This blog is mainly devoted to Australian country and country-esque music, because that's the music I love. Every now and then, however, there's someone from the northern hemisphere who captures my attention or whose music I already love (Ryan Adams, Madison Violet) and they warrant some closer attention on this blog. One such person is Al Scorch, a singer-songwriter from Chicago with some great bluesy, swampy, country songs and a new album: Tired Ghostly Town. Recently I spoke to Al just as he was about to embark on a tour.
Thank you for talking to me.
I know it’s about six o’clock at night where you are.
Yeah, it is. It’s evening here.
Then it’s probably beer o’clock, as we like to say
here.
Oh, yeah.
I’m actually drinking beer right now.
There
we go. So I just wanted to start
off talking about your music because I know you’re a fourth-generation
Chicagoan but your music sounds kind of swampy and Southern gothic, in a way.
Where those influences come from? I’m not American but to me it sounds like a
lot of that Southern country rootsy music.
Absolutely. Well, my mom is
from the South – she’s from Missouri, which is kind of like the midwestern
South – Southern midwest. So growing up with, her she has an accent. She says
things like ‘halp’ instead of ‘help’, things like that. And she wasn’t a banjo
player but there was one always around the house and she would kind of pick it
up and put it down and kind of come back to it kind of thing. So there’s that
and there’s also the fact Chicago has a lot of – a lot of Southern immigrants
in it as well. There’s a big
Southern influence too up here, just from people moving up here during the
Great Depression for work. It really kicked in the ’40s, from World War II and
that kind of thing. And then into the ’70s and ’80s there was a huge migration
from Appalachia and Mississippi and Alabama and all those kind of places, so
there’s a lot of Southern notes and flavours in Chicago.
The
Chicago music scene has been hugely fertile over the last few decades – there’s
jazz but also independent music - I’m thinking of the Liz Phair era of indie
music and Urge Overkill, people like that, and Brad Wood. So I’m wondering if
for you as a musician it’s been really fertile, as well having all those
influences and people to collaborate with?
Yeah, well there’s tons of
musicians get in town here, just loads – loads of people to play with. And there’s just tons of studios and
tons of clubs and bars that have live music all the time and people really
enjoy it here. Like there’s
something that a lot of people from all walks of life come out to here in the
city, so that – it is really supportive in that way. And then from touring around the country and stuff we got –
also meet a lot of musicians that way for I play with people from New York City
and Georgia, Cincinnati, Ohio and San Francisco and things like that so.
So
as you tour you kind of play with local musicians that you meet in that area or
you’ve actually picked up people in your touring band from around the country?
Well not so much literally as
like play a show with them and then they get in the van but …
[Laughs]
There’s actually people [I’ve
met] on the road who I stay in touch with and who I just made really good
friendships with and musical friendships as well, musical partnerships. And then
people come through Chicago – it’s a big town for bands to tour through, so
there’s that as well.
It
would be probably quite convenient to just put people in a van after a gig and
have them continue with you though.
It certainly is. And I’ve done that myself actually,
when I was 18 and started touring.
I was playing solo, played solo banjo and I opened up for this punk band
in Chicago and from there I toured from Chattanooga, Tennessee and they were
like, ‘Hey, man, you’re awesome, get in the van’. And I was, like, ‘Oh ,right. Eighteen-year-old
kid with shit to do, you know.’ So there you have it. Here I am, I guess.
So
you were a banjo player in a punk band?
A banjo player opening for
punk bands.
Well,
I think banjo is pretty punk actually, if you think of the ethos of punk.
Oh, yes, it can be fast and
aggressive and it is kind of an odd instrument out sometimes. So it kind of fitted and there’s a
certain intensity and a lyrical content, I guess, that fits in well in that
circle.
And
you’ve got a five-string banjo. From what I understand, a four-string banjo is
hard enough to play. So how do five strings work? I suppose you’ve been doing it for a while though.
