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Spraygraphic Interview with Musician and Novelist Art Edwards
By Spraygraphic | May 5, 2008
Spraygraphic’s Chuck b. interviews Musician and Novelist Art Edwards about The Refreshments and his most recent book Ghost Notes.
Spraygraphic Interview with Art Edwards
SG: Where do you currently live and work?
AE: St. Charles, Chicagoland, IL.
SG: What mediums do you work with?
AE: I write novels, songs, and perform both solo and as the front man of a band.
SG: Describe your working process when creating a new work.
AE: It’s very different from novel to song. Songs come as they come. Sometimes I get the whole thing in about ten minutes. Other times I plunk away at it for months to get the right lyrics or arrangement. Nothing I do as a songwriter feels like work. I either get the lyric that day, or I wait until tomorrow.
Writing novels usually feels like work. I have a set time every day to sit down, and a set amount of pages to write or edit. I rarely come up short of my (modest) daily writing goal, which is generally two pages, and I rarely write more. Do that for a few years and in the end you’ll have something you might want to show someone else.
SG: What kind of things do you do when you get blocked or find it hard to create something?
AE: I never push a song. It comes when it wants to. I record and release everything myself, so the only pressure to finish something comes from me, and I’m a push-over.
I’m lucky because, after a decade or so of daily writing, the concept of writer’s block has yet to descend upon me. My theory of writing is essentially this: the only way you can fail is not to fill up two pages a day. I find it easy to come up with something to fulfill that goal, even if it’s bad and needs to be excised in the next draft. Often, writing the wrong thing is the first clue to finding the right thing. As a writer, you’ll find there’s very little difference in your actual work when you write from an inspired place and from a place when you’re struggling. To the outside reader, it’s almost the same. So, get your words down and worry about the rest later.
SG: Where are you currently finding your inspiration?
AE: John Austin ’s new CD Satellite Boulevard. A DVD made in the 90s about Noam Chomsky . Fritz Lang and Dr. Mabuse .
I’ve made it to the last part of the new translation of Proust ’s In Search of Lost Time. I waiting for the right time to start Finding Time Again. It might be tonight, or it might be October.
SG: Can you please tell us about your playing experience with The Refreshments ?
AE: How much space do you have? How about this? There were moments onstage when, for a moment, I was convinced we were the best band in the world.
SG: What is your dream concert?
AE: I’m a huge Dead Hot Workshop fan. Bret Babb is Dylan via Judas Priest and The Facts of Life.
SG: What is your favorite kind of music?
AE: Any pop song without bad lyrics and no more than one "clever" line.
SG: Where is your favorite place to play out?
AE: I had a great time at the Walnut Room in Denver this past week. That’s my favorite place right now, but that might change at my next gig.
SG: Can you please tell us a little about your first solo CD, Songs from Memory?
AE: I’d always planned on having a theme song for my second novel, Ghost Notes. A song of mine, "Riverboat Captain," had made its way into my novel as a song written by the protagonist, and I wanted a real life version to help promote the novel. A long-lost friend of mine from high school, Bret Hartley, contacted me, and I asked him if he’d play a little guitar on a clunky demo version of "Riverboat" I’d managed to record. Bret got intrigued by the project, hired a studio and session drummer Kevin Leahy, and a week later I had a full rock version of "Riverboat" sitting in my inbox.
Then it was my turn to get intrigued. I called Bret and said, "Do you want to do it nine more times?" We made it happen, and now we have Songs from Memory to show for it. I’m thrilled with the results.
SG: Can you please tell us a little about your newest book, Ghost Notes ?
AE: It’s the book I’ve been trying to write for a decade. It’s mostly about a character named Hote, who’s a successful rock bass player, but who’s doubting whether that path is right for him. More broadly, the novel is about what I call the rock ‘n’ roll heart, and the conflicts therein. There are many characters struggling with the part of themselves that is free-wheeling, versus the part of them that ought to be getting on with life. Every other chapter is narrated by a different character, so we get to hear from many who struggle with this conflict, even Digs Ven, a suicide guitar player/songwriter who resides in Rock ‘n’ Roll Heaven.
SG: How have you changed as a writer since your first book?
AE: My goal with the second novel was to take what I’d learned from the process the first time (writing a first novel is inherently about learning to write a novel) and expand upon it. I put a great deal of pressure on myself to raise the bar with my writing. I wanted Ghost Notes to be fuller and deeper, and to take on more difficult subjects, which I’d managed to avoid entirely in Stuck (the prequel of Ghost Notes). I think I did that.
SG: What is your favorite color?
AE: Orange crops up everywhere in my (limited) visual work.
SG: Who is your favorite artist? And Why?
AE: Probably James Joyce . I love how each book gets increasingly more difficult and esoteric. In a commercial sense, and as a person, Joyce is exactly the wrong model for any young writer. As an artist, he was as true and moral as one can be.
SG: What book/magazine are you reading this week?
AE: Hear, There and Everywhere by Geoff Emerick , engineer of all those famous Beatles records.
SG: What cd/mp3 are you listening to this week?
AE: The Pillows "Sweet Baggy Days"
SG: Where is your favorite place to hang out?
AE: Anywhere with my wife.
SG: Any final words of advice?
AE: The best advice I’ve ever heard for artists came from Blackie Lawless , the lead singer of WASP . It goes something like this:
This industry isn’t for people who what to do it. It’s for people who need to do it.
I think that applies across the board to anyone interested in a career in the arts and/or entertainment. If there’s anything else you can do, for God’s sake do it. If not, jump into the muck with the rest of us.
Additional Links:
http://artedwards-layindownthelaw.blogspot.com
http://www.myspace.com/artedwardsmyspace
http://www.myspace.com/artedwardsaudio
Topics: Artist Interviews, Literature, Music-bands |
