Heaven or Las Vegas - Interview: Franklin Bruno

Franklin Bruno is an academic, journalist and musician. He’s been a key member of Nothing Painted Blue, collaborated with The Mountain Goats and has a number of solo albums to his name. He is also one of the wittiest, most perceptive and talented lyricists to have ever graced the United States. You may not know him well, you may not even know him at all but I’ll guarantee you, if you have half an ear you’ll be snapping up his whole back catalogue after just one listen to his music.

HOLV: First off Franklin, how are things with you?

FB: Quite well. I'm writing this from Upland, CA, where I grew up, during my summer break from teaching, seeing family and friends and trying to make some progress on a few writing and musical projects before the school year starts. I just finished putting together a poetry chapbook that's coming out from a small press in New York sometime next year, there's some Mountain Goats recording coming up in August, and I have to write a couple of academic talks I'm supposed to give at conferences in Fall. (I've hardly been doing any music writing, except for conducting an email interview with the great Peter Blegvad for a magazine.) I've been trying to finish a few songs so that I have a surplus to draw the next Human Hearts record from, and I also have a couple of odd one-off songwriting tasks going: themes for a cartoon show and an indie movie, plus something for an avant-garde puppet theatre performance that I haven't really even started thinking about. So it's the usual juggling act.

HOLV: You've had a few musical incarnations. Nothing Painted Blue, a solo career and now The Human Hearts. Tell us about your latest project?

FB: Well, I've always preferred the idea of being in a band to being a "singer-songwriter." But since I've moved from LA to Chicago to New York in the last couple of years, and don't know where I might land as of 2008, having a real working band is not an option. So I decided to use a name other than my own for my "projects," and that I would try to work with musicians I know wherever I happen to be. Civics, the current record, really didn't feel like "solo" work, partly because the songs aren't confessional or inspired by my private life, and several tracks are full band arrangements, so those were additional factors. (What's funny about this is that I made this decision after several years of sticking, somewhat perversely, to the "Franklin Bruno" label, while indie-rock standard-practice was for solo artists to use pseudonyms. But just recently, more people have gone back to using their own names -- even Bill Callahan didn't release his last record as "Smog.") I'll probably play and record as "The Human Hearts" with various line-ups in the years to come, but when I'm completely solo, it still feels artificial not to just be "Franklin Bruno." Not that there's anything wrong with artifice: I just don't have a very strong sense of a performing alter ego distinct from my day-to-day personality -- that's probably a failure of imagination of my part.

HOLV: Can you foresee a European or UK tour some time in the future?

FB: I usually find a way to perform if asked, but given the expense involved, I'd be surprised if a tour of that sort came about anytime soon. This might change if I stopped getting teaching jobs (I'm not about to go gallivanting around while I'm responsible for multiple classes), and/or released a record on a label with international distribution. Never say never.

HOLV: Are you happy to be described as a cult musician?

FB: I think "cult" might be a little strong -- it implies that there's a certain core audience for whom being intensely interested in the artist in question forms some part of their identity (and helps them discover a sense of community with others), and I don't have much of a sense that that's the case with most of the people who happen to follow my records. But I don't know what other term applies. I do find my position a bit odd, though, in that what I do isn't especially experimental or avant-garde, at least as those terms are conventionally applied to music; being an little-known writer of what are, more or less, pop songs (a form designed for mass appeal) is a fairly paradoxical endeavour.

HOLV: In terms of importance, how does making music rank in your life?

FB: If I had a clear answer to that question when I ask it of myself, I would pass it along, but all I can really say is that it varies. I definitely draw less of my identity or sense of self-worth from music than I did during the heroic period of indie-rock. I suspect this has been good for my emotional health.

HOLV: If you had to pick a your top five albums what would they be?

FB: I'm not much of a list-maker (an oddity in a rock critic), so I'll just name a few records that I've returned to over the years

Soft Lights and Sweet Music, Clusone 3

I Just Can't Stop It and Wha'appen, The (English) Beat

first 3 albums, Leonard Cohen (hardly needs defense, I should think)

Libertine and Firewater, Silkworm

Before Hollywood and Spring Hill Fair, The Go-Betweens (also the b-sides of the same vintage)

Magazine's entire catalog

HOLV: Lastly, my brother is entering his final year of an MA in Philosophy and I'm obviously dabbling in music journalism. As you are well versed in both, have you any tips for us?

FB: I'm completely untrained as a journalist; I just fell into writing for money, first because a couple of editors wanted articles related to my local (Inland Empire) scene, and then I kept at it because I wasn't terrible at it. So I have no advice on pursuing that endeavour. As to philosophy, I don't know if your brother plans to teach, but I did recently have the insight that there's a huge gap between what many students want or think they want from philosophy (some sort of secret insight into the nature of reality not available to the uninitiated) and what philosophy, at least as an academic discipline, can actually supply (a bunch of questions, and some techniques for thinking about them in a sustained way). Trying to find some way of teaching the material without producing vast disappointment can be rewarding, but it requires some careful thought about how to get past some of the preconceptions about what philosophers do. I'm sure that was a huge help.

Interviewed By Hammond

Check out The Human Hearts at

http://www.tightshiprecords.com/release.php?id=0015