JESSE PAYNE INTERVIEW OCTOBER 6TH

CKD: Describe your musical background



JP: My own musical journey? That’s a general question. I grew up on Bob Dylan, the Beach Boys. I think Brian Wilson is one of America ’s geniuses. Him and Aaron Copeland. I guess I got into the Lemonheads. They led me down a path to A. A. Bondy and Duquette Johnston. That brings us to date. I could list who I’m listening to now but I don’t know if you want that.



CKD: Go ahead if you want to.



JP : A.A. Bondy, huge fan of A.A. Bondy. Duquette, I’m a huge fan of Duquette Johnston. Etowah is a really beautiful album. Who else am I listening to? The White Oaks. Bon Iver, however you pronounce it. I think I’m gonna start going by Payne, is that how you said it?



CKD: Yeah something like that. So how did you get started playing music? Family, boredom?



JP: I think it’s in my family, but I don’t think my immediate family necessarily embraced it. My cousins played instruments. They lived in Atlanta and I seldom saw them, but I guess I picked up on their habits. And I pretty much had to teach myself for awhile. I got some guidance from a few people when I was young. I think my early childhood, I think I grew up in a society that was kind of geared toward another side of life. I think I was tricked into believing something else, and when I was old enough to realize that was a load of shit, I quickly fixed the situation.



CKD: As far as songwriting is concerned, what common themes do you find yourself coming back to?



JP: I think some songs are geared toward relationships, but when people say that it’s a relationship song, I think that’s a generalized assumption to a lot of music because relationships don’t always have to be between two people But I think the dynamic of humanity is the main theme I like to approach. And I think that’s all you can do is approach it.



CKD: Biggest influences?



JP: Jeff Tweedy and Andrew Bird. I think those guys led me down a path to make me realize that music is not just a bunch of notes and sound manipulations. It’s gearing the ear towards where you want to go as opposed to letting the lyrics take the listener. I think they’ve been able to encompass not only the lyrical direction but also the color.



CKD: What exactly is Capture Music? Is it a label?



|JP: It’s a production company, an independent label. It’s a number of things I guess. It’s a studio first of all. I was not apart of the label when I walked into the studio and I guess when I walked out, I was a part of the label.



CKD: Like a Johnny Cash sort of story?



JP: Very similar. I hope it has the same outcome without all of the drama.



CKD: So did you record “Nesting” at Capture?



JP: I did.



CKD: How long did it take and how long did it take to write songs?



JP: I’ve been working on “Nesting” since “Beyond the Leaves.” I came into the studio with “Beyond the Leaves.” BTL was supposed to be a sampler of Nesting and when I walked out of the studio, I decided “You know what? I’ve recorded these four songs. I’m gonna move on.” I started late 2007 writing for “Nesting.” We were in the studio for 6 days but that was countless demos, countless notebook pages of scratches.



CKD: Does the owl carry any symbolism?



JP: It does. Somebody told me that owls in the Native American world are angels. I haven’t done my research, but I thought that was a cool thing to hear. But the significance was that my father brought it out in my life when I was little. I think I’ve always seen life through night eyes, nocturnal eyes. I’ve embraced the nature of owls. It’s been a theme throughout my life; owls always seem to come up. When we were working on the artwork, me and Randy Penn, the guy who designed the cover, we were talking about the record “Nesting” and what it meant to me. It being a kind of homecoming, a seasonal thing, we just wanted to tap into something personal and dominant. I think birds of prey are spectacular because they can do everything in their habitat that can let them rule and fly. Every type of species, there’s that one dominant character and I think that birds of prey, the owl is definitely the dominant. I’m sure that can be debated. I’ve had many hours of lazy eye, thinking about all of this stuff. They can spin their head around. Hell if I could do that, I’d probably trust a lot more people or distrust a lot of people.



CKD: How long have you been playing with GreyHaven?



JP: I think we started playing on the second or third time around. We played three times in a row, then took off one, and played another one. We tend to go back and forth. It’s a fun thing to do and I think Caleb has put together a good group in Birmingham that’s starting to support the art and I think it’s very nice.



CKD: There were a lot of things going on the night you guys played GreyHaven. Sidewalk, the Greek Festival.



JP: And let’s not forget Taylor Hicks. I passed by Workplay going to Urban Standard. He had a long line of women standing in line. This was like five o’clock in the afternoon. My drummer got to GreyHaven and told me he had passed Workplay too, but he’d come from the 5th Avenue side. The funny thing was that Taylor was standing in the landing deck, just around the corner from all of these women who could have bombarded him. They didn’t even know. They were just gonna stand in line. If you explore, you shall find.



CKD: If we were to entertain the idea that Birmingham has a defined scene, how would your music fit into it?



JP: You want me to define the scene or insert me in it?



CKD: The latter



JP: I think Birmingham has a great scene of musicians. There’s a lot of talent in this place. Not having a whole lot of music industry here to kind of pave the way made artists around town rely on their own innovations. I think everybody’s done a really good job. I don’t know if I fit into the scene as much as enjoy the scene. I’m friends with a lot of people who are a part of the scene. It’s hard for me to be a part of it because I’m such a hermit. For two years writing this record, I stayed behind lock and key. So I don’t know if I fit into it, but I definitely enjoy it.



CKD: What song on Nesting means the most to you and why?



