OndaRock

You know, Verdi? He died in Milan. I read that this morning. In an opera book. Did you know his name was a chant during Italian unification? Vittorio Emanuele Re D'Italia. You should read that. It's pretty cool. And the themes, the musical themes... Fight for justice, defend your honor. All before recorded music, all before television, just your melodies...

I meet Josh T Pearson in this posh Milan art showroom, which is sometimes converted to music hall for special events like this one. He stands up and walks around with his guitar, playing bits of his songs and covers (he'll do that for the whole interview, actually) among grim abstract paintings and white minimalist furniture. The weary, hallucinated look in his eyes dramatically augments the feeling of alienation of someone who's been overexposed to the audience and the press, eager to find a new character - in his case, almost a new Messiah. This is the fourth interview he's doing during his time in Milan. Everybody wants to see him, wants to listen to his words and his songs, maybe even get to touch him, or drink a bit of his soul. Some of the messianic myth that has been created around him seems, in fact, to be true.
He looks as some of the weight of the world had been put over him, a fraction of all sorrow and sadness there is. Every word is spit out with some effort, momentum slowly flows out of sentences until they are just a self-relevant mumbling. This is all there is from that evening in Milan.

All right, you ask the questions, you're the boss.

I just wanted to start with a quote from you.
Am I in trouble?
Maybe...
Do you like the record?
Oh yeah. A lot.
Stands up and opens up the door. The room is hot and suffocating.
I think it's gonna be a nice show.
Sits down again.
I'm tired, man. It's been a long life. Allright. Shoot.

"If I was outside of myself and heard it ["Last Of The Country Gentlemen", Ed.], I'd think the guy was a real dick for doing it because it's just too bare and honest." I can see why you said these words about your record. I wonder, though, what it must be for you to play them live. Do you need to detach yourself from the songs or, on the contrary, you need to really get into them again?
Oh... A little of both. I don't feel "detached", because these songs are so personal. I know I have to channel certain aspects of myself. On the other side, I feel like they could destroy me.

It impresses me that you can just sit down, pick up your guitar and play this kind of songs [he had just recorded a performance for the Italian Rolling Stone with me present, Ed.].
It impresses me too, that particular switching on and off. You know, I did a few tours with Dirty Three and I was really impressed by Warren [Ellis, Ed.]. He could really go into it like that [snaps fingers, Ed.] with such intense, magnificent... He could just channel it, make that switch. For me it's just a little more personal than what I'm used to. I'm playing and singing... It takes a little while to calm down, to get into it in a space where there's people around. I'd say it's like acting but it's not, it's real, so I guess... I don't know. Sometimes before the show I say: "I'll never do this again" and after, when I see it's good work and people are moved by it, it makes me reconsider. I was worried by doing this every night.

You have played some of the songs throughout the years, before the recording of the album. How has the reaction of the public been, so far?
Oh, good. It's been positive, sort of encouraging. They are painful songs, so... People were touched by them. The goal seemed good as long as they made them happy, enriched the life of someone, encourage them to have, maybe, a slightly larger view on life. I think it's good, I think it's healthy.

Some of the intensity of the record is given by the unusual structure of the songs. How do you usually write music?
Well... Years of practice. Usually I start with the music first, group things into cathegories - a particular lyric line, songs in a particular key, I group those together - and then it's a balancing between words and music. I have to choose which is the better melody and... Let the lyric line or the music obey the song is the first and last rule. Always listen to what it tells you, listen to where the song is going. If it's meant to be short, let it be short,  if it's going to be long, then long, just obey it. If it says "Repeat the pattern"... Space is a... Space, space, space. Space is the key to let it breathe. I think it's the oldest rule to make a song.

You also recorded "Last Of Country Gentlemen" after a long gestation. Were the songs composed in a limited period of time, though?
Yeah, three or four months, if you combine the actual work together. Even if it took years, the actual work is three or four months.

Was this long wait due to material difficulties, or because you didn't feel ready to go into the studio until it happened?
Oh, I didn't think I was going to record these songs. I spent a decade writing song after song, putting them into cathegories. I didn't know if I would share them. I use to treat them as performance art and play them live. These songs that I happened to be working on at the time made me reconsider my aesthetic, my artistic aesthetic. I had a couple shows... So I thought: "We'll try to record it and see if the thing is captured".

So did you find the recording tougher than live performance?
[Laughs a bit, Ed.] Yeah, yeah. But it's also because I was going through it at the time, the songs... They were so fresh. I hadn't had some time to heal. It was quite as painful than it was the...

