Casey Phillips spoke with Nashville-based rock singer/songwriter Bobby Bare Jr. about how he handles his fear of elves, his Grammy nomination at age 5 and how his son’s life-threatening experience inspired a song.
Casey Phillips: So you’re afraid of elves. That must make this time of year difficult for you.
Bobby Bare Jr: Terribly afraid of elves, really just short people, in general. When wrote Randy Newman wrote, “Short People,” I took it seriously.
CP: How do you deal with Christmas?
BBJ: I just don’t go to the big shopping malls. I stay out ’cause they’re real.
CP: How has 2010 treated you?
BBJ: Well, I think I put out the two things I’ve ever done, the Shel (Silverstein) thing took three years out of my life, and that came out in June. My record came out in August, so I had a lot of music out this year.
CP: Tell me about your tribute album to Shel Silverstein.
BBJ: My dad and Shel were best friends. I’ve known him since 72, probably. He critiqued my stuff and I wrote with him. He died 10 years ago, and if anyone would be doing a Shel tribute, it would be me and dad. It had My Morning Jacket, Kris Kristofferson, John Prine, me and dad, Todd Snider, Billy Bob Thornton’s band.
CP: What was it like growing up with a country star as a father? Was he around much?
BBJ: He was gone a lot, but when he was home, he was home all day. It drove my mom insane, but I was fine with it. I was on the road with him some. When I was 12, I sold T-shirts at shows.
CP: Did you feel compelled to follow in his footsteps?
BBJ: I would say that every boy is drawn to be like his dad, and my dad just happened to have an awesome job. (Laughs.) At the same time, I don’t share any fans. It’s not like I went to Music Row and tried to get on CNN. I say it’s like he sells trucks, and I sell motorcycles. It’s two completely different worlds.
CP: How did you start your own musical career?
BBJ: I was singing with him when I was four or five years old. We were nominated for a Grammy for “Daddy What If,” but then I went to college and was out of it. Towards the end of college, I got back into it, and stayed with it until I got a record deal in 1998 or 1997.
CP: Has your dad always been supportive of your music?
BBJ: No, he’s real critical sometimes, and every once and a while, he tells me he likes it. But he’s not supposed to get all of it. I’m not making music for 75-year-old men. I don’t’ think my target market is 75 year old men, but maybe I’ve nailed it and I don’t even know it.
CP: So who do you write songs for?
BBJ: Myself, just whatever I think is fun or entertaining or whoever I’m writing my songs with. Two or three or these songs off my album were written with My Morning Jacket guys. I don’t get to choose who my fans are. They choose me. That’s the weirdest thing about it.
CP: When did you start writing songs?
BBJ: Probably 1992 or 1994. I wrote really bad songs for a long time, and then they kind of got better.
CP: What was the first one you wrote?
BBJ: “You Blew Me Off” was one of the first ones that was decent.
CP: Do you still have a good relationship with any of those early songs?
BBJ: I do “You Blew Me Off” and sometimes, “Nothing Better to Do.” But you know, it’s weird. It’s like being told to jump in bed with your girlfriend from high school, like, “Yeah, ya’ll get in there and do it.” (Laughs.) I’m so far from that place. It was fun, and I loved my Bare Jr. band mates, but my music is totally different. It should be totally different.
CP: Looking back, how is what you’re writing now different from back then?
BBJ: I hope it sounds less basic. I listen to it, and I sound so country. I don’t know, I listen to it, and it’s like, “Wow.” I was doing that stuff wanting to be the Flaming Lips, and I’m so far from being anything like that. I always say that it’s like being in a dark room doing your hair and makeup with no mirror. Until you have someone to bounce it off with, you don’t know what you’ve got.
CP: “A Storm – A Tree – My Mother’s Head” has been out now for three months. What’s the verdict? How have people reacted to it?
BBJ: They seem to get it, the people who were fans a year or two ago who still come to the shows still sing along. I think they get it for the right reasons. All I know is how they respond when I play it live.
CP: Do the songs change at all when you play them live?
BBJ: Yeah. I think I’ll do acoustic versions of “Sad Smile” in a different key. Many times, I’ve made quiet records and gone on the road and made them really loud. This time, I’ve tried to do the songs as close to the album as possible.
CP: What prompted that decision?
BBJ: Just because I’d never done that. I’ve noticed that everyone who is really successful does it exactly like it was on the album. Those are also bands that are bands. I’m not able to bring the whole band I recorded with on the road with me.
CP: When you and your dad didn’t win the Grammy for “Daddy What If,” is that something you’ve let direct your career, like, “I’m actually going to win one, some day?”
BBJ: (Laughs.) Yeah, The Pointer Sisters won the Grammy that year. I blame them for keeping me from reaching my potential, my peak. (Laughs.) That was 1974, so it’s hard to chase after something like that. It’s just a different path.
CP: So how do you measure your success? In 20 years, when you look back, what will you have had to do to consider your career successful?
