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1. Wednesday, March 19, 2008 7:13 PM
B	Lynch sings (and piracy produces homeless people)
Member Since 12/18/2005 Posts:1263 View Profile Send PM	Post Reply \| Quote Filmmaker David Lynch pursues 'it feels right' moments as he launches singing career By Adam McKibbin \| Special to The Morning Call March 9, 2008 Filmmaker David Lynch is a renowned experimenter, not just in the medium of film, but also with paint, comics and even furniture. Musically, he's delved deep into meditative sounds and abstract sonic experimentation, leading to albums with composers like his longtime collaborator, Angelo Badalamenti. But throughout the years, one experiment Lynch never tried was plunking down in front of the microphone himself. 'I always was super embarrassed to sing,' he says. But that changed on 'Ghost of Love,' a hauntingly poignant track that first appeared on the 'Inland Empire' soundtrack and is now available as a single -- and a precursor to a full blues-inspired album, with Lynch sitting in the troubadour seat the whole time. The famed director and new singer sat down with Metromix at his studio in the Hollywood Hills to discuss his upcoming album, his high school marching band and the reasons why Radiohead may inadvertently increase homelessness in L.A. Q: Was 'Ghosts of Love' always connected somehow to 'Inland Empire'? A: No. It was the first song where I sang high. Not high on drugs. [laughs]. With a high voice. Q: The cover for the single is pretty rock 'n' roll -- you've got the cigarette and the sunglasses. There's a clip on YouTube of you singing with a big cowboy hat. I'm wondering whether there's a persona at work. A: There has to be a persona, otherwise I couldn't do it. It seems like the cowboy hat and the sunglasses help a lot. Q: You've talked in the past about how an audience's experience of a film can be hurt by knowing too much personal stuff about the filmmakers. Do you feel the same holds true for music? A: I think the whole thing is the purity of the experience. You don't want to do anything to hurt people's experience of going into another world. And so that should be protected. Q: What stage is the album in? A: There are songs written. I'd say there are three songs ready to go, and about four or five in the works. We're finding a groove, and it's going along, yeah. Q: The expectation after an album release would be live shows. A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've talked about that. I can play things once. The problem is playing them twice. [laughs] We'd have to get a band together and work stuff out. It's conceivable, but there's a lot of work to be done before the road show. Q: Some songwriters say that songs can arrive at any time, and others will say that they really have to be in the right mindset. What's the process like for you? A: Well, how it's working now is that there are chords that are picked. Dean [Hurley, Lynch's engineer] will program these chords into my guitar, and then we get a drumbeat going. The tempo and the type of the beat, the sound of the guitar and those chord progressions -- that conjures a mood and makes you play a certain way. Dean will put on a bass track and we'll throw out stuff and rearrange some stuff. And then, listening to it, lyrics will come. Q: And when you finish, is there a 'Boom! Voila!' moment? A: Yeah, same with everything. Painting, films, music -- there's a moment when you say, 'It's done, it feels right.' There are some times when you go and listen to something really objectively later and you say, 'Oh, you know, I could maybe tweak that a little bit.' But mostly it feels correct. Q: How far back can you trace the roots of your love for music? Was there a parental inspiration? A: Well, it was a little bit [due to] my parents, who loved music. My dad played the violin, and he played the tuba and piano. He liked to sing. I played trumpet and I loved playing trumpet -- until I went to high school, where they forced all the orchestra people to join the marching band, which is when I quit. There went the trumpet. But I really think I have a love of sound, and experimenting with sound. It seems to go hand in hand with picture in the world of cinema. Q: There's a debate now -- heightened by the Radiohead release last year -- about whether people should become accustomed to getting their music or their art for free. A: I just saw this thing on TV where in some country -- I think it's an African country -- they have taken to this idea that CDs are advertisements for people to come to their shows. They have these big shows where bands play to huge crowds. The CD is just an advertisement -- and that's the way it's going more and more here. They're way ahead of us. They never shot film because they couldn't afford film, so they've been into digital video forever, and they're making hundreds of films. Just like now a theatrical release is sort of an advertisement for the DVD. It's just going that way. The problem with piracy and getting stuff for free is that pretty soon you can't afford to make anything or live anywhere. So there will just be that many more homeless people. Even in L.A., it gets chilly or rainy, like it is today. So you imagine, you're with your cardboard box in the rain and you're hungry, and you're just not going to be making those albums anymore, you know what I mean? You're going to try to get your next meal. And your tastes will probably change. Cheap wine will start to be just as good. [laughs] You're just looking for some cheap wine and a sandwich. Adam McKibbin is a Metromix writer. Aaron Sagers, Entertainment Editor -B