three and a half minutes. I’ll see you then, thanks.” With less than a year to live and only one more show to play before he died, it evokes a strange feeling to watch him joke about overdosing, furthered in no small part by the fact that he was coked off his tits when he climbed back behind the kit. 

During the intro to Baba O’Reilly, you could see the snare slugger in the dark, backlit in red, miming frantic fills over the intro (without actually hitting anything). Whatever people thought of the show, whatever nerves dominated the evening overall, it was clear in that moment that Keith was having a blast. Sadly, it was the second to last show he’d ever play with the band.

A looser, more stompy rendition of their teenage wasteland classic followed, Daltry’s vocals as gleaming as ever. Marching in place with his muscle shirt and painted-on bell bottom jeans, he was cocky personified- defining an element people like David Lee Roth could only caricaturize in the decades to follow. His self-confidence was blinding, but Lord, when he tore into that harmonica solo… Pete’s pogoing and kicking his feet out like a drunk Russian, Moon’s got a shiteating grin on his face, and the crowd’s going absolutely apeshit.  It’s a moment of pure live energy that has to be seen. And hell, I think I even saw the otherwise-dead-serious John smile for half a second.

Where does this magic happen nowadays? 

Fuck MTV. I can’t remember the last time they played anything resembling music, much less an entire video or performance that wasn’t sponsored on multiple levels, with a neon Taco Bell backdrop and band members contractually obligated to include three Axe body spray plugs in their between-song banter, all while wearing glowing Verizon bluetooth earpieces.

I don’t expect to turn on my TV and find anything that probes beneath the first or second layer. Nothing digs into the meat. Nothing grabs you by the throat, the balls, even the arm. Sure, PBS is trying to sell a DVD of the show for a hundred bucks, but that’s to keep the station up and running, since they don’t rely on traditional advertising. 

PBS fucking rocks.

For most intents and purposes, Moon and Entwistle were the shadow men to Townshend’s guitar-god illuminati and Daltrey’s coiffed peacock- but they were no less a part in the evolutionary principle of rock that the Who stood for. The placement of rhythm instruments at the sonic forefront of the band was a dangerous thing for an act to do at the time- especially considering that their drummer didn’t keep time so much as throw percussive tantrums.

I was halfway through this piece when I discovered that Keith actually died 30 years ago today. The man who defined cheerful debauchery when Van Halen and Mötley Crüe were still pissing themselves, who blew up his drum kit on The Smothers Brothers Show and toilets with M-80s, who drove a car into a hotel swimming pool. The man whose manic, animalistic drumming was the tree-trunk backbone to an incredible sonic movement. Dead. Ironically, the man known as much for his voracious narcotic appetite as his musical accomplishments OD’d on a drug that battles the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal.

Only two weeks earlier, Who Are You was released. The cover is a creepy exhibit in foreshadowing, given that the bloated, fragile-looking Moon was sitting center-frame, on a backwards chair with a back that read “Not To Be Taken Away.”

Understanding fully that Jack White on steroids would pretty much cause the universe to collapse in on itself, I took this news for the slight exaggeration it had to be. But my interest was piqued. I caught ‘em on Conan later that night, and after seeing them tear the shit out of their new single Sneak Out, I understood what my brother was so excited about. I knew we had to talk to these guys.

Rose Hill Drive is a young rock trio out of Boulder, Colorado, whose hellbent revival of classic hard rock and blues riffs with updated arrangements often draws comparisons to 70’s rock bands like Zeppelin and Cream. You know you’re doing something right if you’re mentioned in the same paragraph as the greatest bands of the past 30 years.

The band (Jacob Sproul on bass and vocals, Daniel Sproul on guitar and backups, and Nathan Barnes on drums) has released two albums so far: their self-titled 2006 debut gained the boys a good amount of recognition, but this year’s excellent Moon Is The New Earth is catching on like fire and pushing the band into new markets. However, their biggest exposure and validation came when Pete Townshend and Rachel Fuller invited the band onto their In The Attic podcast. They had impressed the ornery windmill legend with their performance at a festival headlined by The Who, and minutes later found themselves being interviewed by one of their biggest heroes. The artists have since shared the stage together on more than one occasion, an opportunity musicians twice their age would kill for.

