ACCLAMATION
“Winning a Grammy isn’t what you’d think. It’s great for eight hours, and like most heavy substances, it wears off. It did give me the confidence to think someone might call and want to work with me. It also gave me the nerve to reach out to artists and say, ‘Here’s who I am – I just made this record with Solomon Burke that maybe you’ve heard.’ That merit badge gives you more of a sense of personal vindication than it does for other peoples’ perception of you.”
FILMING THE RECORD IN HIS HEAD
“I wanted, as a ‘record maker’, to learn to be a filmmaker, to be able to use illusion; to make some scenes bigger than I can live. I wanted to be more fully realised, not just make live takes in a studio. I have a desire to make every record unique, very much like a movie, to look or feel a certain way. It’s essential that a record have a life beyond its elements. I don’t always know how to describe it as a scene but I start gravitating towards a sound, a sonic palette that I instinctively understand is connected to the song I’m writing. I look at Orson Welles: he had great theatrics about him, but he created atmosphere.
I wanted to make a record like how you build a room with a really low ceiling, to make the actors look much bigger. I wanted to play
with perspective in that way, to
play with the drama of lighting,
do the sonic equivalent of casting long shadows.”
HATE IS BETTER THAN APATHY
“I’ve worked hard, so it’s gratifying that people who ‘get it’, get it in the right way. I don’t encounter many people who are lukewarm about what I do. I’d rather someone hate it than be non-committal about it. For an artist, it’s really a failure for them not to be able to elicit any passionate response whatsoever.”
SINGING THE BODY ELECTRIC/ACOUSTIC
“Songs, at a certain point, go on
a pile. The certain songs will identify themselves as being part
of the same body. Once I notice that, that body identifies itself
with a character, and it tells you which clothes it wants to wear and takes on a life; and you know how
to write. From then it’s like
a play, I understand what
scenes are missing.”
Joe Henry plays Melbourne’s Corner Hotel, Jan 23 and Sydney Festival Jan 27-29.
