“Would you go nowhere if you had a nowhere to go nowhere to?” – Tom
Listeners of Damien Jurado know what it’s like to inhabit the backwoods, abandoned planets and lonely bedsits of his songs. However, it may come as a surprise to learn that the fabric of his finely woven universe looks set to expand even further. Speaking to the press this time last year, Jurado reported he had three albums in the bag so far. “That’s currently seven now,” he tells me, reaching him on his landline one May morning.
The Seattle native has been doing things differently for some time now. DIY from the start, Jurado’s first demos circulated on his own label, Casa Recordings, on cassettes often dumpster-dived and re-recorded over. Signed to Sub Pop for his first five years, he later moved onto Secretly Canadian in the early 2000s, before swapping to Mama Bird Recording Co three years ago. But with his seventeenth album, The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania, the songsmith’s seizing the controls again, self-releasing under Maraqopa Records.
“It seemed like the right thing to do financially. I want to be able to put out more music at a rate that’s quicker than I was in the past. Most record labels make you wait two years to release something and I write at such a high rate that there’s no real point in waiting that long. I want to put out two or more records a year and I wasn’t able to do that before.” When pushed about release schedules, he’s still getting his head around things. “That’s the part I’m still trying to figure out. I’m most definitely releasing one or two next year. There’s also going to be some reissues as well. 2022 is going to be a giant, busy year for me.”
His unique approach seems to feed into a much larger worldview. Whether it’s omitting lyric sheets from his albums (making his songs more open to interpretation) or organising a 50-state tour (combining the wayfaring spirit of Woody Guthrie with the community feel of the hardcore shows of his youth) Jurado’s constantly re-examining the best way to connect with his audience. He’s also been vocal about his stance on being permanently plugged-in, forsaking much that we might consider commonplace so that his songwriting process remains uncontaminated.
“I try to live a pretty barebones existence. That’s not saying that I’m anti-technology, I’m not at all actually; I’m in love with science. But I think where it’s headed and where we’re going at such a speed, it’s nothing that I really want to be a part of. For my own sanity and for my own focus, I live a life that’s very tangible. I have an emergency phone that’s an archaic flip phone with no texting abilities. I have so much more time because of the life I lead. Even with things like social media, I’ve hired people to do it for me. With the news, I don’t pay attention. I guess living a little bit with my head in the ground is where I’m at right now. But I find that it brings me complete and total sanity, as well as time to focus on creativity.
“Living this way for me is a good thing because it brings in a great element of surprise when you do come across people who are fans of your music. The assumption that people know who you are is completely out the window. I’ve been on both sides of the coin now. This actually happened to me recently in LA, I was out for a walk with my wife and some guy just randomly walks up to me and introduces himself. Says he’s a big fan. I just remember being so shocked. That, A – someone would recognise me, B – someone would stumble upon me in a city the size of LA and then C, most importantly – I just had this feeling of intense gratitude at that moment, for what I do and that my music is able to reach people the way it does. I think before that because you’re connected to social media, there’s just this assumption that, ‘Oh yeah, these people know who I am.’ That’s a weird way of thinking. It humbles you in a way.”
Yet, he’s still been startled by some interactions as of late. “The recent emails I’ve been getting have been from fans who got this new record early and they’ve noticed that the albums don’t come with download codes. I’m like, ‘well yeah, it’s a record? If you want to listen to it, put it on your fucking turntable.’ It’s still going to be available for streaming. It’s funny because this is coming from fans that got the record a month early. Nobody else has it yet and they’re worried about this? It actually very much concerns me. I want it to be a proper listening experience.”
There’s no argument that the way we value and consume music shifts over time, and maybe our expectations of artists do too. The LA Times last year lamented the ‘lost art of deep listening’ but with so much vying for our attention, it’s understandable if our methods have changed. But Jurado requires room for obsession. In the past he’s said every record feels like a movie to him (perhaps unsurprising when ‘cinematic’ has become something of a buzzword when describing his music). He’s after the kind of immersion that occurs when the house lights drop, the opening sequence rolls and our lens is reduced to the size of a 40ft screen for two hours. He’s an all-in kind of guy.
Fans may have noticed Jurado’s track listings more closely resembling closing credits with each passing release as well (Alice Hyatt, Marvin Kaplan, Male Customer #1, Florence Jean, for example). Alongside his soundtrack work (the finest use of his songs surely being in the Maclain and Chapman Way documentary Wild Wild Country) and his 2019 Lagniappe Sessions where he covered his favourite TV theme tunes to joyous effect, sitcom and film obviously hold a fair bit of sway over his songwriting. So, when he ties in these influences, is it purely out of his sheer enjoyment and fandom or is he trying to capture a sense of something, whether that be an era or place?
