Doug Paisley

The album came out over a year ago in the US, but now finally gets its UK release on No Quarter. What has the past year been like? Thousands of teenage girls camping out in your front garden?
The wrecking ball of success hasn't come crashing into my life. I'm getting used to a lot of what I guess are the secondary industries, the first being making music, the second being things like interviews and visas and legally binding documents. Seeing yourself represented from the outside can cheat you out of your privileged inside perspective sometimes. Overall I'm satisfied with my good fortune to have my music received at all.

It seems every review of the album mentions a new label, from old weird America, to country and folk. I know these different labels we give music often live at the mercy of writers and not necessarily musicians, but how you define your own musical vision? How would you introduce yourself? "Doug Paisley, weird, folk'ish countrysinger from Toronto?"
I agree that it's the domain of writers to come up with those defining terms so I'll defer. I try to make music for myself and to listen to as much music as I can tolerate. I draw from music that mostly skips over much of the last couple of decades and I don't think I'm a big part of the current musical dialogues so I guess I'm asking the listener to come back a bit.

I've asked a lot of Canadian musicians this question, but I'm not sure any of them have ever been able to come up with an answer, but how do you think your Canadian background effects your music?
Generally speaking Canadians aren't very presumptuous and are culturally self-conscious sometimes to a fault. There's definitely some of that in my music. It may be a trait of ours to assume we're not likely to be recognized for what we do and therefore perhaps we're more likely to set out to make something more for ourselves.

I absolutely love the production on the album. It's warm, intimate and like it was made for your voice. Did you have a clear idea of how you wanted this album to sound before production began?
There's very little embellishment on the original recordings which are mostly recorded live. I like the approach of albums like Planet Waves and New Morning that are appealingly simple. The only thing I know about production is to sit next to the engineer during mixing and beg them not to use the fancy plug-ins and filters. 

Big question coming up - where do these songs come from? Some people move out into the woods and stay there for days on end, writing songs, and some people just go to the bar, get drunk and write them down on napkins. What about you? What's your secret?
I don't know where the songs are going to come from, and once they're written I can't really imagine how. It's not that I go into a trance or anything, many of them take a lot of time and effort. If I don't feel like working on it I don't force myself but I'm always a little sad when I don't feel like playing music.

I hear a certain 70's folk-influence in your music. The softness of James Taylor here and there, but also the talented musicianship of people like John Fahey and Fred Neil. Am I way off here? Was there any particular artist, album or song that suddenly convinced you to pursue music yourself?
My first influence at a very early age was John Lennon. These days musically I'd really like to be able to make recordings that sound like Don Williams and Garth Fundis. Garth Fundis runs Jack Clement's old studio in Nashville but I don't think it's in the budget. I think most commercial music today is pretty worthless though time and retrospection may prove me wrong. The difference with commercial music from that era is that it was slick and packaged big business but it was also so substantial. In the past I preferred singers like George Jones and Keith Whitley. I loved them musically but I also loved that my friends couldn't stand them because they were maudlin and mainstream.

You also play in a number of different bands. Are these songs just one part of your musical voice?
No, these days these efforts are my musical voice: I need the autonomy.

This is your first album, and critics are already comparing you with Neil Young, The Band and other great Canadian artists. Ever wish people like me would just shut the hell up with all the comparisons and just take the songs at face value instead of trying to put everything in boxes?
I accept that the comparisons are just a way to give readers and potential listeners points of entries. I know that I'm not like Neil Young or The Band but I understand the need for some sort of reference material however blunt. I mean, how would you describe to someone what chicken tastes like?


"Doug Paisley" is out now on No Quarter Records. We suggest you head over to Myspace.com/dougpaisley for more on Doug