Micah P. Hinson - The Torment of Beauty

We met Micah P. Hinson on the occasion of the start of his autumn tour, which, after the appetizer at the beginning of the month in Taranto, includes four more dates in Italy: November 23rd at the Teatro Comunale S. Teodoro in Cantù (Como), the 24th at the Teatro del Parco in Mestre (Venice), the 25th at the Auditorium del Carmine in Parma and the 26th at the Capitol in Pordenone. It was an opportunity to talk about the special vinyl edition of "I Lie To You", released by Ponderosa Music with two rearrangements of previously released tracks. But with the musician from Abilene, Texas, we also talked about the roots of his songbook, along with plenty of anecdotes from the past and his thoughts on the present.

Let's start by talking about your latest work, in which you present two tracks ("Oh No!" and "People") in a rearranged version. Do you want to tell us more about these two songs in particular?

I had completely forgotten about "Oh No!", but that song was released on a small Spanish Ep I made years and years ago ("Presents The Surrendering"). It's definitely worth going back and listening to, because I think the spirit of the track is there. I tried to record it several times because I'd had it with me for a long time, but it never came out right. It was supposed to be on "I Lie To You" and it still didn't come out right, but in the end it worked and I'm really happy with the final result. I wanted something that went beyond the sound of "I Lie To You". And I think we managed that, just like with "People". As for that one, I don't think there's much else to add, except that it can be seen in different ways. It's a very pop song, probably one of the simplest and most pop things I've done, so it's always nice to play it live. The lyrics are very heavy, and I think they can be seen in different ways.

You decided to record your latest album with an Italian label and to start your European tour in our country. Where does this sense of closeness come from?

As far as the tour in Italy and having Ponderosa as my record label goes, I'm not sure I'd call it a sense of closeness to the country specifically: it happened when I didn't have a record label and wasn't sure what was going to happen with my music in the future. I knew Alessandro "Asso" Stefana, and he helped me make "I Lie To You", and thanks to that connection I got in touch with the people at Ponderosa. It was a coincidence, I suppose, because I was working, they were working, and our paths crossed by chance, but it's a pleasure working with them, and they're by far the most understanding record label I've ever worked with. I think the feeling you build with people is in some ways more important than the work itself. The care and kindness behind it. And that's an incredible thing.

“I Lie To You” is your first album written after the period when you decided to step away from the scene. How did you experience this time of “quiet”, and what's the most valuable thing you learned from it?

I assume that by the word “quiet” you mean the reason why I didn't put anything out. I think this is a bit of a different situation than feeling like it was time to stop. As I mentioned in my last answer, regarding the record label at the time, and before that, I was on a small record label on an island country somewhere in Europe. They lacked compassion and any kind of support I think I needed. When I left that label I had nothing on the horizon. I think at that point it felt more important to make that whole situation disappear and then see what life would bring me.

Another thing is that, while the pandemic was going on, I felt like everyone was putting out records and doing online shows and things like that. And that made me really nervous, because now we're in a situation where being a musician gets you interested in the whole world of the internet, of clicks and streaming. Maybe for some people that's important, but personally I can't see that it's worth much. I've reached a point where, when I put out a record, it's important to tour, it's important to get out there and try to make a living. Hence the “quiet” I had: the world wasn't moving the way it used to move, and I didn't have the chance to do the things I would have liked to do. So it made sense not to do anything at all. It didn't feel like a quiet time in my life. Maybe outwardly, maybe physically… I wasn't talking, maybe I was silent, but with the things I was thinking in my mind and the things I was going through with music, I didn't feel quiet, and of course music is directly tied to my life. But what did I learn from all this? That's an interesting question. I've changed in almost every way of thinking. I keep telling my girlfriend that I'm turning into an actual “human” boy and that I'm changing the way I perceive my life and my music.

Listening to your previous album “When I Shoot At You With Arrows, I Will Shoot To Destroy You”, I sensed a feeling of grandeur but also of anguish and harrowing darkness. On your latest work, though, that darkness seems to have dissolved, and a sense of newfound serenity comes through. Do you share these impressions?