BBJ: I heard Billy Corgan say this, and I have to agree with him. I haven’t had to have a day job in 13 years at this point, and I like that. (Laughs.) I get to play for a living; athletes and musicians get to play.
CP: You seem to be as much a storyteller as a songwriter. What makes a story worth telling?
BBJ: What happens in songwriting, for me at least, is that I’ll just kind of be pondering lines, and sometimes, you’ll pair two lines together, and you’ll see the whole vision. You just get this flash of what the whole picture is, and then, it’s just a matter of writing that vision, coming as far with it as you can.
CP: “A Storm” took four years to write and record. What made you decide that you finally had enough material and the right material to get in the studio?
BBJ: Well, I spent two and a half months with the studio band just collecting songs. Some of them were completely done, and some needed to be fleshed out and finished. Probably half the songs were written – more than half – when we started demos. I demoed the whole album. We did the whole thing on a computer, and worked out every single idea, did every overdub we could think of. Then, we went into the studio and reproduced the demos.
CP: Is that how you managed to finish it so quickly?
BBJ: Right, that’s why we did it in two days. We had done preproduction and rehearsing and arranging for three months. That sounds like a long time, but it was like three or four weekends. Me and my friend David Vandervelde were working on my computer in my room constantly rearranging and fishing to make them the way we wanted them. Those recordings on the computer sound horrible. They were sketches, blueprints. Then, we went in and actual played the album.
CP: Were there any surprises in the studio?
BBJ: Well, it’s mostly just technical stuff that sounded bad (on the demos). It’s like it’s always exciting to see your girlfriend in a super nice dress all made up. You knew she was pretty, but … (Laughs.)
CP: Where did the song “Don’t Go to Chattanooga” come from?
BBJ: Out by the mall, there used to be a place called Crossroad rehab facility. I had four DUIs in 1991 or 1992. I went to rehab out by Hamilton Place because I had four DUIs and I had to do court-ordered rehab for a month. The weekend before I had to go to rehab in Chattanooga, I got to spend it with my girlfriend in Manchester. That’s where that song came from. That’s coming up on 20 years ago.
CP: So how did that story rise to the surface and become a song?
BBJ: I can remember how important that was, to get that last weekend with my hippie girlfriend before I had to go. It just sticks. I have no idea where she is. I’m sure she doesn’t remember that weekend whatsoever wherever she might be. (Laughs.)
CP: Tell me about “The Sky is the Ground.” You allude to that song have a tragic origin inspired by how you almost lost a child.
BBJ: My four-year-old son, Beckham, rode his bike with training wheels down the hill behind my parents’ house, straight down the hill. At the bottom of the hill, there’s a 12-foot cliff that drops down to the rocks on the bank.
[Hunter: And my bike fell in the water.]
That’s right. And what happened to your head? You got staples, didn’t you?
There’s a little tree at the bottom of the hill, and he ended up upside down, dangling over this ledge. My mom had to pull him out of the tree and lay him down. He was all twisted up, and his face was all scratched.
So the ambulance came and brought him to the hospital, and he’s OK now. He was OK within three days. It’s amazing how quick these kids recover. His face was all beat up and scratched up.
My mom turned her back on him for one second to get a wrench, and he rode straight down the hill. He had just turned three. The gash in the top of his head had to have six staples.
CP: As a dad, when something like that happens to your kid, is it hard to step away from the emotion, as a songwriter, or do you embrace the emotion?
BBJ: Well, I knew there was something interesting in that song, which was “What was going through his head as he was going down the hill?” Was it, “This is awesome!” or was it, “Oh, ****?” (Laughs.) I think it was both.
He was trying to ride his bike across the lake to this grandmother’s on the other side, which is insane, but it made perfect sense to him. He said, “I rocked out on my bicycle, dad.” (Laughs.)
CP: The title track of “A Storm – A Tree – My Mother’s Head” comes from another story involving a hurt family member. How does your mother feel about having a song written about a tree almost killing her?
BBJ: Well, it happened two and a half years before I recorded the song, so she was completely healthy. It broke two vertebrae in her neck, but that didn’t hurt anymore, and the house had been rebuilt and is a lot nicer than before the tree. She’s on the record screaming. You can hear her screaming. She thought it was funny, at that point. You know, it was really scary, but she didn’t die, so …
CP: Have you given any thought to your next album?
BBJ: No, I’ve got to start writing here pretty soon. It’ll start rolling out soon. We’ll see.
CP: Since you took twice as long as on “The Longest Meow,” are you going to take three days to record the next one, really give it some extra spit and polish?
BBJ: Probably not, because I’m certain you don’t need more than two days in the studio to record a record, if you do your homework before you get there … and if you get some of the best musicians who are walking the earth to play on the record with you. There are a lot of bands out there who have copied My Morning Jacket. I didn’t copy My Morning Jacket; I just hired them to play on the record. (Laughs.) That’s cheating in the same way, but at least I’m up front about it. And I don’t sound anything like James, nor do I write songs like that, really. His voice is completely different.