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Micah P Hinson is out on the road for a brief solo tour in support of his new double covers album, ‘All Dressed Up and Smelling Of Strangers’. Back playing songs the way he started, just the 28year old Texan’s instantly recognisable pack of cigarettes a day voice and his guitar. One of our favourite ever artists at Music Mule, we graciously took the opportunity to sit in the garden at Cargo while Micah sampled some Moroccan goods and answered our questions before his sold out show later that evening.

Like Micah’s new album, the interview was full of so much good stuff we had to split it into two parts. Check back next week for round deux.

What does playing live mean to you?

I don’t know, to explain live music, the way I feel about music man, I think you’ve got to get intertwined with my existence a little bit. This particular tour that I’m playing now Spain, London, Paris and Milan, it represents to me so much more than simple live gigs. I view this stuff as a kind of rebirth. Fuck…how do you say things without actually saying them?! Basically what had happened was I was doing some not very moral things to some very very moral people and some shit went down and I wasn’t even sure for a while whether playing live was going to have to step out of my life. And I guess it did because of my back I cancelled a bunch of gigs. I cancelled Glastonbury, I mean who the fuck has the balls to cancel Glastonbury?! I kind of put my career on the line because if you’re not in people’s faces the whole time then they forget about you so fast but it needed to happen.

How do you feel about playing solo again?

I guess for a while I’ve had a small band with my wife playing piano and organ and then a friend Nick who plays banjo and organ and they’re so easy to hide behind even though I’m singing the songs. You feel this camaraderie not being the only person up there. So you know it’s odd being up there on my own again even though playing solo was how it all started until I met The Earlies. (MM: The Earlies were a UK/U.S.A band that took Micah under their wing, playing on, recording and producing his debut ….And The Gospel Of Progress).

What is your first memory of playing live?

The first time I played live I was like 14 or whatever age you are when you’re in sixth grade. I was going to a Christian school and they had these kind of dinner party events where the band would play and the choir would sing and individual people would perform too. There was this one kid in particular called Jason Euan and he was a goddamn piano genius. He’d memorise all this modern Japanese music and fingers moving faster than a fucking butterfly man. It was insane.

And so that was first show and I wrote a song for one of my girlfriends at the time and I guess that began the idea of what I wanted to do but I clearly never thought in a million years that I’d be here doing this now.  It’s strange every day to be man. It’s a massive blessing, that’s all I can chalk it up to.

Who was the last artist/band you shared a stage with that made you think – “damn this is good!”?

Probably the first time I saw The Twilight Sad form Scotland. Me and my buddy Nick were on tour in America and we showed up to Philadelphia and we had no idea who The Twilight Sad were but we were awestruck by them. It was like that song 2+2=5 by Radiohead. There’s something about the opening to that song and the song itself that holds this power. That’s what you want to see when you watch live music; you want to be kicked in the fucking crotch by something you’re not expecting to kick you in the crotch!

What was the last really memorable gig you played?

Probably Spain. I guess I’m just getting bigger out there. It’s ridiculous that place, I’ve been lucky enough to sell a good few records there and I’ve been able to play festivals like Primavera, Benicassim and I just played one called Isla Christina close to Portugal and it was amazing!

You get to curate a festival stage. You’re playing on it and you get to pick five others. Who would they be?

Early Cure, like disintegration era Cure.

My Bloody Valentine.

Pixies from the Surfer Rosa era to sort of the Trompe Le Monde era.

I think it would have been pretty goddamn stunning to see Bob Dylan back when he was in his prime, you know when he was acting the role of the railroad kid and he was making all these amazing tunes.

David Bezan who used to be in a band called Pedro The Lion (Micah covers their Slow and Steady track on his new album).

Will Johnson.

Josh T Pearson from a band called Lift To Experience.

Have you any had any bizarre heckles, things thrown at you or the like?

I played The Green Man Festival in Wales once and I made an arse out of myself. I made a comment about the shitty English weather, which is obviously very offensive. So on the count of three I got them all to call me a cunt! 1500 people out there shouting cunt at me all at once, it was amazing. I felt a lot better because I’m just a small hillbilly, I don’t want to offend people man.

What have you been listening to lately?

David Bazan’s new record and a single he put out beforehand called American Flags. It’s a story about how all these American flags come off their flagpoles and attack people. It’s biting fucking irony, some really good shit.

Other than that another Full Time Hobby band, School Of Seven Bells. Songs two and three off the album (Alpinisms) I got hooked on. I’m always listening to ‘Loveless’ by My Bloody Valentine too. But when I listen to too much modern music it gets me slightly depressed in a weird way. There’s something soulful and very real about old music because it’s just people in a room playing. Roy Orbison never did a track by track song, it was all live and the Beach Boys ‘Pet Sounds’ that was recorded on a four track or an eight track, I mean holy shit that’s quintessential rock’n’roll.

A lot of modern bands seem to forsake me. I mean the Flaming Lips ‘Hit To Death In The Future Head’ and ‘Ambulance Driver’ were great, ‘The Soft Bulletin’ was fucking genius and almost their peak for me. But a peak on their previous sound and then they put out ‘Yoshimi and The Pink Robots’ and that was a new peak again. But then ‘At War With The Mystics’ I was like… what the fuck?!

It’s sad when bands disappoint you but they’re just humans at the end of the day and I’m sure they’re concerned about disappointing their fans. I mean maybe there are some people that get on stage thinking they’re the bees knees but I don’t fit into that ball park.

In olden times people weren’t thought to be geniuses, they ‘had geniuses’, it was a spirit that attached itself to you, animal or otherwise. What would your genius be?

That’s actually really close to a question my wife asked me the other day. She asked me what my patronus would be, you know like from Harry Potter.  But that’s interesting. I think that the art of creating involves spirits. And there’s been times, shit before I was making this covers record even, that I was questioning has it left me, has it gone? I could sit and noodle in front of a piano but every time I picked up a guitar I just kept on playing C and G like I was thirteen again.

So it’s interesting you mention that because I’ve thought about it. But what would my genius look like? Probably like Iron Man but the original Iron Man when he had that badass old iron suit. Fuck Jack Kirby is a genius man. I’m a massive comic book nerd, I work part time in my friend’s comic book store in Abilene. I’m such a fucking nerd!

buy: Micah P Hinson – All Dressed Up and Smelling Of Strangers

2xCD / mp3 / iTunes

mp3: Micah P Hinson – My Way (Frank Sinatra)

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mp3: Micah P Hinson – The Day Texas Sank To The Bottom Of The Sea

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