We got tracked down drummer Nathan Barnes to get a bearing on what the band’s up to, where they’ve learned from the legends and what it means to be a band breaking into a dying industry.

Antiquiet: You’ve toured with everyone from The Who to Queens Of The Stone Age and The Black Crowes- any particular nuggets of wisdom they passed on that you’ve kept in mind?

Nathan Barnes: Eddie Van Halen told Daniel (guitarist) something that stuck with him, I think. He told him to just be a channel for the music, instead of trying to force creation. We were huge fans of Gov’t Mule in high school, and meeting Warren Haynes… He’s the nicest, most down to earth, humble guy. He treats the fans well, he treats other bands well, and he’s just got such an amazing energy about him. He’s a great guy, and we all learned from him, basically, to just stay humble and focused on the music.

Antiquiet: You recorded and produced your last album entirely on your own, right? What was the setup like?

Nathan Barnes: We did it at Coupe Studios in Boulder. The owner of the studio is a guy we call the Godfather- he’s always been our go-to guy for input on business decisions. He basically gave us free reign of the studio at night, which really allowed us to get to know ourselves in a recording atmosphere. And when we went in and did demos for the record, we hadn’t actually planned on recording the album there, but realized in the process that the formula was right- we didn’t need to go somewhere else or involve some big producer or whatever. We had our sound.

Antiquiet: Where does your drumming style come from?

Nathan Barnes: The first rock CD I got was the Jimi Hendrix Experience. So I guess Mitch Mitchell would be the fist real rock drummer I was listening to, but a lot of his stuff was way over my head in the sixth grade, especially since he’s a jazz guy playing rock. After that, I got into Chad Smith from the Red Hot Chili Peppers a lot. But bands like The Who and Zeppelin and the Beatles… I didn’t really get into them until later in high school.

Anything you listen to with any passion is something that you’re bound to regurgitate in one form or another. A lot of what you listen to goes a way to determining what you’re going to play.

Antiquiet: Your sound translates well with the jam band audience, as well as straight rock and blues rock audiences. Did you set out to appeal to a broad base?

Nathan Barnes: I think it really just comes from the collection of our influences. We grew up on rock bands, and guys like the Beatles and James Brown, but as far as the jam band thing goes, we sorted adapted to that scene. We found out that our manager also did work with Widespread Panic, so he was connected in the jam scene, and we ended up getting booked at a lot of the jam clubs that they book bands at. People took well to our sound, and we learned how to stretch the shows out and change our setlists up. Cause that’s the kind of stuff that those kind of fans really like, and they’re some of the most loyal, devoted fans we’ve ever seen. They’ll come to your show every time you’re in town.

Antiquiet: Given that you’re an up-and-coming band in the industry, how do you perceive the current state of the music industry?

Nathan Barnes: It’s interesting. You watch these labels trying to bring back boy bands, digging up New Kids On The Block and shit…. They’re holding on so tightly to this dying cash cow. Those major corporations aren’t embracing YouTube, they’re not embracing the fact that you can have your music heard by millions of people just by putting it on an FTP program.

And now you’ve got Live Nation doing these big deals with Madonna and Jay-Z or whatever, trying to take another profit angle and get a cut of what bands are earning for themselves. They’re starting to realize that the well’s running dry, and they’re doing everything they can to plug the holes. I think it’s just unfortunate that so many labels are so stuck in their ways, like ‘We’ve just got to stop piracy, it’s just gotta stop.’

Antiquiet: You can’t close that box once it’s been opened.

Nathan Barnes: Exactly. You’re never gonna stop piracy. I don’t know what it’ll take beyond going belly-up to make them embrace this shit.

Antiquiet: When there’s such a wealth of new music out there, how do you stand out?

Nathan Barnes: Our hope is that people will catch on to what we’re trying to do. We’re making music that comes from an honest place, and it’s a representation of us. There are no other agendas, its not manufactured like the fuckin’ Jonas Brothers or some shit. And I think music fans are looking more and more for authenticity nowadays. Choices are important to people, and if something doesn’t rub them right, they’ve got a ton of things to choose from.

