RR: Recently, you’ve been involved in numerous political and cultural flashpoints, including some work in Haiti.
MF: We partner with this group called Soles4Souls that collects critically-needed shoes for people who have been in natural disasters like in Haiti, New Orleans, or Japan, and, also, for the 300,000,000 children throughout the world who have never worn a pair of shoes before. At all of our shows now, we do a shoe collection. People can just bring their shoes, and we put them all in the back of our truck. At the end of the tour, we take them to the collection place in Nashville. That is one of the ways that we try to involve our audience in giving back. I’ve been barefoot for 11 years, and last year, to commemorate my tenth anniversary being barefoot, I started working with Soles4Souls.
RR: You mentioned that “Hey Hey Hey” on the new live EP is for “anyone who is having a rough week.” What is the genesis of that song?
MF: I had this song on our [2008] album All Rebel Rockers called “Hey World.” There were actually two versions of it. One was an introspective song that was acoustic and quiet, and it was like saying, “Hey world, don’t give up on me; I’m not going to give up on you.” It was a lament for feeling frustrated and feeling of worn down and not wanting to quit. Then, I had this other one, which is the remote control version, which is kind of the outward expression of that—“Fuck no, I’m going to keep fighting. I don’t care what anybody says. I’m going to fight for this planet.”
I started writing a remix for that song, but it came out completely different. It came out with completely different words. I was writing it right at the time when the real estate market was collapsing, so it was a song that was like “keep your head up; this is a really scary time, especially for those of us in music.” We’re an extra in people’s lives. I know and appreciate that. We’re a luxury. When you pay your home bills, your food, your electricity, your gas, your water, and all of those things, then you can start thinking, “Do I want to a movie, or do I want to see a concert?” (laughs)
And right now, people are having a hard time just paying for those first things. I started to see that at our shows. People started talking to me about that when they were coming to our shows, and so, [“Hey Hey Hey”] was really a song for those people.
RR: You’ll be playing at several high marquee festivals over the next few months. What other activity do you have that is on the horizon with Spearhead?
MF: We’ve been in the studio. In fact, that’s where I am right now. We’re writing some new music, and updating old songs—coming up with new beats and new ways of playing old tunes we haven’t played in a while. We always want our show to be like a dance party that also has its moments of quiet acoustic music and soulful things, so we’re going back into our catalogue and updating some of these dance songs to make them have a really serious club-style music to them, (laughs) and going back and stripping down some other songs that we had played before with the band, and just playing them acoustically, so people can really hear the words. We do it all in my bedroom, which is where my studio is, actually. [ The Sound of Sunshine ] was recorded in my bedroom and on tour and in hotel rooms and dressing rooms—
RR: And Woody Harrelson’s bathroom.
MF: And Woody Harrelson’s bathroom, yeah. (laughter) Woody invited me to his house to write songs. He was going to be gone for a few months [filming Zombieland ]. I put some chords on my iPod, and started getting these lyrics together. I wrote them on the steam in the shower on the window. Woody called me. I said, “Woody, I think I wrote a hit song in your bathroom.” Woody said, “Is it a number one, or a number two ?” (laughter)
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