Jeff Zentner
Interview By: Ashlee Elfman
America has always perceived the rural life as being idyllic . Perhaps it is because most of us live in Urbania, wrought with ugliness and artificial lights. Naturally our hearts yearn for the idea of a simpler time and place. Jeff Zentner can take you there without trying. Hailing from Asheville, North Carolina it is apparent that he knows what a life bereft of smog and traffic feels like. His songs are genuine and humble testaments to a life few of us know, but many of us long for. The title track off of his recently released album “Hymns To The Darkness” moves effortlessly in the listener’s ear like a slow stream reflecting the warm glow of the moon as Mr. Zentner pleas for his lover to stay with him through the night. The listener can only speculate that Jeff Zentner got his way. The following track, “Dwell Inside My Skin” has shades of a toned down Jeff Buckley, while songs like “Fire and Memory” and “Promise Me You Will Never Die,” are modest and beautiful enough to seduce even the most jaded of listeners. One could easily say that subtlety is Jeff Zentner’s strength.
How are you doing Jeff? How’s North Carolina treating you?
I'm very well, thank you. North Carolina is treating me very nicely. It snowed yesterday, and there is still a great deal of snow in the mountains where I live. It's very beautiful.
Do you feel like your location has a big influence on your songwriting? Creech Holler, your other band, also has a very country, rural feel to it, although it is a very different project all the same.
Absolutely. In fact, I would say that to evoke a sense of place with my music is one of my paramount concerns. For whatever reason, I'm naturally inclined to be inspired by certain landscapes and places. Those landscapes and places tend to occur most often in rural America. Specifically, the American South. In both my solo work, and my work with Creech Holler, I attempt to capture that geography, that sense of place. Creech Holler had occasion to play in San Francisco last summer. I love San Francisco. I think it's amazing. But the landscape there doesn't inspire me to create the art I know how to create. It inspires me in many other ways. But not artistically. That's just an example.
How did you decide to work on a solo project, or have you always written songs on your own?
I have not always been a songwriter at all. I very recently began writing songs. For many years, I played almost exclusively traditional blues songs, Son House, Blind Willie Johnson, that sort of thing. After awhile, though, playing exclusively other people's music began to be unsatisfying to me, so I decided to tell my stories. My stories came out sounding very different from the blues I had always played. Much more country sounding. But that's OK, because I love country music deeply. I've always had solo projects. I believe that it's always important to be able to make music without having to depend on anyone else. I love the feeling of being independent and self-contained. It makes playing with a band even more satisfying to me. There are expressive sides of my music that would not work well with the other music that Creech Holler does. So my solo work allows me a more holistic expression.
When I listen to your new album, Hymns To The Darkness, I get the sense that the songs are extremely personal and natural for you. Are they autobiographical in nature, or do you feel distanced from your lyrics?
Some of the songs on "Hymns to the Darkness" are indeed very personal stories, but many of the songs are pure works of fiction. I don't feel any more distanced from those stories than I do my own, because I work very hard to inhabit the characters I create. I try to imbue the songs with emotions and feelings with which I am familiar, even if I have not experienced the stories personally of which I sing. One of my biggest barriers to writing songs was that for many years, I assumed that one could only write songs about that which one has experienced personally. Which is ridiculous, of course. The book "Child of God" by Cormac McCarthy is a very amazing story, but I very much doubt that Cormac McCarthy shared in the experiences of that book's protagonist.
Do you feel like this is a good time for musicians, or artists in general to self-produce?
It seems that quite a few genuinely talented people (yourself included) have been taking that route. My impression is that the music industry is just too vile and plastic for most artists to want to deal with.
Absolutely. This ties into my love of self-contained independence. The digital age allows me, for little cost, to make reasonably good recordings of my music and then distribute those recordings (theoretically) to the entire world, via the internet. I'm not at the whims of the music industry. I lived in Nashville for several years, where I got to see the music industry at work. It can be a very, very dirty business. Many dreams are broken. I resolved long ago that I would not allow my dreams to die upon the alter of the music industry. I will most probably never be as famous as the artists who have the support of the music industry. But that's never something I've aspired to anyway. I'm more concerned with reaching the right people with my music, and I have been managing to do that.
Jeff Zentner
You play the guitar, slide guitar, dobro, banjo, lap steel, and mandolin…when did your love for somewhat archaic Americana instruments and music begin?
