Dar Williams makes a rare stop in Birmingham
Dar Williams, photo by Traci Goudie
Birmingham is a frequent tour stop for many singer/songwriters, folk bands and independent musicians. But this Thursday, music fans will have a rare opportunity as Dar Williams performs at WorkPlay. Williams is on tour in support of her latest album, Promised Land, which we reviewed in September 2008.
Birmingham Box Set: This album sounds a bit different from your earlier work. Why is that, and how did you accomplish that sound?
Dar Williams: I’ve got a busy life where everything fits together like little jigsaw pieces. I chose to really give myself space. Lots of time and space, to whenever I went to write, just to sort of work out all this sort of complicated, not-poetic things. I took a lot of walks through big parks and modern art museums with lots of space and high ceilings.
The producer I chose was Brad Wood. He’s not completely associated with one genre or another. He comes from a rock background even more than a pop background. There’s overlap, but he loves pure rock, where you can hear all the instruments. All the instruments count, everything’s there for a reason. You don’t overdo it, it’s not overly ambient and everything’s clear. I chose that production because I felt like it went with how I was feeling as I wrote the songs. …
It was really a great collaboration, a really great experience.
BBS: There’s also a couple of covers on this CD: “Midnight Radio” from Hedwig and the Angry Itch, and Fountains of Wayne’s “Troubled Times.” How did you choose those?
DW: I was in college with Stephen Trask [who wrote “Midnight Radio”], and he in a lot of ways taught me how to love the fringes of music and of people who listen at the fringes. I was just so—it was just such a great song. When he wrote that song for Hedwig … it was so much, not just his soul, but the part of him that he’d shared with me. The love that he has, the way those people listen to music, and how we need it—not just those people but that music, who are at the fringes with their music, listening to rock ‘n’ roll in the middle of the night … That was really important to me and he gave me his blessing to do it.
Fountains of Wayne are really deceptive. They write beautiful melodies and really interesting songs and there’s a lot going on. I just thought it’s a parallel to the kinds of songs that I try to write and that I love. I think I write some of my complicated stuff sounds like it’s pretty complicated narratively. Their stuff sounds really easy but you realize they’re writing really easy songs about complicated people with a lot of beauty and intelligence. Everybody wants to sing a beautiful pop song …
BBS: How do passions like social and environmental issues affect your career?
DW: [Growing up] we lived in the suburbs but [my parents] were kind of back to the land-ish in a lot of ways, so they made me really love that stuff. But then I was too busy to be back to the land myself. I would go to towns and I really loved being a part of hearing about what was going on in these towns and cities.
I think it helped actually. It made people feel like I wasn’t showing up in Cincinnati and saying, “Hello, Cleveland.” I don’t think I would be as happy as a touring artist if I didn’t care about that stuff because it keeps me engaged and noticing. It makes the relationship more positive when I’m noticing the fact that the concert halls I play in, that it took a lot of people to renovate an old hall and put a concert series together and raise money for various causes out in the lobby.
I really love that microcosm stuff. I can see it happening and I can also see it not happening. There are certain places where I feel like people say, “I just want to keep things the same,” and they create a vacuum. There are a lot of things that come along that push out that village-type engagement. Then I keep my mouth shut [laughs].
I really love showing up in Skowhegan, Maine, and showing up and noticing how much it took them to turn this old opera house into a music venue. I think that creates a friendship with the places I go.
I’m dismayed at how much disposable stuff I use although I guess that keeps me from being self-righteous on stage because I’m not one to talk with all the disposable bottles and plastic forks.
BBS: Do these issues influence your songwriting?
DW: No. In a really funny way, it does not. It doesn’t come up. … I have some that have to do with activist Jesuit priests, and I found out about that from my family and my friends. There’s a lot that I do that’s like that. [But these social issues,] I don’t think it makes for very interesting songs at the end of the day.
BBS: With so much material to choose from, what should fans expect at this week’s show?
DW: I keep on finding myself coming back to the new album. We had sort of choices with the bands and we kept gravitating to the new album. Especially with a place that I’ve never been before like Birmingham, I like to be sure to put some stuff that people might have heard over the past 10 years or so.
BBS: I’ve read some about your opinions on and relationship with food. [In 1994, Williams published a directory of natural food and vegetarian stores and restaurants, The Tofu Tollbooth.] Do you have any plans for where you’ll eat while you’re here?
DW: It’s funny, it’s a political thing more than a health thing. … There’s just a way that things that are put together. I’m more interested in the way food is coming from, where it’s going, the sake of making it and how …
My big joke is that I’m Scottish. The more poison that I put into my body the longer I’ll live.
There are restaurants that are making their towns and cities better places in many ways. They’re the places that are looking out for local food and local wine and local people. When you go to a town, you want to be a part of what’s bringing everyone together.
There are restaurants all over the country that I’ll never forget. They are how I remember the cities and they are how I remember my life. How I build my own memories are really crucial but I can also adapt my lifestyle.
Jesse Harris and Joshua Radin will also perform at Thursday’s show, which begins at 8 p.m. Tickets, available at workplay.com or by calling 380-4082, are $20 in advance and $25 the day of the show. Learn more about Williams and preview her music at darwilliams.com.
Later this week on Birmingham Box Set: An interview with Chris Eldrige of the Punch Brothers.
