Interviews 2014

[Larissa]

Don't know if someone posted it already, but I think I didn't see it anywhere. Enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8nahw88UTs

[DesoleInBoston]

Not quite an interview, more like a quippy pop quiz, but a good read nonetheless:

http://www.sfchronicle.com/music/pop...ce-5874419.php

Damien Rice returns this week with “My Favourite Faded Fantasy,” his first new album in eight years. The Irish singer-songwriter, who spent time living in Los Angeles and Iceland after releasing his difficult second album, 2006’s “9,” worked with producer Rick Rubin (Johnny Cash, Red Hot Chili Peppers) on his latest. Once a recluse, Rice appeared at ease in front of a crowd at a show last month at Congregation Sherith Israel in San Francisco after his breakup with former girlfriend and musical collaborator Lisa Hannigan. We spoke to him about his time away and comeback. “My Favourite Faded Fantasy” is out this week.

Q: Is there a reason why your work rate slowed down to one song a year?

A: For every song that I release, 10 others get thrown into the trash and 10 more are put into a drawer of unfinished pieces to be revisited. Everything has its own pace.

Q: You appear much happier onstage now, or at least less tortured. Have you come to terms with being a public figure?

A: Being a public figure was not what bothered me in the past. It was not being myself that bothered me.

Q: You mentioned that you had to take some time off to clean your mind. What did that involve?

A: Initially, it involved sitting with uncomfortable questions and watching thoughts that were judgmental, or destructive. Much like learning how to brush my teeth, I’ve been learning how to remove the unhelpful notions that get stuck and cause decay. As a kid, I accepted a lot of what I was told. When I looked at what was going on in my head, I noticed that none of the destructive stuff was mine. It was all borrowed beliefs. So I’ve been cleaning those out. I’ve still got a lot of knots to untie. It’s become a daily thing, much like eating, sleeping and showering.

Q: Is it difficult performing the old songs now, especially the ones from “9,” considering what you were going through at the time you made them?

A: I generally only sing songs that I feel like singing.

Q: Most people go to Rick Rubin for redemption, usually in their senior years. What made you want to work with him?

A: Early redemption.

Q: What’s your immediate reaction when you hear one of your songs in Safeway or on a television singing competition?

A: I’m not familiar with Safeway, and I don’t have a television.

Q: Are you determined to take less time with your next album?

A: The next album is already under way.

Aidin Vaziri is the San Francisco Chronicle pop music critic. E-mail: avaziri@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MusicSF

[carrroline]

He seems a bit annoyed by some of these questions

[signalfire]

Haha, I like the prickly honesty. Definitely like the last line.

[verenita]

thanks for posting.

[damien lisa]

Q: Is there a reason why your work rate slowed down to one song a year?

A: For every song that I release, 10 others get thrown into the trash and 10 more are put into a drawer of unfinished pieces to be revisited. Everything has its own pace.

he should keep his recycle bin, it would be helpful for the next generation artists

[borneoman]

not sure if this has been posted

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/m...eneration.html

“Oh yes,” says Rice, with a broad smile. “I feel on fire. I’m going to be knocking out records now left, right and centre.”

[borneoman]

cannot remember if tho was posted either

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/mu...view-1.1982182

[verenita]

Originally Posted by borneoman

not sure if this has been posted

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/m...eneration.html

“Oh yes,” says Rice, with a broad smile. “I feel on fire. I’m going to be knocking out records now left, right and centre.”

i enjoyed the reading. nice written. thanks marti.

love this paragraph:

Now he is back, with an utterly gorgeous third album, My Favourite Faded Fantasy (released by DRM/Atlantic this week). “Inside, I’ve got a real purist desire and dream about the music,” says Rice. “I like the idea of being able to carve out a kind of magical, colourful, artistic, inspirational life. And the reality just turns out to be quite different, working with the business to bring this thing you have created into the world. I wouldn’t say I ran away but I stepped back to get perspective and think about what it was that I really wanted. But every time it comes back to music.”

[damien lisa]

Originally Posted by borneoman

not sure if this has been posted

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/m...eneration.html

“Oh yes,” says Rice, with a broad smile. “I feel on fire. I’m going to be knocking out records now left, right and centre.”

this is new, tks

[SilentNight]

Originally Posted by borneoman

cannot remember if tho was posted either

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/mu...view-1.1982182

thanks! really enjoy reading this one.

[glo32]

Didn't want to open a new thread for this so I thought I'd post it here.
This is an interview Damien did in February for a Mexican newspaper.
http://marvin.com.mx/musica/entrevis...-new-age/78583

From what I can understand, it sounds really interesting. Google Translate does a decent job but maybe someone can help with a better translation?

