Gough Makes An Identity Crisis Sound Good

By JOANNA MCSWEENY

Updated 6:39 PM EDT, Fri, Oct 3, 2008

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DC Scene: A lot of your songs are about love and togetherness. Do you live by a certain philosophy that you want to come through in your songs?

Grough: Not necessarily. I almost sometimes feel embarrassed that I do write about such things as togetherness. It just seems to be what comes through in my head when I’m writing songs. I sometimes feel that I don’t live the life. I also don’t want to appear self-righteous. If I had to goal to sing about certain types of things it would make me appear self-righteous. I’m full of contradictions. I’m aware of that and I don’t always practice what I preach, but I do seek to be a decent person and to sort of spread a bit of decency and goodness, but then it’s difficult to always do that. The job itself is so demanding and it can just make you -- for instance last night it was a brilliant gig in Boston and I didn’t handle it completely well, as well as I might have done, because I was struggling with the sound and I just can’t handle it when it’s so difficult and I come across as kind of idiot, but that’s what the job puts me through. Half the time I’m singing these heartfelt songs on stage and I’m going through hell, so it’s a real big ball of confusion. But in essence the stuff I write about is just what comes naturally. It’s in my head and it seems to compliment the music I make. But I don’t set out with any goals it just comes out the way it does.

I sort of see some sense of duty in writing words that are meaningful because it seems to be what’s been asked of me -- it seems to be what my calling has been to do these songs. So I see a sense a duty to be saying something meaningful and important. Maybe in future projects I won’t feel the need to combat certain issues I’ll just write a bunch of nonsense.

DC Scene: You seem to have a lot of confidence and spirit. It’s evident when you perform. How much of that comes from your job, doing something that you love?
Grough: In the earlier days, even on the first album, when I toured in, more or less, most major parts of the world like Japan, Australia, Europe and America -- I probably look back on some of my earlier gigs and be embarrassed by stuff that I say. I’ve done the odd gig recently where I don’t say an awful lot because I’ve got music content. I feel like I’ve written enough music now to fill up a two-hour show and it be a good enough thing for people to come and see.

But I still do talk. Last night I talked a hell of a lot in Boston, but in Philadelphia I didn’t say much. It depends on your mood. In Stockport -- it was the last gig on the U.K. tour before coming here and Stockport’s my dad’s birthplace -- so it was really nice to play a venue like that -- it added personal history and obviously being a hometown there were lots of friends there so I spent the whole night dedicating a song to 20 different people so I didn’t forget anybody. Each environment brings its own things to the kind of gig you do.

I’ve done a lot of sit-down theater recently. I also do a lot of club-type places. I’ve played the 9:30 club close to five times now. Each crowd is different. I can play the 9:30 and it can be a different type of audience each time depending on who’s in town that day. So it all adds to what the gig ends up being.

When you’re away, this far away from home, as well, it’s kind of just everything magnified times 10, if you are far away from familiar things—

DC Scene: Like fish and chips?
Grough: I was thinking more like kids, really, but fish and chips, yeah. (Laughs) But you just see things differently. I do play gigs differently in America without thinking about it to much, just generally it’s different, because generally the history, the musical heritage here and a lot of the bands I like are from America so I’ve always had a sense of romance. I tend to play Thunder Road more in the states than when I do at home because I think people might know it more, or I play Journey “Don’t Stop Believing” and the crowd goes crazy, which everybody just finds hilarious in the band because they don’t really know what the song is. I’ve got some kind of affiliation with the U.S. for all its failings on a worldwide scale.

DC Scene: What else do you like about America?
Grough: Musically, I could reel off the names of 20 bands from America that (I love). Fugazi to Guided by Voices, Bobby Cann, Flaming Lips, Sebadoh, Ween, Pavement, Pixies, Pearl Jam, a lot of bands mainly in the early to mid-90s when I was discovering a lot of good music that I felt associated with somehow. Still my first-ever gig I supported Bill Callahan in Manchester. I honestly feel terrible because they’re mostly men, all men that I’ve named up until now. Joanna Newsom’s doing really well at the minute.

But, um, other things in America -- uhhh. There’s some stunning places here if you get a chance to see them. On one a few years ago we started a tour in Northampton, Mass., and it’s like a pretty little Stephen King town. It’s kind of like a church on every corner type of vibe. America to most people who are not from here represents the movies. It’s almost like being in a movie someday.

DC Scene: Your new album is called “Born in the U.K.” Can you talk about what it meant to grown up there and what it means now for you to be from the U.K? Are you trying to take everything and make sense of it all?
Grough: Yeah, in a way. Sort of rationalize what identity means why it becomes important. I find it fascinating. It’s my own personal philosophy and I’m sure it’s a common theme in any kind of philosophical argument: Why do we end up with a certain accent, a certain mindset and a certain way of being, or an Englishness or an Americaness. I think that was the first thing I liked about using the title. I was concerned about people think I was just being corny and copying the “Born in the U.S.A.” thing. I decided it was OK to go with it because it was a tribute to my past and discovering “Thunder Road” and the journey that unfolded for me which led me to become a musician, really, by crook or by hook. It’s the beginning of something.

Certain people have picked holes in it, I think it was Rolling Stone, someone said, "America doesn’t need an answer to Bruce Springsteen." Thought that was a bit unfair. My new album isn’t jam-packed with political comments or anything. There’s a minor portion in the title track that mentions sending the boys to war which I thought was a nice tie-in.

I think Englishness; I don’t know what it is really. I don’t know, there’s the obvious clichés of the prim and proper Queen ’s English, sipping tea on lawns and things and scones and cream. That’s not really my reality. I’m from the north of England which is pretty gritty and tough…I just wonder. I’m just posing the question in the songs. It’s what if I didn’t do this. What if I didn’t meet this person? What if I didn’t hear that song on that day? If I didn’t have a video cassette player on that day I saw “Thunder Road” on the TV switching channels and the opening bars began and I slipped the video tape in the player, I may never have heard the song again and I may never have thought about music the way I did.