DB- I’d like to focus a bit on your performance style and career. When did you first play a National? [Whitley’s guitar of choice is often a Mississippi National Steel Dobro.]

CW- I originally played electric guitar in a band. That band was awful though and when I was 17, I quit high school, traded in all this stuff for a National and moved to New York City. It was a middle-ground. I didn’t want to play strummy folk guitar but I couldn’t lug an amp around. I came to New York and played on the street. I played in Washington Square Park all the time. The National was invented to be louder back before they had pa.‘s. They also have a tone that’s not quite as sweet. I think that’s informed my music. I tend to like more ragged-ass tones. I love 12-string but I couldn’t sit down and play it- it’s kind of too pretty almost. I also like bands like My Bloody Valentine or Smashing Pumpkins where there are really distorted tones but very sweet chords, very fucked up tones but the chord is like a Holiday Inn Rhodes piano.

DB- Do you write on a National and how do you think that impacts on your songwriting?

CW- I write on different guitars and come up with different things on different ones. That’s why I got into using guitars in different tunings to throw myself off. I’m very pragmatic and self-taught. So if play something like a little Martin acoustic I’ll come up with different things because the Martin’s easier to play. You don’t have to bang on it, it’s not quite so difficult. The chords are a little bit sweeter and it’s a little easier to phrase on.

DB- When you are writing music what impact do you think particular guitars have on the stories you relate?

CW- In my best writing I get visual imagery from sounds, from chords. I’ll come up with a melody depending on what guitar it’s on. A lot of Living With the Law had deserty, cowboy vibes to it because I hadn’t played a National for a while and I hadn’t played slide guitar for a while. I had been playing in techno bands in Europe where I had only been playing standard tuning and guitar synthesizer. I quit these bands because I didn’t like where that was going and I wanted to write more. So I started playing on the National again without caring what style that was. People could call it blues or whatever. A lot of the imagery is related to the sound, which for me was kind of deserty and southwestern. I lived in Mexico as a kid and the sound would bring me a picture, an atmosphere, a landscape and then I pulled from that. It’s like that whole thing about mythology- stories are always told in myths because they’re more accessible that way. So definitely what kind of guitar I’m using or what kind of chords I’m using bring lyrics to mind to me.

DB- You mentioned living in Belgium. To what extent do you find that your physical surroundings and environment impact on the type of songs you write?

CW- Quite a bit. Dirt Floor, that little acoustic record, all those songs were written in New York City. To me that record sounds quite a bit like this rural guy in the city feeling scared shitless. Law had a bit of that too, the song “Living With The Law” I wrote for these Puerto Rican drug dealers on my block kind of emphasizing with people trying to do anything to get by.

DB- Given your history with Sony, I’d like to hear your perspective on working with major labels.

CW- There are pros and cons. You get these big budgets but if they’re not into you then you’re really screwed, it’s like your hands are tied. For instance when we were set to record Din, the label was really waiting for us to write Living With The Law again. So they kept us out of the studio. I was kind of like, “Why are we waiting seven months on Andy Wallace?” Then that time would pass and I would pick another guy and we were told we had to wait. Three years went by and it was insane. It was just that people were waiting and hoping I would do something else but not actually telling me. No one was communicating to me.

Then when Din came out we started a tour. We did five nights and every town we went to was sold out. But at the first gig the president of the label came down and said to me, “We’re not going to promote this so start writing another record.” That was the first gig of a two month tour. We were going off on the road which isn’t easy and it was all massive frustration and doubt. That’s the kind of shit that makes people give up playing music because it just becomes no fun. It’s all business and you don’t remember why you started writing songs. That’s the biggest danger, creative suicide.

I know people who had several huge hits but the labels just dropped them. There’s no loyalty. They drop them if one record doesn’t take off and the trends shift. The industry is full of many scared people, including the executives who are afraid of losing their jobs. Things that are unhealthy artistically are the biggest dangers, like thinking you’re hot shit because everybody’s telling you that.

It definitely went to my head. I thought I had made it, whatever that means. For a while I forgot why I play in the first place which has nothing to do with the music business. It’s about people. People need music. They need expression on a very basic, pure level. I think nowadays we forget that because it has become such a commodity. Stuff has changed a lot too. A band can be huge for two years and then gone. Now any bands with any character that are not disposable are pretty disposable. I don’t know if that has to do with the music entirely or the fact that culture gets consumed so fast now.

Pages:« Previous Page