Singer songwriter Josh Ritter made a big impact on the music industry with album The Animal Years in 2006 wining over critics and fans.Now he is back with new album The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter and it is a welcomed return for the Idaho musician.I caught up with Josh to talk about the new record, growing up and what lies ahead.
What can we expect from your new album Historical Conquests?
I would say rock and roll with lots of words.(laughs)
Your music is classed as folk music what is it about this genre that you found so appealing?
You know I never thought about it as folk, I always think that folk is whatever you remember in the car on the way home you know?
Most of my favourite folk people were definitely more rock and roll. I think that most good music you can link it back to some place else, it's kind of like a link in a chain, and I think even the most tweaked out fashion rock there is and all that stuff it all has it's roots in other things as well.
So I guess I kind of like that, it's nice to know that your music existed before and it will keep on going.
And is there any particular meaning behind the album's title Historical Conquests?
Oh I wanted something that was just so big and ridiculous that no one would take it seriously I thought that that would just be more fun, so much of the time things are so serious and this record was just supposed to be a lot of fun.
I read that you decide to write some of your songs on the piano, despite being fairly new to the instrument, how did this effect your song writing?
Well I play the piano like a zombie, I mean I play like Frankenstein's monster, I'm not good at it at all. And I think playing on the piano, what it does for me, is it changes my rhythm and it changes the melodies that I go to, I have a friend who is a song writer and he buys a new guitar for almost every song that he writes and he feels that the sound of a new guitar gives him a new song, and I feel, I can't afford that, so I love writing on different things because he you think about a song you know?
Who are your musical influences?
Oh I have got so many I think, of course, I love Tom Waits and Nick Cave and Bob Dylan there's just so many that are out there. But I get far more inspiration from books and things in my own life.
Musical influences are good, in some ways, because they help you figure something out in but you can't write songs off what other people's ideas are you have to write from your own experience in life if you want to write an original song.
So I think that influences, musically, can help show you a framework but they can't show you what is inside.
You are regularly compared to Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen how does that make you feel?
Oh I think it's great a complement like that I would never turn that down, I'll take it (laughs) that's pretty awesome.
When you were growing up what was the main music stimulus gigs, records, radio?
I grew up in a really small town without radio and certainly no pop records, all of grunge happened and I had no idea and I wasn't that far away, only five hours from Seattle. I wasn't old enough to go to any of the shows when they came through town and all the kids at school wore plaid anyway (laughs).
So I think mostly what hit me was Johnny Cash, hearing Johnny Cash for the first time, and somebody like that who supposedly played country music but just seemed like the most rock and roll guy I had ever heard and I just loved that and that's how I got into it.
So what made you change from being an everyday kid with an interest in music to actually going out and doing it because it is a big step?
I guess the reason why was I never thought that it was, and no one ever told me that it was. All the music that was out there seemed like it was made by cartoons and there was no one out there saying 'Oh you will never make it in music'.
I didn't really have any goals but as time went on I thought right I'm just going to be huge and famous around the world, I'm gonna fly around the world in a jet, all the things that you would think of if you were fifteen but I thought of it at twenty two.
I started to realise that all that stuff, as you are playing and really going for it, all that stuff doesn't matter as much putting food in your stomach and writing songs. It's weird I just didn't know anything about that stuff so I didn't know that any of that was impossible.
When did you find out that you had a voice and play the guitar?
I was eighteen, my last year of high school, and I had tried being in sports and I had tried all these things and I just never felt like any of them were my thing it all felt like such hard work that didn't make sense to me, whether it was in academics or sports or anything that you kind of look for to fit in when you are eighteen, and I felt like I had nothing like that.
When I heard Johnny Cash I was like whoa he is making his own rules, if he wants to play the song differently he does and nobody is going to tell him no because he wrote these songs, and that made me realise that if I wrote my own songs I could follow my own rules.
How much creative freedom are you given from your record label: complete control over what you do or does the label have a major say?
I think it is complete control, which is a thing that is rare, but I think it is important to work as a team because they respect what I'm doing and I respect what they are trying to do we can work together and make something bigger than one of us can do on our own.
But I do believe very strongly that if you don't have complete control it's a deal breaker because you are relinquishing the one thing that you know how to do best.
The new album was mixed by Jacquire King, who has worked with the Kings of Leon, what was it like working with him?
