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Damien Jurado: Portrait of the Artist as a Free Man

By Ben Larson

Fort Wayne Reader

2011-04-18

In my sheer excitement to interview Damien Jurado, I very nearly forgot to ask him about fellow songwriter John Vanderslice, with whom he is currently touring, and it seemed as if he was more excited to talk about Vanderslice than himself. “Have you heard his latest record?” he asked me toward the end of our interview. I had no choice but to confess that I had not (I’m pretty good at B.S., but not that good). “It’s a pop masterpiece. John’s one of those guys who’s always continuing to grow . . . he’s a guy who I’ve always respected, because you never know what you’re going to get with a John Vanderslice record.”

Jurado and Vanderslice will be in the area for two nights this May. On the 6th, they will play an all-ages show at The Firehouse in N. Manchester (thefirehouse.net), and a 21+ show on the 7th at The Brass Rail (brassrailfw.com).

If you take a listen through Jurado’s catalog of 10 proper albums, and numerous EPs and singles, you’ll begin to understand how that last statement of his is probably one of the highest compliments one could get from the Seattle native. From the stripped down folk-pop of 1999’s Rehearsals for Departure, to the distorted, straight-ahead rock & roll of 2002’s I Break Chairs, to last year’s lush, string-and-reverb-drenched Saint Bartlett, Jurado has continued to prove that he is the kind of songwriter who refuses to allow himself to be pigeon-holed into one specific genre.

“There was one journalist who called me a chameleon. I thought that was a good thing; I think he meant it as something of a negative jab, but it’s true. I guess I am a chameleon in a way. I like different kinds of music; I want to make different kinds of records. That’s my biggest pet peeve, and not just with modern bands. It’s my problem with indie rock in general, you know? I think people are making the same records over and over, and it’s just such a formula, and it’s completely boring. A band has to change.”

And it’s that kind of philosophy which has helped Jurado stay relevant over the years. Even more than just being relevant, though, he’s known as one of the most consistently good artists in the music business. “I’m just trying to do my best to be the kind of artist that I would want as a music buyer. There have been great artists, even people like Bob Dylan and Neil Young for instance, where there’s a period of their catalogs when people are just like ‘eh, I hated those records.’ I don’t want to be like that. I want to be the kind of artist who’s known for putting out consistently good records. That’s what I’m trying for, anyway.”

Aside from the musical aspects of Jurado’s songwriting, one of the things that has kept people coming back again and again to his albums is his lyrics. Often melancholy, like the line “why try pretending you care, when feelings aren’t there, just be honest with me” (“Love the Same,” from 1999’s Rehearsals for Departure), he can turn it around just as quickly into, say, a light-hearted celebration of the pleasures of going to an afternoon movie (“Matinee,” from 2003’s Where Shall You Take Me?), where he sings “my best friend’s girl works the ticket stand. When the boss is gone she lets us in. We all see a matinee.” One of the things that fans and reviewers tend to focus on with Jurado is how confessional his lyrics seem to be, so I had to ask him about that.

“To be honest with you, I’ve only had one confessional record, and that was [2008’s] Caught in the Trees. That was really it. Every other one of my songs is fictitious. It’s the biggest question I get from fans, though. ‘Is “Ohio” a real song?’ or “‘Medication,’ geez, that’s a heavy song. Is that about your brother?’ And I have to break it down to them and say ‘no, it’s just fiction.’ It surprises a lot of people because I think it affects them in that personal way, and I’m thankful for that. I’m glad it does, because that tells me that I’m doing a good job. It’s not just some stupid story, you know? It’s actually affecting somebody.”

That kind of fictitious storytelling is a hallmark of what Jurado’s songwriting is all about, though. By mostly keeping to subject matter outside of his immediate life, and constantly changing up his musical style, he keeps himself free to explore any number of musical possibilities. “I’ll give you an example,” he said on the subject. “The freedom that you hear on an Ornette Coleman record, or a John Coltrane record, or even a Santana record, or a live Grateful Dead recording, to me it’s complete freedom. There’s no constraints as to where they’re going to go with it, and to me that’s a big influence, because I can take that and apply it to my records. There’s nowhere that I don’t want to go. There’s nowhere I can’t go, and that goes back to the earlier thing, which is that I’m not constrained. I can keep them guessing, and that’s the good part.”

More info on Damien Jurado can be found at his official website, saintbartlett.com