I'd say I agree with what you said. I mean, it's definitely a pretty dark record: I've listened back to it and I find it really fascinating, because I wasn't following any of the rules or guidelines I'd set for myself when making records. I listen to that album and I hear a lot of space, whereas before I would have felt like I had to fill in those gaps. But even at the time, when I was recording it, there were very specific things going on with the making of that record, so I think I was more obsessed with the science of sound technology than with how many instruments were involved. I think that's also true of “Holy Strangers”. But even with these things, I could sit here and look back and try to imagine I did it for this or that reason. Maybe I wasn't very interested and maybe I was doing some kind of exercise. When I finished it, I didn't like the record very much, I thought it was something else. But listening back to it now, it feels like it was a really important album, and that I was talking to myself about very interesting things I wasn't aware of at the time. When we started recording “I Lie To You”, as I said, I didn't have a label and I just had these songs and a few new ones, and it was really just about making a record, I think. Then, of course, the pandemic came, and again, there was no chance to travel, so at that point it really ended up in the hands of Alessandro “Asso” Stefana, and we spent a lot of time working on it, but I think it was more time spent figuring out what not to put in than what to put in.

We wanted an album of very simple songs, without a lot of bells and whistles and that kind of thing. In the last part of your question you mention a newfound sense of serenity or something like that with the album? No, I don't really think that's it. I mean, you can definitely hear that the sound is more restrained and serene or something like that, but no, I don't think the songs really speak in that way. Serenity is an interesting concept, and I'm not sure it's something that fits into the way I write songs.

The songs on “I Lie To You” are straightforward and never run longer than four minutes, whereas in your previous work you'd also written songs with longer, more complex structures. Does that choice reflect a desire to experiment with a new, more stripped-down way of making music?

No, I think what you're describing is the brevity of the songs and how concise they are. It wasn't me experimenting with ideas or anything like that. I mean, we were working with Alessandro “Asso” Stefana and we were very limited in what we could do. I guess in a way it was an experiment, or maybe a necessity. I don't know. Experiment maybe isn't the right word, but I think I was experimenting with the idea of using a lot fewer instruments and making things a bit leaner. You'll also notice I didn't put my name on this record, or any of the others (Gospel of Progress, Opera Circuit and that sort of thing). I wanted it to be streamlined and not create confusion, because for someone who's known me since I put out the record, having different names could have been confusing. It's exactly the kind of human being I've decided to be; I'm 42 years old and I'm trying to keep being that for a while longer. I think being clearer will do me good.

I noticed that on the cover of your latest album you went back to using a black-and-white photo with details of female figures, like on the iconic artwork of your early albums. Did the unusual, dark abstract painting on the previous album have a particular meaning for you?

I think you're referring to the artwork of “Holy Strangers“. I didn't do it in the refined way you mentioned, the way I usually do, because of the story behind that record, what I was trying to say and what I was trying to do. It wasn't the moment to use artwork in the same style I'd already used. It wouldn't have worked. The “musicians of the Apocalypse” is actually a painting by my brother, Joshua Henson. He's a brilliant Chickasaw artist and has an excellent touch, and he's teaching the Chickasaw language in some schools he's opening. He's very high up in the Chickasaw government, the Native American people I come from. At the time I was in Oklahoma, or Indian Territory, and I had a dream in which it was dark. I saw these arrows, all pointing upward, and then I started seeing them turn into this square, and I told my brother about it, we talked about it, and he painted that picture during the Covid pandemic, which is an incredible painting, but it was really hard to find. I remember it was very hard to find people who could scan it, people who could take good photos of it. In the end, I found someone right in the middle of God knows where in Dallas, Texas. That's it.

The album pays tribute to the American folk tradition with a cover of John Denver's “Please Daddy, Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas”. What's your relationship with the great American folk tradition?

