Johnathan Rice is much more than an unusually spelt first name. He's only in his early twenties and he already managed to release a critically and commercially successful debut album, support REM and Jenny Lewis on tour, have his music played at trendy TV dramas such as the OC and Smallville, play Roy Orbison alongside Joaquin Phoenix in Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line and he still keeps on going.
This interview was held with a “slightly exhausted but very happy” Johnathan Rice at his dressing room in London's Shepherds Bush Empire, shortly before the last show of the Jenny Lewis and The Watson Twins tour in which Rice supported and played in Jenny's band. With the airwaves infested by singer/songwriters, Johnathan Rice offers a new and unique brand of the solo musician; his songs are diverse and range from everything between folk and punk while also managing to be a genuinely nice guy.
RM: What's it like being on the road for so long, is it hard?
It's not something that anyone should really complain about too much. It's nice to wake up in different countries, different states and different states of mind.
RM: You spent most of your childhood between Glasgow in Scotland and Virginia in The States, what effect do you think that had on your music?
I guess that in Virginia I was exposed to a lot of music and kinda old man music and stuff like that because they really like that sort of stuff down there and American FM radio, I listened to a lot of that. But then in Glasgow the musical culture is a lot more gritty and boisterous - every one in my family could sing, even if they couldn't they did and…
I guess I probably got my confidence from Glasgow but my knowledge or whatever from The States.
RM: You've lived in Glasgow , Virginia , New York and now LA, where does it feel most like home?
I have good associations with certain places, I feel at home in a lot of different places but I also do feel at home while traveling. It's a very comforting feeling to be moving and knowing that I am sleeping but we are still sort of charging towards something else, that gives me a feeling of accomplishment because even when you are sleeping you're getting something done, you're covering the miles and everything. I felt really at home in New York and I like the feeling of not feeling at home in LA, it's a really foreign feeling but I like it.
RM: After High School, you were going to study politics in university?
I was really interested in politics. I grew up in a very political background and I guess I was thinking about doing stuff like that which is pretty selfless work I guess…so instead I opted for the ultra-selfish world of being a musician.
We were playing in a festival in Brussels on this tour and Adam Green was playing and he became a friend of ours, his lyrics are fuckin' hilarious, and he was playing… it was just him and a guitar and he said “look at me doing this”. It's funny to try and lampoon the whole singer songwriter thing but what we're doing is to say… look at me, look at me doing this… y'know?
RM: Do you feel that attention-seeking element in being a musician?
Have you seen the film The Devil and Daniel Johnston? I think he epitomizes the true artistic… pure unadulterated artistic behaviour... coupled with obviously mental illness and things like that… he makes these records and it really doesn't seem to matter to him if anyone hears it or not.
I think with myself and my peers, we are playing Shepherd's Bush Empire tonight so we are trying to get as many people in here as we can and we want as many people to hear it.
Anyone who doesn't tell you that they are seeking the attention are probably lying… can't speak for anybody else.. if it was just enough to write songs then we would do it for ourselves and we'll be totally satisfied.
RM: Trouble is real, your debut album, has a wide ranging mix of different types of music. Why?
When I got signed to a label, I was really happy to be signed and I had, like, a ten year plan. First, I'm gonna make my folk record, then I'm gonna make my Rock n' Roll record, then I'll make my experimental record, then I'll make my record with strings and orchestras and things like that but when I finally started to work with Mike Mogis [legendary Saddle Creek producer of Bright Eyes and Rilo Kiley] in Nebraska, he convinced me that we should try and make all the albums at once.
RM: Would you like to become more mainstream?
I don't know if it's a question of becoming more mainstream… I think what I'm doing is mainstream to a certain extent. I'm doing one of the oldest things around. I'm just playing a guitar tonight. On this tour I mainly do versions of my new songs which are mostly for my new album that I'm gonna start recording in the late summer. I'm just playing it in a really stripped down way, I don't think there's anything particularly original about that. Hopefully the lyrical content is original but it's not like anyone hasn't done it before… I have to strive to do it as well as the people I look up to.
RM: What's the new album like?
I think it's gonna be called ‘California Negra', which is Spanish for ‘Black California', inspired I guess mostly by my move to Los Angeles . Los Angeles itself is just such a strange universe. It's like a wild games reserve for celebrities, you really do see Arnold Schwarzenegger driving around in his Hummer or Penelope Cruz going in for a manicure… whatever… it's a really strange place and I found that the songs that I was writing all either referenced California, Los Angeles, sunshine and money. Those four things just kept cropping up … it's a theme of living in this artificial landscape of Los Angeles where we are literally stealing our water from somewhere else. People talk about the hollowness of LA, there's definitely plenty of that but there's also nasty stuff going under the surface. It's not a very clean place, the air's dirty, culture's dirty and everyone's got either too much or too little money. It's a really interesting place to make music and… I like it out there. One of the central songs on the album is called “We're All Stuck Out In The Desert and We're Gonna Die”. I get people to sing it along, I teach it to the audience every night, a sing along kind of thing. I like it out there, I'm gonna stay there for a while longer.
