Chicago-born multi-instrumentalist Andrew Bird picked up the violin at age four and hasn’t put it down since. Now, he has nine full-length albums under his belt and his last two, The Mysterious Production of Eggs and Armchair Apocrypha, have cemented his place as an influential indie-rock musician. Don’t miss his show September 24 when he performs at Asbury Hall at the Church.
Generation: Your new album, Armchair Apocrypha, has been said by many critics to be your best yet. Do you feel this album is offering something that your past albums haven’t, or just something different?
Andrew Bird: I think it’s, you know, a major shift in how I make music. This record, I categorize as more dynamic—higher highs and lower lows.
G: How much do other types of music influence you, or do you seek your influences elsewhere?
AB: I’m not really heavily influenced by records. I used to be and I just kind of ran out of music to learn from, about, I would say maybe five or six years ago. I guess I’m just really able to entertain myself pretty thoroughly with what’s going on in my head these days. Certainly I’m influenced by my own life these days, but it’s kind of a scarier place to draw inspiration from, to have to get it from yourself. It’s much easier to say, “I love this Dylan song, I’m going to write a song like this,” or “I love this Velvet Underground tune, and I’m going to go for that.” I’m not like that.
G: For your upcoming Buffalo show, you’re playing at Ani DiFranco’s converted church. Do you think unconventional spaces make for better performances or lend to the creative process, such as your barn in Chicago?
AB: Yea, I’m looking forward to that, I haven’t seen it yet. I like playing spaces with a kind of a vast ceiling to it, and just acoustically to fill every corner with sound. When I come into a theater I like to walk around and get a sense of where the walls are and what they are made of to know how I need to fill that space with sound.
G: What was your most interesting or unique musical project? I did see your Dr. Strings segment [for children’s show Jack’s Big Music Show on Noggin] if you’d like to comment on that as well.
AB: That was kind of an unexpected way to spend that day. But, most unique musical, let me think. I mean that would have to be up there. I really got into that role and had to interact with puppets, which is kind of a dream come true for me.
G: You performed the song in concert, right?
AB: I do now and then, just a little snippet of it. It goes back to the music I used to play when I started out and it’s kind of fun to have an excuse to play that type of music again. It was fun.
G: Your lyrics are creative and sometimes even unusual. Does literature play a big role in your songwriting or is it more just whatever comes to you?
AB: I am fascinated by language that’s kind of archaic, that’s no longer in modern-day usage. So when I read novels or when I read histories, non-fiction, I’m looking for what I don’t see around, that’s what really influences me. I used to be really into folk ballads, child ballads, and I was always obsessive about words, like “sovay” for instance, is one. But I don’t know what they mean. Somehow not knowing the definition gives me license to explain what I can’t explain. It frees me up not knowing what the word means. That, and the apocalyptic thinking, I think there’s some connection. Like wanting to reclaim that strip mall or wanting to reclaim that word for my own.
G: How has learning to play music so young affected you compared to other musicians who may have picked up an instrument later in life?
AB: I think the idea was that I started at four so I learned as I was learning language. So it’s the same neuropathways that are for language are used for music. I only play completely by ear, I’ve never read music, and so it was always this direct link between what’s in my head and what I play. So even though I was playing classical music, I had no trouble jumping ship from the classical repertoire.
G: So it was an easy switch to more of a pop or rock sound?
AB: I went more to gypsy music, early jazz and Indian music, Norwegian music—anything. I wasn’t really interested in pop music. Eventually that became the most inclusive place to be creative. When you play jazz or any other genres, it can only be that type, like bluegrass is bluegrass, you can do something with it but it’s still restrictive. There’s something about writing a free formative pop song, it’s limitlessly challenging. So that’s my chosen medium.
G: What’s the total number of instruments you can comfortably play and will you be introducing anything new to your performances from violin, guitar, and glockenspiel?
AB: I think I’ve got my hands full as it is. I mean, it’s guitar, glockenspiel, and then I have two different violin rigs, one for pizzicato and one for bowing. It’s a lot. I think I can make the violin sound like anything I want it to sound like.
G: How does whistling fit in to your musical process? Is it something you just use to fill instrumental parts in your songs or is it more than that to you?
AB: Whistling is just something I do casually all day long so it’s really the most honest representation of what’s going on in my head. It’s a pretty powerful achievement live. You wouldn’t think that, with such a whimsical association to whistling, but it’s really such a pure tone. You could say that’s my most personal instrument.
