tomrussellinterview

American Music

Tom Russell interview

In 1985 I heard from Tom Russell through a friend and contacted him. He sent me Heart On A Sleeve along with some pictures. Later I managed to get Tom to Holland to do his first of many gigs overthere. It was the days of the original Tom Russell band, one of the best roadbands I ever watched. The interview below was for the Nashville Tennessee magazine from Holland and my radioshow American Music.

Tom Russell,still unknown here although you travelled Europe for quite some tine. What brought you here?

We've been touring Switzerland for 2 weeks and picked this festival (Merselo Holland HH.) in the last minute. Finally you can say and we're glad to play for the Dutch people.

You've got a lot of work in Europe but still have to play in the States as well.

We play quite a bit along the East Coast of the US, New Jersey, New York, New England and after this European tour we'll play in Texas and after that we're going to Canada whereI'm gonna do some writing with Ian Tyson. We work a lot in the States and do a Scandinavian tour for 2 months and Switzerland 1 month every year.

So it means that you don't have to be real big in the States to keep travelling and playing?

No, not really, but you gotta have a good band and there are not so many, but with the right people and by your album which is on a small label you can keep on working.

Although you're definitely a country singer right now you didn,t start that way.

I started in country music in Canada in the seventies and my first 2 albums were really more folkmusic. With Patricia Hardin I did Wax Museum and Ring of Bones, but that were more acoustic albums with good harmonies: it was more like the sixties. Because I was influenced by people like Bob Dylan. I did that a while but inn the late seventies I got back to country again.

Your Heart On A Sleeve album on End Of The Trail Music is an extraordinary great album. But it's so good: will you have a problem for the follow-up?

That came out 2 years ago so I have a lot of good material now. I do have a cassette with 10 new songs and have some 15 more to choose from for the new album. So I feel confident. It's a question wether it will be on a major label or on my own label again. I know that in a few months .

Ian Tyson got a lot of credit with your Gallo De Cielo on his Old Corrals And Sagebrush album but did it get you any further as a songwriter?

Yeah, it's becoming a kind of underground song. It's been recorded by 3 or 4 people. Nobody with a big name, folksingers like Katy Leary did it and Ian Tyson sung it quite a bit on TV. We're now writing songs together for his next album. So it has broken a lot of ground, many people in folk and country know the song.

On your albums are songs about Europe, things that happened overhere. Are you a writer who writes about personnal experience?

Yeah, most of the time. I do a lot of writing on the road, especially in Norway because I have a big room overthere and lots of quiet and time to write but mostly of experiences, different climates, different atmosphere.

Will your next album sound like the previous one?

Soundwise I hope it'll be better . The Heart On A Sleeve album will be released on CD by Bear Family in Germany. I just recorded 2 songs in Norway and they have a harder drumsound and one Springsteen song (.I'm on fire). I might record 4 or 5 songs with that harder drumbeat to appeal to a younger audience, for new wave people who come to country music. Who like Dwight Yoakam or Lone Justice. That's a big untapped audience for a singer/songwriter. So I wanna do something in that direction but still have some country ballads on it.Trying to cross-over to the right audience without going pop. Keeping a good strong sound based on songwriting.

On Heart on a sleeve you had some guests like Buddy Cage from the New Riders of the Purple Sage and Bill Kirchen from Commander Cody's Airmen. What were they doing in New York?

Buddy Cage has quit the businesss now, I guess, he works on a contact lense factory somewhere. He was kinda on bad times but he may come back. I met him when he played with Ian Tyson a long time ago (in the Canadian country rock band Great Speckled Bird, met Ian en Sylvia Tyson, Ken Kalmusky, Amos Garrett, N.D. Smart II and Buddy Cage; 1 album on Ampex A10103 1969, producer Todd Rundgren) so we had that in common and when he came to NYC looking for work I used him on the record. Bill Kirchen is a friend of my guitar player Andrew Hardin, he was in town during the sessions and we asked him to come over and play. At that time I didn't have the band I have now. But for my next album I can use my band because they know the material, so we don't have to go around to find people, although we probably take a few, doing background or harmony vocals.

