*** CD 2 ***
David Byrne: I've read somewhere that someone said that all masterpieces are produced not in a state of concentration but in a state of distraction. Does that make any sense? Vic Chesnutt: I think there's a lot of truth in that. Somebody who wrote that must have done a masterpiece of their own because it's true. My personal masterpieces, a lot of times, are blind inside me. While I am distracted, like doodling with life. David Byrne: I think that's what they meant. Either distracted, in that the other person had other things going on in their life, and while they weren't thinking about it too much, they wrote a song or made a movie or whatever. And that was the one that was great, as opposed to the one where they focused on it all the time and didn't let anything distract them. Vic Chesnutt: I always put too much paint on there. And given half a chance I will ruin it, you know? That's why I think the good ones are the ones that get snatched away from me, before I can ruin it. David Byrne: Had you known the guys in Lambchop for a while? I assume that you had known them for some time. Vic Chesnutt: I've known them for awhile. I met Kurt, the singer and boss, father. He was at the first show I ever played in Nashville. There were only about three people there, or five people. And three of them were cops, and him, so, it was pretty exciting. It was a great show. And so, we kept in touch ever since. That was probably 1990 or something. David Byrne: The first song you ever wrote was called "God". You wrote it when you were about five. I gotta ask: what gave you the idea at five-years-old that you could write a song? Vic Chesnutt: Well, that's the thing. I'm a very lucky person in that my grandaddy wrote songs, and my grandma wrote lyrics for country songs. David Byrne: Did they work together? Vic Chesnutt: They did work some together. Mainly, she wrote lyrics in her notebook. She didn't give them to anybody, really. But, she liked to write songs about cities. I don't know why. She would write, "Jacksonville, Florida." "Okay, here's a song about Jacksonville." "Waycross, Georgia," "Here's a song about Waycross, Georgia." David Byrne: And has she been to all those places, or did she just imagine it. Vic Chesnutt: Oh no, only places she'd been to. She didn't write, "Paris, France, Well, they dance around with no pants." No, it was places she'd been to. And my grandfather wrote songs every year for her, for their anniversary. So, from an early age I knew that people sat around and made up songs. It wasn't some kind of weird hocus pocus to it. David Byrne: A lot of what you write about is ordinary things, and there's naming names and naming the objects. It's almost like, at the time of day, what was sitting on the table, what was outside the window, as opposed to spectacular events, which rarely occur. Do you think that salvation is in the ordinary, as opposed to the extraordinary? Vic Chesnutt: Yeah, it's beautiful. I love this, I love this. Well, I think it's my job. I didn't think about this at first, but I think it is my job to give attention to the littles. And to try and show the power that maybe this set...I think of it a lot of times as little sets. Little groupings, lists, and somehow, together, these have a power. And the image of these things together somehow have a greater weight than the separate little bits. And I think, a lot of times this is what I do, and try to do. And I want to remind people to look around for the inspiration in the art feeling, in every day. I think that's what I do. David Byrne: Let me ask about this record. How did you go about it? Kurt Wagner: Vic just got on the horn and said, "I want to a record with Lambchop, and you. So, let's do it." And I said, "Okay." I was flattered. And we talked about it quite a bit before we ever got around to hitting a note. But, we spent a lot on it. Vic spent a lot of time on it, preparing. We talked about different ways to go about making a record. We talked about maybe making it in the order that the songs appear on the record. David Byrne: The group's kind of like an orchestra, so does everything have to be worked out in advance? Kurt Wagner: Somewhat, but not really. There's a lot of freedom there. You just bring the song there. Vic Chesnutt: It's not at all, Kurt. They say a lot. They be jamming a lot. They play. They got their parts. Kurt Wagner: Sure. But it grows out of it, and I think the way we decided to record it allowed them to go about learning as they earned. The first day we did it in a more traditional studio, you build it up in layers and parts. And then the second day was all live. We had the same songs, little grouping of songs, Saturday and Sunday. And Saturday was the old way, and Sunday was all done live. Just to compare the two kinds of feels that you would get from two different ways of working in the studio. David Byrne: How did you, Kurt, with Lambchop, know Vic's stuff? Kurt Wagner: I went to see him in a little bar in Nashville. David Byrne: The first time he played? That place? Kurt Wagner: A little dinky bar in Nashville. I don't know if that was the first time you'd been there or not. But I didn't really know who he was or anything. I just went in on a hunch. And there was nobody there. So, we hung out quite awhile before I even realized that I was talking to him. I didn't know who he was. David Byrne: Does everybody in Nashville talk about music all the time? Kurt Wagner: I think that's one of the subjects they talk about a lot. They have a few others, but that's the one that's the most obnoxious. Vic Chesnutt: Nashville's a funny music town. We saw Patti Smith play there a few months ago and there was one hundred people there. David Byrne: But there's a huge University there? Vic Chesnutt: That's the thing. I saw her the next night in Atlanta and there were millions of people trying to get in, fighting to get in. Kurt Wagner: It's a pretty jaded industry place. It's what I imagine Hollywood is like to some extent, where it seems like nobody really buys music or goes to shows so much, because it seems to be so much a part of their lives, that it's not what they do so much for entertainment. They'd rather play golf, or watch sports.
Encore:
Encore:
Encore:
