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Formed in 1995 by core members singer Robert Fisher and guitarist Paul Austin,
both formerly of the electric rock outfit the Flower Tamers, Willard Grant
Conspiracy is a loose-knit group of musicians that ranges in size from 2 to 26
members at any given point, depending on who wants to sit down and play. With
three releases on Rykodisc/Slow River Records (Flying Low, Mojave, and, most
recently, Everything's Fine), WGC is slowly making its mark as one of the most
beautifully melancholy folk outfits out there. I spoke to Robert Fisher prior to
the Willard Grant Conspiracy's U.S. tour with the Handsome Family.
Cosmik: How did you first get into playing music?
Fisher: Wow, it's been so long, I don't remember. I think I
always had kind of an interest in it. I guess, really early on, I sang in church
and stuff like that, so that would probably have to be the earliest memories I
have of it. I've just always been interested in music in general, whether it was
playing it on the radio or playing live in person.
Cosmik: Does anyone else in your family have any artistic
inclinations?
Fisher: Not really, no. My mother's a mathematician, my father
was a travel agent. I have a brother and a sister, but neither one of them--
although my brother's been learning bluegrass banjo, so maybe he has something
going on with that, I'm not sure. I haven't seen him play it yet, so I'll have
to wait until I see him play. I gave him a banjo last Christmas, a really
beautiful little banjo, so hopefully he'll surprise me with a performance one of
these days, you know, whip it out and start playing with us live or something.
Cosmik: How did Willard Grant Conspiracy get started?
Fisher: Well, it was an accident. We had this other band that was
kind of this big electric band, and at the same time, we had this strange little
project that was kind of a band. It was a bunch of people from different Boston
bands sort of
moonlighting from their regular bands and playing instruments they didn't
normally play. The big electric band had to go on hiatus because the drummer in
that band also played in a band called Sugar, with Bob Mould, and they were
going on tour, and so during that period, the way the other band worked was that
people would kind of get together at my apartment and drink way too much coffee
and then play music together. Eventually, somebody had the idea that we should
do that live, and at first, everybody thought it was just too much fun doing it
in
my apartment and didn't want to complicate it by playing a real show, until one
weekend, one of the guys that was in the big electric band started his own
studio in his house and he asked us to come and test it out because he had just
finished wiring it up and everything, so we went out and we recorded a bunch of
these songs that we'd been doing in the living room. But it sounded so good, we
decided we actually had to finish the record. So we did that, and then we were
stuck with a record, and we had to come up with a name, and people started
asking us to play live. So it's just been sort of a natural kind of thing, and
really kind of accidental. And that's why the band has the format that it does
to this day, which is this sort of loose thing, where, early on, I would say,
"Okay, there's a show on such and such a day at such and such a club," and
whoever wanted to play would just show up. It's gotten a little more regulated
than that, over the years, but it's still with the same intent. The band has 26
members, so at any given time, you're going to see anywhere from one-that'd be
me-to 14 people on stage, and anything in between. It keeps it really
interesting, because it's never exactly the same way twice, and it's always
fresh for the audience and fresh for the musicians as well.
Cosmik: What exactly is the Willard Grant Conspiracy?
Fisher: It's a conspiracy of a bunch of different musicians who
have other projects
and bands that they do that get together to make these songs happen. So in the
best sense of the word, it's a good conspiracy, but it's definitely a
conspiracy.
Cosmik: Who's Willard Grant?
Fisher: That's a boring answer. As I said, this was a band that
we
didn't really plan
on, so when we got down to naming the band--if you know anybody whose been in a
band, ask them what's the worst part about being in a band, and most of them
will say that naming the band is the worst part, because no matter how
cool a name a you come up with, somebody else already has it. So, in this case,
we had the record, we needed a name, so I just named it after the street we
recorded the record on, Willard Grant. And the way that the street got its name
was because of a family back in the 1700s called the Willard family granted a
bunch of land to Massachusetts, and so they called the street that borders that
land the Willard Grant, essentially. It's an incredibly boring story, isn't it?
