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Mike Doughty
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December 12, 2011, 11:55 am
Here's what Mike Doughty think about his new album YES AND ALSO YES.MIKE DOUGHTY'S NEW BABY
The title, YES AND ALSO YES was the headline of my profile on an online dating site. I improvised it off the top of my head, because they wouldn't let me post until I wrote a headline. I was wretchedly unsuccessful at online dating.
The single, "NA NA NOTHING", was partially stolen from a song written by Nikki Sixx, Dan Wilson (wrote "Closing Time"), and Matt Gerrard (wrote a bunch of tunes in "High School Musical.") (I got their permission to steal it)
"Holiday," a Christmas song, is a duet with Rosanne Cash. I did a show with her, and she said, onstage, "I feel nervous playing my new songs, because Mike Doughty is here, and he's such a great songwriter." That BLEW MY MIND.
The song "Into the Un" was written for, and rejected by the Twilight soundtrack. (It's about goth kids on LSD in a train station)
I recorded it in a studio in Koreatown, Manhattan, from July '10 to April '11. Pat Dillett produced. Notable musicians included my trusty factotum Andrew "Scrap" Livingston on bass, and the pianist Thomas Bartlett, aka Doveman, who basically plays with everbody who's groovy (Justin Bond, Antony and the Johnsons, Glen Hansard, the National, David Byrne, Yoko Ono). I'm releasing it on my own label, SNACK BAR, through Megaforce. I split with Dave Matthews' label ATO so I could run my own shop and have more control, business-wise.
I wrote most of the songs at the legendary artists' colony Yaddo, where Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, James Baldwin, Truman Capote, Flannery O'Connor, Carson McCullers, Sylvia Plath, and a lot of other all-time giants worked. It was founded by a railroad tycoon's wife, in her mansion, built in the 1890s. They put up artists for a month or two, feed them in an opulent dining room, and give them space and time to work.
I used a capsule of the antidepressant duloxetine as a percussion instrument on some tracks. I held the tiny pill between my thumb and forefinger, put it close to the mic and shook it so it made a shcka-shcka-shcka! sound.
I wrote a book about my ugly, drug-doing years called THE BOOK OF DRUGS. It's coming out in 2012 on Da Capo/Perseus.
The song "Makelloser Mann" is in German.
I play a Chinese lute (called a zhong ruan) on the song "Telegenic Exes, #1"
In the liner notes, I say I exclusively wear Paul Smith suits and Sol Moscot eyeglasses, and eat only gummi bears made by Haribo. I did this because I hope they'll send me free stuff.
More about Mike HERE.
I also like a little interview that Tim O'Shea from Seattle PI did with Mike.
Are you feeling more or less pressure to succeed, now that you run your own label again?
"Succeed" is a tricky word. I live on music, and I don't have to work another job, so that's success to me. I've had richer and poorer years, relatively, since I started making solo albums. But I have to say, as a solo guy I've made a lot more money than I did in Soul Coughing, though that band sold a lot more records. My only extravagance is flying business class, which I'd probably do even if it was straining my finances, because flying is so wretched. That said, there's more pressure to generate cash from the album, because, since it's my label, I did it all on my dime.
Read more HERE.
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