That's interesting, I'd never thought of John Denver as being part of the great American folk tradition, the way you put it. I guess Denver played Greenwich Village with a lot of the people who were part of the folk movement. But I think he went on to do something very, very different, especially in those early years. Maybe ten years or so, maybe a bit less. Once you got mostly to the '90s, things were very different. At least that's my sense of his music. In those early years he wrote at such a personal and different level, and the things he talked about were sad and lovely, and he was compassionate. And that was very different from all the other things I think I'd want to lump into the idea of American folk tradition. I think a lot of folk music is disconnected. Does that make sense? Yes, because there are people like the Carter Family who gave a huge hand to American folk, and they sang folk songs, but they sang songs they'd bought from other people. So when I listen to their music, I find they're extraordinary songs, but there's really a lack of a sense of emotion or something like that, because they were clearly playing other people's compositions. Not all of them really, but most, and when they sang them, obviously, it was a lot easier not to feel the same emotion as the person who wrote the song. So yes, I get it. It might sound a bit strange. I'd never thought about it, but yes, and American folk doesn't strike me as a very personal form of composition. And John Denver was probably the biggest influence on my songwriting and on the way I want to write. He was an incredible person to listen to. And I think the reason I always play as many of his songs as I can, or put his songs on records, is that I feel he's been very much forgotten. I think all the hippie and slightly odd things he did, and everything he believed, really pushed his path away from a significant number of people who listened to him or took him seriously or something like that.

The roots of your music are clearly American; and yet you've always found huge acclaim in the Old Continent too. How do you explain that?

I don't think I agree with you, because how do you put it? The roots of your music are clearly American. Don't you think? When I started writing songs and had this interest in composing them, I mean, it was all fine. Like we said, I listened to John Denver, obviously, but not only him. I listened, as I've said many times, to the Cure, My Bloody Valentine, Curve, New Order, and then beyond that too, the stuff I was listening to, however much it might have come from the United States, didn't follow the American tradition. Things like Nine Inch Nails, or like the Canadians, Skinny Puppy, Front 242 and Thrill Kill Kult. That kind of thing didn't exist before. It didn't fit into the American tradition, or rather into the folk music tradition of the United States… I think using the word “American” to describe a style of music coming from one very particular place on the whole continent is pretty unfair. So as for United States folk, or its tradition, I think a lot of what you hear is tradition. I mean, it's really inescapable.

I was born in Memphis and then grew up in Texas, so it makes sense that I play acoustic guitar. It makes sense that I write folk music, or country, or whatever we want to call it. But, yes, I definitely wasn't raised, as one might think, on Hank Williams and Johnny Cash. Of course I heard those things around me. I mean, it was inevitable, but it's not something I listened to at home or went looking for the CDs of, and things like that.

What can fans expect from the upcoming tour? Will it mainly focus on your latest work, or will you also be playing songs from your previous albums?

This time it's a continuation of the extensive "I Lie To You" tour, which I hope keeps going. Well, it's still me and Paolo, my drummer and my fucking guru. And then Alessandro "Asso" Stefana, of course, who plays banjo, and piano, and baritone, and harmonica. Did I say banjo? Yes, the guy plays the lapsteel. Yeah, he plays all kinds of things. This month he's on tour with Vinicio Capossela. So he'll only join us for four shows. Tonight, for instance, we're in Belgium. And he also took part in the Italian show earlier this week. But most of the tour is just me and Paolo. We've done a few shows on our own, and he's a really interesting person, on top of being a fantastic drummer. More than playing the drums, I think he kind of embodies them or something. He becomes a drum. He's a special human being. But yeah, we're still learning what we're doing and what we're playing. Still, most of the material will come from the new record. And then we play songs from Gospel or Opera Circuit, sometimes from Pioneer Saboteurs, sometimes from Red Empire Orchestra. So yeah, we're discovering a lot of things, and I think they fit together really well. The older songs don't feel dated or out of place next to the newer ones to me. Yeah, it's all one whole.

Is there a past show you remember fondly?

Yeah, sure. There's one I remember fondly. It was probably 2008, I was living in Abilene, Texas, and working at a comic book store. I found out from one of my coworkers at the comic shop that he was putting on a show at a place called the Paramount Theater, which was the only beautiful 1930s theater in downtown Abilene. And he was bringing in Iron & Wine, Sam Beam, and I had done a tour with Sam Beam in England. I think it was my second support tour, so I knew him. So I ended up going to the show. And playing in Abilene, especially at the Paramount, was a really monumental thing for me, because I had left Abilene irresponsibly. And going back, as silly as it sounds, felt like I'd done something with myself, like a kind of victory. But yeah, I got up on stage and played, and for some reason, that night I felt like I played every song right. I said all the right things. I made all the right jokes, and it was a fucking incredible show. And then Mr. Sam Beam got up on stage and made a horribly ridiculous joke about one of our most famous barbecue joints. From that moment on, I lost faith in him forever!

(23/11/2023)

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