Terry Hartman: “Creative people will always be creative and unique...”
Terry Hartman has taken a great interest in music in the end of 60-s'. To this day creative process of the composition of songs gives Terry great pleasure.
Frank Secich acquainted us with Terry. Now Frank and Terry write a new album. Guys are keen by process as well as in young years. We could hear some songs from their future album. We liked them very much… Presumably, work with a new album will be finished in the end of spring. And today we represent our readers the interview with Terry Hartman – the talented musician and the interesting person.
Powerpop.Ru: Hi, Terry, thank you for agreeing to communicate with us. How is your work on the new album going? How many songs have already written down? How long an album will be, considering that modern CD carriers allow writing down up to 20 songs in audio format?
Terry Hartman: The recording is going great! If only we were 22 years old again!
Frank and I were thinking that we had about 1000 songs each. Yes, 1000! (we have been doing this for a long time). But the cd will have about 10 or 12 songs. We need to rest. We both have bad asthma and each session is hard to sing. Instead of passing joints, we pass albuterol inhalers at recording sessions. At our ages we don't want to get bogged down recording a War and Peace.
Seriously though, we decided from the outset to try to "paint our masterpiece" and, while it has worked out far beyond our wildest dreams, we had to be a little discriminating in our choice of material. We hope to have a Deadbeat Poets cd on the market by summer so we can get out and start playing.
Powerpop.Ru: So often happens you have written a song and it is pleasant to you very much first time, but then because that it was sung often it bothers more. Among the songs written by you do you have songs which you sing with pleasure for many years till now?
Terry: Not too many. I think I have only written two perfect songs that I never get tired of – Lezbo Hotel (which I wrote in 1975 and may be on the new cd) and Everything Is Killing Me (from the Backdoor Men cd Mohawk Combover). And by "perfect" I mean that the construction of the song worked out exactly as I originally envisioned – I don't think too many other people would call them "perfect". And I don't get tired of them. But I get tired of my own songs real fast-in fact, as soon as they're recorded I'm tired of them. That's really good motivation for moving on to develop the next idea. In America we call it "planned obsolescence"- when a product is made to break down or wear out so you have to buy another. That's the way my songs are very cheaply made.
Powerpop.Ru: You, as I understand, have started to play music already in the end of 60-s'. Terry Hartman & Peter Laughner, Backdoor Men, Terry & The Tornadoes... It is the incomplete list of projects in which you have taken part. And all these years, as it looks, your love to music was strong and helped to overcome life's difficulties and worry. Did you have any hobbies when you were young which fed you when got tired of glut of music?
Terry: I always read a lot – fiction, poetry, the classics. I enjoyed collecting insects (like my favorite author, Vladimir Nabokov!) and bird-watching. I spent 12 years as a Boy Scout leader and, as much as I loved working with kids I just couldn't take the physical demands anymore. So I went back to rock & roll – "the last refuge of scoundrels".
When I was younger, I traveled a lot hitchhiking around Europe when I was in the army and then, around America when I got home- living in different cities – San Francisco, Houston, New Orleans, etc. It was a very irresponsible and happy time in my life and I got to see the world very cheaply and hear a lot of regional music.
But, yeah, I read, read, read. I wish I could write prose or poetry (which I've tried, but I'm terrible at) so I guess I'm just a lowly songwriter.
I always liked enough different kinds of music to not get bored.
Powerpop.Ru: How were many of musical projects in your life? Did you always like joint songwriting, or you easily write songs alone?
Terry: I got drafted into the army in 1970 and sent to Heidelberg, Germany where I lived for 1 1/2 years. In a great stroke of luck, I lived in a big barracks room with a bunch of musicians and songwriters from around the country. We wrote about 100 songs together- all different styles- German beer was a wonderful muse! In the 1980's I was in a band Napoleon In Rags with songwriter Dan Cook from the Backdoor Men. We wrote some very good songs together. But, generally, co-writing doesn't work unless one person writes music and the other writes lyrics (like Rodgers and Hammerstein) or by writing bridges for each other's songs (like Lennon and McCartney). So, even though co-songwriting has been a lot of fun and can lead to deep friendship, I prefer to write by myself- it's easier to control the nuances of songs. Sometimes writing a song is like working a Rubik's Cube – you just keep playing around until you find the natural path for the song to take and I just seem to find that direction more clearly by myself. Also, if you are stealing an idea from somewhere you really don't want to admit that to anyone… But don't tell anyone I said that… :)
I do hope I get to write with Frank eventually – he's such a good songwriter and I always learn something new working with him – and we are entertained by the same ideas.
