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What am I gonna do when I grow up?
... Jeff Finlin asks Alan Cackett
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Though
Jeff Finlin is very much a working-class family man, he is also a
modern-day troubadour. Originally a drummer, he is now rapidly
making an impression as a singer-songwriter. Born in Cleveland,
Ohio, the grandson of Irish railroad workers, his career has taken many
twists and
turns. It all started back in high school, where he played drums
for local bands. Following graduation he started out travelling America
in cars, trains, planes, and hitchhiking, before settling down to play
in bands in Boston, Ohio and Los Angeles.
"I started playing drums when I was eleven", Jeff explains. "In a
little marching band, and then I heard Led Zeppelin and the Beatles and
that was all over [he laughs]. Who wants to march around a field when
you can listen to John Lennon? It was always kind of there from way,
way back. Just always seemed like the natural thing to do. I guess I
just loved it."
We're sitting in a noisy London pub. Jeff is halfway through his latest
UK tour. Since making the UK connection six years ago as drummer and
opening act for Kevin Montgomery, Jeff has returned to these shores
several times, on each occasion building a larger and more loyal fan
base. Usually, Jeff has toured as a solo singer-songwriter; just one
man and his trusty guitar. This time he's working with a full band,
members of the UK-based Quireboys, re-creating more closely what we
hear on his albums.
"It's just great to play with a band"" Jeff enthuses. "These guys are
just great. We're like soul-brothers. They're all weathered like me and
have a lot of humility, just 'cause they've been beaten up by the
music. They're from over here, so I was lucky to get'em, they're great."
It's not easy for a singer to travel to another country and then use
pick-up musicians. There are several problems to overcome: Will
the players be good enough? Will they understand your
music? Will they be people you can get on with?
Luckily for Jeff these doubts were soon dispelled.
"You just never know", he admits. "I mean, we've hired a couple of
people over here before. They might be great musicians, but they
just don't take the time to learn the stuff, you know. We did
that a couple of times... they were great musicians but they just
didn't take the time to learn the stuff and we ended up just going on
by ourselves. With these guys, it's funny but in three days
I knew I would go to the ends of the earth for these guys.
They're that good. You know when you walk in and start playing and it
just happens. So I hope that I can play with these guys a lot
more."
Jeff is no stranger to a band set-up, but for many years he was very
much in the background, the guy sat at the back of the stage, hidden
behind the drums. Having spent time roaming around America,
playing music, working in a travelling circus and doing any physical
jobs necessary to earn a crust, he moved to Nashville with long-time
friend and collaborator Gwil Owen.
Jeff and Gwil formed the Thieves, a rock outfit that released SEDUCED
BY MONEY, a sole album on Capitol that was produced by Marshall
Crenshaw and garnered a top fifty pop hit with Everything But My
Heart. As Owen builtup a healthy reputation as a successful
songwriter, Finlin became bored
with the creative constraints of just being a drummer and began writing
songs. In 1993, he self-released LONELY LIGHT which led to him being
signed to Pete Anderson's Little Dog label and releasing HIGHWAY
DIARIES. Next came the self-released ORIGINAL FIN, but it was 2002's
SOMEWHERE SOUTH OF WONDER that brought Jeff Finlin recognition and
critical acclaim. It was Album of the Year on Virgin Radio's
Captain America show, followed by a tour opening for Steve Earle in the
UK and Ireland.
His most recent album, EPINONYMOUS, has been released in the UK under
the new title, ANGELS IN DISGUISE by Warner-Korova, with a slightly
different track listing to the original US release. Though Jeff's
music loosely fits into the Americana bag, It is basically traditional
American rock'n'roll that can be traced back to the mid-1950s.
Rootsy
music with a strong backbeat blended with compelling lyrics that are
much more than the moon-June ditties of most of today's mainstream
country output.
"It's all-American music", he explains, "in some way which bubbles to
the top of the surface with whatever I do and it's kind of what I'm
Interested in. It all started rhythmically and I started out as a
drummer so, you know, it's kind of just what I lean to. It's kind of
interesting, but that's always what comes up, those kind of old-timey
feels and I try to take that and do something new with it. I
think all great art has some kind of... trailback. Like, you look at
Picasso's modern ceramics and you see the Greeks in there, you see the
Romans in there and that just fascinates me; he took something old and
classic and just twisted it all up. Which I like, you know? It's good
stuff.
"Sure! It's all been done before. It's like, ok, let's take that and
try and do something new and interesting, and fun with it and have a
good laugh. Better than taking it too seriously, putting it too high
up, sometimes on a pedestal. It's rock'n'roll, it's not rocket science.
It's just rock and roll!" Jeff laughs.
His whole life revolves around music. As well as making music, he is
also a big music fan. But rather surprisingly, he doesn't exactly
come from a music family. "I'm like the only one, except my grandmother
would hitch up her skirt and sing songs at the piano when I was
little. But that was it. I don't know where it came from! I
think I was born into the wrong family or something!"
