David Wilcox In Concert at Bodie House Concerts in Thousand Oaks and AMSD in San Diego, Calif.
Written by Terry Roland
David Wilcox will be performing at Thousand Oaks Library presented by Bodie Music, Inc. in Southern California on September 10 at 8:00 pm and at AMSD Concerts in San Diego on Saturday, September 11, 7:30pm.
There’s something energizing about originality. Talking with David Wilcox for an hour is a reminder of how the first discovery of truth feels, as though it’s been mined and the gold is just lifted out of the earth. There was a noticeable absence of cliché, ideology, and parroted language in our conversation. While David is coming from a place of spirit, he is not a shaman or priest. He is a songwriter who considers music a force of healing, a natural medicine best experienced first hand, soul to soul, and heart to heart, being to being. An example of this is his 2009 release, Open Hands, which he recorded solo on an analog 12-track tape. His upcoming release, Reverie, brings a new diversity in narrative and style.
In our recent conversation, David spoke at length about the relationship of music to his life and his own discovery of a faith that transcends religion found in personal creativity. In his view, there is a little difference between things done well with great love. In this sense, in the world of David Wilcox, all things really do come together as one..and a song runs through it. His songs flow like a cascade from a place of spirit and compassion into the ordinary magic of daily life:
Terry: What’s been happening lately?
David: I’m getting ready for a tour. I just finished doing the Rocky Mountain Folk Festival. It was a good experience. It opened me up to new song ideas. I was there teaching and performing and suddenly I have songs to dream about. I can hear them coming in the distance.
Terry: You were teaching as well?
David: Yes. This happens when I teach. My music is new to me right now. At the workshop I can’t cover everything, but I like to get into the quirkiness of the music. The songs are a kind of musical navigation. There’s this place where the heart cracks open to the subtle variables that help steer my life. This way I don’t miss my story. The song can come in and give a window to how my heart can feel. You know, life is a chance for a bold adventure. Songs wake me up to that. Suddenly, I feel I want to make music out of my day and out of my time here. It still does that for me, more than ever. The songs I write direct me deep into the heart. They tell me what I want, that thing in my life that keeps my dreams going. I find that I can be the go between for the subtle yearnings of my heart and my conscious mind. It becomes an oasis of joy.
Terry: How has your songwriting changed over the years?
David: You know, for a while, when I was younger, my life was about the songs. Now, the songs are about my life. I came to a place where my relationship with my wife feels like a song; my time with my son feels like a song; my relationship with my neighbor feels like a song. The song used to be a place I’d go to escape. Now, the song comes to me. They help me face my life and bring me into my own skin. Now, the songs bring me to my life. They become something to live up to.
Terry: Is your songwriting influenced by spiritual views such as Buddhism or Christianity?
David: I’m aware of the religions. But, for me, it’s just something fun to know about. It’s like using different language. I’d like to scratch out the word, “god” and replace it with music. What you give a song it is kind of like a gift, like wrapping a present. You wrap it in a story so when it’s opened up, you find what the song is really about. That’s the gift. For the listener then, there’s a sense of discovery and it becomes their own. Like a song on the new album, a simple story of three brothers who are confused by what their father is doing. The father smiles at them and soon the song unfolds to be one about Jerusalem.
Terry: You’ve described a lot about the inspirational side of songwriting. What about the craft?
David: I find the time spent working at it is a way of making the song true. It’s that intense focus. There’s a sympathetic vibration with the audience. It leads to a higher level of craft. It shows respect for the listener. It intensifies the transformation at the spirit level that informs the song. If you could graft it, the song would start going up a steep slope. It gets more complex and as more time passes, the song becomes simpler and beautiful until some other whisper starts speaking through. The song becomes truer. With good craft, the song sounds like it just happened.
Terry: How does the writer’s ego work for or against this?
David: I think in the big picture the original motivation doesn’t matter. It’s like people who go surfing. It may not be for the right reason. But, the ocean is so big, the currents so deep, it doesn’t matter why they’re there. The ocean will work on them, inform them of its depth. It’s the same with songwriting. You start writing because you want to be this or that, but then, it’s like emotional alchemy. You may come at it for selfish reasons. For me, it was James Taylor’s fault when I first heard the song, “Golden Moments.” [sings] Now I gathered up my sorrows/and I sold them all for gold/and I gathered up the gold/and I threw it all away. You know, you can take the most painful, debilitating experience and something beautiful can come of it. It becomes healing. Life becomes not something to get over, but you work on it, and it works you. It’s like when you first play guitar. You think you have two things going on. There’s your left hand, then there’s your right hand, but it’s really one thing. When you get inside the song, the experience that brought it about and the song itself are really one thing. Writing keeps a balance. It’s about balance. You say, “wait a minute. Why is music in my life in the first place?” The reason for writing becomes clearer and clearer until it’s so much more fun. There’s no gatekeeper, no institution or reason for the music. The beauty of the music can be so humbling.