Antiquiet: It’s gone back to being all about quality of music and touring now, for the artist anyway. That’s how things used to be, before the record industry, before the singer from so-and-so band was on your TV, eating Taco Bell in his Nike track suit with his Verizon earpiece, telling you to buy whatever the fuck he’s being paid to push. But we take all those things in stride these days. Society has come to expect the mainstream to be full of shit.

That being said, how do you feel about the state of Bush Americana these days? Attention spans aren’t quite what they used to be.

Nathan Barnes: Shit is fucked up, for sure. (laughs) Bad shit is happening, man. But as for the election coming up, it’s good to see speaking about the issues rather than just talking about how much Bush sucks. People are looking to change the way that things are done. You can’t just keep buying into such a failing system, even if it’s still comfortable to give in and do that. I mean, if a guy like George Bush can be president for eight years, yeah something’s off track.

Antiquiet: What does the rest of the year look like for you guys?

Nathan Barnes: We’re home for the rest of the month, but we’re playing the Rock The Vote show on August 29, then we head to Europe for a batch of dates.

Antiquiet: Your New Year’s shows are becoming legendary.

Nathan Barnes: Last year we did Aerosmith’s Toys In The Attic album. The year before that we did [Hendrix's] Band Of Gypsies, and the year before that we did Zeppelin I. I had it easy on that one, cause in high school I drummed to Zeppelin I incessantly, so I already knew every fill on the record before we’d even decided to do it. But Jake was over there, trying to learn how to play John Paul Jones’ basslines while trying to sing Robert Plant’s parts at the same time, and Daniel had to learn how to play like Jimmy Page. So my job was cake by comparison.

Antiquiet: What advice do you have for a kid trying to learn how to play?

Nathan Barnes: I think the most important thing is to listen. I used to just sit with a pair of drumsticks and a drum pad, and I would just hit the pad along in rhythm to what I was listening to. That’s what’s key- you don’t need the best gear, it’s not about how fast your hands can move or how amazing your fills can be. It’s all about your feel and musical ideas.

Put on some headphones and listen intently. Analyze.

The way I see it, Pearl Jam saved it from being completely embarrassing to Who fans like myself. As Pete Townshend told Rolling Stone today, the whole concept was cooked up as a vehicle for fucking Rock Band, which is ultimately a product of Viacom. Tongue in cheek, he compared half assed parody performances by Adam Sandler and Jack Black to the plastic Rock Band guitars “you can’t really smash,” but had good things to say about Eddie Vedder and company.

I texted Johnny Firecloud, currently on a road trip through the Pacific Northwest, to see if he had any insight to add to this piece on his favorite band. He replied, “name any other band who can own someone else’s songs with such passion and ferocity.” And before his texts devolved into indecipherable lolspeak, I got something about Pearl Jam making a case for title of torchbearers for a new generation of classic rock. Which I tend to agree with, despite the discomfort I feel when songs from 1998’s Yield air on classic rock stations.

Down At McDonaldzzz / Electric Six (I Will Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me From Being The Master, 2007)
I love Electric Six and so does everyone I sent this song to. We interviewed lead singer Dick Valentine back in February and had some fun.

Don’t Touch Me (Remix w/ Reek Da Villian, Spliff Star, Lil Wayne, Nas, The Game & Big Daddy Kane) / Busta Rhymes (Blessed, 2008)
Seriously, tell me this isn’t the best hip-hop jam you’ve heard in a looooong fucking time.

666 Conducer / Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (Baby 81, 2007)
BRMC is one of my favorite bands, and I don’t know why they’re not at least bigger than the fucking Strokes.

The Stations / The Gutter Twins (Saturnalia, 2008)
The Gutter Twins is Mark Lanegan’s new band. Saturnalia is one of the best and most overlooked albums of this year so far.

