Hoots & Hellmouth Interview Pt. 2

Hoots & Hellmouth - "This Hand is a Mighty Hand" from Ian Messinger on Vimeo.

Hoots & Hellmouth - "The Good I Know You Know"

A few months later -- okay, 6 months, several tours and the near completion of a yet-to-be-released album later -- I caught up with Burgundy Bearded Bard himself, Mr. Sean Hoots, to finish the interview (note: actual bearded status may vary by state and time of reading).


Me: "Folk Music" is usually defined in academic circles by two criteria: how the music is played (the sound being created by "unschooled" musicians using "rustic" instruments), or by who is playing the music ("the folks," as it were). But you guys have really invented a third criteria: the makeup of the audience, in this case a set of "folks" all their own who seem as integral to the band's force as the music itself. How do you explain the Populist aspect of the music and live performances?

Sean Hoots: i think music, in its very nature, is a unifying force. it's one of those few essential common threads that runs through every culture as far back as we can fathom. while there may be a visible physical difference between the performer and any given audience (but not always!), the music that is shared creates a free-access psychic superhighway that allows energy to travel both ways between the crowd and the stage. it's a complete circle...a closed circuit of spiritual shazaam. and no, the circle will not be broken. by and by, lord, by and by.

Me: You've said in Origivation that you "respect tradition but [aren't] trying to be traditional." Where do you see yourselves in the "folk music" tradition?

SH: like any other link in the chain...we're just happy to be strung along.

Me: Would you consider yourself part of the "Freak Folk" movement, or do you see yourselves as more traditional -- either through instrumentation or purpose -- than other acts labeled as such?

SH: i suppose we're all freakish in some manner given our disposition against the seeming status quo in our current culture. but at the same time, i am inextricably part of that very same culture just by being alive...producing expressions, commentary, explosions of untellable intent. we are all part of a greater fabric, but luckily we get to be in charge of our own little sections. i like to decorate mine with fragments and scraps from all over.

Me: Where does the new material fit into all of the above? How different is it from what's come before? (Feel free to plug the upcoming record -- and does it have a name or release date yet?)

SH: any new material is different from that which precedes it in linear terms only. taken as a whole, it all hovers about a central muse-axis (where x is spirit, y is flesh and z is the mind). we've been working a lot of these "newer" songs out in the live setting in recent months, and they're just about in fighting shape. we hope to release a fully realized recorded collection of them upon the masses in early '09 sometime.

Me: Going back to Andrew's story below about not having to come up with a name for the band, how do you turn what started out as a casual collective into a touring and recording workhorse? And what kind of implications and expectations does a sophomore album carry with it for a band that started as a happy accident?

SH: the thing about happy accidents that no one ever wants to speak to is that even though there may not be any tears shed (and thus it is more or less "happy"), there are still dents in your fender from the collision (it is, after all, an "accident," y'know?). but we've been banging around this ol' body with a hammer now for a good little while now, and we like the work. we've always been men of a puritan labor ethic. music provides the inspiration about which we are busy building a hive. we feel this music is worth cultivating and, ultimately, exploiting, and to that end, we've been lucky enough to find the assistance we need along the way from some very able-bodied and minded people who share our vision. as long as doors keep opening, we will continue to explore new rooms. the sophomore dance should be fun. butterflies in the stomach, a little too much of yer father's cologne...but even so, it's just a practice for the prom, so we're not applying the senior pressure just yet. i mean, it's just music, right?!

There will be more videos from the Fire performance up on YouTube in coming days -- just search for user "MyOtherCentaur" and revel in the glory.