Well, the fifth string is the
thumb string or the drum string and that’s the little short one up on the very
top and it’s got the tuning peg about halfway up the neck. So that gives the
banjo its ring and if you hear the banjo ring, that’s the fifth string sound. And
it kind of fills in between all the other notes and makes it sound twice as
fast. And you can also use it to play melody too. It’s an interesting thing,
and so there’s a bit of history online and stuff.
Did
you pick up the banjo because your mother was playing it around the house or
was there a separate reason?
More so there was just always
one around and there was a piano, guitar and banjo in the house and music was
always encouraged. So my dad plays
piano, he’s a great pianist. And my sister’s a singer and my brother started
playing guitar maybe when he was 14 or 15 or something, and I was, like, that’s
pretty cool playing the guitar. When he started, I was, like, that’s pretty
cool. And then there’s this banjo
and no one’s playing this banjo and I want to play this thing – this thing’s
cool and weird. And then it’s a lot of music too in the house that was kind of [folky]
and so I listened to a lot of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. And lots of Irish music too as well,
like Clancy Brothers kind of traditional Irish songs as well as some
traditional Irish fiddle things like dance music too. So I grew up with that as well.
Chicago’s
got quite an Irish population; is that correct?
Oh, there’s loads of them
here. The same in Australia
there’s – they’re just everywhere.
The
great migrating nation, I guess, Ireland. It just populated half the planet it
seems.
There’s more, I think there’s
more Irish people in the world then there is in Ireland.
[Laughs] I thought most of them were in
Boston to be honest but it sounds like a few of them come to Chicago.
Oh, yeah, well, it’s Boston –
Boston and Chicago where they’re all at.
Flights from Boston and Chicago to Dublin are about the same price too.
Right.
[Laughs] You’ve got all these musical influences around you but it also sounds
like that feeds into your openness as a storyteller, as well, because it seems
like you just take stories as they come to you and tell a wide range of
stories. So do you kind of feel that
you’re really open to all sorts of experiences around music?
Oh, absolutely. Different
musical instruments, different musical styles and influences and stuff you get
a different voice to your story or communicate a different feeling. And so I am – I am very open to
different musical styles. And I enjoy a lot of the jazz lately with just some
friends and stuff playing jazz charts and standards and things like that. So getting into that and kind of the
swing jazz. And I like gypsy jazz
quite a bit and (gypsy music as well as Celtic music, country music, and all
types of string band music and bluegrass music and all that stuff.
I
read in your bio about how you come up with stories to tell, basically by
looking at the world around you and wondering about people. And it sounds like
having that range of musicality at your disposal means that you can find the
best way to tell the story, if that makes sense?
I think there’s some truth to
what you’re saying. And it’s a pretty ordinary process of just kind of sitting
down and maybe having an idea to start with and then just sitting down and
playing and improvising and telling the story to myself, basically. And then refining
it and getting it to be the best that it can be. So I would say that a lot of the
stories also come from things that I’m feeling personally as well. But, nobody
- I personally don’t want to hear someone whine while they’re playing acoustic
guitar and singing about themselves.
Nobody wants that. To make a
difference, to make something appealing, you have to get outside of yourself
and kind of find something in yourself that’s common to everyone and we’re all
in this together, really. You know
what I mean?
I
think that your reluctance to whine is going to mean that you’re never going to
be a female folksinger, just quietly.
[Laughs] Well, you never know. I have been to Switzerland and
I hear that surgeries there are very, very good.
When
you were talking about the banjo it actually made me think of Ani di Franco
talking about the acoustic guitar because she – well, before she got RSI, she
seemed to really feel like that acoustic guitar was this organic developing
thing in her hands. It’s just interesting how you can have this organic
relationship with an instrument and feel your experience with the instrument
changing over time.
When you find [the right] instrument
it really does become your voice, whether it’s acoustic guitar and banjo. And I feel really lucky that I have
both of those voices to use and I play certainly less guitar than banjo but I
also really like guitar – playing the guitar quite a bit.
Okay. And so, therefore, a six-string guitar
or a twelve-string guitar?
Six-string guitar.
Okay.
I just thought since you had another string on your banjo maybe you’d go the
whole hog of the acoustic guitar.
[Laughs].
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