REUBEN BUTCHART// SINGER/SONGWRITER// THE INTERVIEW

Reuben Butchart (pronounced Boo-shárt) was the original pianist for Antony and the Johnsons, but Paper mag won't tell you that. While playing with Antony, Reuben secretly worked on his own debut album with co-producer, bassist, and guitarist Steve Bagley. Sneaky. The record was conceived and executed almost entirely by the two on a computer in an unheated bedroom of a ramshackle house in SOHO. Yes, once upon a time there were ramshackle houses in SOHO. The pair received the 2003 Out Music award for Outstanding Debut Recording.

It was with Antony's encouragement and the excitement of playing real instruments – instead of computer keyboards and vinyl records – that Reuben soon formed his own band. The revolving cast of characters have included guitarist Joe Pascarell (Pink Floyd tribute band The Machine--YES!), drummer Todd Cohen (The Machine, Antony and the Johnsons), bassist Jeff Langston (Antony and the Johnsons), bassist Jason DiMatteo (Burnt Sugar, The Citizens, Songs from a Random House), and drummer John Bollinger (The Citizens, Songs from a Random House). After developing the new material on the stages of downtown venues, Reuben engaged Noah Simon (Greta Gertler, Eric Andersen, Scout, Bill Frisell) to co-produce his second album. First there was the initial phase of planning, scheming, music arranging and money saving--during which time Reuben paid his dues by working at a trendspotting agency (and has since correctly predicted for me that butterflies would be "hot" this season) the crew went into a series of local recording studios to kick out alternative soul gems and mid-tempo art ballads. The final result is Reuben's second album "Golden Boy," a lushly orchestrated collection of songs that harkens back to his golden days by the golden gate. An SF native, Reuben lived in the Mission district before you knew what a burrito was.

ATOMIC YENTE: So where are you living now?

REUBEN BUTCHART: Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York.

ATOMIC: What's the smallest space you've ever lived in with your piano?

REUBEN: The piano was in our "studio" which was the smallest of 4 bedrooms in a broke-down house me and a bunch of other artists lived in for 10 years in SOHO. We called the house "Hudson House." It was notorious. The studio was like 9 x 13 feet.

ATOMIC: When you move, how do you schlep your piano?

REUBEN: I don't move too much. I've lived in only 6 places in my entire life. Two in SF. Four in NY. In SF, my piano still lives at my mom's house. And, I did without a piano for many years in NY...until a dear friend permanently-loaned me her childhood piano. And, yes I've schlepped it, or had it schlepped, a few times: once to the Hudson House, then from there to my loft in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, and then to my basement studio/laundry room in Williamsburg... In what I will now dub "Jackson House."

ATOMIC: When did you live in SOHO?

REUBEN: For all of the 90's.

ATOMIC: What was it like then?

REUBEN: Back then, people would say "Oh my god! I can't believe you're living WAY OUT there!" We were on Hudson and Spring. And, everything west of sixth Avenue in SOHO was considered no-man's land. People were shocked that we'd have to make the interminably long sojourn of 2 blocks to the nearest subway. SOHO was slowly turning into the Mall of America. When we all moved there, there were still art galleries, performance spaces, and artists. People were trying desperately to name our little chunk of SOHO. Like WeSoHo. Or Lower West Side. Or Lower West Village. Or Trinity Square? It was an area of mostly industrial buildings housing print shops. Some of them are still there. The only place to eat and drink was EAR Inn, an historical early New York watering hole. The only culture was the Fire Fighter's Museum. Then, Don Hill arrived and other restaurants; then NV (yuk) brought the delight of shootings to the neighborhood, then fancy furniture and chic lighting shops. Soon one-story warehouses were torn down and luxury condos began to spring up. In the midst of all this was our little house: the only 3-story house for blocks. It was made in the late 1800's and was probably "remodeled" only once in something like in 1971 judging from the kitchen cabinets. Since then it has been slowly sliding into decline. It barely had heat and structural integrity; but, for a revolving cast of young artists, it was home. Oooooo! The parties we used to have! We once had a Halloween party that club kids somehow got word of. The house was jam-packed shoulder-to-shoulder and some ingenious profiteer, a stranger to me and my house-mates, was standing at our front door charging admission. Smart bastard! Oh, and I had to throw another person down the stairs because he was being too rowdy. Rowdy was allowed, just don't mess up our adorable arrangement of votive candles lining the stairs, please! People used to say our house was like "Real Word." It was more like Larry Clark's "Kids."