If I Was Your Girlfriend (Live) / Eels (Useless Trinkets, 2008)
There are a lot of fucking Eels fans out there. I’m not one of them. I picked up this disc for one track; the Prince cover (I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man) I originally heard live on Jonesy’s Jukebox on Indie 103.1 here in Los Angeles. The version with Jonesy was far superior by the way, and if anyone out there has a copy, PLEASE send it in. I will love you forever. But anyway, this track caught my ear and it’s one of the cuts I didn’t delete out of iTunes.

Frontin’ On Debra / Beck, Pharrell Williams & Jay-Z (DJ Reset Mashup, 2004)
I found this on vinyl at Amoeba in Berkeley. Throw it on at a party, and you’ll probably get laid.

60 Revolutions / Gogol Bordello (Gypsy Punks Underdog World Strike, 2005)
I finally got around to digging into this band recently. Had been meaning to since seeing the lead singer play Alex in the hilarious and moving Everything Is Illuminated movie (which is highly, highly recommended). You have to love them. Sample lyrics: I’m gathering a new generation / that’s gonna stand up to it- / To this karaoke dictatorship / where posers and models with guitars / boogie to the shit for beats. / I make a better rock revolution / alone with my dick!

Got Ma Nuts From A Hippie / The Fratellis (w/ Pete Townshend) (Attic Jam, 2007)
A random live track that grabbed me awhile back. We did an interview with The Fratellis last week, and we’ll be posting it here soon.

“The first time I saw him was at like 6:30 in the morning,” Joe told me over the phone from a swing on his back porch. “It was raining. Raining hard. And we’re just across from the water here at the end piece of this little stretch of road, but this wolf was sitting at the top of the hill in the middle of the road, right on the yellow line, just laying there in the rain like a king. It was fucking beautiful. That kind of stuff… having the time, slowing down a little bit, it does something for the soul that doesn’t translate in the city.”

That could possibly be the best description of Joe’s music you could ask for. Most of his material sounds raw and immediate, and that’s how it should be. The two-take spontaneity of the songs keep them fresh, allowing for a timeless sense gravity without nostalgia, an unpretentious sense of self-awareness that you don’t find too often these days.

The last four records Purdy’s done have been spontaneous events in London, Paris, Scotland and New York, documenting events virtually as they happened, much like one of his heroes, Bob Dylan, used to do. His  appraoch is a rare delivery of honest immediacy, and it seems to be working. To date, he’s sold more than half a million single paid downloads, and his song Can’t Get It Right Today has likely been all over your TV in Kia ads and Grey’s Anatomy.

The reception has been huge, and the labels are foaming at the mouth to cash in on this would-be-could-be superstar, but Joe’s flatly turned down every offer that’s been made. He releases the records only the way he wants to, and has lucked out like a Vegas champion in the press. But the days of blind luck in the music industry are dead and gone, and now more than ever, people have all the tools they need to uncover the bullshit gristle before they’re tricked into parting with their money. To move the numbers Purdy does, the music’s got to be good, or at least meticulously designed for a particular demographic.

It also takes something more than a quality product to sell more than half a million paid single downloads without a label or any major promotion- it takes common sense. You can go to joepurdy.com and listen to all his records, anywhere you want. Try doing that at the website of any major label. Restrictions, restrictions, restrictions.

Joe took a break from trying to tame the wild beast to talk to us about everything from iTunes and the motivation of heartache, to the importance of finding truth in the music.

Antiquiet: Has the ‘Feist’ effect officially taken hold now? Are you the ‘Lost song guy’ or the ‘Kia commercial guy?’
Joe Purdy: I guess to my cable guy, yeah (laughs)… It’s not so much me that they recognize as the song. Most people still have no fucking clue, but I’ve got no complaints. It’s been really great for me, and I’ve gotten a lot of ‘wouldn’t have found it otherwise’ comments. It’s funny, usually you have to submit for these kinds things, but Kia actually emailed me the commercial and said ‘what do you think?’ And it’s fuckin’ hilarious, and since I really don’t get to be funny a lot with all my sad bastard music, I was like yeah, let’s do it. I don’t get a chance to get laughs very often.

