This article was originally published on beingtheremag.com, an independent music and film magazine that ran from 2004 to 2007. It is presented here as part of the Being There Magazine archive.
By Adam Anklewicz | Being There Magazine, December 2004
Jazz and rock ‘n’ roll just scratch the surface of the well of music that is Andrew Bird. Having played music since he was four years old, Bird is a master violinist and songwriter. He has released five studio records and two live compilations over the past eight years, and he won’t stop changing. “I’m trying to keep myself entertained constantly and that’s why I think the music changes so much,” says Bird as we sit in Toronto’s Revival music hall in downtown Toronto before a show. “It sounds perverse, but I take away what I think people might like about the music while still trying to engage them in another way. I have this fear of stagnation and the [problem] is that often times you don’t know you’re in it. As a rule I’m always trying to strip away things that might be a crutch, or that I might be resting on comfortably. Such as basing my music on early 20th century jazz and whatnot.” Speaking of the transition in styles between records Bird says, “as time goes on, on the newer [albums] you find less direct influences, less of a record that sounds like someone who is enamoured with this type of music and therefore writes music like that.”
Playing since he was the young age of four, Bird started on “something that simulated a violin; it was a good crackerjack box with a ruler taped to it.” Bird has played in bands including Squirrel Nut Zippers and fronted a band he called Andrew Bird’s Bowl of Fire. His first four albums featured Bowl Of Fire members Kevin O’Donnell (drums), Josh Hirsch (bass), Colin Bunn (guitar), Nora O’Connor (additional vocals) and of course Bird himself on violin. Having recorded his latest studio album, Weather Systems, without his band, I asked Bird where The Bowl Of Fire stands. “You won’t hear from The Bowl Of Fire by name any more. I’m still planning on working with Kevin O’Donnell—my drummer—again, but I’ve found this solo thing has proven more interesting than a 4 or 5 piece band could be or that I can imagine it. It’s been retired.”
The Bowl Of Fire’s first two albums, Music Of Hair and Thrills, sound like a dip into early 20th century jazz, the music that inspired them. Production techniques were employed that helped create an atmosphere in tune with the sound of the era. “We were pretty religious about it. We just used one ribbon microphone and an old RCA and we all played live around that microphone like it was an old radio show. I’m not a sound engineer, but I had this vague belief in the metaphysical to that old gear and I thought there was something cool happening with the sound. I feel that modern recordings give too much information for your ear and brain to process. Even with the simple sound of the human voice you’re getting all these overtones and graininess that overloads the brain and is ultimately ugly. I think that is why people found the filtered voice of the Strokes rather appealing. When I started recording I was still in my educational phase, which I think ended when I was 26 or so. I was still devouring and consuming music. I was excited by it. When I started recording I was listening to pre-WWII music and a lot of old blues and gospel stuff, early jazz and Latin music.” Oh! The Grandeur and The Swimming Hour continue the “trajectory both geographically and historically. They come up from the 20s and 30s for the first two records, and then they jump up to Memphis and New Orleans in the early 60s and soul period via Detroit and Chicago. With The Swimming Hour I was just on the cusp of getting into something that was not particularly anything.”
On Andrew Bird’s website (http://www.bowloffire.com) he states that The Swimming Hour is his favourite record. Explaining what separates it from the rest, Bird writes, “I just kind of had my shit together and made choices that happened to work out well. It was a good mix of live band energy and studio production and overdubbing. I didn’t lose the live feel on a studio record and I think that is something to be proud of. You get in the studio and the live energy usually just dissipates.” At its heart The Swimming Hour is rooted in ‘50s rock and roll and steals from the jazz of the era.
Weather Systems was a large change. The Bowl Of Fire did not exist any more and Andrew Bird was playing most of the instruments himself. “I was on tour with Kevin and Nora before I completely phased out the whole Bowl of Fire band. We were coming through Nashville. I wanted to check out this new producer I had heard of, so we booked some time and laid the basic tracks for Weather Systems in about a day and a half. Then I came back and layered everything and put it all together myself, and since that experience I’ve been playing all the instruments except drums.” It is a change for an artist who is constantly changing, unable to stay within a genre that the media loves to pigeonhole musicians into. “I don’t congratulate myself for that. It’s kind of a drag when people are trying to pass things on word of mouth. ‘Hey come out to the show, it’s this guy who does x,’ then people say, ‘If you can’t tell me what it is then I won’t go.’”
Andrew Bird is a storyteller. His lyrics are interesting, funny and bizarre. “So many people hold the cup / So many die drinking it in front of the window” is an example from “11:11.” “I need to entertain myself, and on a lot of these long drives between cities I turn off the radio and I get a conversation going in my head and sometimes they’re stories, sometimes they’re sound bytes. The melodies however tend to come first. I favour melody because it’s more true and more mysterious than words. Words can lose their weight easily, but an interesting melody that sticks with you has much more staying power than a language.”
What’s in the near future for Andrew Bird? “I’ve got a record that I’ve been working on for four years now. It’ll be out in February, The Mysterious Production of Eggs. I’ve been working on that way before Weather Systems was even conceived of. That’ll be a big record. It’s got more content than three Weather Systems. It’s back to The Swimming Hour where every song is its own little world. It takes a lot of what I learned from Weather Systems with the ambient stuff and it’s got me playing the parts I hear in my head on bass and guitar so it’s a little more bizarre.”
Righteous Babe will release The Mysterious Production of Eggs on February 8, 2005. A slew of live performances will follow.