ATOMIC: How do you feel about the changes that have taken place in New York since Giulliani and now, Bloomberg? Do these changes affect you as an artist?

REUBEN: Well. I came to New York in 1987. Manhattan could still be a bit scary/sketchy/edgy in certain downtown neighborhoods. In a sense, that's what drew me to New York...that and a Martin Luther King Scholarship for a free ride to college. Giuliani seems to be a media whore mostly. And a big bore. Most of his urban cleansing plans put a huge damper on the artistic spirit of Manhattan. Remember: "NO DANCING." There was so much do-it-yourself stuff in New York in all disciplines of the arts, probably because it was still affordable in Manhattan for artists and their admirers. Giuliani cleaned it up for corporations and their HR departments, who quickly imported squeaky clean shoppers from the rest of the United States. And, the CEO-styled Bloomberg sealed the deal, continuing the courting of corporations, condos, and co-ops. Now, Manhattan is the world's mall. Starbucks. Gap. Etcetera. I guess I resent it. It's tame and homogenized. A bit sad. But, who cares? Everything changes. Artists and interesting people will prevail in the end. Even the most committed consumers tire of the same-ol'-same-ol'. And, there's still a lot of cool things happening in New York. Is it all happening outside of Manhattan? Like in Williamsburg and Bushwick? Or Queens, Long Island City? Yep.

ATOMIC: You know, recently I was watching Sid and Nancy and mourning the New York City I'd never known. I know, I know, everything looks better in the biopics; who knows if I would have even liked that New York? Probably not. And the funny thing is, here I am: a white girl living on 7th street and Avenue C who goes around bitching about those deluxe condos they're building everywhere downtown. But I still think there's a difference between neighborhoods changing vs. the massive corporate onslaught that's making every city in America look the same. Sometimes I feel like I'm living in a Radiohead song. On that note, I know that you recently left your day-job to pursue your music full-time. What does a typical day look like for you? Is it what you expected?

REUBEN: Not sure how to answer. So far nothing is typical. It's hard to solidify your own schedule and method of working. I type hunched over my computer in a mismatched sweat ensemble this very moment. And, yet I've already taken three calls. There are ups and downs to working for yourself. I'm just figuring it all out. But, right now I'm on an upswing. I've got my new CD finished and I am committed to sending it out to records labels and people who might know "influential people" or decision makers, so I can get the CD picked up and distributed. People can stream the whole thing on my site now (pretty good work, huh? I just turned your question into a shameless self-promo op.) ATOMIC YENTE: What's your ideal label? Do you have a preference of independent vs. corporate? REUBEN: Like every artist, my ideal label is one that's small enough to give me the attention I need with hooks into a larger label with the power to reach the largest possible audience. These days many indie labels have that power. But, is my music "indie" in sound? My music sounds somewhere between mainstream and indie. It leans toward classic and away from edgy...unless you know secret music code and can pry open the hood. Case in point: the last track ("Trust Me") ends with a guitar solo over top of a double fugue being played by the strings. The average listener wouldn't know that and probably wouldn't care. Listeners care about the story, the feel. Some musicians care about those secret ingredients. Is it edgy to put a double fugue for string quintet into an alternative soul song? Let the people decide. Indie used to mean independent. Our project was definitely independently produced. Noah Simon and I co-produced the album, rounded up the musicians, wrote or commissioned the arrangements, scheduled the studios, rehearsed it, recorded it, mixed and mastered it, and funded it.

ATOMIC: What albums have you been listening to lately?

REUBEN: Yesterday I was listening to The Roots' "Things Fall Apart" and Lauryn Hill's unplugged record, a highly underrated record. I was also listening to The Temptations 2nd phase stuff...Ball of Confusion era stuff. And then, I was trolling around on MySpace for new music.

ATOMIC: What are some of the best shows you've ever seen?

