INTERVIEW : 2002 The Raft Lifts the Lid on Redemption's Son Joseph Arthur

You're in France at the moment. What are you doing there?

JA: I'm on my way to Switzerland from Amsterdam but I'm on pretty much an endless tour basically.

When I spoke to you two years ago you were on the road then. You always seem to be on the road. What does it feel like now two years on?

JA: There was a lot of time when I wasn't on the road but it feels OK. I like being on the road for the most part, basically the whole world becomes you'r home. You start to feel at home wherever you are.

Has it become a natural state of being?

JA: Yeah! You just get into a different way of thinking and living I guess. Yeah! I think you get a bit addicted to it.

Did you write some of these tracks with the view that they were going to become singles?

JA: In my mind I've always written pop songs, I think pretty much all my songs are pop songs. It doesn't surprise me that some of them end up sounding like they could but somehow they never do. I never write with that intention. I also never write to avoid that either, you know what I mean. I just write what I write and I'm a fan of pop music so I think I write pop music.

Whatever happened to the track 'Last Embrace' Did it ever become a track?

JA: That was one that was so poppy I got a little self conscious about it but I think we're gonna put that in the American version of the record and sort of restructure the record a little bit for America. Erm, probably just make a shorter version and have like a hidden CD in the record.

Like at the end of the CD?

JA: Well no, no, a 2 CD thing. One of them being the record but the other being a CD of hidden tracks. Instead of having one hidden track, have a whole CD of hidden tracks. It's just an idea I don't know if it'll happen.

There seems to be a bit more of the delays and the samples that you use live in the record. Was that your intention to use more of what you do live to give it that feel?

JA: I did want to bring that in more. But I don't feel as if I've really achieved that. I still feel that I want to do more of what I do live on record and figuring out ways of incorporating that more and more but I do think I have those sounds more on this record than anything else I've done.



It must take a bit of work actually developing all the different pedals because presumably you're working between different delay pedals to get the effects.

JA: Yeah.

Wouldn't it be easier to employ other people to do those bits?

JA: It's like saying wouldn't it be easier to employ someone to play guitar and sing for you. It's all part of being an instrument really. I look at it like playing the piano or something. It's just an instrument you're playing. I suppose it would be easier to do nothing at all. (laughs) But then again there's a lot of hours in a day to kill so you've got to do something.

That Spitz gig, was it a special one for you? It felt like a special one.

JA: Well I try to get something out of every gig I guess with London, Paris and New York and Los Angeles too there's always an extra added thing to it. I know when I'm satisfied with a gig and that gig was hard for me to feel that feeling but it made me work harder. In the end I feel that it was good y'know.

I remember you making some comment that the music was making you feel better, as though it was like medication or something. Is that how you feel about it?

JA: (coughs) Well that also alters when you've been on a long tour. For the last three months I've played like eighty shows or something like that. It just starts to feel like home when you're playing music y'know? It does make you feel better.

The songs have the feel like they were written on the road. Is that true?

JA: That's true. I did write a lot when I was on the road. I started writing a lot again and I'm getting ready to record another record on June 17th to the 24th. The road inspires something I guess. It brings a lot out.

There was something I wanted to ask you following on from last time when you mentioned terminal self hatred. Are you any more at ease with yourself now?

JA: Did I? I probably said it in jest. Well I think it's probably everybody dealing with that kind of stuff. I like to, I don't know. I feel like I'm in a place more peaceful with myself than I have been but I don't feel like I'm at peace.

On you way to being somewhere better?

JA: I think so. The older I get the freer I feel. I feel pretty free. Not so hung up on anything; live more in the moment.

I had a look on your notes from the road and I see you have to pay for it now.

JA: Yes, well we put together a couple of books so what are you saying to that? It's still free on the Internet but we decided to put it into book form. You don't have to pay for it on the Internet.

Does that put pressure on you? Do you start thinking 'I've gotta write the notes for the book'?

JA: No. It's nothing cynical. Basically we noticed there was a huge amount so wouldn't it be cool to make a couple of books. We were just gonna make one but when we put them together it would have made like a 500 page book so we split it into two volumes and that's it. It's expensive to make those books. We can't give them away. I didn't get a dime. Basically I'm a charity worker; I've never made any money from anything I've ever done. Don't fault me for having to survive a little bit y'know. I'm sure I have less money in my bank account than you do.

On your first day of 'Notes from the Road' there's a quote in there you put 'There are interviews to do but nothing to say except new ways of being considered polite.' Does that mean that our conversation now is pretty meaningless?

