Vic Chesnutt is a warrior. So when he exclaims "I am a coward!" on the opening track to newly released At the Cut —Â an album featuring members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Fugazi — don't be fooled. Confined to a wheelchair since the age of 18, Chesnutt has reached ears far and wide via a two-decades-long career, with nearly 15 albums under his belt. He's collaborated with artists as eclectic as Bill Frisell and as mainstream as Michael Stipe. To call anything close to Chesnutt's perseverance and courage "cowardly" would be a sin.
Chesnutt was uniquely candid as he discussed brain-trust, chinaberry trees, and his grandmother's undying love with TMT.
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You have such a large body of work, Vic. From your perspective what feels especially different about At The Cut than your past records?
Well, it has as much in common with all my other records, I'd say. I wrote all the songs and everything. The thing that makes it so special, this album, is the sheer talent of people that play on it. The brain trust of [participants] on this album, is pretty much unprecedented. It's amazing. Truly amazing.
Did you say brain trust?
Yeah, the brain trust on this record is incredible. Everybody has put in a great deal of thought into what they play on this record and ideas about what to play on it — arrangements and everything. It's incredible brain trust.
That's a great term. I understand there are members from Godspeed You! Black Emperor on the record. Are you a fan of their music? How did that come about?
Oh yeah. God, y'know, Huge fan of there's —Â one of the best shows I ever saw.
I once saw them in Cleveland, Ohio and it was incredible. They had a backdrop with different visuals going on. One of them was this really bizarre, black and white slow motion scene of a Wal Mart — outside a Wal Mart. The way it fit in made it an absolutely devastating performance.
Yeah, very moving show. Very moving show. So, playing with these guys, I have this kind of cinematic depth. [It's] incredible for me —Â a dream come true for a singer-songwriter like myself who's come from an acoustic tradition. I've dabbled in distortion my whole career and the "quiet/loud" thing, but nobody was dynamic as Godspeed or Silver Mount Zion. It was Jim Cohen's idea to join us together and he was brilliant.
The first track "Coward" is a good example of that giant range of dynamics. Were you conscious of that when you were working on that song?
On this album you mean?
Yeah, this album
We'd been on tour together so we kind of worked out our sonic landscape. We worked out what we do on tour. So we knew that sometimes we would slam. Like "Coward," the first song, we'd played that on tour every night. That was kind of the template for what we would do. Start out with me and then the rest of the people would join in. I was very surprised when the whole album didn't turn out like that. That's how I envisioned it when I started — quiet and then slam, quiet and slam ... but it ended up being a lot more eclectic than that and more fully realized than other albums I've done. Its song had its own treatment, really. [It reminded me] of the White Album in that way for some reason. I don't why, but when we recorded it I thought, "man, this reminds me of the White Album and I don't know why."
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"That's how I envisioned it when I started — quiet and then slam, quiet and slam."
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That's probably my favorite one
Yeah, man I love — me too.
In the past, you've worked with a lot of people, but Bill Frisell, in particular, is a real hero of mine. How did that come about.
Well, I met Bill Frisell at a Randy Newman tribute at UCLA in 2003 and we hit it off. I'm a big fan of his and I was shocked when I got to play with him. He said, "We should record together," and so we did. I actually played a couple shows with him in Germany with him backing me up, so then we just made a full-on album together.
That's interesting to me because his records tend to use a wide range of dynamics as well
Right. Yeah, very much.
Have you listened to East/West?
Which one?
East/West. It's a double album
Yes, yes.
One of my favorites.
I'm so enamored of his abilities. It can just transport me. It can completely transport me. Beautiful things he does with just his guitar. It's incredible. I don't know anybody who can do what he can do.
My favorite song on At the Cut is "Chinaberry Tree." What went into that song or inspired it?
Well, it was inspired by something my father-in-law told me. I've got a chinaberry tree in my backyard and he was looking at and said "That's the biggest chinaberry tree I've ever seen!" And then he said "That's the biggest chinaberry tree that's ever been!" And I got a flutter in my heart and I immediately ran inside and wrote it down. That idea was transformed into this weird symbol. The chinaberry tree became this weird symbol. Y'know, a chinaberry tree is kind of a nuisance tree in many ways. They pop up everywhere and are hard to get rid of. To me, it was a symbol for something. It turned into this weird hallucination.
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""That's the biggest chinaberry tree I've ever seen!" And then he said "That's the biggest chinaberry tree that's ever been!" And I got a flutter in my heart and I immediately ran inside and wrote it down."
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Another track on the album is called "Granny." Is that autobiographical at all?
It's completely autobiographical. I dreamed that song exactly the way it is — in time. I was in a hotel room in Toronto when I was filming The Trinity Sessions Revisited with The Cowboy Junkies. [...] I was dreaming and in my dream, I was looking up at my Granny from the perspective of a child. I was crying in my dream. Oh shit there's my dog parking [barking sounds].
And then I was singing this song to her. When I woke up I was crying, completely. My face was soaking wet. Immediately, I was like, "Oh no, this is a great song." So, I reached over and grabbed the hotel stationary and a hotel pen and I wrote down the words. [...] Then i got the guitar and figured out the chords and there it is.
It's heavy stuff, the way you've described it. The song is in a minor key until the very end when you hit that major modulation with "You are the light of my life and the beat of my heart." It's just achingly beautiful.
Thanks. My granny used to always tell me that. She said that my granddad, her husband, died just before I was born and so that I filled a place in her heart. I was the love of her life and the beat of her heart. [...] The light of her life and the beat of her heart.
So I don't know why the song came to me in my dream but there it is. One of the heaviest songs I've ever written. Just straight out of the subconscious — straight out of the subconscious.
I missed you when I went to a festival in Grand Rapids called the Festival of Faith and Music. You were supposed to be there but I believe you got sick or something like that. Is that right?
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"That's how I envisioned it when I started — quiet and then slam, quiet and slam."
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Yeah. I had a sore —Â a bad sore on my foot. And I couldn't get in or out of bed, really, by myself. And nobody else could come with me. So I really screwed the pooch on that one. I really wanted to do it. I'd just got back from tour from somewhere and I had this bad sore on my foot. It took a long time to heal.
People were sort of bummed but I'm sure you had to do the right thing.
Well, I would've come for sure because I was really looking forward to it. I was scared I would keep falling. Getting in and out of cabs and stuff like that would've been hard. Everything would've been hard at the moment. That's the thing about my body. I can be side-lined pretty easily. Unlike other people, y'know? I can be side-lined pretty easily.
Does that give you more ambition to try harder because you have to work so hard?
Well, I'm not sure about that. I get a lot of joy out of doing what I do. And that's great motivation. I love playing and singing and I love to tour. Playing on stage is a great thing and people seem to like it. That's why I do it. I'm not ambitious in that [sense], I know I wouldn't be pursuing it if people didn't ask me to. I'd still be singing my songs at home and probably recording on a four-track. I certainly wouldn't be forcing it down nobody's throat that's for sure.
One of my favorite memories of seeing you play was with the Undertow Orchestra with David Bazan, Mark Eitzel, and others.
Yeah, that was an incredible experience.
Everyone was sharing songs and rotating around. I saw it in Grand Rapids. Will there ever be another tour?
I doubt it. But I was hoping we would. At the time, I surely wanted to make an album with those guys. I really respect all those guys. David Bazan is one of the best songwriters and singers out there and a great musician.
I believe so.
I love all those guys. Will [Johnson], of course, is incredible. I love all those guys and Mark Eitzel has been one of my songwriting heroes for over 20 years.
[Photo: Jem Cohen]
