Chattanooga Times Free Press entertainment reporter Casey Phillips spoke with singer/songwriter Grayson Capps about writing songs about invisible people, his studies of acting and the first song he ever wrote.
CP: You started playing music in college at Tulane University, right?
GC: Yeah. I dabbled in trying to figure out how to play chords and stuff in high school, but I didn’t really know anything. I started playing with some guys in my dorm at Tulane. That’s where it started.
CP: What was it that drew you to it at that point?
GC: I had a professor there who was trying to marry live theater and rock’n’roll. There are a lot of different communities that, if they want to make money at their town theater, they have to keep “Cats” and stuff like that.
There’s no groundbreaking anything (in live theater) unless you’re in Chicago or New York or London, but stages are all over the country, as far as rock’n’roll is concerned. Every bar you go to has a stage. There, people come, and you can do new things.
Plus, when I was growing up, there were all kinds of crazy people coming around the house playing and acting the fools.
CP: Did any of your education as an actor carry over into your music?
GC: Yeah, but it’s more subtle because I studied acting, and if you get caught acting, you’re a bad actor. A lot of the stuff was the focus of songs and stories. As an actor, you need to know who, what, where, when, why and under what circumstances.
So singing a song, for me, helps me focus to sing and be focused with where I am, what I’m doing and what I want from the song, not just singing the lyrics. It’s like what an actor would do with a monologue. I’ve always consistently done that and consistently have, from theater. I think it helps people with people being able to focus and be drawn in.
CP: The South is a culture of storytelling, and many of your songs incorporate a storytelling narrative. How much of what you do is storytelling and how much is playing music?
GC: It’s half and half. It all goes together, though. I’m not a guy who’s going to do a bunch of instrumentals and wow people or anything. Mostly, my music is there to frame the stories, like a picture frame, with the story being what you look at and hopefully not get sidetracked by the music. The music should go with it.
CP: Did you have a storyteller you listened to often growing up? A relative or a family friend?
GC: It’s a combination of my dad, who holds court quite often, and this guy Bobby Long, when he was alive. When you got those two together, it was just a show. You could just sit there and not do anything. (Laughs.)
CP: Who were some singers who influenced you? Contemporarily, you’re often compared to Tom Waits and The Drive-By Truckers.
GC: The first thing I really liked is (“Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine”) by Tom T. Hall. That was when I was little. As I got older, my dad always had good music around the house. I latched onto the early Bob Dylan stuff and then Leon Russell. A lot of stuff from the early ’70s because that was my formative time.
Once I got into that, I started going back in the blues because, through Bob Dylan, I went back to Woody Guthrie and just really found myself thinking, “That’s what a troubadour is, that’s what the American troubadour. That’s what I wanted to do. I don’t want to be a non-sensical entertainer. I want to be valid, as far as the social landscape, and offer help to get beyond certain issues.” Woody Guthrie was big because he didn’t care about the music, he cared about the song.
That led me back to Sonny terry and Ronnie McGhee. As far as vocalists, Howlin’ Wolf was always unreal. All those blues guys I admire just about more than anybody.
CP: Do you remember the first song you wrote?
GC: I can’t really remember the lyrics too much, but I remember it was a song about this fat, ugly girl at school. I was trying to write a song that was funny on the surface, but then it brought you into the fact that she was a real person and that you ought not to make fun of the fat, ugly girl. To top it off, her name was Joy Bush. (Laughs.) It was terrible.
She was walking by the baseball field one day, and a foul ball hit her in the head. She died in her sleep from something like a vessel bursting in her brain. I just remember writing the song about her after she died because people made so much fun of her. It made me realize she was just real.
I think it went to the tune of “C. C. Rider.” It was like, “Hey, fat momma, see what …” (Laughs.) But then it turned around so it wasn’t funny anymore.
That was the first song. Then, I started writing a lot more songs.
CP: What about the second?
GC: Yeah, actually I still kind of know it. I think it was called, “We Fail So Easily.” I can recite the whole song; I still like it. It was like:
“Ain’t no time to be sad. Don’t sit around and wonder why. / It’s all me, and it’s all you. You can do anything you want to do. / Pick up a cigarette and put it in your mouth. Sing too much and talk too loud. / Because I know, everything’s gonna flow.”
Or something like that. (Laughs.)
CP: That’s impressive you still remember that. How long ago was that?
GC: Jesus Christ. I don’t know. 20, 25 years ago?
CP: The first song was inspired by a real person and a real event. Do you tend to find inspiration in real people, as opposed to fictionalizing?
GC: Yeah, that seems to spark songs for me. I have to have some kind of feeling, something that touches me, some kind of realization. It usually stems off real people and having empathy and compassion towards somebody or even loving someone. I guess it’s a “There but before the grace of God go I” type of thing. Empathy stirs it the most.
I grew up around my father, who was real big into literature. A big one was Carson McCullers’ idea of the invisible people. So many people in our society look at the pretty people and the famous people and the rich people, and these other troglodyte people get looked over like they’re nothing, but a lot of times, the most beautiful people are the invisible people. I’ve done a lot focusing on the people that other people don’t normally focus on.
CP: So do your songs tend to reflect a type of person, as opposed to specific individuals?
GC: Yeah. Recently, I’ve been working on a new record, and there’s a guy down in Ocean Springs, Miss., who lives in a trailer. His name is Mr. Jim. There’s a bar called The Shed that we play in, and every time I’ve been there he shows up dressed in a suit. I realized he’d been there every day since that bar was open; he hadn’t missed a day.
He would instigate people dancing and stuff. He was a great spirit. He gave me some coconut moonshine one day and took us back to his trailer to drink a little bit. He was real nice to the band.