JA: Erm, I don't know why that would mean that. Thing's like 'Notes from the Road' are for writing songs or anything. It's just a moment in time; it's the way you feel at that moment y'know. Our conversation is only meaningless if you think it's meaningless and I think it's meaningless. It has nothing to do with something I've written three years ago in a moment of whatever I was feeling back then, y'know what I mean.

I just wonder in terms of the media. Once you've said it, you've said it and it's cast in stone forever isn't it?

JA: Yeah that's all part of the bullshit you were talking about earlier. Not really because it's all just toilet paper at the end of the day and it's only me that answers, if you're asking me the same questions that everyone else asks me and I give you the same answers I've already given. You haven't asked me the same questions.

Lyrically, would you say the lyrics are less abstract on this album?

JA: It's hard for me to be objective. I wouldn't say that but not because they aren't just because I don't analyse my music once it's done. I'm in a state of forward motion y'know, for me listening to my music would be difficult because it wouldn't be a relaxing thing for me. I'd be analysing it and thinking of things I should have done differently y'know what I mean. It'd be like work and there's no use working on it once it's done.

The Raft Lifts the Lid on redemption's Son Joseph Arthur

Obviously people do listen to the lyrics. Do you ever think 'that person there is looking at me and they know what's going on in my head and what I've gone through'?

JA: No because I write from characters as well. It's not all autobiographical y'know. You can't really be too concerned with what people think because they think what they want and all kinds of shit. If you're bogged down with what people think especially if you're trying to make music or art you're not going to get very far I don't think. You're always going to offend someone or rub someone the wrong way that's one of the things I like about Eminem so much.

There seem to be more religious references in the latest album. Does this reflect any change in your beliefs over the last two years?

JA: No, I don't really know where that comes from. A lot of it is just unconscious meditations when I'm writing. They're just kind of like dreams when I'm awake y'know. I think they speak from some place deeper in my soul than I really understand. Whenever the music kicks in, I don't know, something... I don't know how to say what I'm trying to say. I want to finish what I'm trying to say. It's just difficult.

Do you feel that you're ahead of yourself; your conscious is more ahead than your thinking brain?

JA: Yeah exactly. I think it's like dealing with the ultimate questions in some ways y'know that I don't spend day in, day out thinking about. You see what I mean. Songs don't come from the computer bit. They come from the deeper bit. When a journalist asks 'what does this mean? What does that mean?' they're asking the computer bit that has pretty much an idea of what it means as you do. The computer bit is just trying to make the cool thing, not the cool thing, just a good song y'know and later it seems more poignant even to me when I listen to stuff and I know where it comes from; a deeper place. When you say that it sounds kinda cheesy.

Are you still painting, writing poems, making music in equal parts?

JA: I've been making a lot more music lately than anything else. Part of the benefit of doing all those things is that while I'm doing some of those things I don't feel like I'm letting anything go y'know. If I'm not writing as much, painting as much as long as I'm making music that's where I'm at now. Like I said I'm getting ready to record a new record. I'm making a new record.

The Raft Lifts the Lid on redemption's Son Joseph Arthur

I know it's early but can you tell us anything about that?

JA: I've been playing with Lonza Bevan and Paul Liverheart from Kula Shaker, the rhythm section, the drummer and bass player. They came on the road with me for a while. It's been going really well and I wrote a bunch of new songs and got a chance to play it with them. We got some arrangements that are really good and then we're gonna go into the studio and record it after we've played it live. It's kinda cool to do it like that. Often you discover a record, then play it live and improve everything.

Where are you going to be playing it live? In the UK and stuff?

JA: We've started a bunch of shows already. We've done I think 10 already. I just did Amsterdam last night on my own and am doing Switzerland on my own tonight and ten or so dates before that were with those guys.

How do those compare?

JA: I like it a lot because I'm still doing solo stuff in the show. We were doing shows that were like 2 and a half to three hours long because I was doing solo stuff then they would come on and they're really good musicians y'know. Really good rhythm section.

And what are they bringing to the pot?

JA: Well one thing that's revealed when I play with the band is, cos I played with a band in New York sometimes, but I seldom do both. It's usually one or the other but with this I was doing both and the thing about the jammin thing is it's quite cerebral. Good but there's kind of a heavy element to it but when you play with a band it comes from the hip a lot more. Which is nice. It's nice to mix the two.

How did this come about?

JA: My sound engineer was the sound engineer for Kula Shaker and I knew those guys from way back then and I'd be on the road sometimes and I was good friends with Graham and became good friends with them. We all knew each other but it took time to think about having a band. They're playing with me at the festivals, Glastonbury.


Thanks for spending the time chatting. I hope to see you at Glastonbury or another date in the UK soon.

JA: Thanks I appreciate the support.

(www.vmg.co.uk)