Interview with Adam Gnade.

This is an interview I did with Adam Gnade maybe two years ago? It was right before his collab with Youthmovies [Honeyslides] came out. It was supposed to be in a zine I was doing called E Texas Ave, but that fell through, but I think this interview needs to be read. I'm sorry it took so long Adam.


Q: So I heard you don't use a cell phone? Was there any inspiration behind this?

AG: Thing was I found myself complaining about being dependent on cell phones. I was always telling people that I couldn't imagine doing without one and that the thought of not having one made me feel unsafe, BUT that just a few years ago, nobody had 'em and we did fine. So, one day I gave my phone away. People look at me pretty weird when I tell 'em I don't use one.

Q: You have said before that traveling is cathartic, but you're afraid that the root cause is you running away from problems or situations. Do you still feel the same way? Are you planning on settling down in one particular city?

AG: I go back and forth on that one. Flight or fight, healthy or unhealthy, it's just a judgment call. In the end, you've got to follow your heart and sometimes getting the fuck out of Dodge is the best—and only—option. Still, nothing beats looking the fucking beast in the eye. Y'know, the ol' stare into the void until it stares back into you. I do a lot of both. A lot of leaving bad situations. A lot of sticking it out and trying to make something of it. As far as settling down, I'm sure I'll settle down one day—I'm actually looking forward to it—but there's too much I still need to see. Anyway, all the places I want to settle down in are quiet places, and right now I need noise. Someday it'll be a good ol' shack somewhere back in Virginia. Lots of guns, some pitbulls, a pickup truck, and a nice porch to sit and drink gin and watch the fireflies. Really, I can't wait. The South's been calling my name for a while.

Q: Do you fear the inertia that is inherent in settling down, or are you looking forward to embracing it?

AG: I figure by the time I settle down it'll be to do the serious work it'll take to write the books I've got up in my head, the ones that take quiet and solitude. I imagine I'll be so busy I won't even notice.

Q: As a writer, do you feel that with the replacement of books by internet and television as universal sources of entertainment, that the end of literature as we know it is in the horizon?

AG: I'd rather literature as we know it die out and die out as fast as possible. From the rubble of it, the real stuff will come and it'll be better than anything that came before. Do we really need Oprah telling us what to read or a million books by celebrity chefs? Let it burn. Half the writers I know aren't alive anyway. They're just observers … sleepwalking through their lives and writing about living instead of actually doing it. Writing's a poor substitute for living.

Q: I couldn't agree with you more with the death of modern literature. But do you think if that ever happened, people would wake up and start reading again? I fear that the dumbing down of this nation will be the cause of it, or perhaps a Fahrenheit 451 type scenario will ensue.

AG: People have to start thinking again before they start reading again. You gotta change your life before you change the way you live it. But yeah, America is an unfriendly place for literature that has any backbone. Maybe good writers'll become outlaws again and be looked on as scum like they were in Shakespeare's day. Then there would be some stories to tell, some good writing—because you can't write anything good without a little trouble in your life. And that trouble's gotta be real. You can't go out and seek it and make it happen, make your own spectacle; it's gotta be natural and when it hits, you'll probably want anything but that trouble. But at least it'll be real and you'll be living a real life. What kind of books are you into?

Q: Well, I am more a classics man. I love Twain and Bradbury, but there is this great book by this guy named Robert McCammon called Boys Life. It is all about this small sleepy town, and how everyone's life intertwines. I love those type of books, I think that is why Dandelion Wine and Huck Finn are in my top ten books. They are just so full of life, and have a little magic tucked inside of them waiting to be discovered. How about yourself?

AG: I've been reading a lot of Twain too. A lot of his essays. Oh, and I just finished Puddn'head Wilson, which is one of my favorite things he did. How do you think Twain would go over if he lived and wrote during our time?

Q: I think Twain might go over a little bit better these days if he kept his style. He had a very left leaning liberal view regarding government/religion, but then again, in this post 9/11 era, who is free to say things like that in major publications anymore? And after Imus & Dog The Bounty Hunter, imagine what people would think of Huck Finn? I would say he might be extremely villified if he lived in our time, and I am not sure if his books would be universally loved as they are now. What's your take on Orwell? How chillingly similar is America coming to 1984?

AG: I'm the only person I know who hasn't read any Orwell. I mean, just existing in this world, I've had the whole thing paraphrased to me by a dozen people, but I still haven't read him. You told me, off-interview, that you felt the same way as I do about cell phones but about the internet. So, I guess for the sake of the readers--this is now an official turning of the tables, huh?--please explain yourself.

Q: I feel that the internet is creating a voyeuristic society who puts more substance into who has more online friends than they do in real life. It is slowly killing human interaction. Social gatherings have fallen away and given way to chat groups. People put more effort into cultivating a false image of themselves through myspace or facebook than they do into learning about what is going on around them. If people put more energy into doing constructive things than talking to people through binary, we could potentially have the next Fitzgerald or Camus or Dylan.

What is the first book that you can remember falling in love with?