Terry: You’ve thought a lot about the reason we make music and write songs.
David: Yeah. It really does destroy your ego. It’s important to do something impossible. There’s nothing more impossible than music. You know, it destroys your ego. The only thing that keeps the music from really happening is your “self.”
Terry: When it comes to ego, it seems to keep us from doing so many of the right things, be it from a Buddhist or a Christian perspective….You know, like the idea of love your neighbor as yourself.
David: It’s also hard because with something like that, it’s a directive. But it’s more a matter of being than loving. This influences behavior and the love takes care of itself. No need for the dogma. Don’t love your neighbor, be your neighbor.
Terry: Do the spiritual teachings all come down to something universal for you? Like the oft-used cliché, “all paths lead to the same destination.”
David: In the world religions, there’s great beauty. It’s amazing – the similarity, the connection. Yet to say that to someone just starting out is another thing. We all have a river to cross. There are many boats. There’s the Jesus boat, there’s the Buddha boat. But, we don’t want to get stuck deciding which boat is the best. Or, it’s like climbing a mountain. If someone tells, you can take all paths and you’re just starting out, it’s confusing. It’s important to take one and stick to it. Inside the different faiths there is great commonality, but outside there all of these differences. And we’re left with this wonderful conundrum and sometimes the messenger gets confused with the message. Bruce Cockburn said about those who know can’t really say it and those who say it, don’t really know [laughs].
Terry: Tell me about writers out there who are taking a similar approach to yours. Who would you say are your influences and kindred spirits?
David: Most of them are not musicians! There are a lot of musicians I love to hear. I may disagree with some, but if I hear someone get vulnerable; if they speak in song from that place where they are cracked open; if they can write about what they’re afraid of, where they find joy and how it surprises them, then I check off the box and think that this is a good person who will always be my friend. Then, I never see them in the same way. It’s like that song chose them. A lot of times I’ll discover something unique in the song’s meaning, something that really moves me, something with wonderfully complex overtones and the writer doesn’t know and didn’t intend what it inspired in me.
Terry: Do any artists you admire in this way come to mind?
David: I was doing the song school a few days ago and there was this guy there who started writing songs at 60 years old. He wrote this spectacular song. I asked him if I could learn it. I shaped it a little bit and sent it back him. I felt like, “okay, I could say it like this…” It’s a song that breaks the rules but holds this story that’s too hard to touch, yet is holds up lightly, like this beautiful vision. Great songs really do this magic trick like what would happen when the magician looks in the hat and is surprised that the rabbit really is there.
Terry: When you say story what do you mean?
David: Well, I was talking with Carrie Newcomer a while ago. We laughed about the perception that songs need to be “about something.” Sometimes songs aren’t about anything at all.
Terry: Are you talking about experience as opposed to reporting?
David: I have friends who are into things completely different from me. I have friends who golf. They get into it on a deep mystical level. When I talk with them, they’re surprised that I know what they’re talking about. But, really, all I have to do is cross out the word music and replace it with golf. I have a wonderful neighbor, Danny Dreyer, who’s written a book called Chi Running. It’s a back door to spiritual practice for people who run, starting with Tai Chi and looking at the body’s own expression of energy before the body was actually there. He teaches how to be in alignment with that energy – how not to fight yourself but to apply everything you experience. What we Americans need are back doors into a beautiful experience of connectedness without the tired old language that tries to turn it into marketing.
Terry: Tell me about your latest recordings.
David: My latest was released last year called Open Hands.
Terry: It was done in analog. Can you tell me why?
David: Yes. We used old-school 16-track recording. It kept us honest. No tricks, no easy edits. It made the performance real. The first track is called, “Dream Again.” Once you’ve heard it a few times, you’ll notice there’s a hailstorm in the middle of the song as we were recording. It sounds like really big brushes on a really big snare. Just before the song drops down to a quiet verse, the hailstorm stops. If it hadn’t stopped at just that moment, we would’ve had to re-do the recording. It captured a beautifully realized momentum on tape, a sense of urgency.
Terry: What about the latest?
David: No one’s heard it yet. It’s just been mastered. It’s much more cynical than I’ve been in the past. Like a song that states how institutional religion ruins everything. It’s the first time I’ve written in characters. You know, Randy Newman and Richard Thompson write through characters. They may write about something they disagree with but it tells a story. There’s a song called “They Call It Torture, We Call It Freedom.” I’m singing about protecting America and just by the way we protect it, it’s no longer what it once was. I didn’t used to write this way, through characters. I was always a little too fearful of being misunderstood.
Terry: Well, David, thank for your time. I look forward to seeing your shows in San Diego and L.A.
David: Thank you.
David Wilcox will be performing at Thousand Oaks Library presented by Bodie Music, Inc. in Southern California on September 10 at 8:00 pm and at AMSD Concerts in San Diego on Saturday, September 11, 7:30pm.