They ask him some interesting question, like the one about the MFFF album title, and the one about the music industry changing in time.
And answers are always clever, of course.

[cookienator]

Here's a phone interview he did recently. Don't know if it's been posted or not yet:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entert...409-story.html

[damien lisa]

Originally Posted by cookienator

Here's a phone interview he did recently. Don't know if it's been posted or not yet:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entert...409-story.html

is that ok if i up to quote

Damien Rice and his disappearing act



Irish singer-songwriter Damien Rice. (Handout)

By Allison Stewart
Chicago Tribune

April 9, 2015, 12:55 pm

In the period of time from 2002 to 2006, Irish singer-songwriter Damien Rice released two albums, the smash "O," which contained his career-defining hit "The Blower's Daughter," and the respectable seller "9." He then disappeared for seven years.

Fame had made him arrogant and unhappy, he says, and he stayed away until he learned how to not be that way anymore. A fitful artistic process was also to blame: He writes songs quickly, but records them slowly. "I keep dropping songs because I can't hold that many," says Rice, who plays a sold-out show at the Auditorium Theatre on Tuesday.

He eventually enlisted producer Rick Rubin for a comeback disc, "My Favourite Faded Fantasy," released last fall, and is already at work on a new album of uncharacteristically up-tempo material. In a recent phone interview, Rice was funnier than you might think, and prone to long, thoughtful pauses. The following is an edited transcript of that conversation.

Q: How is the comeback going?

A: (Laughs) I don't really feel like it's a comeback. For me, I feel like the time just flew, and hardly any time has passed at all. I've been writing continually through that period. I didn't really take, like, seven years off on some island somewhere, or some monastery, and come back down the hill barefoot. I was just continuing about my business.

Q: When you were gone, and you were anticipating the press and the attention, did you have to gird yourself for battle, or did you welcome it?

A: I'm not sure it would be true to say I welcomed it, but I had less of a prescribed notion about what it was going to be, and I just let it happen and stayed open to it. I noticed how easy it is for the ego to get all excited when it gets all this attention, and it jumps up and down. Every once in a while you have to sit it down and remind it that it's all a load of nonsense, that it's just a game. But it would be nice, and this is something I'm working on, to be able to remember when I'm standing onstage and there's an audience clapping, without any disrespect to the audience, to realize that it means nothing. If people are saying you're wonderful, you're great, really you're not.

Q: It's a very human need, to get that sort of attention for your art. Even Daniel Day-Lewis came back. Everybody comes back.

A: I can't speak for Daniel, but for me it was certainly not a decision to come back for the attention. One of the things I have to do is work on being more comfortable with the attention that comes. One of the reasons I (came back) was a desire to express — it's like a painter, and their hand wants to paint things, and there's a paintbrush and a canvas in front of them. It's going to be very hard for their hand not to pick up a brush if that's in their nature. For me, it's in my nature to want to express things that happen inside emotionally, and then also to share that. It would be lovely to be able to do that, then switch it off once you're finished. I'm at a level where I can do that. I don't get recognized, generally speaking. When I do stop playing and touring, it's easy enough for me to forget that I'm a musician.

Q: Do you ever look at someone like Ed Sheeran and say, "There's someone who enjoys fame and goes with the flow. I make things too hard on myself"?

A: Really what it is, it's like I opened up a small cafe. In the beginning I had no real plans for it, then people liked the cafe and it grew and grew. I then just got so busy and stressed with it, I took a break. And now I've come back with more of a vision, and I know I don't want it to be too big, I don't want to have a McDonald's, I don't want to serve sugar. There's a certain kind of thing that I want to do, and there's a certain integrity and authenticity that I'd like it to have, and that might make my life a bit more challenging, and it might make my life a bit more tricky, but it's the way I just want to do things. I want to learn to do what it is I want to do in a more efficient and creative manner, in a way that flows. It's taken me a bunch of years to learn how to do that and how to pull it all together, but it's starting to flow now, so I'm just going to go with that, and see where it brings me.

Stewart is a freelance writer.

onthetown@tribune.com

Twitter @chitribent

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday

Where: Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Congress Pkwy.

Tickets: Sold out

auditoriumtheatre.org

Copyright © 2015, Chicago Tribune

why they always try to mention ed sheeran

[borneoman]

he likes to use the McDonalds comparison I remember he used it once and said he was a vegan cafe and J-Lo was McDonalds