Powerpop.Ru: Our planet is rich with talents. America is rich with musical talents! Has so-called musical capitals (though, all is relatively). The capital of jazz is New Orleans; capital of grunge is Seattle, etc. What city your way is capital of power pop? (By quantity of artists and admirers of this music.)
Terry: I wouldn't say a single city is the capital of power pop – rather, northeast Ohio – a very industrial area – is definitely the center of the powerpop universe. Because we all listened to the same radio stations in the '60s and early 70's and heard the same local bands who tended to stay pretty close to home. Everyone I knew played in a band in those days – or wanted to – and there was something about the British Invasion and Folk-Rock and soul music that we heard on the radio that just seemed to strike a nerve here. I think it formed our musical tastes for a lifetime. Cleveland-Youngstown-Akron areas specifically and Ohio in general spawned countless pop bands and recordings. As I said, it was a very industrial area – the steel, rubber and automobile manufacturing industries were all centered here and maybe we all saw this music as a great escape from those factory jobs and that life that our fathers had – much the same way Liverpool, New Castle and Birmingham turned out so many great British bands. I've lived all over the USA and have not found an area that had so many bands playing pop music – with such purpose.
Given that American radio is so awful and soulless today, I would like nothing more than to see all those old musicians dust off their guitars and start playing again. The amount of talent in northeast Ohio is staggering. The good news is that we are starting to see more and more older musicians with a wonderful love of pop music and unexplored talents playing again-because their lives are settled, families raised, maybe they regret quitting playing years ago or they have such disdain for the crap that the music business pushes off on the public today. To all our old friends in northeast Ohio we say, Sleepers Awake!!
Powerpop.Ru: Comprehension of that world is far from perfect often afflicts talented people. All day long thousand guitarists write down and publish the same scales; loud vocalists callously with pathos show synthetic professionalism... Certainly, it is not easy to be individual. What conditions, at your sight, are necessary for creative people to create a unique, individual material? Also what is prevents them to do? Are there: money, desire of lightning success or something else?
Terry: Years ago, I read an interview with an old songwriter who said that the art of songwriting was dead because kids no longer wanted to spend time alone in their rooms learning how to write. And that meant writing a lot of bad, bad, sensitive, introspective, self-centerd songs until you developed an ear, a style, a sense of your own abilities and limitations.
And I believe that was true at one time but today individualism is highly overrated. We are living in Paris Hilton's world now. Rock bands mean very little in America these days. Marketing and public relations can manufacture the illusion of individualism – and maybe it was always mostly illusion.
I don't believe people want individualism today – the younger generations don't even know what individualism is. That idea of "one man alone against the world" is foreign to a society of people who can't even drive their cars without talking on the cell phone, that spend it's life online, that looks to Oprah for affirmation of their lives. Everyone is so "wired" in the world today that no one takes the time to nurture their sociopathy.
So I think we need to redefine "success" in this new world – we're just not going to see another Elvis or Beatles phenomenon – the culture is far too fractured for a mass appeal of that scale. The medium truly is the message. The music business has shot itself in the foot over and over again and now, has no idea how to survive in the modern world. If you can work on a smaller scale, find your niche and an appreciative audience – without regard to it's size – you can be considered successful. Uniqueness is in the eye of the beholder- but it is always, always one voice alone, screaming in the dark. Creative people will always be creative and unique – the trick is trying to find them. Places like Powerpop.Ru out of St. Petersburg, Power Pop Lovers in Spain, Little Steven's Underground Garage, etc., etc. are good places to start because, as an artist, the trick is being found in this big world. A lot of an artist's "creativity" today consists of utilizing all the available resources to get heard.
It used to be that a young band could get by on a little cleverness and a lot of testosterone. I tell people that our music today is no longer fuelled by testosterone, but that hormone that makes hair grow in old mens' ears. So we just have to be clever.
Powerpop.Ru: I would you ask, Terry, as the philatelist to the philatelist!!! Do you collect stamps? You don't collect?!... Yes I too don't... I collect Indians ... This is a toy Indians, not alive ... rubber, plastic. What does Terry clutter up living area? What is Terry's hobby?
Terry: I don't really collect stamps – I don't even mail things anymore! And my wife thought my insect collection was creepy so now it's in the attic. So now I clutter up the house with computer junk- software, cds, notes, printouts. Empty beer cans. Full ashtrays. My wife is still mad at me though. I might try that rubber Indian thing.
I have four sons so a lot of my time is spent getting them out of trouble. And living vicariously through them.
But for the last few years I have spent a great deal of time digitizing the hundreds of cassettes I have of songs I wrote during the 70s and 80s with my friends from around the country. And I am a big advocate of home-recording, especially with the inexpensive computer programs available today. There is no excuse for anyone to not get their musical ideas and performances out into the public through personal websites, Myspace.com pages, GarageBands, etc.,etc.