And you never changed your mind about playing the songs with such a bare arrangement?
I might. I messed around with some electric guitar, they sound great. It's a completely different song, a completely different interpretation. They sound... They sound good. It's a much liver (???) feeling, a different color. I haven't tried any drums yet.

You started with a completely different musical style, you were fronting Lift To Experience, a band with shoegaze background. How did it happen that you just started back from acoustic guitar when they disbanded?
Well, originally I played acoustic when I first learned guitar, Then I went to electric guitar and alternative tunings and, after six or seven years with them, after Lift To Experience... I went out to the countryside and I lay down my electric guitar and intentionally switched back to regular tunings and acoustic as a challenge. I wasn't into post-rock contemporary music anymore at all, I just went back to country music, folk songs, regular tunings [improvises a standard chord pattern on his guitar, Ed.], that sort of chords. The challenge was just to try to create something interesting out of basic, country tradition, after six, seven years. And somehow  I moved around a regular tune, I mean, I was trying to, at a certain point, to create that sort of rock landscape with one guitar and just reverb.

Can you give us a short summary of the Lift To Experience time?
It was really for the sake of music, to us. Just three kids, really making music that they wanted to make, without worries or fear about anything else. And that seemed to get kind of dirty six years later, later down, because I wanted to keep it pure. It was a symphony to God, it was church music basically. It was a kind of... Love letter. And we got really close to falling in love but.. Things got a little complicated, there were a lot of personal things as individuals... I needed to go and explore some of the world. I thought I'd let what good was there remain... That sounds rough. It was serious stuff. We were really Christians at heart. We were a great band. Great bands break up. We had integrity. It's amazing how any great art just tumbles... We wanted to pursue, it wasn't like there was this huge, huge pressure. And, I don't know, I just needed some more time.

It is a well-known story that you are the son of a preacher, that you started playing in the church, even that you considered becoming a preacher yourself. What is left of that need, of that attitude, or vision, in your life as an artist and normal human being in general?
Well, I think I did [become a preacher, Ed.]! I mean... Spreading the good news! I hope! Good work. With my God's tradition, I'm spreading good things, doing good. It's better to do good, to believe in. I hope I share some of it... If it's good or if it's good work, you're preaching hope and life. There are places where people need encouragement, you know.

How did Warren Ellis get involved?
Oh well, he offered. He offered to... Play.
There was a bet in there, so I read...
Yeah. He lost a bet.

OK, you don't want to say... You're playing a lot in Europe, now. Do you fell more comfortable playing here, than in your home country?
I am respected more, here. People are always more respecting if you come from some other place... It's human nature. They take you more seriously if you're not from around. So I haven't really played in the States in the last times. In March, it was the first time I played solo since years...

I attend every year the End Of The Road Festival.
Oh yeah. Good one. Good people.
What can you say about that experience?
Oh it's about the perfect size, five thousand to seven thousand people. It's the little kind of festival with great music, artist around and hanging out. People get to meet their... Heroes. Which is good. For an artist, it's humanizing. It lets you know that it is possible to keep human. There's a lot of... Peacocks. It's cool.

Are you gonna play a secret gig in the woods?
I did that one year, unannounced. I don't know when I'm playing... Sunday afternoon? That girl is playing... The one who plays the harp?
Joanna Newsom.
Yeah, Joanna. She's playing.

So, last question. I'm very curious if you have any plans for your next record...
I don't know. I haven't thought about it.
What kind of direction will you take after such a particular and painful album? Maybe something more "conventional"...
I have really no idea. These songs have took me years. Yeah, I think I'd like to put out more records. I hope so. I'll have to think about it and see what the Good Lord says. You know, this one seems to be doing some pretty good to this world...
Are you impressed by your success?
I'm shocked... I didn't know there was that much sadness in the world. There are five songs that stretch... It surprises me to be here, to be asked questions. I'm shocked, It's a challenging piece of work. And it's a record "from the beginning to the end", it's the way I wrote it. It's one piece.

It won't be - a few hours later - Pearson's greatest performance. The audience greets him somehow coldly, as if they were disappointed by him being just human, a tired human being, sometimes laughing hysterically out of mere exhaustion. He'll probably never be the kind of artist who can do one gig per night with the same intensity, like Warren Ellis; but that's his strength, the ability to just show himself as he is, to expose of all his feelings and emotions, even the ones he wouldn't be supposed to show.