Antiquiet: I read a quote of yours that said TV shows are the new reasons musicians don’t have to rely on major labels.
Joe Purdy: Did I say that? Well, I think it’s true, so I’ll cop to that. For me at least it’s been that way. I wasn’t always so anti-label, I was just anti-being told what to do. What comes along classically with that is being told to change stuff, or the label’s gonna bring somebody in to clean this or that up. And the ownership thing as well- I don’t think anybody should own an artist’s work and make their living off of something they didn’t create. I understand income participation, when you’re helping somebody to get a record out there or a piece of music out there, or like when Brian (Klein, manager) is working my stuff and keeping my entire being together with all the calls he takes and things he monitors and puts together. But when it comes to somebody having a say in what you can do even though they’re not the ones that made it, I have a large problem with that.

Antiquiet: The format’s so different compared to when we were kids. The convenience of access is just light years beyond when we were kids, bugging the guy at the record store every day to find out when the next whatever album was coming out…
Joe Purdy: Exactly, man. Even from just a few years ago, when Lost came out, that was the first placement I’d ever had, I knew about iTunes but not really. It’s not like it was something that everybody used. I had made that Julie Blue record as kind of a personal diary, I made it in 3 days and it was all about my time at the river. Then all of a sudden this thing came up and they want me to do this other version of the song for the show, so I did, and we got it up on iTunes. But people started writing all over these message boards making comparisons to like Nick Drake or John Mayer or whatever, and that was really the only way you could find out about what I was doing. And nobody could go to a store and get it, so people needed a place to find these kinds of things. Now everybody, including my folks, know how to use iTunes. And when a song comes on, you Google ‘Kia commercial’ or whatever, and it pops up a YouTube video, but you’ve also got the website where they give the name and with one click of a button you can sample it and buy it. That’s only been in the last few years, and it’s amazing to me how quickly things move.

Antiquiet: It only took iTunes five years to become the #1 music retailer in the US.
Joe Purdy: Somebody told me that iTunes is competitive not just on the internet level but in retail as well. I could be wrong, but I think it’s Wal-Mart, iTunes and Best Buy in the top three music retailers. They’ve definitely done their thing well.

Antiquiet: It comes down to convenience. There’s millions of people, particularly young people who have no qualms at all about downloading thousands and thousands of albums illegally. That’s everyone from an overzealous music junkie in every sense of the word, to a little kid in his bedroom who’s just heard Led Zeppelin for the first time. iTunes makes it legitimate with the smallest amount of effort. It’s just easy, affordable, and instead of spending $18 on a product that you don’t really know if you wanna commit to, you can buy one track at a time, sample things, it’s ideal.
Joe Purdy: Absolutely, man. It is.

Antiquiet: I think you’re a shining example of the best case scenario, in that you just fell into the slipstream of the new world. You’re suddenly all over the place. 
Joe Purdy: Yeah, I have been really lucky and blessed. You know, overall, including iTunes, it’s gotta be a rough time for the label guys, trying to figure out ways to stay alive in this day and age. If they want to keep any integrity about what they’re signing at all, it makes it hard to feed their families. I get all that, and it’s a real bummer, but at the same time this new world has weeded out so much bullshit- it’s about weeding out the bullshit A&R guy that slipped by on some slimy shit. Weeding out and leaving the ones that truly know their shit with the music. The record company people that survive are the ones that, for the most part, I think really have had their heads and are true music lovers, still in the mix, wanting to find good stuff and wanting to put it out for people.

But a great example is what you were just talking about- being able to get one track instead of an entire record, that weeds out a lot of bullshit. It does make a difference. It would’ve made the difference for me in a lot of instances on whether I could own a piece of music or not. Because back in the day I didn’t have the money to own a CD that I wasn’t sure about. But now if you like tune, you can go get it, and you can get one at a time. It truly does weed out the bullshit.

There’s obviously a thick saturation of music, because everybody can do it with the new digital world. But at the same time, they can sit there and exist, but they’re not going to climb unless it’s good, unless it’s something worth having. People are a little more savvy then then used to be.

