"All the flowers are in bloom in my little world.." Interview with Beaux Davis Chant's guitar player, singer and lyricist (April 2000)

I UNDERSTAND THE BAND HAS SOME INTERESTING BIRTHDAYS?
I was born on Valentine's Day and I'm the ultimate Aquarian. Joe was born on April 1st. The April fool. And he is the joker in the band. Tom was born on Groundhog Day. We're always waiting for him to come out of his living room. And our manager, Ray Wilkerson, was born on New Year's Eve. He's a classic Capricorn.

HOW DID YOU BEGIN CREATING MUSIC?
It was a competitive thing. My sister wound up with an acoustic guitar before me, but she broke three strings. I snagged it from her because she didn’t care about it anymore. I would just sit in my bedroom and plunk away on it and also play this cheap air organ I had. That was my thing. I haven’t always had the greatest equipment......but I decided early on I wanted to be a songwriter. One morning when I was in sixth grade I wrote a song. I thought it was cool thing. The rest of the day at school I was elated. Every time I’ve written a cool song since then, I’ve felt the same way.

Castaway Pilgrim The owl sings His song unsung But he sings it for you Castaway Pilgrim We will find you naked and alone We will find you waiting for the sun

WHAT WAS IT LIKE GROWING UP ACROSS THE STREET FROM JOHN LEE HOOKER IN GILROY, CALIFORNIA.
He called me Lil’ Bo. I was too young to know who he was, but I knew he was somebody because every adult knew who he was. I didn’t have an albums by him until he gave me one. He had a couple of Les Pauls. One was red and one was black and they had gold nuts and a gold bridge. I had a student’s guitar that never stayed in tune, but it was a great excuse to go across the street and have him tune it. I would sit there in his bedroom while he was in his underwear.

YOU DON’T HAVE A BLUES STYLE NECESSARILY. DID YOU PICK ANYTHING UP FROM HIM?
There are two licks that I do know of that I do. One is on acoustic and it’s this octave thing on opposite sides of the neck. The other, on electric, hurts to play. You take your right hand and flick the strings. Bam-briiiing. Kind of a hammer and a trill.

Unlucky in Love You skinned your heart. You like to play the part of the lonely lover. You took your heart. You threw it to the tides of love and it washed up on the shores of despair.

WHAT OTHER MUSICIANS OR ARTISTS OR AUTHORS HAVE INSPIRED YOU THE MOST?
Lyrically speaking, I got into British literature like "Ozymandias" and Shelley, Keats and Byron. On Out of Mohave, I also insert some Stephen Hawking. I always thought a song should stand on its own poetically and just have music to it. It’s just the way I feel. By the same token music must stand on it own as well so when you put the two together.....Musically, mostly I have a Western experience. I haven’t been exposed that much to African, Indian or Chinese music because I grew up in the West.

WHAT DO YOU TRY TO MAKE YOUR MUSIC COMMUNICATE?
It depends upon my mood. I usually try to convey a haunting, baying melancholy with a bitter herb thing in there (laughs). Like it's going to work out, but look out, you know.

DESERT IMAGES APPEAR IN SOME OF YOUR SONGS. I KNOW YOU LIKE TO GO TO THE MOHAVE DESERT A LOT.

Out of Mojave There was a time when I was lost In the seems of a thousand thoughts. And the seams became the walls Became the walls in which I dreamed.

I like getting away from society. The machine is gone there. We all made it down once as a band and I’ve been back there a couple of times. We go camping, have a bonfire, do some jamming. I didn’t realize this at the time, but when I wrote the song Out of Mojave, the sun was going down and it was really red out and the lyric goes "chocolate mountains, cherry skies..." It wasn’t until about a year ago I looked on a map, and where we were was just a few miles from a mountain range called the Chocolate Mountains.

YOU WERE WORKING ON A VIDEO THAT ALSO HAD A DESERT IMAGE?
On Castaway Pilgrim, I want to have this boat sitting in the middle of the desert. You see this guy in it fighting the waves and he’s all wet but then the camera pans back and the guy is just sitting in this dinghy surrounded by desert. He’s hallucinating. And at the end, the boat would get set on fire.

Purple It was some time later. See that familiar face of that perfect stranger. Whatever happened to you? I haven't seen you in all of these years. Does purple still look good on you?

WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO BUSK IN LONDON’S PICCADILLY CIRCUS?
Mike (Iacuessa), who produced our album has a place there and I went and jammed on the streets for a couple of weeks. When I would get a pound in the case, I felt privileged because a pound is worth $1.70 in the U.S. It’s a big tip. Even though I was from another country, I feel I added to the color of Piccadilly Circus the times I was there. It was also a bit of a litmus test for myself to see how people there would react to my music.

WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW? I HEAR THAT YOU HAVE WRITTEN MOST OF THE SONGS FOR YOUR NEXT ALBUM ALREADY.
It’s going to be called A Place Where People Go to Dream. The name is taken from an etching by Medardo, who also did the drawing on the credits page of the New Evolution CD booklet. He made this picture called "Here is Where People Go to Dream," where people are basically being hung, but by their ankles. They’re upside down. It’s really powerful. I always wanted to make an album with that title. Even before I’d written the song.

IF YOU COULD JAM WITH ANYONE LIVING OR DEAD WHO WOULD IT BE WITH?
The band I’m in. If I was to end up jamming with other people I think they would become impatient with me.