Cosmik: It's much more interesting than a story about a bunch of
people sitting
around naming bands after parts of their bodies.
Fisher: (laughs) Although, you know, I imagine some interesting
names have come up
that way. People tend to give their body parts interesting names.
Cosmik: Who's in your touring ensemble this time around?
Fisher: Well, I'm still trying to decide that, to be honest,
because--and this is
something that no one really wants to hear about, but it's the truth--there's an
economic issue that is whether I can afford to bring people or not, and at this
particular stage in the game, there's not very much money in this tour. I just
got off a tour--actually, I just got back last night--of England, Ireland,
Slovenia, and Italy, and we started the tour with eight members in the band, and
then some of them had to go home after five shows. We did another fourteen dates
with five members in the band, and then some people had to go home after that,
and I ended up doing a bunch of shows in Italy either with two people or by
myself. So the economics of the situation sort of depends on who's able to come
and who isn't. It's probably not going to be more than two people. But
that'll be fine, though, because the Handsome Family are a duo, too, although
they're talking about bringing a drummer with them and becoming a trio this
tour.
Cosmik: What do you like to do to pass the time between shows
when you're touring?
Fisher: Well, one of the things that I try really hard to do is
get out and see where
I am, because when you're touring, even when you're in Europe, the inside of a
van, and the inside of a club, and the inside of a hotel room kind of look the
same, whether you're in Ohio or in Italy. They're not that different. So, one of
the really important things to do, I think, is to just get out and walk around
the city and get a sense of where you're at and who the people are. Maybe it's
just sitting in a café and doing postcards and listening to people talk around
you, or whatever it is, but just to get a sense of where you are. I think that's
really important.
Cosmik: Your songs seem to have a kind of universal quality to
them, as though they could be set in Small Town Anywhere.
Fisher: Well, even Big Town Anywhere. It's not necessarily just
small town stuff. But
I think I try to do that. I guess, in my mind, writing a song--it's not just
about the story that you tell. It's also about what you don't tell, because
oftentimes, what you don't tell is the place that the listener has a place to
involve themselves in. I don't know if I'm saying that the best way I've ever
said it, but what I mean is that there should be enough of the story there that
it engages the imagination of the listener, but not so much there that the
listener can't actually put themselves in the story. And by putting themselves
in the story, they sort of complete the story. It's kind of like when you're
with three or four friends, and you go to the art museum, and you're standing in
the gallery, and there's about ten other people standing around you, looking at
the same painting, and you're listening to them talk--everybody has a different
interpretation of what they're looking at, and none of it's wrong, all of it's
pretty much accurate based on people's experiences. And I think songs, and
short stories, and things like that, gain their own characteristics and
personalities because the more they live on their own, the more people sort of
interpret them and bring their own experience to them. And that's interesting to
me.
Cosmik: A lot of your music is really gloomy and desolate-
sounding. Are you a gloomy
person yourself?
Fisher: Gloomy? You think it's gloomy? Desolate, maybe, but I'm
not sure about
gloomy. I don't think of our music as being gloomy at all. People say that, but
I think it's kind of, I mean, our music isn't the blues, but it kind of has the
same effect. When you listen to the blues, you don't necessarily feel down, and
I think it's ultimately uplifting. I think our songs sort of fit that as well.
Cosmik: Actually, Everything's Fine feels very uplifting, as
opposed to the two
previous releases. There's this undercurrent of happiness that bubbles up
underneath it. Is there any particular reason why that is?
Fisher: No, I don't know. I don't know why that would be
particularly, except that
there's a rhythm section on most of the record, and the other records don't
always have a rhythm section. Sometimes, emotionally, people respond to rhythm
sections in a kind of up way. I think a record like Mojave has plenty of sweet
and up songs on it--it's just where you find them. It's always hard for me to
gauge, because ultimately it's not about what I intend, but how people perceive
it. I talk to a lot of people who have listened to our music, and people all
have different ideas about how dark certain records are, and really, none of
their interpretations are wrong--it's just how their own experience relates to
it.
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