We might as well start at the beginning. Where were you born?
The little town on the prairie, De Smet, South Dakota, just a little bit after midnight. Or maybe a little before midnight. I was born on an astrological cusp, so I'm given to understand that the actual time of my birth has important implications, but I keep forgetting to ask my father about it.
Not your mother, or should I not ask?
No, you can ask. She passed away in January of 1990.
You were in high school?
That's right, a senior. I graduated in 1990.
You have a song called "1989" that talks a lot about escape and sadness. Is that related to your mother's death?
The original impetus to write the song wasn't quite as deep as that. I noticed that there are songs called "1959" and "1969," both by Sisters of Mercy, "1979" by Smashing Pumpkins and "1999" by Prince--there could well be others, but these are the ones I knew--and I noticed that no one had written a "1989." So I did. Growing up a pretty oblivious kid in a pretty out-of-the-mainstream part of the world, I couldn't make any big statements about what was happening in the world or culture, so I could only reflect on what was going on in my head. When it was nice out we'd have gym class outside, and the train tracks ran right beside the softball field. "My head was on each train" from eighth grade on...
When did you start playing music?
I played trumpet in school, but I can't say that I ever felt very attached to the instrument. My grandfather had an old guitar in the basement that I chanced upon one day, and I dragged it out and banged on it until it was finally given to me.
You call Seattle home now. Did you come out here from the prairie?
Not nearly as directly as that. There was Alaska, then Austin, Texas, then Eugene, Oregon all before Seattle, with a handful of long stays in northwestern Montana.
You finished the CD Done Gone in July of last year. Was that your first?
Not the first recordings I'd ever done, but certainly the first album and the first professional recording I'd ever done. I did that record with Scott Ross at Elliot Bay Recording, who was fantastic to work with. Now my paranoia is that I won't be able to write material good enough for him to record.
What projects are you working on right now?
For a long time, Done Gone was just me. After doing that record, I realized that I wanted more input, in both senses of the word. I wanted to listen to a richer musical experience when I heard and played my own songs, and I also wanted more people's viewpoints on arrangements and quality of songs. I write a fair amount of material, but a lot of it is crap, and no one's going to tell you that like someone who doesn't want to have to develop a part for it. So at some point soon there'll be a new and improved Done Gone, and as soon as that lineup is in place I'll be looking to perform and prepare material for a new record.
Who are your influences?
The question reminds of a Tom Waits interview in which he described reading an article about himself, and in this article it said that he was influenced by this artist and that artist, but he had only even heard of one of them and didn't consider any of them to be influences. And they change, and some are embarrassing, but I can say that I have a very shallow but broad interest in all genres. I've learned that the minute I say I don't like some kind of music, of which there are eight thousand labels if you look at music stores or iTunes, someone will play me something that I will fall in love with.
You're being evasive.
(Laughs.) Yes, I suppose I am, although I prefer the term mysterious.
Why do you do it?
Be evasive?
No, music.
Oh. God, who knows? I guess because I don't know how to fix the plumbing or cobble a shoe. Someone writes you or comes up and tells you how much a song meant to them, and you think "Okay, cool, that's useful. That's my thing. That's what I can do."