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SXSW 2010: 10 questions for the Bowerbirds
Photo by Derek Anderson/FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Much of the Bowerbirds’ naturalistic, thoughtful indie folk was first composed in an isolated, rural spot in North Carolina, and it sounds like it. After singer and guitarist Phil Moore graduated college with a degree in biology — and “halfheartedly considered life as an organic farmer” — he took a job in the sticks of South Carolina tracking birds. That work eventually dried up, but he found the environment creatively freeing. Years later, Moore and his girlfriend, visual artist and Bowerbirds accordion player Beth Tacular, decided to return to the country, moving into an Airstream and crafting their debut album, 2007’s environmentally themed, critically praised “Hymns for a Dark Horse.” Their second album, the more personal “Upper Air,” was released in July of last year.
Moore spoke with the American-Statesman by phone from the band’s tour van to discuss the North Carolina scene, the frustrations of touring for the eco-conscious and how he recorded much of “Upper Air” in an old mill.
Is this the Bowerbirds’ first time playing SXSW?
No, it’s actually our second. We played in 2008. We’re really looking forward to seeing some of the acts play. I’m excited to see Califone play — they’re doing a fully scored film — and there’s a lot of great North Carolina bands there.
Looking at yourselves and some of the bands you’ve played with — like the Mountain Goats and Lost in the Trees — it seems like there’s a pretty well-developed North Carolina scene. Would you say that’s fair?
It really is, actually. It’s pretty wide and I guess relatively small but for the amount of bands, the quality is pretty amazing. There’s a lot of different sorts of genres. It’s very tight-knight. We play a lot of shows here and take each other out a lot. We try to support each other.
How did the circumstances that informed the recording of “Upper Air” differ from those behind recording “Hymns for a Dark Horse?”
Well, the writing process was very different. We had years and years to figure out what the Bowerbirds songs were going to be like for the first album, and then only a couple of years to write the second album. And the actual recording was done more piece meal. We didn’t really have the songs worked out fully at first, so we kind of added things piece by piece, as opposed to the first album where we just sat in a room and played them and they came together pretty complete. I think the second album is a little more rich for that, maybe.
You spent a huge amount of time touring after the release of Hymns for a Dark Horse. How did you feel about that lifestyle?
I love it right now, because we do a good job balancing being at home and being on tour. We were back for a month in February and got some time to see our friends and be at home. I’m kind of a homebody personally, and I have lots of other interests like gardening and bird-watching. And we’re building a cabin right now, and I don’t get to do things like that on tour, so that’s kind of limiting. But at the same time we get to see the whole world, which is amazing. I would hate to be home all the time.
Since you’re such an eco-conscious individual, is it frustrating on that basis? It’s a very resource-consuming lifestyle by necessity.
Yeah, it is. I looked on Google yesterday and realized that by the end of SXSW, to get there and back in ten days, we’re driving 4,000-something miles, which is gallons and gallons of gasoline, and that in and of itself is the most frustrating thing. But we try to do small things to stay as green as we can. We try to not take all the little tiny water bottles the venues give us and we try to eat at co-ops across the country and eat locally. We recycle, even if it means bottle start building up across our car.
Do you have any hope, when you record songs like the ones on “Hymns for a Dark Horse,” that they’re affecting people’s views or informing their perspective? Or do you worry that you’re preaching to the choir?
It’s not even so much preaching to the choir as it is preaching to myself, I guess. I don’t even really think about how they might be seen when I record them. While I’m writing I try not to think about that at all. I try to think about what they mean to me, basically, and if it means something to somebody else, that’s great, but I try not to take that into account.
“Hymns for a Dark Horse” was a very environmental and Earth-focused record, and while those themes are still very present on “Upper Air” the songwriting also seems like it’s grown more personal. What led to that?
Just a lot of different things happening while we were on tour, I guess. I think just being on the road and the stress of that that kind of led to me looking more inwards, in so many words. Since then we’ve made sure that we treat ourselves a little more humanely than we did when we toured really incessantly. We take a lot more time off. We’re taking the whole summer off this year and just going back out a little in the fall.
Tell me a bit about the recording of the album. Where did you record it?
The majority of everything was recorded in Pittsboro, North Carolina. There’s an old paper mill from way back in the day there, and I spoke with the owner to see if I could record there. He let me, just me and my guitar and some amps and microphones, go in there and record. Because it had this natural reverb that I could capture. I had to go there around 4 in the morning to record drums, because there are a couple of other businesses in the area. A lot of it was by myself and kind of meditative.
What does your own personal music background look like? When did you start playing and writing music?
I guess I started playing guitar when I was in fourth grade, but not really seriously at all. I was just learning chords and old folk tunes. When I was in eighth grade I joined a band and started singing and eventually picked up electric guitar, I was with that group of guys all through high school and college and even moved down to North Carolina with two of them. So now I’m 31, so I’ve been playing for quite a few years.
You and Beth have a very natural-feeling musical chemistry. Was that present when you first met her?
Not really, no. Because when I met Beth five years ago, when we both worked at Whole Foods, she wasn’t even really playing music at the time. We started dating then and started the band several years later. She learned the accordion really, really quickly. I think whatever chemistry we have as musicians is probably the same chemistry that leads us to work together in a relationship. I think whatever that chemistry is, and however we have that, it’s definitely what makes our band what it is. But I can’t really explain it.
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