Wrong family or not, Jeff Finlin has made something of a name for
himself doing something he loves. He can count among his fans
such luminaries as Bruce Springsteen and film director Cameron Crowe,
who included Jeff's version of the self-penned Sugar Blue on the
Elizabethtown soundtrack.By his own admission, Jeff has been something
of a late developer when it comes to songwriting. Though he'd
been playing music both semi-professionally and then full-time since he
was barely in his teens, it wasn't until his late twenties that he
turned his hand to writing songs, initially to challenge himself,
musically.
"I just kind of hit a dead end with it", he admits. "I didn't
really write a song until I was twenty-seven. I got bored with it
and I just thought: 'What's the hardest thing I could possibly
do?' I came up with write and record a record. So I started doing
that and playing out in Nashville. We drummers don't have very
good reputations as musicians! There's a lot of jokes, you
know? And I did that and they laughed a lot and then I got a
publishing deal and got signed to MCA, so they quit laughing..."
Though he was based in Nashville for a number of years, Jeff could
never be described as a Music Row songwriter. Those guys go into
an office nine-to-five to write songs. Jeff writes when the
inspiration is there and could never write a song to order. So you know
when you hear a Jeff Finlin song that it's come from deep inside, and
hasn't been written to fit some kind of commercial radio playlist
formula.
"I always take from my own experience somewhat and then it's somewhat
of a challenge to get myself out of it and make it more universal
rather than so self-indulgent", Jeff explains. "Get a little
piece of your life and get out of it. Forever Evergreen kind of popped
out in five minutes, Bringing My Love took half a day. If I'm in
there trying to force it, I always muck it up. I don't write a
lot, I write when I have a reason to write, like when I'm doing a
record. A lot of them are the original demos that I did in my
living room and I just kind of buffed them up a little. They
always have little stories behind them: Travelling Man's about when I'd
been on the road..."
Being on the road has long been part and parcel of Jeff's life for more
years than he cares to remember, but with a wife and young son back
home in Colorado it's not always quite so easy for him to be away from
home for weeks on end. "I found a place that I really love to live", he
explains. "I have just one boy, Aidan, he's eleven.
"There's that little period when they still miss me, but sometimes it's
a good thing; you go away and you get to come back and have the
reunion. My wife is happy to get rid of me! 'Three weeks? I
can do that, good, go!' This is what I do, not for months, but
for three-week jaunts.
It's good, it's manageable - over three weeks it starts getting really
weird."
Like so many of the indie artists trying to do it on their own
terms, Jeff has found balancing a music career with everyday living has
not been plain sailing. Often times he has had to handle all the career
business himself: self-releasing CDs, arranging tours, mailing out CDs,
etc, etc. But he has steadfastly refused to compromise his musical
ideals for some kind
of instant commercial success.
"We all struggle with that and, you know, I dabbled in that I tried
writing with Nashville writers and stuff like that, but it just wasn't
natural. It just never worked out for me. So I pretty much
had to decide: 'Ok, this is what I do and that's it: And just take it
from there. I'm not going to really compromise. Just do
what I love, because that's what's unique to me. And I've just had to
accept that; if I make a lot of money - great, if I don't - great."
"As soon as you start doing something unnatural or with the wrong
motivation, you just start being funny. It just doesn't feel
right. Most of my gifts in life come from other things, like
family and my kids - that's where all the good stuff is. For a
long time I put this above all that and I was miserable. I had to
make it, the right side and lot of that has to do with acceptance of
the what is; just seeing things the way they are rather than what you
want them to be!
"When I quit trying it all got easier. As soon as you put it on
that pedestal, above everything, it's like, there's some sort of
spiritual law that won't let it happen. It's gotta bypass to come
first and when you're trying and beating your head against the wall,
trying to get places, it never really seemed to happen for me.
Then as soon as I put it down and quit trying and started to look over
here and all of a sudden all of this stuff started happening.
It's just kind of weird that way. So I just got to the point
where I had to put it down and just see what happens. Moved to
Colorado... I didn't really do anything for about a year. The
music presented itself rather than me trying to put it into a little
box that I thought I wanted to put it in. That's just how it
worked for me."
Jeff has certainly found acceptance for his music in the UK. He's
not, as yet, a big or well known name, but with each subsequent album
and tour he has found a bigger audience for his music, helped in no
little way by regular radio play, especially on BBC Radio 2. With
his latest album, ANGELS IN DISGUISE released on a major UK label and a
full-time publicist working for him different doors have been opening
up with more media coverage than ever before.
"It just helps to have stuff released." he says. "I mean. I can do
things by my own hand, but it's just so limited. I'm just limited
in what I can do, and that's pretty much what I've been doing for the
last year. I'm so happy that they came along and wanted to pick up the
record, because you get tired of doing the slog. Yeah. I'm hoping
it'll do well."
Rather surprisingly, though Jeff is clearly focussed with his music, he
doesn't spend hours or days on forward planning. "I just try to look at
what I'm doing; keep it in the day." he explains. "If I try and
plan this and that, I get messed up, so I got no plans. I don't
make plans... if it's time to do another record then it's obvious and
I'll do that because I love it, and when I don't love it I'll stop
doing it. I don't know what I'd do if it wasn't music. I've
thought about it a lot - what am I going to do when I grow up? I
don't know! This must be just what I'm supposed to be!"
Alan Cackett
Maverick Magazine
December 2006
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