Antiquiet: Sure, there’s a quality filter, for sure. What do you say to somebody who thinks that the record company’s problems lie in the fact that they’re no getting behind the idea that the artist should release smaller, more focused bursts of music, like a series of EPs?
Joe Purdy: It’s hard to know because, for me… (laughs)

Antiquiet: You run with a totally different format, you’re just a songwriting juggernaut.
Joe Purdy: Yeah, I just write songs, man. That’s what I do. And I love records. I love concept records, I love a group of songs that sound like they belong together. Like Willie Nelson’s Red Headed Stranger- that’s a story, through and through, how do you fuck with that? That’s the good stuff. And like Blood On The Tracks. That record’s the quintessential heartbreak record. When you’ve been through that thing that you thought was gonna kill you, that’s when you’re ready for Blood On The Tracks. And you listen to every one, you listen to Idiot Wind when he says “You’re an idiot, it’s a wonder you still know how to breathe,” all the way to “If you see her, say hello, she might be in Tangier.”

So that kind of stuff, I mean I’m a romantic at heart in those kinds of senses. I grew up listening to records, and I still listen to records, and it’s mostly older stuff. I’ve had my pop’s old record colleciton, and that’s what still plays in the house. That’s the stuff I love. Anytime somebody wants to put something out, more power to ‘em. That’s great. But for me, I can’t stop every four songs to make up a cover. It’s not in my blood. If I’ve got a full, cohesive thought it’s gonna take a good ten songs.

Antiquiet: Speaking of, where do the songs come from? What’s your motivation?
Joe Purdy: I guess I really don’t know. But it’s the one thing that I realized I could just do. I guess I had a goal, where I wanted to make ten records before I turned 27. I was on a real race to do that, so every trip we took… we made one in Paris, one in London, one in New York, one in Scotland… that’s the one we’re mixing right now. New Mexico, LA… I don’t know. I didn’t figure out that I could write a song until I was like 21 and I was out in California. But once I figured that out, I wrote a record that week and recorded it like a week later, and that was my first record. It hurts my ears now, to hear my singing back then, beacuse I never sang in front of everybody, either. I’d do back-ups or play guitar in a band, but I’d never been a lead vocal guy or anythign like that. But ever since then, I mean… I had 21 years to write about during that time. I had a lot of hometown shit from way back to write about, a lot of stuff, and then I really started doing some major living in between then and now, and got to travel the world a little bit on it. Got caught up in lots of funny situations, lots of great situations and heartbreaking situations, and just tried not to be afraid to live, and do it every day.

That was a great thing about the way the guys were doing it back in the day. My feelings on even like Dylan, why he was so prolific… Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again- I mean, he took the time to write it down. However crazy his trip was, whatever happened in that single night, he took the time at the end of the night to write it down. He didn’t just pass it up and go to the next time. He didn’t just let it go and go play a bunch of shows and fuck off. He took the time to always make the art. I’ve always had a format like that, ever since I felt like I could write a little bit, that the art was what it’s all about. I enjoy making art, and I want to make as much good art as I can before I die. So that’s the main goal, and if that stays the main goal and I still enjoy it, then like, so far everything else has just fallen into place.

Antiquiet: I came across a YouTube clip of you playing Bye Bye Love with Pete Townshend in Chicago when, last year?
Joe Purdy: Yeah, that’s right, that’s right.

Antiquiet: That was fantastic, but Let My Love Open The Door was great. That blew me away.
Joe Purdy: Yeah, that was fun. That was a lot of fun to do.

Antiquiet: That’s just one of those performances that knocks you on your ass for a minute. It’s a perfect example of music that just reaches right to your core. 
Joe Purdy: Thank you man, that’s great. I always loved that tune and that melody. And anyone who gets together with Pete wants to do the Who stuff, and it’s all love, but I was like man, what can we do to completely change it up? Cause he’s just this massive rock star, but also a great, sweet fella, and I was like, let’s just do something a little different, let’s slow it down to a blues folk number and see what happens. And it just happened to work out. The funny part about the bridge though, ’cause scientists have maintained for years that chords have never been found for that one. We were both playing a thousand different things, but then you make it through the bridge and it gets back to the easy part and you’re like “yeah!”