Somebody like that gets in my head. It’s like, “Wow, that’s what people are missing. That’s what it’s all about – dance, share and love life.” It’s a simple way. He’s not in New York. He’s going to the barbecue place down the street.
I wrote a song called “Coconut Moonshine” about Mr. Jim and dancing like Anthony Quinn. (Laughs.) It’s stuff like that that inspires me, those kind of people. It’s not a certain type as much as invisible encounters.
CP: I was watching videos of your shows on YouTube earlier and noticed that when you’re playing, your left foot does an interesting twist as you’re stomping to the beat. Is that intentional or just something you do?
GC: It’s getting worse as I get older. I played sitting down for a long time, and then I started getting into situations where there were more people who couldn’t see me, so I stood up. But I kept stomping my foot like I was sitting down.
I don’t know, man. That thing has it’s own life. I have no idea what’s going on. If anything, I want to stop doing it because I look at videos, and I think, “What the hell?” I need to calm it down so it’s not upstaging me. (Laughs.)
CP: When you’re writing, what is the most important thing you need to nail to write a “good” song?
GC: The equation? (Laughs.) One plus two equals three. It’s rough writing songs because they’re so beautiful and wonderful and open and solve all the worlds problems … before they’re written. But then they get written and they’re defined, and it’s like, “OK … there it is.” (Laughs.) Sometimes, it’s like, “Wow, that works.”
Mostly, what makes it work for me is kind of mathematical, in a psychological way. It brings the brain to a conclusion or an epiphany or a solution.
I’ve gotten to where I’m not a big fan of the “Me, me, me” songs. Really, I don’t know. It’s whatever that makes me feel like, “Oh, that’s cool.” (Laughs.) If I don’t feel like it’s done, it’s like, “That’s no good to play.”
I tell you, it all goes down to sex. That’s what it is. You have the foreplay, you have the plot – just like a book or a movie; they’re all the same – and then you have the climax and then you have the resolve. To me, that’s what a good song does. It’s just like a sexual encounter – a good one, not one that didn’t work out right. (Laughs.)
CP: What’s your litmus test for a song? Who do you play it for first?
GC: The biggest bull meter out there is the audience. You throw it out in front of an audience, and it doesn’t matter what the reaction is or what’s going on, but I can feel what the audience is feeling because I’ve been in front of audiences so much.
If it’s working, it feels good, and if it’s not, it feels awkward, and there will be things like, “Ah, it doesn’t feel good here or here.” To me, that’s the biggest test for a song.
CP: What’s a song to which a crowd responded surprisingly well?
GC: “Coconut Moonshine” has been good. I’ve been throwing that out recently. I had a song I wrote a long time ago called “Poison” and “Big Old Woman.” Some of the silly songs hit people over the head. A song called “Ike,” I remember the first time I played it, people wanted me to play it, and I ended up playing it seven times in one night.
It’s magical when a song is fresh and new. There’s a certain sheen on it. If you start playing it too much, it kind of loses it.
CP: When you’re on stage, what’s something you couldn’t or would never compromise on? What’s something you have to do in order to feel good about yourself at the end of the night?
GC: I don’t know. It’s all about honesty, to me. The connection between me and the audience is the biggest thing.
The whole show is almost like the formula we talked about for a song. It seems like it’s got to have a journey and then a resolve. That makes it feel complete.
Sometimes, I play for three hours straight trying to find that point where I connect and get the resolve. Some nights, it’s like, “God, this isn’t working.” Other nights, you don’t even think about it, it’s so simple, such a great marriage between the audience and the performer. It always takes two to tango. To me, that’s the most important thing about the performance.
I basically have to tell the truth. If I’m bulls—ing, nobody buys it.
CP: Tell me a bit your last album about “Rott ‘N’ Roll.” Reading through your bio, it seems like the recording process for that one was fairly organic, lots of first takes and if something wasn’t working, you’d get away for a while until it was. Was that different from your normal experience in the studio?
GC: Yeah, because we’ve gotten all the equipment in the house. So we’re not watching the clock at an $800 a day studio. A lot of times, you get in a big studio, and you’re spending maybe $1,200 a day, plus you’re paying musicians to be there. You’re talking maybe $2,000 a day, and that’s low budget.
The creatively process then becomes, “Whoa, let’s get this done now.” We were at the house, and we didn’t have that pressure. If things got weird, we just went to drink a beer and burn stuff in the fire pit. (Laughs.)
This record I’m doing now is similar, too, because we have all the equipment at the house.
CP: How’s the next one shaping up?
GC: I don’t know what to say about it yet because it’s not done. There are two ways of looking at making a record. A lot of that pressure of going into a high-end studio where you’ve got two days to get it, that has a certain magic to it, too. If you don’t do that, relaxing and sitting on it seems to be the other option. (Laughs.)
I’m kind of waiting on this one. It should be done and ready to be out by February of next year. I’m about 10 songs into it.
CP: Will this be an album with The Stompknockers or a solo project?
GC: No, I don’t actually have The Stumpknockers anymore. We quit that. There’s a group of guys I’m playing with who are kind of like an all-star band from South Alabama. It’s a really good band. I’m calling them The Lost Cause Minstrels. So it’s Grayson Capps and The Lost Cause Minstrels.
CP: I read that “Rott ‘N’ Roll” also was a departure from your previous records in terms of its sound.
GC: Yeah, well I’d been touring with those guys, The Stumpknockers, for five years. We were forced together after the hurricane. I was playing with a bunch of different musicians before the hurricane. Someone put it pretty good when they said that whoever you were sleeping with on Aug. 29, 2005, you’re married to now. (Laughs.) That was kind of the case with my band. We were together for five years. I didn’t know how long it was going to last, but I wanted to put together a snapshot of what that band was about and what we were capable of. That’s what “Rott ‘N’ Roll.”