“It’s definitely both of those things for sure. But there’s a third element of that, which is telling my story. I was a kid who moved around constantly. When you move that much there’s no stability in your life. My parents weren’t exactly the most responsible people in the world. I could get in trouble and they’d never know because they weren’t really present. So, the only constant was television and movies. I may move from Arizona to Texas and then onto Washington State, but I’m still going to be in season one of whatever TV show was on. I may be changing living rooms but I’m constantly in the front lounge of Family Ties or Happy Days. For me, it was grounding.
“It was also how I learned how to communicate with people as well. I think it’s how I developed my sense of humour. I learned a lot from television writing, period. Obviously now TV is praised as being just as important as movies. But back in the day that was not the case. Most of the shows I watch, they never won awards. The movies I was into were B-rated films, Sunday matinee movies. That was my upbringing, that and AM radio. Not just groups like the Beatles, Herman’s Hermits and the Stones, but also groups like Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, The Ronettes, oldies, you know? That was my mainline to whatever America is. Because when you’re a kid, TV is your portal.
“So, this third element is a big one for me. I will say this to you: I’m still following that line with the new material I’m writing. I’m actually going to be recording a new album next month in June. It’s going to be a five-part album, sort of like I did with Maraqopa with the trilogy, but bigger. It’s focused around one person and a few other people, like your standard movie or TV show. It’s set in the past with the main character sort of going in-and-out of his own existence.”
He confirms unreleased songs such as Whatever Happened to Paul Sand? & What Happened To The Class of 65’ could provide more clues in regards to this new direction as well. I question if by posing characters from shows aired decades ago (such as Alice or Gomer Pyle) against a changing American landscape, whether he feels we’re able to look more objectively at our current place in the world and reflect on principles we might have lost?
“Yeah, I think it’s like you’re holding up this mirror to today and you’re asking, ‘what’s going on?’ I thought this the other day for instance because of the pandemic threat, there’s all this talk about clean air. Not just clean air outside but also in indoor spaces, proper venting, I don’t know how it is in the UK. I thought to myself, I grew up going to see physicians who were smoking as they administered flu shots! Now I’m not saying this is a good thing. But I’m having a hard time even wrapping my brain around the fact that here in Washington State smoking indoors only became not ok, like a decade ago? And a decade goes by fast.
“So, when I’m hearing my Governor talk about the need to have open-air restaurants and clean air, I’m thinking ‘what the fuck is this guy talking about?’ Things like organic foods. I grew up with my Mum setting meat on the counter all day. And we were fine! We rode in cars without seatbelts, there were seven kids in my family, we all piled into one car. It seems to me like it’s not political at all, but it is political in the terms of ‘human politics’. I have a real problem with what’s going on. You can say it’s about the betterment of whatever and hey, I’ll agree with you half the time. But I think we’re getting a little bit too crazy. We’re trying to better ourselves in so many ways, but we’re forgetting about the human condition. Fuck man, some people just need cigarettes or a candy bar. Relax!”
I doubt Jurado’s alone in this thinking. After the year we’ve had there’s likely plenty of people who have felt like that Damien doppelganger, KO’d in the stairwell on the front of this record. Both social and news media coverage has been suffocating at times, disturbing and desensitizing us, when we’re not being pitched against each other for slightly differing beliefs. Even with his somewhat off-the-grid lifestyle, Jurado can see what’s happening.
“Generation gaps have always been there, but I don’t think we’ve seen it at such an extreme as it is today. When you were younger you were either a Conservative or you were liberal-minded. Now it’s like, are you vegan or not vegan? Red or blue? Do you prefer summer or winter? People are desperate to know what your opinion is all the time. That’s not the world I grew up with or in. But listen, the world’s been going around for a long time, there’s lots of strife. Sometimes it seems endless, that’s always been the case.
“But I think to go full circle here, with the invention of social media and 24-hour news cycles, which we obviously didn’t have (the news was on at five or ten o’clock) now you’re just barraged by information. I don’t think that we were meant to live this way. We’re constantly being given useless information that does no good to anybody’s life at all. I think well if I’m doing this, where am I storing this book I’m reading? How am I going to remember a song when I’ve got to recall how many people died in a plane crash, which I wouldn’t have heard of? This is why I’m living the way I live. I need a clear head. I don’t know how anybody can write otherwise.”
