by Hank May
Interview by Hannah May
Download - Family Road Trip
The first time I ever heard my brother's song “I'm Going Home to Night” was back in the summer of 2005. I was about to start college and Hank had just turned fifteen, and we were in the car with my mom heading somewhere on the freeway. Hank had played some of his songs for me before but this one was stronger and more confident than his earlier recordings, and it marked a new beginning in Hank's lifelong commitment to rock and roll. This time, his voice didn't shy away from his articulate, surreal lyrics. Over the past couple of years I’ve heard Hank play “I’m Going Home Tonight” in backyards in Studio City, at the Troubadour in West Hollywood, on Arkansas porches during family reunions, in a loft in Bushwick, and most recently in the basement of a bar in Flatbush. Sometimes he’s accompanied by a trumpet and drums and an upright bass and his best friend on guitar, and sometimes he’s all by himself. Sometimes he screams so hard he has to pause the show to puke, and thankfully there’s usually a friend nearby prepared with a plastic bag.
Now Hank’s about to wrap up his Sophmore year at Bard College and over the past few years he’s created a collection of gorgeous, passionate, intelligent songs. Even though he spends most of his time in the woods of upstate New York, the songs on the upcoming album belong largely to the city where we grew up. Hank describes the beauty of pigeons, asphalt, and broken glass, and the songs are complex and intricate enough to accurately mirror life in Los Angeles. L.A. becomes a "treacherous city," full of crooked cops and privileged kids with selfish grins, but it's also home, a place where “the sound of traffic keeps you safe at night.” I got my brother to answer a few questions about his song writing process and what's in store for Rock Dove's future.
LL: Hank, when can we expect an actual album? Or does making a real album even matter, in terms of how you've been distributing your music so far (mostly online through your website)?
HM: I really want to make an album, but I'm growing tired of the songs that i had originally planned to include. The album loses songs by the month. Songs are discarded quicker than they are written.
I think a real album does matter. I'm not happy with the way I've been sharing my music, throwing up half-ass recordings that I never completed.
LL: So the songs on your website might not make it onto the album?
HM: Those will probably make it onto the album. Maybe not "Passing Out Coupons on Hollywood Blvd."
LL: No! I love that song. Anyway, how do you think being in college has affected your song writing?
HM: College is not an atmosphere conducive to prolific songwriting. It has slowed me down. Living in a building with lots of kids and paper-thin walls keeps me from screaming my songs, and I scream them at home in Los Angeles in May Day, the room my father carved out of the garage for me and others to use as a studio. That sort of freedom to scream inspires the lyrics a lot of the time.
But living in the woods has brought the plants, animals, and tranquility into my lyrics, "City Boy" and "Speed Trap" as clear examples.
LL: Yeah, I was going to ask about "Speed Trap" in particular because it seems to be about ambivalence to city life.
HM: Yes, and "City Boy" too, but less ambivalence and more disgust.
LL: Do you want to talk about some of your influences, musical and otherwise? I know you reference a Sherwoord Anderson story in "The Roaring Land."
HM: Not really, but yeah Winesburg, Ohio is in that song, and so is Speak/Memory, for the record: "The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness" and also the lines about a home video of your family without you before you.
LL: Ok, what about a favorite show memory?
HM: Rock Dove shows began as polite and humble affairs. We were sober for the first couple. But they quickly turned wild, angry, and infinitely more fun. That was around the time that the Hank May moniker was dropped and Rock Dove was born. The first show as Rock Dove was the first show that caused me to puke (maybe not, but that's a good lie).
LL: The puking seems to have settled down.
HM: Yes.
LL: But I always loved seeing Djavan ready with a bag.
HM: I've built up a tolerance to rock and roll. Our greatest show was at Bridget Rodman's house for Winter Wondercall in a small living room packed with kids and Djavan between me and the crowd with two crucial jobs: protecting my pedals from the mosh pit and holding the plastic bag for me to vomit in while still strumming.
Many noses bled that night.
LL:if you could see any band play that you've never seen before, who would it be?
HM: Living or dead?
LL: Either.
HM: Elliott Smith. I've been listening to Elliott Smith all day. But yeah, Elliott Smith or a Modest Mouse show during the mid-90s.
I'd do some terrible things for that time traveling trip.
LL: Also, if you could go on tour with an current band, who would it be?
HM:I'm thinking American Princes or Magic Hassle[Our cousin David Slade's bands].
LL: That would be so much fun.
HM: I know right!?
LL: I would be so jealous. Off topic, but did you see mom's Dublin photos and dad's new hat?
HM: YES. At first I saw it sort of hidden under an umbrella, I think, and then I saw it fully exposed. Wonderful hat.
LL: It's really something. So, do you usually start the songwriting process with lyrics, or with music? And how collaborative is the process when you include instruments like trumpets and cellos?
HM: The songs usually begin as musical skeletons to be dressed with the flesh of my lyrics, which either come separate from the music or out of the melodies themselves.
I usually write all the parts and then teach them to my friends. However, Patrick Taylor writes his own bass lines and Luke Silas comes up with most of the drum parts, but I write the trumpet parts on Finale. And I write the guitar parts and teach them to Xander [Whistler], and he writes guitar parts for me to play in Pilgrim [Xander's band]. I think we should start a third band that's entirely collaborative.
LL: Ok, one last question: if Rock Dove was a food, what food would it be?
HM: Is that a serious question?
LL: Yes! Well, no. Kind of.
HM: It would a pot brownie and a shot of whiskey.
1 comments:
Wonderful hat.
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