JP: “Wes Anderson” means the most to me. For everybody, if you put a span of two years on a human, there’s gonna be a lot of things that happen to that individual. During this time of writing, I think that song really sums up how my life was lived and approached. A lot of the subject matter…I think it’s the most personal song on the record. It’s not directly about Wes Anderson. I’m such a fan of that man. I think I try to draw from his creativity and intertwine it with my own life at the time. It almost helped me get through the time. There were a few rough patches. I make light of those patches in the song because of the inspiration Wes Anderson gave me because of the fact that though there’s a lot of serious subject matter in his movies, it’s so dry and humorous that it overrides the pain. I thought it was very interesting when I started going down that path of thought.



CKD: So I know you’ve pretty much toured the east half of the U.S. What are some of your favorite venues?



JP: Oh man I can’t think of the name of the place. It was up in Boston. We opened for a pretty big regional band up there. You know the singer/songwriter Blu? He was in the crowd and that’s the one memory I have of that place. Besides the guy outside who had to be a fisherman and you could barely understand him. I’m sure it was like someone from up north coming to very rural Alabama and having a hard time understanding people a little bit. It was a fascinating place and I wish I could remember it.

I can tell you my favorite cities because of the venues and because of the shows. Boston has to be up there. Virginia Beach, whatever venue it was in Virginia Beach. If you need the name of the venues, go to www.sonicbids.com/jessepayne.

Chicago is another one; not because of the venue. I just love Chicago probably because of Andrew Bird and Jeff Tweedy; just always looking up to someone from Chicago.

CKD: How long did you tour?

JP: I toured straight for about two years in a lot of those places mentioned. A lot of the places in the press kit were the bigger shows and there were a lot of shows in between. When you spend two years on the road, you take your computer and hope you’re gonna update it every time you have a new show. It just didn’t happen that way, partly because I was buddies with the people I was travelling with and there was so much to do while on tour. We’d go out for a month, then come for a week, then go back out for a month. Usually that month would entail us going up the east coast, then to Chicago, and back down 65. Usually when we hit Chicago, it was our last show. For whatever reason, I have no idea why. We never played any shows coming back home. Once we hit Chicago, that meant we’d already been up to Boston.

CKD: So was it independent?

JP: It was completely independent. I had to wait tables to save a lot of money and at the end of the tour; we’d have a lot of memories and not a lot of money. But it was fun and a good learning experience; I’m glad I did it. We’re about to embark on another tour, but this time around, we’re not gonna go so far up, but just tour regionally and let it cycle on out. But hopefully we’ll be back on the road for two years.

CKD: Where are you from originally, city-wise?

JP: I’m from Birmingham. I’ve lived in Atlanta but I guess Birmingham would the town that I would claim.

CKD: Any shows in the next month or so that you’d like to plug?

JP: There’s a Capture Music show on October 29th at the Virginia Samford Theatre in Birmingham. It’s a showcase and it’s free to the public. We’re also playing with Tim Brantley at Workplay on Octobe 23rd. Then we’re playing with Oceanship on November 7th at the Rogue Tavern.

CKD: Any major goals you would like to accomplish in the next year to year and a half?

JP: Sustaining the life style of playing music. I think that’s the trick that a lot of people have in front of them but haven’t really figured out how to do it. I’m not saying I have either, but I think to say any goal outside of that is more or less a dream. I think it’s hard enough to sustain a music career with only playing music. That’s really been my life goal since I can remember; just to play music. I’d like to sell some records; there’s a goal.

CKD: How do you feel you’ve progressed over the last five years, lyrically and musically?

JP: I think a songwriter has to find his specific sound and I think a lot of people will get out and have a hit record right off the bat and they can’t produce that again. I think it’s because they didn’t take the time and the steps to really hone in on who they are and what they’re trying to portray; what sound they want the listener’s ears to pick up on. Five years ago, when I was starting out, I don’t think I realized that. But I think that for whatever reason, I went down that path of just building and going towards the sound I knew wanted; I just didn’t know how to achieve. Which is one of the reasons Nesting is called Nesting. I feel like it’s a homecoming. I feel I went so far away from what I needed to be just to know what I came back to. I think over the last five years, I have been able to find the sound that I’ve been looking for. Hopefully, this sound will allow me to give more than I could have five years ago to my listeners within the next few years.

CKD: Besides trying to find your own sound, is there any advice you’d offer to people starting out?

JP: Learn how to listen. I think I can come across as egotistical and I don’t mean to come off that way. Listening is as much of a talent as playing an instrument, giving a speech, conducting an interview; it’s something you have to learn how to do, you know? I think I learned how to listen too late----not too late--- but later than I would have like, later than the ideal. Ideally, I would have born with three ears. But I think music is so readily available now that a lot of times you’ll be driving down the road- it happens to us all- and you’ll have on your favorite record. You’re listening to it and you’re kinda into it, but you’re not listening. There’s so much other stuff going on. Or you walk into a JC Penny’s and you hear a song you like but you’re shopping.

CKD: There’s that familiarity because you’ve heard it all the time. It’s just background music.

JP: Yeah. It becomes background music instead of an art. I think when somebody buys a painting, the only way to appreciate is to continue to keep going back and looking at it and analyzing it. I know that it’s impossible to analyze music all the time because there’s so much in life that people have to do and want to do. But I think it’s important that you take time during the day and during the week and make sure you take an album, put headphones on (or whatever makes you comfortable), and try to pick out the little pieces. Aaron Copeland said one time…some of his essays. I’m gonna butcher this quote but “A great piece of art, if it is a great piece of art, will mean something different each time you return to it.” For someone who has learned how to listen, they’re able to pick out different things each time instead of letting it wash over them as background music. I think people, not any fault of their own, but because of the way society is…because radios are always on and muzak is always going through the speakers of restaurants, people have just gotten immune to music and I think that’s a dangerous thing to be in. Learning how to listen is a very hard talent to achieve I feel but it’s worth it once you get there.