The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania feeds on this air of unease. Homing in on the lives of ten everyday people, all weathering their own storms, the emotional linchpin Johnny Caravella holds it together. A Midwestern epic of endurance and rebirth, it centres on Dr. Johnny Fever, a character from Jurado’s much-loved WKRP in Cincinnati. A disc jockey and over-the-hill hippie, ‘Johnny Midnight’ comes from a broken home, with a history of heavy drinking and a fear of hurricanes. Jurado’s spoken previously about the kinship he feels towards the good doctor, as well as actor Howard Hesseman. He explains how commemorating Fever in song is more than simply trying to encapsulate the character’s spirit or use their storyline arc as a jumping off point.
“So, it’s a mixture of both. I’m entering in wherever he’s at but also coming at it from where I’m at emotionally, at whatever part of the song or period of the day I’m writing in. I’m also attaching my own experiences as a writer to his character. It’s sort of like, if you took his glasses and jumped in his body, or caused him to live your experiences through his eyes. Or my experiences through his eyes. There’s this back and forth.”
Throughout The Monster... borders between songs blur, themes repeat and Jurado references both tracks from his past and other artists’ material. Struggling to keep their heads above water, it’s as if we’re eavesdropping on the lives of these ten protagonists, hearing the air leak out of their daydreams, all empty sighs and tense telephone conversations. Yet, in the climactic breakout of Johnny Caravella and in lyrics like “the world is a liar, the stars are a must,” and “all is not lost, even if you’re without a direction” there’s a residing sense of hope. Speaking to the moment, I wonder how much of this was intentional?
“I don’t think it was very conscious at all. I don’t write from that standpoint. My writing flows almost like water coming through a faucet. There’s not much time to stop it once it’s going. It’s just a stream. I don’t dissect it too much; I want it to come out as is. But like you say, it’s a lot of dialogue all at once, cross conversations. I’m trying to weed it out and separate it so it becomes easier to understand, I guess.”
Well, it’s a welcome relief from the doom scrolling and newscast caterwauling, that’s for sure. Here’s hoping Jurado doesn’t shut the faucet off any time soon and his novel brand of sitcom-inspired fan fiction keeps pushing at that high watermark. What’s more, apparently there’s a rise in people ditching their smartphones for burners, so he could be onto something. Who knows, maybe the next time we catch him we’ll all be on landlines.
The Monster Who Hated Pennsylvania is out now on Maraqopa Records.
Order via Norman Records | Amazon
DAMIEN JURADO’S EUROPEAN TOUR DATES
7/3 – VIDA festival, Vilanova i la Geltrú, Spain
7/14 – OLT, Borgerhout, Belgium
9/21 – Evanston, IL – SPACE*
9/22 – Evanston, IL – SPACE*
9/23 – Grand Rapids, MI – Wealthy Theatre*
9/24 – Ann Arbor, MI – The Ark*
9/25 – Louisville, KY – Headliners Music Hall*
9/26 – Nelsonville, OH – Stuart’s Opera House*
9/28 – Nashville, TN – Third Man Records*
9/29 – Atlanta, GA – City Winery*
9/30 – Charlotte, NC – Neighborhood Theatre*
10/1 – Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle*
10/2 – Vienna, VA – Barns at Wolf Trap*
10/3 – Woodstock, NY – Levon Helm Studios*
10/5 – Boston, MA – City Winery*
10/7 – Holyoke, MA – Gateway City Arts*
10/28 – Gent – Belgium at Handelsbeurs
10/29 – TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht, Netherlands
10/30 – Paterskerk, Eindhoven, Netherlands
11/01 – Kulturkirche, Cologne, Germany
11/02 – UT Connewitz, Leipzig, Germany
11/03 – Heimathafen, Berlin, Germany
11/04 – Pop Seasons @ Christianskirche, Hamburg, Germany
11/10 2021 – Teatro Lara, Madrid, Spain
11/11 2021 – Rambleta, Valencia, Spain
11/12 2021 – Las Cigarreras, Alicante, Spain
11/14 2021 – Teatro Apolo, Barcelona, Spain
11/18 2021 – EartH, London, UK
11/19 2021 – C-Mine, Genk, Germany
11/20 2021 – De Spil, Roeselare, Germany
12/1 – Santa Ana, CA – Ebell of Santa Ana*
12/2 – Ojai, CA – Ojai Women’s Club*
12/3 – Oakland, CA – Starline Social Club*
12/4 – Big Sur, CA – Henry Miller Memorial Library (2 Shows)*
12/5 – Sonoma, CA – Sebastiani Theater*
12/8 – Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios*
12/9 – Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios*
12/10 – Tacoma, WA – Fawcett Hall*
12/11 – Bellingham, WA – Wild Buffalo*
* with Okkervil River
Website: https://damienjurado.com/