Antiquiet: Paris In The Morning is such a beautiful title for an album. How well does the title’s gorgeous melancholy represent what you were feeling when you were making it?
Joe Purdy: Oh thanks, man. It was a fine time. It was the best of times and the worst of times, but it was good. I ended up there after a record I made in London about the same girl. I had her come out, and we had this great time there. First time I’d ever seen it, and it was really special. And a few months later, I took the boys back there to make a record about it. So yeah, there’s a succession there. You Can Tell Georgia was kind of about the beginning of that, and, you know, not giving a shit what people thought. Just… that epic kind of love. And then moving on into the heart of the good stuff with Paris In The Morning and the, you know, the start of the demise. Once you get to Take My Blanket And Go, that’s about it all slipping away. But I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world.

Antiquiet: Being that the songs are so close to home, is there any kind of mindset you have to put yourself into to play those songs in front of people?
Joe Purdy: (long pause) …You know what? Something weird happens. If I have to play those songs just sitting in front of my folks or something, I’d be like ‘fuck this, no way.’ A personal audience, that gets hard for me. But when I get onstage, and even if my folks are in the crowd, it’s work time and you’ve got the mic and a guitar and people are there to see you. That’s my favorite. There’s nothing better than, as cheesy as it sounds, when people want to pay to see you play your songs. And however many cocktails it takes for me to get that out in front of them, that’s fine. That’s all a part of it.

I’m not Jack Johnson, by any means. I’m not the happiest dude ever. I’m as moody as they come, you know. We’ve all got our quirks, and I’m no exception. But overall, when I think about it as I’m swinging here on my front porch talkin’ to you, everything’s pretty great. Nothing’s been that bad. As long as I have the faith that things are gonna be alright, and making art for art’s sake. Doing things for the right reason kind of works out, even if it doesn’t seem so momentarily here and there. Overall, there’s worse things that could happen.

Antiquiet: What kind of advice could you give somebody who’s got a spark in them, can play a little bit, and is trying to put together a song or two but they’re just getting lost in the endless options?
Joe Purdy: That’s a great question. That’s a million dollar question. You know what it is… if you’ve got a start, find the closest thing you can, to the best of your ability, that is your voice. And even if it doesn’t show up exactly the right way, it will eventually. And if it takes a direction that sounds like shit, then don’t use that. Do something else. But once you find something that you like, and you put something with it that you also like, and when you like that team, that’s when you stick with it. When we’re recording with the band, I’m always like okay, does this sound like the records I grew up listening to? Does it sound real to me, or does it just sound  like something somebody’s fucking around with. If it sounds like something you could hear on a record player, if you think it could hold water there, then stick with it. You’ll just get better each time. I kind of also think that if somebody’s got that spark, man, it doesn’t matter what I say, they’re gonna find a way. They’re gonna keep on keepin’ on, and that’s the beauty of it.

Antiquiet: How do you feel about protest songs?
Joe Purdy: I don’t have any problem with that. There was a time when people did it really well. I think the reason Dylan got away with it, even for people that didn’t believe the same things, it was just so good that you couldn’t not listen to it. And it made so much sense, and did it within a beautiful melody and a strong, confident song. There’s protest music that I don’t like, even if I agree with the message that they’re sending, because the music comes first. But if anybody’s telling the truth, if they’re saying what they really mean, I think you can tell. And if they’re just fishing to have a protest song, or they’re looking for a voice that isn’t theirs or are copying something, I think that shows too. But you can always tell when somebody means it, and it comes from them and it’s their thoughts about things. Do some thinking on you own, don’t take what you’ve read from other places and morph it into pretending that it’s yours. Do your own research, find out what you believe, and then find out how to tell it, how to say it. If that’s your direction. I’ve gotten into that occasionally, in very subtle ways. But until I’m feeling really bound by some words that I need to get out that are strongly against something, and they sound like they’re coming from me, even still I probably wouldn’t do something as extreme as, say, The Times They Are A’ Changin’. I’d love to, I’d love to have written that song, or Masters Of War... that shit’ll knock you on your ass.

