So, with “Angels and One-Armed Jugglers,” instinctively, I had this title that was a little bit celestial, a little bit terrestrial, a little bit crippled and hurt and beat up but also a little bit magic and divine. Those little funny artistic obsessions, you’ve got to chase those rabbits all the way down the hole. If I want to write about the sky for a year then I’m gonna write about the fuckin’ sky for a year.” There’s something there. That to me was like, “Oh, if I want to write about pockets for a month, then I’m gonna write about fuckin’ pockets for a month. I’m all into undergrowth now.” “What are you painting Vince?” “Oh, undergrowth.”Ĭan you imagine his brother? “Another “Undergrowth?” What the hell are you doing?” But, he’s fucking Vincent Van Gogh! You don’t read about Van Gogh’s “Undergrowth” being sold for $52 million dollars on auction. He was just painting undergrowth for what looks like a long time. It was called “Undergrowth.” And the next one was quite similar and it was called “Undergrowth.” I backed up and I looked at the whole wall and all of the paintings on three walls were called “Undergrowth.” I was like, “That motherfucker was leaning under trees and bushes, undergrowth, painting this underneath trees and bushes. It was ochre and different shades of green in these parallel lines. I found myself on this one floor and there was this painting in that inimitable Van Gogh style with the chunky strokes of paint. It’s an interesting collection because they have a lot of his primary works but they also have a lot of his secondary and tertiary works. To answer your question about themes, years ago I was in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. This thing I did when I was a kid, now, I have a name for this technique. I don’t write so differently than I did when I was a kid but now I know the stuff I did when I was a kid works. Over time, I’ve learned to write the way I write. You end up having a brain buffet but all the dishes go together because it’s one brain that’s generating it. I trust myself, as a writer, the process I’ve selected. The sky, there are images about freedom and space and the divine and the geometry of the universe and how things work together in serendipitous and strange mysterious ways. Then, you go into that a little bit more. “Wow! I was really into ‘pockets’ as metaphors.” Then, other periods of time I’ll look and be like, “Wow! I was really into the sky.” I was writing all these sky metaphors.
Empire of the undergrowth won't stop crashing full#
I would go back through notebooks and I’d look at the notebook from around the Pocket Full of Kryptonite era. I learned a long time ago just by going through old notebooks that my brain works thematically, and I think everybody’s does. I try so hard not to think about outcome when I write. One morning, she’s making coffee, and said, “I like ‘Angels and One-Armed Jugglers’!” “Really? You didn’t like it before.” “I know but it’s grown on me.” Don’t you think that’s kind of strange?” I questioned it a lot, and my wife took awhile to come around to it. Don’t call your record that.” People I respect were like, “Really? That’s wordy. A lot of people told me (laughs) “That’s a bad title. So, from the other end when the album’s out and everybody likes it, it has this inevitable foregone feeling about it but “Angels and One-Armed Jugglers,” was a really fucked up idea for a title. I haven’t even gotten a tepid review yet.
![empire of the undergrowth won empire of the undergrowth won](https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/28521019/44dbd7bab986d0f209ce3a4bf6b3a76a3c3874bd.jpg)
It’s funny because the album is out and I’m really grateful that it’s getting really good reviews. It’s a frustrating process to name an album once the album is made. Can you elaborate on that?ĬB: When you stumble across a title early, it’s such a blessing. You said that the songs were chosen thematically. JPG: The songs on the album have been described as eclectic but I see them fitting together as a collection of poppier tunes and others that remind me of The Band, probably in part due to the brass sections on them.