It was done in Nashville, so it was a great chance to go down to one of the towns that I really love. Jacquire is a really normal guy and he is one of those the more you know somebody the longer you are going to hang out with them the more you realise the things about them that are really fascinating, it's like getting into a really long conversation on a train with someone you have never met before, those are great experiences.
Jacquire is an amazing mixer and he brought out loads of stuff that my producer and I worked on really hard so that's cool he is a great dude.
What's next for you?
I am going off on a tour Canada, then a tour of the States then a tour of the UK and the rest of Europe.
Is performing live the best part of the job?
I love it yeah, between writing and performing live it's a toss up, the songs just come alive on stage and me and the band have a lot of fun, it's never a tortured show it's always really exciting and jumpy and we try out new stuff I love it.
Finally what is success for you?
Success is being able to get up in a morning, on a Monday, and instead of going to the office going and writing a song in your kitchen.
The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter is out now.
FemaleFirst Helen EarnshawSinger songwriter Josh Ritter made a big impact on the music industry with album The Animal Years in 2006 wining over critics and fans.Now he is back with new album The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter and it is a welcomed return for the Idaho musician.I caught up with Josh to talk about the new record, growing up and what lies ahead.
What can we expect from your new album Historical Conquests?
I would say rock and roll with lots of words.(laughs)
Your music is classed as folk music what is it about this genre that you found so appealing?
You know I never thought about it as folk, I always think that folk is whatever you remember in the car on the way home you know?
Most of my favourite folk people were definitely more rock and roll. I think that most good music you can link it back to some place else, it's kind of like a link in a chain, and I think even the most tweaked out fashion rock there is and all that stuff it all has it's roots in other things as well.
So I guess I kind of like that, it's nice to know that your music existed before and it will keep on going.
And is there any particular meaning behind the album's title Historical Conquests?
Oh I wanted something that was just so big and ridiculous that no one would take it seriously I thought that that would just be more fun, so much of the time things are so serious and this record was just supposed to be a lot of fun.
I read that you decide to write some of your songs on the piano, despite being fairly new to the instrument, how did this effect your song writing?
Well I play the piano like a zombie, I mean I play like Frankenstein's monster, I'm not good at it at all. And I think playing on the piano, what it does for me, is it changes my rhythm and it changes the melodies that I go to, I have a friend who is a song writer and he buys a new guitar for almost every song that he writes and he feels that the sound of a new guitar gives him a new song, and I feel, I can't afford that, so I love writing on different things because he you think about a song you know?
Who are your musical influences?
Oh I have got so many I think, of course, I love Tom Waits and Nick Cave and Bob Dylan there's just so many that are out there. But I get far more inspiration from books and things in my own life.
Musical influences are good, in some ways, because they help you figure something out in but you can't write songs off what other people's ideas are you have to write from your own experience in life if you want to write an original song.
So I think that influences, musically, can help show you a framework but they can't show you what is inside.
You are regularly compared to Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen how does that make you feel?
Oh I think it's great a complement like that I would never turn that down, I'll take it (laughs) that's pretty awesome.
When you were growing up what was the main music stimulus gigs, records, radio?
I grew up in a really small town without radio and certainly no pop records, all of grunge happened and I had no idea and I wasn't that far away, only five hours from Seattle. I wasn't old enough to go to any of the shows when they came through town and all the kids at school wore plaid anyway (laughs).
So I think mostly what hit me was Johnny Cash, hearing Johnny Cash for the first time, and somebody like that who supposedly played country music but just seemed like the most rock and roll guy I had ever heard and I just loved that and that's how I got into it.
So what made you change from being an everyday kid with an interest in music to actually going out and doing it because it is a big step?
I guess the reason why was I never thought that it was, and no one ever told me that it was. All the music that was out there seemed like it was made by cartoons and there was no one out there saying 'Oh you will never make it in music'.
I didn't really have any goals but as time went on I thought right I'm just going to be huge and famous around the world, I'm gonna fly around the world in a jet, all the things that you would think of if you were fifteen but I thought of it at twenty two.
I started to realise that all that stuff, as you are playing and really going for it, all that stuff doesn't matter as much putting food in your stomach and writing songs. It's weird I just didn't know anything about that stuff so I didn't know that any of that was impossible.