Fan pics/cams of Lee Min Jung at Lotte World on 2010.03.12, it’s for the recording of KBS Entertainment Weekly Guerilla Date. There is a chance this is going to be aired in today’s episode.
credits http://www.cyworld.com/how53/3245439
Saturday, March 13, 2010
From The E-Z Widers To Kumquats - 20 Minutes With Taylor Hicks, Part 1
If there’s one thing there’s been no shortage of in the Taylor Hicks fandom over the past fifteen months, it would be press coverage. As long as the national touring company of Grease is arriving in some burg large or small, we’re pretty much guaranteed one full day of radio, TV and print promoting the production. And its spokesman has inevitably been Mr. Hicks himself, who has likely lost count of the number of interviews he’s done since Grease hit the road.
While all this promotion has no doubt been pivotal in making Grease a financial success, it’s also served to introduce (or reintroduce) Taylor to an American public that, in far too many cases, treats its artistic and musical population in a way I’ve come to refer to as the Bic method. Buy it, use it up (or just until you get your fill), and then toss it away when the next best thing comes along.
So while it’s heartening to see so many folks discovering what we already know about Taylor: nice guy, down-to-earth, charming, talented, there are only so many times we can listen to him being asked the same questions and giving the same answers before we reach the saturation point. There’s not a whole hell of a lot of diversity going on during these press junkets.
So when Taylor was generous enough to offer me an interview after his gig at the High Noon Saloon in Madison, WI in December, I jumped at the chance. I immediately knew my list of questions would contain zero references to either Grease or American Idol. Been there, done that, most definitely have the t-shirt. Instead, I pulled up a list of queries I’d been compiling since the Spring of 2006, when I first fell hard for the voice and the talent of that quirky, gray-haired guy who’d shown up on my TV.
Taylor’s schedule being what it is, it wasn’t until earlier this month that we finally pinned down a date for the interview. This past Thursday, the 11th of March, after trying twice to connect on the phone and running into reception problems, the third time proved the charm and our interview (Taylor in Pittsburgh and me in the northern suburbs of Chicago) began with the ubiquitous words, “Can you hear me now?”
I started by asking him about something he’d once mentioned as a topic no interviewer had ever brought up, and that was the music he’d made between the ages of 23 and 28.
W: I’d like to talk about the E-Z Widers. Is that a band you put together?
T: Yeah it was, actually. The EZ Widers … It’s interesting, you know, I’ve had names for bands backing me ever since after Passing Thru. That was a band … Jon Cook was in the band. [To Clay, laughing: Did you play in the band?]
Clay: Sometimes, but yeah, I played in the band.
T: Clay played in the band sometimes. I mean, you know, all of the bands that I had when I was growing up were kinda like revolving doors for musicians.
W: Yeah, I was gonna ask you that. I wondered if it was a static band or if you just brought people in as you needed them and it was always changing.
T: Well, you know, it’s like I had 3 bass players, 3 guitar players, one of ‘em was married, the other one was pregnant, one of them was … [laughter all around] … I mean … [more laughter] … I mean it was – big word here – a smorgasbord of musicians that came in and out. But you had to keep a plethora of musicians knowing your stuff because a grungy side musician at 25 is gonna probably get drunk and not show up. I figured if I keep 3 bass players, 3 guitar players, 3 drummers and 3 keyboard players, one out of 3 ain’t bad.
W: Yeah, you’re always covered that way.
I then touched on his original songs on In Your Time and Under the Radar and asked him which was his favorite.
T: I think I was in a good place … I think I was in a really neat place when I wrote the album In Your Time, and all those songs, I think, it was like a part in time where there were no straps, no stipulations. It was basically free artistic expression. I had time, you know? I was passionate, and still am, about song writing, but it was kind of like … it was like a new toy at Christmas when you were a kid. You have to be real excited about those kinds of things, whether it’s songwriting or whether it’s doing new stuff. The newness of that songwriting could really be heard in that album.
I asked him if it was harder to capture the muse now than it was before, when a lack of steady gigs had him in one place for longer periods of time.
T: Yeah, you know it’s interesting how it does hamper it. Here’s the way that I like to work: when I’m on tour, I’m on tour. I’m touring whatever I wrote or whatever I was into, and whatever I had the time to put mental effort into when I wasn’t touring. So I think that’s the way I like to operate. I can’t sit in the Holiday Inn in Topeka, KS and write music and then go to do Grease. I want to sit inside a songwriter’s house or my own house and be comfortable and be really focused in that song instead of being …
W: Well, yeah. You have to be in a place where you can really let yourself sink into it; where you can fall down the rabbit hole and not worry about it.
T: Yeah, you know because usually about the time that you start writing, turn-down service happens.
W: Right. And sometimes once you break that concentration, it’s gone. There’s no way to get it back.
T: Usually the turn-down service people have chocolate too, and once you eat that shit, you’re screwed.
We both get a good laugh out of that one. God knows, my concentration has been shattered by chocolate more times than I can count. Once we get past the laughter, I ask him to name some of his biggest musical influences during the IYT and UTR period; the musicians he was really digging then.
T: I would say Van Morrison, Bob Seger … You know, just all those singer songwriter guys. Under the Radar was … I wanted to create the Al Stewart sound, which was kind of impossible because Al had probably a 4 million dollar budget, I had a 4 thousand dollar budget.
W: Well, you did a very good job with the money you had.
T: Well, you know, I think that helped me realize that it’s not about how much money you spend, it’s about what you really have the dream for before you go into the recording situation.
Our conversation then moved on to Taylor’s creative process: how a song progresses from the initial idea to the studio; how he knows when he’s nailed it, and how he keeps the muse happy and well-fed. We also cover how he’s navigating the music business now that he’s his own boss. I’ll have part two of the interview up before the end of the weekend. Stay tuned …
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