AH: It gives you a lot of energy.
It does give you a lot of energy. Every person in the third world to the first world to anywhere knows where Hollywood is, they all have their own conception of it and it's just weird to actually be in Sunset Boulevard and see that it's all pretty much true, everything you've heard about it, except of course how wonderful it is. There are wonderful people out there. A lot of my dear friends are there and everything, there are many wonderful things there but for the most part it's a pretty nasty place.
RM: Where do you see music going from now with the prominence of MySpace, iPods and iTunes?
I think a lot is being said about it currently, I don't know if I have any grand designs on that or anything…
On one hand, as long as there are kids out there who want to be rich and famous I think the major label structure will survive. A journalist at Mojo or Word Magazine doesn't shape the culture; it's the seven big corporations in America that do. More people will know who James Blunt is than the Arctic Monkeys and no one can change that.
The other thing that is really wonderful about the explosion of internet technology is that it does send shivers down these corporations' spines. They really get scared because they are hemorrhaging billions of dollars all the time. It eliminates that middle man.
When you are a kid growing up in Virginia , there was no Indie record store in my neighborhood. There was FM radio that was playing Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Metallica, Guns n' Roses and that was my only lifeline to any kind of music scene. I didn't find out about who Pavement or The Pixies were until I was in High School and met other kids who lived in different places and stuff
I think it's good because it eliminates the middle man and now the record companies have to figure out where they fit in in this. I mean you can go on Myspace and you can hear someone's music and you don't need to ask anyone's permission or spend any money to do it. Rather than giving your 16 pounds to someone at HMV or Virgin you can just take it to a show and go and see the band and buy it directly from them.
The industry always adapts, always adjusts. They are always complaining about how much money they are losing but they are doing fine, they are always doing fine.
You can't really put all your trust in an industry with a 97% failure rate, 97% of all major label releases fail. They lose money on 97% of the things they put out into the universe, and the 3% that do well make all that money back and more. So it's so weird to kind of associate yourself with people who fail as a way of life, who fail at their profession 9 times out of 10. Maybe they'll start doin' better, y'know?
RM: What advice can you give to musicians who want to succeed?
I think the most foolproof way of doing it, which I am still trying to do myself as best I can, is… the only thing that can be commodified… is that even a word? Should be if not. Let's make it one… is live performance and touring and building personal relationships with your audience and people who spend their money coming to see you. Still the most wonderful compliment that anyone can pay me is to come and see my show or ask to come and talk about my record, it's such an honour. I really value it above anything else, it's so nice. So I guess the only thing you can do is… don't wait around for someone to sign you, whether it is a major label, an indie label or any kind of label. Get yourself up on MySpace, make some recording in your bedroom and start playing all the time. My little brother is writing his own songs now and stuff, that's what you should do, maybe you'll start getting more hits today than me or whatever they call it. Who knows?
RM: Who's your favourite Beatle?
My favourite Beatle… through my childhood, it was always resolutely John. I don't know I guess that's a way to gage your personality here in Britain, which people you identify with and it's a good way of… we have arguments about it all the time in the band. But I think it's good to have a John Lennon mindset when you are a young man, stay relatively angry and then try and find yourself a wife and some really good weed and turn into George.
RM: What are you listening to now?
I'm listening to… do you know Soul Jazz records? It's a label that puts out a lot of Jazz, Reggae and Roots and all kind of music… and they compiled this album called Studio 1. Most people think the face of Reggae is Bob Marley, which of course it is, but so many wonderful things happened within the genre, before and after him and during. It's a really awesome Reggae album, I love Reggae. I know it doesn't come across at all but… the white man should be very careful about how he approaches that sort of thing, it's one thing to listen to it and have a joint but it's another thing to start making it, you can end up like UB40.
RM: A few quick personal questions, what is the most exciting thing no one knows about you? I don't know… I'm pretty handy with a screwdriver.
RM: What do you like the most about yourself? I guess my willingness to keep going at this thing
RM: What do you dislike the most about yourself? There are too many things to go into.
RM: When was the last time you cried? Let's see… I think I was listening to Morgan, the singer of Whispertown2000, she was playing this song at one of the last nights of the tour and I thought that what she was saying in this song was so beautiful. I don't know if I can remember the actual title of the song but she said something like… I don't want to believe what they say about growing old. Something like that. Which is a sad thing to say, it's nice that she doesn't want to believe it because none of us want to. I don't anyway.
Buy Johnathan Rice's fantastic debut album, Trouble is Real
from amazon.co.uk
