Christopher Rees Interview: SXSW 2010

Welsh native Christopher Rees possesses the soul of a Southern preacher. With his own brand of bluesy folk-rockabilly, he crafts and weaves murderous narratives as Gospel truths on his fourth album, the critically-acclaimed 'Devil's Bridge.' Paying homage to Kerouac, Rees is something of a nomad. With a prolific collection of gritty Southern rock jams and polished Americana prose, he's collected and assembled a 7-piece gang of troubadours complete with banjos, mandolins, lap steel, organs, foot stomping and a chorale of voices. With Rees's undeniable kinship to the South, this year's appearance at SXSW will undoubtedly feel like something of a homecoming. Spinner caught up with Rees en route to recording with the South Austin Horns just before SXSW.

Describe your sound in your own words.

It's not the easiest thing to do, really. I kind of get my toes wet in different genres -- rockabilly or Appalachian, banjo music or soul, blues, country, folk, gospel. I guess the underlying theme or consistent theme in it is my passion and my voice, really.

You began as a solo artist. How did the band form?

The first band evolved from initially playing with a cellist, and that kind of developed and brought in violin, and then bass and then drums. It happened very organically to try to build up a large band that I had on my first album. And the weight of carrying around a band like that, it did become a bit difficult. It felt a bit like a ball and chain on my ankle, so the second album I did completely on my own in a cottage on top of a mountain in mid-Wales, which was probably the most liberating thing I've ever done. And for my third album I consolidated both sides. I did use strings and a band, and I didn't want to overcook it, and I didn't want it to take too long, either. And then the last record that came out, the fourth album, was again kind of me exploring my own kind of limitations, I guess, and trying to be creative. So instead of putting lines of strings and trumpets on things, I had my own little boys choir. Things like that, really.

What are your musical influences?

I think it's about having good taste and appreciating the best of all genres of music, whether it's Curtis Mayfield or Ralph Stanley. People like Johnny Cash, Tom Waits, Tim Buckley, Nina Simone. The list goes on and on and on, really.

What is your biggest vice?

Whiskey and cigarettes. I gave up smoking last January and I lasted eight months, but in that time I seemed to drink far more whiskey. If you give up one, you compensate with another one.

How many instruments and friends are you bringing to SXSW?

I'm actually going to be recording two weeks before SXSW with the South Austin Horns. I'm actually going to be recording a new music project that's going to be a lot more of a garage-soul record. And hopefully, fingers crossed, we'll be performing with a three-piece horn section, bass and drums.

Thematically, your songs deal with loneliness, heartache, murder and blues. Is that kind of songwriting cathartic for you?

No (laughs), not so much with the murder ballads, no, I just became very fascinated with the whole narrative, storytelling. And that came from my obsessin with the Harry Smith anthology and a lot of Appalachian folk music. It's became almost a sub-genre of American folk music, like with Johnny Cash. And what I loved about it was that it was really these upbeat, kind of jovial songs with this really dark undercurrent, and I tried to get that a few times with the songs on 'Devil's Bridge,' and I just became fascinated with it. I think I'm done with murder ballads for awhile. I wanted to put them all on one record, and hopefully the next couple of records will lighten up a little bit.

Your music is something of a love letter to traditional Americana. What is it about America that is so romantic to you?

It all started off seeing Elvis Presley as a kid, really, and seeing all his films, and then reading things like Jack Kerouac, I suppose. And the whole romantic idea of traveling America, the landscape of it being so vast. I guess from the point of view of growing up in a small town in Wales it just... much like one of my heroes, John Cale, who followed his muse to New York and the land of opportunity for him up there, it kind of hit me in the same way. I guess I watched probably too many trashy high school teen movies when I was a kid as well. But I think my rite of passage in America was very different from that, and I just kind of explored the landscape of the countryside and a lot of national parks, along with the cities as well.

Describe your most memorable touring experience.

The recent tour I did with Christian Hirsch was probably my favorite tour so far. I was up in Scotland for at least about a week, and I got to drive around up in the Highlands, and we visited a lot of whiskey distilleries, which just happen to be dotted all over the place. And there's no service stations, so you have to pull into a distillery station to use the facilities. And I'm a bit of a connoisseur of single malt whiskeys. It was a real joy for me to combine a whiskey trail with a music tour. Christian Hirsch again is one of my biggest musical influences, you know. The reason why I started making music, really.

How do you prepare for something like SXSW?

It's hard to compete there, so I mean, the main thing for me this year is these recordings and hopefully doing a great showcase with the band, which is going to be a bit "skin of the teeth" kind of stuff, because we've got limited time to record it. Plus it's all brand-new material as well, so it's new to me. This stuff I haven't been playing live, solo or anything. It'll be interesting to see what happens. It is difficult to try and compete. The main thing is having an agenda, and contacts -- you can't hit everybody. At the end of the day it's a great experience. You meet a lot of great people and have a great time in the process.

What's next for you?

Trying to get the next album finished. The majority of it will be done in Austin, and I'll try to wrap it up as quickly as I can, then have it released either later this year or early the next. This year started off pretty chaotically. I run a record label called Red Eye Inc, and I just decided to put out voodoo drumming from Haiti that I recorded while I was out there in 2002. I was on tour in Holland in January, and I was wondering what the hell I could do. And we recorded a lot of amazing voodoo drumming, and I've just been going kind of crazy getting all that organized over the last three or four weeks. It's a bit crazy, really. It's all exciting stuff. I think you work better under pressure. Every record I put out, I want it to be better than the last one, so hopefully this will be better than the last one. I just keep taking small steps up the ladder and see what happens.