I started on the guitar a number of years ago, and once you learn the guitar, all of those other instruments kind of fall in easily. I didn't play the mandolin until last summer. Creech Holler was in Montana on tour, and I bought a $90 1950s vintage mandolin as another color to add to my album, and taught myself to play. I'd played banjo for awhile, as well as slide and lap steel guitar. I fell in love with the banjo when I listened to Dock Boggs. I fell in love with slide guitar listening to Blind Willie Johnson. I'm sure there will be more instruments down the line that I fall in love with. If you're going to make music all by yourself, it's nice to be able to play a number of instruments.
What albums have you been listening to lately? Are there any current artists you would like to play with?
"Rear View Mirror"- Townes Van Zandt, is in regular rotation always. I've been listening to a lot of Damien Jurado and J. Tillman lately. I've been listening to "Mosaic" by Woven Hand. Munly and the Lee Lewis Harlots. 16 Horsepower. Those latter I began listening to after I noticed that many of the people who were drawn to Creech Holler's music enjoyed those bands. I'd never listened to them before. I always listen to a lot of Dock Boggs, Hobart Smith, I.D. Stamper, Robert Belfour. I like Whiskeytown and Richard Buckner a lot. I love Chris Whitley. Current artists I'd like to play with: I think it would be a trip to play with Joanna Newsome. I'd love to play with Gillian Welch or Jenny Lewis.
In the words of Newton, "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." Do you think that the recent wave of alt-country musicians and artists are reacting to the bane of modernity?
I’m not saying that it is in anyway a fad, I think that it is something that is still very much “underground” so to speak. However, do you think there is some truth to Newton’s law when it comes to the wave of current musicians looking for influence in more old-timey fare?
I think that in many respects, our society is becoming divorced from the things that make us essentially human, and we are replacing humanity with surrogates. We're replacing face to face contact with digital contact, wood and wires with electronic music. All of this has its own merits. Obviously, I'm very happy with the friends I've made using the internet or else we wouldn't be talking right now. But I think it's natural for there to be a desire to return to roots, musically speaking. But in an important sense, I think that the modern world has created many of these roots and country musicians simply by virt
ue of its ability to break down regional barriers. A kid growing up in Seattle is just as likely, if not more likely, to grow up listening to Appalachian music as a kid in North Carolina. So our modern times are creating a backlash on the one hand, but also introducing many people to some very great music for the first time, which factors combine to produce a greater interest in American roots music.
Groupies…the vermin of the fan world. Have you had any disillusioning fan experiences yet? How do you perceive your fans?
I've had all kinds of disillusioning experiences, but being loved too much for my music by someone is not yet among them. No. No disillusioning experiences. I am so profoundly grateful for the tiny number of fans that I have that I don't even have words to express myself. It makes me feel so very good when people connect with my art. It gives me a great sense of worth and satisfaction. This is my legacy to the world. This is the beauty I am trying to create before I return to the dust. Every fan I have is part of my legacy to the world. I want to be remembered. My tiny circle of fans gives me far more than I give them.
Do you have any plans to tour soon?
I currently tour as much as my schedule will allow with Creech Holler, and I haven't really started playing locally as a solo act. Maybe someday, if I sense that the demand is great enough. My solo music is difficult to play in a live setting, since I only have two arms and I think the songs sound better with the layered instrumentation. But I rule nothing out, ever. It would be very easy to tour as a solo act. Carry a couple of microphones and a guitar, and you're good to go. You could tour in a Honda Civic.
Please tell our readers how they can obtain your music…
Hymns to the Darkness is available on CDBaby or iTunes, and a variety of other download sites. If you're feeling especially daring, and you want to lend me the most assistance possible, I can take payments by paypal and send a CD directly to you. I make the most money per CD this way.
Do you have any encouragement, or words of wisdom for the truly independent artist?
Precisely that. Be truly independent. The more you are able to do yourself, the less you have to depend on others, the fewer compromises you will have to make artistically. Learn how to record yourself. If you want some piano on a recording, teach yourself how to play. Keep things self-contained as much as you can, and if you can't, keep it within your inmost circle. I've turned to friends to help me with things such as CD cover layout, that they had far less experience with than someone I could have paid a great deal of money to do it. But because they wanted me to produce a great piece of art, they rose completely to the occasion.
Two words that sum up your new album Hymns To The Darkness…
Love. Loneliness.
Jeff Zentner Myspace
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