Griffin House
Interviewed for Riffin' by Webjockey Heidi Patalano
Free Track Download: "Better Than
Love"
Check out Griffin House's Rifflist:
My Top
Tracks
It's something that took Griffin House a long time to
admit to himself: chicks really dig him. With a Myspace profile littered by
adoring comments from starry-eyed women all over the country, the singer's
smoothly earnest songs about love and love lost make fans of Josh Ritter and
Pete Yorn swoon - but House is still a little reluctant to sit back and
enjoy it. Riffin' caught up with the songwriter to discuss fans, God,
Britney Spears and RC Cola.
Riffin': I hear that you're at a spiritual retreat
at the moment. Do tell.
House: I live in Nashville and this is a get
together with a bunch of different artists, people from Belfast and
Nashville, talking about songwriting in the context of spirituality and
faith. I'm still trying to figure out what we're talking about. It's
interesting.
Riffin': Are you concerned about your spirituality
alienating your audience?
House: I think you have to be careful about
how you say things. It's something that does seep into my writing. I think
there's ways to go about that. There's an art to that. If you can figure out
where you're coming from and communicate that to your audience in a
particular way, a lot of it becomes universal.
Photo by Karla Olme
Riffin': Your music is appearing more and more in
commercials and TV shows. How does it feel to inadvertently hear one of your
songs when you're flipping through the channels? Do you have the typical
"Twilight Zone" moment?
House: That's happened a few times. One time I
was with my family when that happened. It's been kind of funny. The Nettwerk
is good about getting my songs into TV.
Riffin': How did you decide to move to
Nashville?
House: I moved here in 2003. I was starting to
do music and I wanted to go someplace where I could be around people I know.
Things started going well as soon as I moved down here. I've been touring
for 2 or 3 years. I wanted to get a place of my own and thought I'd settle
down here.
Riffin': When you're touring, what do you do to
pass the time while you're in transit from one location to the other?
House: I think it was 2004 in spring when I
started touring. I've been doing it on and off since then: a month on, a
month off. It's kept me really busy. It's an interesting thing because
sometimes I have a lot of trouble making that transition to having so much
time on the road. It's hard for me to relax and do nothing. I try to do a
little of that because that's important.
Riffin': A lot of musicians move to Nashville in
order to make their country-tinged "Nashville record" (i.e. Cat Power, Bob
Dylan) Do you think living in the capital of country music has informed your
own writing?
House: I don't think it's really influenced it
all that much. I don't think it would be different if I lived in Ohio.
Riffin': You've cited Woody Gutherie and Bruce
Springsteen as key influences. Maybe I'm grossly biased, but there seems to
be one troubadour between those two that is missing in a logical progression
of influences (Bob Dylan) - What gives?
House: I think those are two people that have
definitely influenced me but I don't think it's completely relevant to what
I do because I'm just as influenced by The Cars and The Clash. Sometimes you
say who you are influenced by and then it gets dropped in your bio and
people assume that those artists are the only ones you're into but there are
a lot of artists I like that you don't necessarily hear the influences of in
my music. I love Morrissey and Johnny Cash.
Riffin': On your website it says that you're in
the adolescence of your career. How do you want your career to be when it's
all grown up?
House: Oh man, that's a good question. I'm in
the middle of the river and seeing wherever it takes me. I think it's
important to keep it open mind.
Riffin': Is there any musician/songwriter's career
that you admire and would aspire to imitate?
House: I have a lot of admiration for Tom
Petty and the Heartbreakers. It's hard for me to keep a band around because
of how the Nashville scene operates. Many of my band members have a family,
and can't always tour. I wish I could stick together with a crew of people.
I really admire that Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers have stayed together
for so long.
Riffin': You have a blog for fans to peruse. With
celebrity culture booming as it is, how do you feel about getting personal
with your fans this way?
House: I think the songs end up being really
vulnerable in and of themselves. Sometimes when I'm asked to write a blog, I
don't want to talk about personal things because I feel like people - well -
I guess there was a time when it was easy for me to do that but sometimes
[now] that could come back and bite you. There's a reason why [famous]
people become protective of their personal lives. I wonder if people like
Britney Spears invite that attention into their lives. She's on the cover of
every tabloid every week but you've got to think that there's a way that she
could avoid all that and get away from it.
Riffin': You obviously have a very enthusiastic
female fan base. Are you getting underwear thrown at you yet?
House: I've started to admit that to myself.
I've been in denial for a while. I would always think 'they're just here
cause they like music.' If I don't wake up and realize that that's not true,
it would probably end up being bad for me.
Photo by Karla Olme
Riffin': In your most recent blog entry you write:
"I thought maybe I would be done with the breakup, heartache, girlfriend
songs by now. But I'm not at all. I write plenty of songs about God, and
politics, and ordinary life in America, but sometimes I think I do it to
cover up
the fact that what I really want to talk about most of the time is all the
other stuff." That's a pretty self-aware statement. What do you think your
image is as a songwriter?
House: As far as that goes, when you're
spending so much time on the road - phone conversations are one thing, but
songs provide an outlet almost as if I'm talking to the therapist. If you
have things going through your mind, you need to get them out. That's what
the songs do for me. If stuff like that's going on in my life, it doesn't
matter if it's mature or evolved or whatever, it's what I need to write
about for myself.
Riffin': And now, for randomness: cats or
dogs?
House: Dogs definitely.
Riffin': Coke or Pepsi?
House: RC Cola - I like it. I used to drink it
when I was a kid.
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