Richmond Fontaine is a band that was formed in 1994 in Portland Oregon when Willy Vlautin (singer/songwriter) and Dave Harding (bass) discovered their mutual love of bands such as Husker Du, X, Willie Nelson and The Replacements and decided to begin playing together. The band’s career has spanned over two-decades and the release of 10 full-length albums. According to the band, the recently released You Can’t Go Back If There’s Nothing To go Back To will be their final album.

The alt-country band, who has received much critical acclaim, particularly overseas, has peppered its songs with stories of the working class, the down-on-their-luck and the lonely.  Vlautin, who is also the  author of four highly acclaimed  novels- The Motel Life,  Northline,  Lean on Pete and The Free- is an expert at the craft of creating a character. And the characters he writes about are ones that you have a hard time forgetting about, even if they aren’t necessarily people you’d like to meet up with yourself. One of his characters, Pauline Hawkins, from Vlautin’s novel The Free, made such an impression on fellow musician Patterson Hood from the band Drive-By Truckers, that he wrote a song by that name for the bands 2014 album English Oceans. 

I asked Willy to speak to me about a range of subjects, including his writing, how he crafts a character, Richmond Fontaine, and his other band, The Delines.

J. The new album  You Can’t Go Back If There’s Nothing Left To Go Back To, seems to have a theme about people being lost and trying to find their way back home, or at least to a place where they once had peace. As we approach the midpoint in our lives, this seems to be something that happens to a lot of us. What inspires you to write about characters like these?  And have you experienced your own midlife “crisis”?

W.V. I have had a few midlife crises, but shit, I think I’ve always been in a bit of a crisis. With the new record, I kept thinking about how all of the friends I have had have lived rough, or lived to hard and are now starting to pay the price. The bill’s coming due for their bad ways. That and also the idea of being tired, of always looking for the next place to solve your problems, only to find it’s your own self that’s the problem. Hell, I guess those are all middle-aged themes. But RF is getting old.

J. Your songwriting has always struck me as the kind that sucks a person in, makes them empathize with the characters and want to know more about them You always want to know what happens next. As an author, is it harder to condense the essence of a character into a three-minute song?

W.V. They’re both hard to do well. I struggle with both. Songs are harder to grab on to. There’s more magic to getting them. I often feel that you write song after song, just so that one good one will appear and you just grab it. Writing books is more about your work ethic. If you have something to say, then it’s just about putting in the work to say it in a way that you can get behind.

J. Some of the characters from your novels, turn up in your songs. Hell, Pauline Hawkins from your novel The Free, even turned up in a Drive-By Truckers song. Does it feel natural to intertwine your novel writing and your songwriting?

W.V. Pauline Hawkins was one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever been given. It was like finding fifty grand in the street. I’m a huge DBT fan, so I was blown away by the character becoming a song of theirs. As far as my own stuff, the two do combine. I go through so many songwriting jags while writing a novel that the two can’t help but influence each other .I always think of them living in the same apartment building.

J. How do you come up with such strong characters in your songs and novels? Particularly the women?

W.V. Thanks for saying that, about my women characters.  I don’t know. I was raised by women and all of the best people in my life growing up, or should I say the ones that cared about me the most, were women.

J. What projects are you working on now?  Writing?  Your band, The Delines?

W.V. The Delines have a new record but we are on hold until (singer) Amy  Boone (recently injured in a car accident) gets rolling again. Other than that I’m finishing a new novel that will come out in about a year.

J. Do you think you will always need to write both novels and songs, or do you see a time in your life where you’d be okay with leaving one of them behind?

W.V, I hope to keep writing novels for as long as I still have my mind together. It’s my favorite art form and I love the process of it, the work of it.As far as songs, shit, I’ve been trying to quit being in a band since I was 15, so I don’t know what to think.

 

 

 

Mission of Burma is one of only a handful of musicians or bands that you can find on my weekly playlist.  Although the band had its original run from 1979-1983, their music never sounds dated.The band originally consisted of Roger Miller (guitar), Clint Conley (bass), Peter Prescott (drums) and Martin Swope (tape manipulator/sound engineer). Miller, Prescott and Conley share singing and songwriting duties.The band has always been unique in its approach to style, content and technique. They’re that rare band that never sound like anyone but themselves.

From 1979-1983, Mission Of Burma released an EP,  Signals, Calls and Marches , and the iconic full length album, Vs.

The band disbanded in 1983, citing Miller’s worsening tinnitus as a primary factor. During their farewell tour, they recorded the live compilation, The Horrible Truth About Burma.

While Mission of Burma was never really recognized by the mainstream, many bands have cited them as a huge influence and musical inspiration. Among them are Dave Grohl and The Foo Fighters (who the band opened for at Fenway park in Boston in 2015), Yo La Tengo, Sonic Youth, Sugar, Guided By Voices and Pixies.

The band has toured and released four more studio albums since 2004.Their sound, which varies greatly in style and content, ranges from technical and structural masterpieces to songs filled with hooks and grooves that make them almost anthemic.

