Exclusive Josh Ritter Interview (page 2)

1 February 2008

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.