Finian McKean : alles voor
de kunst en voor het hart!
Door Patrick Donders
Shades Are Drawn is het product van een gedesillusioneerde singer-songwriter die, na het uiteenvallen van zijn bijna succesvolle emo-band (Push Kings), uit Los Angeles vertrekt en zich in Brooklyn (New York) vestigt om daar in een depressie te schieten. De nummers die hij toen schreef zijn zo persoonlijk dat hij het resultaat uitbrengt onder zijn doopnamen: Finian McKean. Shades is een hartenkreet om hulp van een hopeloos verloren ziel. Hij wil wel uit het isolement, het lukt alleen niet. Niet alleen in ieder geval. Het donkere relaas is rauw en ontroerend. Scherp als de likrand van een envelop die in je tong snijdt. Ellende gevat in rafelige schoonheid. Elf therapeutische pijnscheuten. McKean deed alles zelf, thuis. Maar dit is geen standaard computerprogrammamuziek. Dit gaat tot op het bot. Hier kun je in bijten. Hier proef je bloed. Big rock gevangen in een kaal eenzaam geluid. Een country-trein die door de hoerenbuurt boemelt. Nuthin’ Matters is The Jayhawks maar dan in vaal grijze uitvoering. Indie.singer-songwriter-rock. Zou dat de omschrijving zijn? Geen idee. Finian McKean is een songwriter die alleen nog werkt aan nummers die recht op hem af komen. Hij wil alleen maar “echt”. Recht uit zijn ziel en zonder tussenkomst. Shades Are Drawn is Zijn Soulmuziek.
The lyrics on Shades are very personal. Is there a limitations for how personal you can get in a song? How do you set your own standards?
I wrote & recorded Shades at a time when death and tragedy and grief were very present in my life. I didn't care what anyone thought about it; I just knew I had to express my deepest feelings, get the pain out. At the time, I didn't even care if anyone ever heard it...Later, when the scars were healing, I realized what made the songs special was that they were emotional & unedited; now, I try to approach every song I write that same way...So my standard is this: if it's not straight from my soul, I don't waste my time on it. It's SOUL music, in a different sense of the word. Anything else just rings hollow for me.
Now the music is out and living it's own life. Is that difficult? What reactions do you get?
I love performing the songs live, playing them different ways, jamming, sharing them with people. Playing live is my favourite way to play music; I love the studio but there is nothing like singing for real, breathing, sweating people right in front of you. I especially like playing at bars where everybody's packed in & partying & we can let loose & play for hours...There's a bar in my neighbourhood called Sunny's where we roll that way. As for the critics, I make my wife read all the press on the record & if it's too negative, I don't read it. I don't need somebody else's shallow opinion of what's "wrong" with my music, you know? It's just a distraction; plus, I can be sensitive & get my feelings hurt & then I have those negative words bouncing around in my head for weeks!!
What sound were you looking for? I read you did it all by yourself in your room. Not everything is possible then, I suppose?
Yeah, I have a room in my house with green walls & tin ceilings & a marble fireplace & wide plank wood floors...I set my gear up in there with a piano and just got to work. I wasn't really looking for a sound other than SIMPLE. I tried to let the songs breathe & leave some space in the arrangements. Since I wrote, played & produced the whole thing myself, it was the perfect atmosphere for these dark, personal songs: close the door, draw the shades, roll the "tape" (really a computer!), maybe smoke a joint...I didn't have to verbalize anything to anybody - no engineer, no band, no producer. Now that I've been playing out with a great drummer, I'm more interested in recording parts live & all together. We're almost done with a new record, which should be out in early 2007. We've been trying to get a live feel on this one. Black Hole sounds as big as they get nowadays but on the other hand it isn't big at all. or not ? How did you come up with "I'm feeling like a bad movie"-thing ? (in Black Hole vergelijkt McKean zijn gevoelens met die van een slechte film die wordt vertoond voor een lege zaal.)
You said it just right: big but not big. Something about that song...just a few elements, but they really ROCK when you turn it up!
I was really "feeling like a bad movie" at the time. Sometimes I see a bad movie and it's so cut-up and edited and confusing, like all the FEELING got left out, you know? As the next line says: "Nothing adds up to me." that's how I felt. The movie I was thinking of in particular was some horrible Jack Nicholson murder movie that went straight to video.
Who are your musical inspirations?
That's an easy question because there are so many but it's also a hard question because there are so many!! Let's see...there's a pile of records in my living room right now. This week I've been listening to:
Jennifer Lara (studio one reggae singer)
John Fahey
Charles Mingus
Thelonious Monk
Kraftwerk
Sun Ra
Steve Miller
JJ Cale
Jimmie Rodgers
the Cure
plus a great mix my friend Ben (from LA band the Shore) made me: it's got John Walker, Lee Hazlewood, early Fleetwood Mac, Euphoria, and a bunch of other cool shit on it. That's just to name a few...Basically I like music for art's sake & music for the heart's sake.
All
Rights: Hanx