Antiquiet: The very first song of yours I heard was San Jose… in the very first moment of that song, it just grabbed me. It’s one of those songs where, no matter what kind of mood you’re in, no matter what kind of fucked up day you’ve had or whatever’s happened to you, you can’t resist that kind of a groove. It’s fucking great, it just grabs you and takes you to a totally different time and place. Where did that song come from?
Joe Purdy: Alright, wow, thank you man. It came pretty much where it sounds like it came from. People have a lot of songs where they use heavy metaphors, or wrap a little bit of a fictional story around something that they’re feeling or whatever, and there’s a little of that going on there. That’s the beginning of a record called Take My Blanket And Go, and that was the first record where I started to allow myself not to be so true with the literal story that I wouldn’t allow myself to elaborate within the song. Even mixing situations, different situations and different things that have happened to me, piling them up in the same song, the emotions swirling around them- I used to be a real stickler with it, to the point where I’d be like ‘No, it didn’t happen exactly that way, I’m not going to take that liberty,’ but there was a point where I found that your emotions are that strong. Whether or not we were actually in her mother’s front yard when we were little, singing old songs… I mean I’ve done that, but it wasn’t with her. It was somebody else that I knew, but she gave me that feeling, you know? She gave me that feeling of being a little kid, having those kinds of experiences. And sometimes you find the perfect way to really get that aggression out, or that anger, or that sadness or whatever you may feel within a situation. How better could it be if you don’t put limits on the song, where you can take it? Because that’s how the song felt to me. And it’s mostly true. I mean it’s mostly literally true, it’s all true in feeling.

When you get a groove going, a repetitive groove with chords that just repeat themselves over and over again, it frees your mind up from having to make changes. You’ve got the groove and the band keeps it going whether you do or not, and my mind is just free to scream out whatever needs to come out. That was one of those songs that, by the end of playing it, you’ve written it.

Antiquiet: What’s the rest of the year have in store for you?
Joe Purdy: Well, I’d love to say that I’m not gonna be anywhere but this front porch, but I’ve got this for another month, and I’ve actually got this project right now. There’s this wolf named Pony that circles my house… we named him Pony, and I guess he’s kind of a hybrid, but he’s mostly wolf. He’s got a little shepherd in him, I think. But he’ll be behind you, and you won’t realize that he’s been five feet behind you. Freaks me out. He’s a beautiful, beautiful creature, man. Got orange eyes like a burning fire. I started to feed him, but he’s real skittish, he stays off on the edge of the property. But if I play banjo on the front porch for long enough, he’ll come circling around, and as long as I keep playing, he’ll eat maybe 30 feet out from the porch. Then he’ll just run back off into the woods. That’s the kind of shit, man, I don’t know if you’ve seen Jeremiah Johnson… it’s a Sunday morning film, Robert Redford…. there’s not a lot of words in the whole thing, but it’s just an amazing film. It’s so beautifully shot, man, if you’ve got a chance to pick it up, you really should. It’s one of those things where you don’t have anything to do but just sit there and experience the moment. Like for me right now, I don’t have anything better to do than to wait a wolf out, and slowly win him over.

He’s just across the field from me right now, I’m looking at him, and he’s just laying, looking at me. We just play that game. But I love it. And if you can’t tell from like, I mean, in the same way that I like to write music that makes me feel like it could’ve been written at any time… it’s just those little rules that you don’t talk about, like don’t ever mention a cell phone in a song, or computers, and don’t ever mention an automobile unless it’s in a classic sense… that timeless kind of thing is the goal.

To be in a place again where the evolution of nature, the natural habitat of animals and these kinds of relationships are still possible in the world. They’re still available. Every morning, if I go into town, there’s a real windy road, and every morning I get the same fox that crosses in front of me at this one point in the road. And a little further up, there’s always this one lone deer, and a little further than that is the rest of the deer’s family… to see that kind of pattern in nature, to see the two geese that fly over my house every morning on their way back to this one field from the lake, honking at each other real loud. That’s the kind of stuff that makes you feel like you’re out far enough where you can forget LA life, man. You can forget what time you’re in.