MUSIC

Even bad songs have a use, M. Ward says

Portland, Ore., singer-songwriter takes parts from misses to massage hits

By Alex Hannaford
SPECIAL TO THE AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Thursday, July 30, 2009

Matt Ward likes coming to Texas. Unlike a lot of Texans, he likes the heat. He grew up in Southern California and now lives in Portland, Ore. - a place he describes as 'really gray and wet.'

You probably know him better by his stage name, M. Ward, a singer-songwriter and guitarist who has been regaling crowds with his eccentric, gentle, occasionally melancholic songs since he released his first album in 2001.

In the past few years he's guested on tracks by Beth Orton, My Morning Jacket and Norah Jones, and formed a band (ah, the old 'side project'), She & Him, with actress Zooey Deschanel (the two are working on a second record, Deschanel said recently). He released his sixth solo album, 'Hold Time,' in February. And if that weren't enough, he's in yet another side project, Monsters of Folk, with My Morning Jacket's Jim James and Bright Eyes' Mike Mogis and Conor Oberst. The group just announced U.S. and European tour dates and will release their self-titled debut on Sept. 22.

Phew.

Ward, who will be in Austin on Tuesday for a show at Antone's, is a quiet man. We met during South by Southwest in March at the house he rented for a few days just south of Lady Bird Lake - he prefers to stay here when he's in town rather than in a hotel amid the hustle and bustle of downtown. We sat on the front steps drinking green tea. He says he's a morning person, but it's 10 a.m. and it seems like he's finding it hard to wake up.

'My favorite place to tour is the USA because there's no language barrier to cross,' he says between sips. 'I enjoy going to Europe and Australia but I feel you could spend your whole life touring America and still not visit all the places there are to go.'

Although he flirted briefly with living in New Hampshire, for the most part he's been based in Portland and is a firm staple of the Oregon music scene. 'A few years ago I noticed a lot of people moving to Portland because it's so much more expensive to live elsewhere on the West Coast,' he says. 'Portland is still the cheapest city to live on that coast and I feel like whichever musical renaissance has happened, it's happened in places where creative people can live comfortably without having to get day jobs. I have a theory that the best songs, more often than not, come from the Motel 6s of the world rather than the five star Hiltons.'

Ironically, considering how sleepy he is, Ward goes on to say that he prefers working in the morning, too. His 'office' is his basement which he describes as 'a very unorganized mess - no one else dares come down there.' When it comes time to make a record, he'll dive into that mess, sift through all his 4-track tapes (he still records ideas for songs on an old Tascam tape deck) to find songs and bits of songs he thinks fit together.

'I got into the habit of writing all the time and it's still a constant in my life,' he says. 'It's not necessarily with the goal of making a record; it's the same impulse for people who make journal entries or who take photographs or any other sort of creative outlet. I think you have to write about a dozen bad songs before you land on a good one. And I never throw the bad ones away. I may use bits of them in other songs.'

Ward is a fairly private person. He says he keeps a small, tight community of friends and family around him, and his favorite thing to do is take walks around Portland.

'The thing I love about the city is you can get everywhere on foot,' he says. 'It's a good environment for me for working because the social elements of my job are never overwhelming. You're not obligated to spend every night in social engagements.'

M. Ward, if you haven't guessed already, doesn't like to party.

I ask whether he had a good childhood.

'Matt Ward had a very good childhood,' he says. 'My dad sang in the choir. There were no songwriters or guitar players in my family. They were all music lovers, but my dad was into gospel and country and my mum was into classical. My brothers (he has two brothers and two sisters) were into more modern music, so there was a lot of music in the house so it never meant one thing or one sound to me - it meant many sounds and many things. And discovering radio in junior high was a revelation and I still have a childish fascination with radio. I feel like it has magical powers.'

That childish fascination seems to come across in his music, too. One of Ward's favorite artists is Austin's own Daniel Johnston. 'I bought some of his cassettes in high school, but it took some time before I realized how great they were,' he says. Like Mark Linkous from Sparklehorse, there is a childlike quality to Ward's songs - an innocence and playfulness. And it's something you get the impression wouldn't happen unless he was left to his own devices in his messy basement, content with himself for company. And his mug of green tea.