REUBEN: Patti Smith...nearly any show. My friend Antony consistently serves transformative experiences with his shows. Last year's Kraftwerk show was fun. I pretty much like most Bjork shows. I really enjoyed Radiohead's Radio City Music Hall show at the end of their OK Computer tour. Friend Clare and the Reasons did a nice local show at The Cutting Room recently. Morrisey did a nice show last year at The Apollo. I kind of like music and I kind of like shows.

ATOMIC: Where is your favorite place to play live in NYC?

REUBEN: Right now, I've been playing a lot at Rockwood Music Hall. Ken Rockwood, the owner, is a very kind-hearted musician. The PA is one of the very best. Everything always sounds great there. And, it's intimate. And, it has a baby grand piano. Try lugging a piano around. Keyboards that imitate pianos are sad.

ATOMIC: When you write songs, do you usually write the lyrics or music first?

REUBEN: Music usually comes first. I have several naked songs in the wings yearning to be dressed in words. But, then, sometimes, the whole song comes all at once, words and music, a happy union at birth. It's rare that words come first. I usually write songs the way a sculptor searches for something in stone, slowly chipping away to find the form inside. That usually means I play the emerging song over and over and over and over and over again (driving nearby listeners crazy) until the harmony and melody take shape. And, I sing fake lyrics: a combination of real and fake words. Playing it over and over again becomes like a meditation until the idea for what the song is about surfaces. Fake words turn into real words. And, lyric phrases inform the subject. They get reshaped, blurred or clarified, for the meaning of the song. I claim no genius in the words department. It's the biggest challenge of writing a song for me.

ATOMIC: Do you have any opinion about the inclusion of music lyrics in poetry anthologies? Say from Bob Dylan or other artists who are considered poets by many people. My poetry teacher gets mad because he thinks they are taking up valuable space from actual poets.

REUBEN: Ah, Poetry versus lyrics. No pun intended. Get it? Songs have verses in them. Never mind. Anyway.While some people think that any poem can be set to music and some people think that lyrics are poetry, I don’t necessarily agree. I think that “popular” music (I mean that in the classic sense of the word, so I’m including every little sub-genre like electro-power-emo-psych-folk-coolkid-indie-blah-blah-blah) needs to be immediate in a different way than poetry. With poems, most people READ them by themselves, alone, in solitude. And, the poet usually writes in solitude. So there’s a one-to-one relationship. Poetry has its own rhythm and meter. Due to the private intimacy and the relative metric freedom, the poem often can be more like film: ebbing and flowing with tempo and more densely populated with descriptions and inner emotional pictures. It’s rare that people experience poems “live.” There are readings...but don’t they usually come after the book has long been out or as a part of a new book promo tour? Poetry seems to rely on some form of paper, printed or electronic, it’s still something you look at. “Popular” music, even edgy alternative songs, still yearn to communicate with larger crowds in more of a group experience environment. Even the Joni Mitchells and the Bob Dylans, whose lyrics are often personal, cryptic, and richly dense, are still writing so-called “hooks.” There are musical hooks, which are catchy melodies. And then there are lyrical hooks, which are catchy catch-phrases. The hook is intended to draw the listener in. I find that in popular lyrics, “people-speak” and everyday language often works best to bring the listener in closer. There are plenty of clever turns of phrases in pop songs; but, for the most part, we want to bond in that group experience and better identify with the singer ‘cuz we’re all in this together. Jus’ talkin’ the some language, man. You know what I mean? You feel me? Song lyrics rely on some form of performance: live or recorded. You don’t look at songs. You dance to them. Lyrics that are kindly reprinted in the liner notes are a convenience for the listener so they can sing along, bond, identify, etc. So I don’t think that poetry and lyrics serve the same function and that the writing approach for each is quite different. That being said there some few whose writing can fall into both categories. Bob Dylan uses everyday language and lyrical hooks and still plays with time and infuses his work with cryptic emotional pictures and densely ornate descriptions. But, then Dylan was a a big reader of poetry, wasn’t he? He may be both a poet and a pop lyricist. Would that be so bad? Either way, both poet and lyricist can learn from him. It’s often said that there are two kinds of music: good and bad. Ain’t it true for writing too?

ATOMIC: So what about my poetry teacher?

REUBEN: What does his jealousy tell us about him? Maybe he should write a poem about it. Or better yet, a song.

Reuben Butchart is a Gemini. For more info, and live dates, visit: reubenbutchart.com