Clint Conley has written some of the most widely covered of the bands songs. “That’s When I Reach For My Revolver” and “Academy Fight Song” are probably the most well known songs written and performed by the band.

I was fortunate enough to be able to interview Clint recently.

J. Mission Of Burma formed in Boston in 1979 when punk was very big. Although the band is often categorized as post punk, to me, Mission Of Burma defies classification. In what genre do you consider the band, or is defining a particular style something the band was never really interested in?

C.C. We were certainly called punk or post punk because of the time frame we were playing in. In reality, we weren’t really very punk at all. Particularly Roger’s stuff, which was sophisticated and very technically challenging at a time when a lot of the music being played was very basic. Much of the music of that time was being performed by people that weren’t really musicians, as such, and didn’t consider themselves to be. Roger was a very much a masterful musician and not afraid to show it. I’ve never thought we really fit comfortably into any particular category.

J. The band has a unique and timeless sound. It’s rare to hear music that never seems to get dated. Did you put thought into sounding timeless as a band, or was it just something that happened?

C.C. Oh, God, no. Not at all. There was no thought given to posterity. We were focused on trying to get a gig at the local clubs and trying to crawl up the grubby little ladder we were on. No. We weren’t self conscious about it in that way. I think I took my cues from Roger, who was such an incredible and masterful musician. He was so intent on breaking new ground and not doing things the same old way. He has a very critical approach to music that I really admire.I felt that, as the songwriting went, I was like his little brother. I was just starting out and he’d been writing for years. I think that when you’re writing music, you want it to sound authentic to yourself. I think you can always tell when someone is making music and they are trying to be something that they’re not, or trying to imitate people or play something that’s more popular. We resisted those urges. The bottom line is that we are extremely, extremely fortunate that we were able to find our voice. There are a lot of musicians out there, better musicians than us, who were never able to find the right vehicle for their voice.

J. How old were you when you started to play music? And what inspired you to do it professionally?

C.C. I was about 10 when I got my first guitar. I began by playing the Beatles and the Animals, things like “House Of The Rising Sun”. You know, when you stand in front of the mirror and pretend you’re a rock star.

When I went off to college, I was going into New York to see the new music. Glitter rock was big at the time and I was seeing  bands like the New York Dolls. It was such a circus. So much fun and so crazy. But when the bands Television and The Ramones came out, it was life altering for me. I had to be part of it, somehow. I hooked up with a guy named Eric Lindgren, who was starting a band. I was so grateful to be in a band, and sort of dip my toe in the water. Roger Miller ended up joining that band, Moving Parts, and he and I just vibed right off the bat. We just both looked at each other and said “We need to start our own band”. So that’s how it happened.

J. Who were your biggest influences in life, musically and otherwise?

C.C. The Beatles, The Stones, The Kinks and The Animals had a profound effect on me. I was in elementary school, so I guess you could say I was a kind of precocious kid. Music just seized me in a way it didn’t do with my classmates. Later, it was Hendrix and Cream, but some other bands that were much more obscure. When I was in 5th grade in New Jersey, I was accidentally at the Velvet Undergrounds first gig at Summit High School. I don’t remember anything about that gig. It was only many years later that I realized “Oh, that was the band I saw there?” But I think they must have planted some dark seed in me, given the path I took. In high school, glitter and glam rock were huge. I started going into the city to see The Dolls and Wayne County. Then that morphed into the puck scene. I feel incredibly lucky. I was there for some of the biggest revolutions in rock. There has been plenty of great music since then, but that time really upended everything.

J. How about your family? Were your parents supportive of you being a musician?

C.C. My parents probably just thought music was a passing thing, and in some regard, it was. My Father was a huge and passionate jazz fan. Music meant a great deal to him. He used to take me into New York to share it. I’ve always considered that an amazing gift for him to have given me. 

Both my parents were very cool about the band.

J. Mission of Burma has been a band that never became overly popular in the mainstream, but has inspired countless other musicians. Are you satisfied with the bands cultural status? Would you have liked to have become more mainstream, or was it more important to you that the band be relevant and respected by its peers?

C.C. I think we wanted to be popular. It became pretty clear early on that we were going to be more of a niche band. We were pretty surprised and gratified to get a following around Boston that first time around. We weren’t so noble that we would have rejected a major record deal. I think that’s kind of the way history has portrayed us. REM, X, some of the other bands we considered our peers, they got deals at the time. We were still pretty small potatoes is the larger scheme of things. But looking back, I have no regrets at all. I feel rather proud.

As far as mainstream, I was always kind of a music snob growing up, listening to a lot of obscure bands. Those that were overlooked and undersung. The fact that I wound up in one of those types of bands is not just coincidence. It’s an amazing thing to make music and have people listen to it.

J. What are the bands plans for the future?  Any plans to release new music or tour?

C.C. No plans at the moment. Songwriting has slowed down considerably. I’d say we are in the middle of a holding pattern right now. We just came off a great trip to Europe in May. Everybody is on great terms. For all I know we could have played our last gig. I guess we just need to see what the future brings us.