AG: Wow, I guess that would ... probably be To Kill a Mockingbird. That was the first time I can remember hearing the author's voice and feeling a rhythm to words. More than that, though, was the sense of place, which has, since then, been one of my favorite things about a good book. I guess I was ... maybe 10 years old. Though I remember reading Harriet the Spy even younger and feeling mood from prose for the first time. There was a sentence in that one that--for this tiny little fragment of time--made me feel the temperature in the air and gave me this uncomfortable kind of preadolescent ennui I'd never felt before. Because of words, I was experiencing the character's frustration and confusion and it felt like mine for no real reason, because, y'know, I wasn't affaid and I wasn't frustrated but I felt it, and that gave me a pretty big shock to the system.

Q: You have been tagged as one of the "new weird america" artists? Do you feel any kinship with the other artists lumped into that scene?

AG: Yeah, I've got that a lot, but I don't feel like I'm a part of any scene. Plus, any time you get too deep into a scene, the life you're living is a false reality. If you want to have any decent stories to tell you're not gonna get 'em hanging around other storytellers. You gotta go out and live with people who are actually dealing with life on a firsthand, first-name (as in knowing life) basis, not working on their new haircut or spending all their time at shows or studying their favorite artists to the point that they're living somebody else's life. Like, I know a lot of people who know so much about certain artists that their own periods or stages or whatever you wanna call 'em are nothing more than photocopies of their heroes' periods. For instance, you watch your folksinger buddy go through Dylan's Guthrie/hobo stage and then he's grown his hair out and he's living Dylan's reclusive Woodstock stage and then he's moved on and he's wearing eyeliner and white face paint like the crazy-era-Dylan and freaking out over the "fame" and he's never even had any fame to deal with in the first place. It's make-believe. People keep make-believe living these cultural archetypes and while I'm sure it's fun—like playing dress up—it's not real. You gotta live your own life. I guess we've all done it to some degree, but the point is you gotta realize you're doing it and stop. It's tough. So much safer to be somebody else and not have to make any mistakes.

Q: Is it still possible to write meaningful songs that are lived in and comfortable without resorting to vacuous pop songs or trite lyrics either about failing relationships or the horrible job our government is doing?

AG: Definitely. It's very possible. There's always going to be somebody that stands up and says what we need to hear and says it the right way. I'm probably not the right candidate for the job—my shit's just not commercial—but there are some good ones out there, people that tell it like it is and say it well. Most people, whether they know it or not, love truth. We just need to find people that'll give it to us and say it pretty and without a lot of fuss. Springsteen did it on "Thunder Road." He nailed it to the fucking floor. Jeff Mangum too. I think Deer Tick'll probably give us some life-changing records. Probably Viking Moses too.

Q: How do you feel about the ethics of modern punk? Do you feel that social networking sites, mainly myspace, has watered down the diy ethic that used to be inherent in our scene? Or do you not care about that at all?

AG: Punk doesn't concern me. All punk is--as a subculture or a scene--is bored people getting up in each other's business and not governing their own lives. Culture, scenes, subcultures, counterculture, all of it is negliable. I'm trying to survive and keep the people I love safe and happy and enjoy my life. The rest is just fringe bullshit. The DIY ethic as a movement or culture is an illusion because everybody handles it differently--there's no collective consciousness. I do things myself in my own way and I'm proud of them. People can handle theirs however they want. It doesn't concern me how people I've never met handle the release of their CDs or books or zines. I won't get selfrighteous on 'em. Now, I'd like 'em to make their stuff good, just so I have something decent to listen to or read, but that's just surface level stuff. In the end, it's just art, and art is beyond secondary to things like love and food and sleep and living a rich, full life. When we're on our death bed, all this time we spent bitching about bands or doing myspace or caring about other people's art is going to hurt, it's going to seem like wasted life. I'd rather find a lake and go swimming in it with some good people--or even by myself. Maybe eat a good meal, play some banjo, and drink some wine on the shore. That's what's real in the long run.

Q: Have you always felt this way, or is this a recent change for you?

AG: I feel that way now, but I haven't felt that way forever and I'll probably feel different in the future. The more I try and figure out how all this works, the more I change and contradict my own theories. I'm sure I've changed my mind--and drastically--just over the course of this interview. I guess that's why you shouldn't listen to artists when we talk about anything other than art. We're all petty and scared and motivated by dubious agendas and pushed by old traumas and issues and we're all looking for a little solace and meaning in this fucking vicious birth-life-death cycle. It's probably why we make art in the first place. We aren't philosophers or great thinkers or anybody that should be taken at all seriously. We're just scared kids trying to find some kind of life for ourselves while the bombs drop. The ones that work hard and live honest might find something. We'll all die anyway, so I guess it's a moot point. Better to find that lake and swim in it while the sun's still out.

Q: People describe you as a dreamer. How do you keep hope alive in a world that leads one to nihilistic thougts?

AG: It's better to not think about abstract concepts like hope and instead find what makes you happy in that moment and run with it. Live according to what you desire in that instant. It makes for a more transitory life--and probably a harder one--but you won't worry as much because you'll be really living. Hope's just the positive side of worry anyway. I'd rather be more realistic and try and satisfy my desires as they come to me. I'd rather be a sensualist than a dreamer any day. There's more pay-off.

Q: Are you ever fully content with your life?

AG: Sure. I mean, I go back and forth, but who doesn't? I'm content right now.