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My definition of selling out involving artistic integrity is essentially when you start premeditating shit that shouldn't be premeditated. There's a lot of things that should be done with discipline and focus but there's a lot of things you can't try and plan. When those two things get switched then that's selling out. That hasn't happened. -Devendra Banhart |
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Photo by Lauren Dukoff
Stardom And Creation
 Devendra Banhart by Lauren Dukoff |
Besides the recent move to SoCal, Banhart signed on last year with Elliot Roberts, Neil Young's longtime manager, who's been instrumental in getting the word out about his new client. Banhart played last year's prestigious Bridge School Benefit Concert and you'd be hard pressed to visit a newsstand this Fall and not see his bearded mug on the cover of every remotely hip music magazine. Banhart largely takes it all in stride and is adamant that he's actually more free to create as the mood strikes him than ever before. Still, there are bad days, like when we spoke hours before the current tour began.
"Right now I'm under a giant turd. I just need a little bit of time to get it together," says Banhart. But in the next breath he adds, "I don't feel I'm in the spotlight. I don't feel any pressure. It isn't like Axl Rose, who has people around him who to make sure he never reads bad reviews. It isn't that I'm in some bubble, where I'm living this weird, enclosed little world with myself at the center of it. I feel like the same ratty pain-in-the-ass I've always been."
To those who think he's grown more commercial since his simple four-track beginnings, he offers, "My definition of selling out involving artistic integrity is essentially when you start premeditating shit that shouldn't be premeditated. There's a lot of things that should be done with discipline and focus but there's a lot of things you can't try and plan. When those two things get switched then that's selling out. That hasn't happened."
For clear evidence of the immediacy and juicy zing in Banhart's music today one need only speak to his collaborators like '70s folk-rocker Linda Perhacs, who returned to making music partially because of Banhart. After releasing a single beloved album in 1970, Parallelograms, she's got two new albums in the can including one with Banhart. Perhacs says, "When Devendra asked me if I could add some of my 'otherworldly harmonies' to his new CD, my answer was an immediate YES! All of us who know him, love him as a brother and just sharing time and creating music with him is pure high vibe! Because of this, when we experience Devendra's music and his artwork and live performances, as well as the delight of recording with him and all his closest friends and musicians, what all of us are really experiencing is the total ambiance of his soul, that is both deep and sensitive with a generosity of spirit to all that is very unusual. The composite of all these textures is what draws people to him. And it is genuinely deserved by him for he is truly unique!"
"Music is like raw cedar and you chip at it until you get the form you want. Sometimes you mostly work elaborate, long lines in the surface or you chip at it until there's just a splinter left. You're guiding AND you're guided. And you're unveiling but you never unveil all the way. And you know it comes from a space outside of yourself and your job is to collaborate with that space, not excluding the interior or the exterior," says Banhart. "At the beginning and now, it's meant to be given as a gift. I've written a song for you, whoever you may be. The only way I ever got a four-track in the first place was Noah [Georgeson, bandmate and co-producer of Smokey Rolls] saying I want to hear what you do. It was always meant to be shared. But, when it came to recording Rejoicing In The Hands and Niño Rojo, it was done under circumstances that were the most affordable. Essentially, there wasn't enough time or money and this is what came out. In the end, I had to get each track down by the fourth or fifth take because we had a completely unworkable deadline. There was no flexibility, and overdubs in that world were a complete luxury. I've never had an aesthetic that was minimalist. I try for a distillation that gets to the essence of a song by either adding and adding or by stripping away as much as possible. The goal in the end is the essence of the words and music."
JamBase | Higher Spheres
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