I still read a lot – mostly news, politics and some poetry. Lately I've been reading the poetry of Kenneth Patchen who was from Warren, Ohio- very close to my town. So, despite reading a lot online, I still manage to accumulate a lot of books. But I don't collect "books"- any more than I collect "cigarette butts"- I just suck them up and leave them laying around.
Powerpop.Ru: The Russian audience very well knows the American comedy films. Do Americans know comedies which already became classics in Russia?
Terry: I have not seen any Russian comedy films – foreign films are not usually shown in movie theaters. To see these films, Americans must go to "Art Houses" (where they show foreign films and movies not made for mass-appeal) or colleges (where a much more diverse selection of movies are shown).
But I do not go to movie theaters because the movies are bad, it is expensive to get in and I usually fall asleep in the dark and air conditioning – very comfortable seats. Young people today are much more aware of Russian and foreign films because they are much more adventurous. When I was younger I went to a theater to see Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "Berlin Alexanderplatz" – 16 hours long and all in German. It was the absolute best movie I have ever seen but couldn't do that today.
I would very much like to see some Russian comedy films!
I always believed that humor was universal – that we all shared a common sense of humor. Then the French canonized Jerry Lewis. So now I don't know anymore. But I'm probably the wrong person to ask about American comedy films – I like old comedy films and I think the new ones are just vulgar and hateful rather than funny. There is no art to comedy anymore and I think the whole world suffers for it – we lose a sense of what is genuinely funny and ironic about our lives and our world. There was a real humanity to Charlie Chaplin – a subtle intelligence to Ernst Lubisch' works. The old comedy people dealt with sophisticated subjects with real humor and kindness and we walked away from their movies better for having watched them. I don't think that's true today. It is the same old question of, does art imitate life or life imitate art? The world is dumb and dumber now.
Powerpop.Ru: Terry had in hands a magic wand and there is any time to change this world....
Terry: I wouldn't change a thing!! This is a wonderful world for a cynic!
Powerpop.Ru: What are your most favourite five albums created on one breath and never bother you?
Terry: Well, Highway 61 Revisited/ Blonde On Blonde are two albums I never get tired of listening to. I am always struck by new levels of irony, profound poetic phrases, the errors of live recording that give the recordings such presence. Once a year I'll spend a few days listening to them over and over.
Lately I've been listening to Moby Grape's first album- those amphetamine guitars, pristine harmonies and wonderfully written songs make the album timeless to me.
Television's Marquee Moon I never get tired of – simple songs with incredibly complex musical arrangements and lyrics that give the recording such depth.
Probably at the top of my list – White Light, White Heat by the Velvet Underground. Along with my copies of Foggy Notion and I Can't Stand It, this album represents everything rock and roll should be – raw, loud, dangerous.
I just can't name a favorite five because I'm constantly revisiting old albums and groups that interested me – Little Feat, Hank Williams, Johnny Thunder's Heartbreakers, the 13th Floor Elevators, the Byrds, Kaleidoscope, Bobby Fuller Four, Bo Diddley, even the Kingston Trio- so many bands that interest me. And now Around Again by Blue Ash – a 2 cd set – has come out and I have that to pore over! Better to tell you what I hate – those singer-songwriters with their sensitive, introspective, self-centered songs. And in America today – that's a whole industry. To me, a totally useless industry but then I'm just not very sensitive or introspective. Anymore.
Powerpop.Ru: Do you want to tell to our readers something that I forget to ask you?
Terry: I began playing out when I was 17 – in 1966 – in a black (or "Negro" as we then called it) bar, playing blues because they would serve us beer without an ID. But we did stuff like Shake Your Moneymaker by Paul Butterfield, Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues by Dylan, really white stuff – but the people were great and we thought we were cool because we were playing in a black bar. We were.
Songwriter Dan Cook and I started the Backdoor Men in 1966 or '67 as a blues/psychedelic band. I quit to go to college and we reformed in 1977 in time to be a part of the Cleveland punk/new wave scene – but we did the same material from '67 plus original songs. I quit and started my own band- the Tornadoes- doing all my own music, high energy powerpop. It was an incredibly explosive time in Cleveland musical history.
I recorded Notes On a Cocktail Napkin with the late Peter Laughner in 1969 as a drunken attempt to record some of my stuff before I died in Viet Nam. I didn't die – but he did – of pancreatitis in 1977.
I remember living in a trailer in New Orleans in 1973 – no electricity and living on a box of macaroni and cheese and a bottle of Ripple wine everyday and looking out my window one night and seeing a Goodyear blimp advertising "Led Zepplin" in lights flying over the city. I just thought, "man, something is really wrong with rock and roll". That affected my approach to pop music very much – some things you never forget.
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