Is that a matter of money or is Gene Watson right to say that it's crazy somehow to use studiomusicians on an album and then your band has to learn their songs, which are your songs?

It's not a matter of money. We have a good sound. If I think we didn't have a good band, I would use studiomusicians. But if you have a good band you gotta tighten it and you can't get that sound from studiomusicians. For instance what comes out of Nashville, they all have the same sound: same drummer, same bass, two producers doing it all and they all sound the same. I wanna get away from that, we do a little tex-mex, a little cajun and we have ur own sound. I wanna take advantage of that. There ain't a lot good road bands in the US anymore.

So you want to compromise a little bit, but you definately don't want to sound like everybody.

I do review records myself occasionally, and Steve Young who lives in Nashville feels the same, I don't give any credability to Nashville products except for a few exceptions. Dwight Yoakam is good but he comes from L.A., I like the new Everly Brothers album but that hasn't got anything to do with Nashville either. I think Nashville lost its credability, it makes pop. It''s crap and I think it has seen its better days.

But it's still selling athough you can hardly speak of ' down to earth country music' of course with exeptions like George Strait or Ricky Skaggs.

Yes,they have a good sound. But I wanna go on stage with my own sound without compromising too much. I don't think Nashville is making a lot of lasting records. Stuff that will be around for a long time. So I might record down there but with my own ideas. Just for the quality of the studios.And George Strait, that direction is not bad and it's pretty clean. He and Ricky Skaggs are very consious to keep their image extremely clean.

Although the political scene is still a strong one, could you go there and survive wothout playing the game all the way, you think?

Perhaps one person could change that, if the song or the album was strong enough. You may go out to Europe and have a small label following but if the major labels see something real good like Dwight Yoakam, they'll sign him after he's done some work with a minor label. So you can do without playing the game all the way. Look at Steve Young, who still has a strong cult following but has no regards for Nashville. So you can do it but it's alot harder.

What are your future plans, records, touring?

I hope to have the follow-up ready for Heart On A Sleeve out soon (Road to Bayamon ) before we go back to Europe.

1976, Ring of bone

1978, Wax Museum

Both with Patricia Hardin,

re-released on 1 CD

by Dark Angel 1994

1985, Heart on a sleeve

End of the Trail Music

1987, Road to Bayamon,

LP on Some People Norway

same as above,

1989 Rounder

1990, Poor Man's dream

Some People Norway

1991, Hurricane Season

Some People Norway

1992, Cowboy Real

Stony Plain Canada

1992, Beyons St. Olav's Gate

Round Tower UK (compilation)

1993, Box of visions

Round Tower UK

1985, As the crow flies,

cassette

End of the Trail Music

1987, single; Home before dark,

B-side I'm on fire (written by Bruce Springsteen)

Some People Norway

1995, the Rose of the San Joaquin

HighTone

1997, The long way around

HighTone

1997, Song of the west

HighTone

1999,

The man from God knows where

HighTone

2001, Borderland

HighTone

2002, Museum of memories, 1972-2002

Lost tracks and rarities

Dark Angel

2003, Modern Art

HighTone

1993, Hillbilly Voodoo

Barrence Whitfield withTom Russell

Round Tower UK

1995, Cowboy Mambo

Barrence Whitfield withTom Russell

Round Tower UK

1994, Tulare Dust

A songwriter's tribute to merle haggard

HighTone

producers: Tom Russell & Dave Alvin

Tom doing Tulare dust/They're tearing the labourcamps down

1996, Coney Island moon

Round Tower UK

Tom and Andy wrote the title track. Tom plays guitar on The dance.

Buddy Cage playing steel guitar for the New Riders of the Purple Sage on their

great live album from 1974,

Home, home on the road

for CBS.

click here for Buddy Cage interview

visit Tom Russell's website at: www.tomrussell.com

As we all know, Tom has returned to Europe frequently, and the pictures on the right have been taken in Holland in 1987 and 1991. Hopefully he'll never stop making music.

Below will be Tom's songs covered by others (as far as my private collection goes).