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The Dean's List

POSTED:Thu, December 18, 2008 @ 1:47PM

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Q&A With Sean Patrick McGraw

Today's edition of The Post-Journal features a Q&A with Sean Patrick McGraw. The article can be found online HERE.

Because of space limitations, I could only fit about six of the 10 questions in the paper.

What follows is the full e-mail Q&A I conducted with Sean Patrick McGraw earlier this week. The questions that didn't make the paper are the first few listed below.

To read an article I wrote about Sean Patrick McGraw back in January, click HERE.

ND - Give me the quick refresher course on all your television appearances. First there was "Nashville Star" and then there was multiple appearances on CMT, correct?

SPM - Before Nashville star I was on the Opry with Dean Miller and it was so spur-of-the-moment I didn’t get to tell anyone about it -- and the day after it was on TV I had all these people calling me up asking: “Were you on TNN last night?” And then after the "Nashville Star" thing I did a show for CMT called “Ten Days on Tour” and we filmed an appearance at CMT’s “Unplugged Sessions at 330” this last April.

ND - You come back to Chautauqua County and Western New York pretty regularly. What keeps you coming back? Other than it's home? Or is that pretty much the reason? Even just in Chautauqua County, you play a variety of venues -- from Mel's in Falconer and the Lakeview in Mayville to Mojo's and Valentine's. How do these venues shape up to others throughout the country? Have you played some pretty scuzzy dive bars? And some pretty grand ballrooms? What are your favorite venues to play outside this county? Any memorable shows or tour stories you want to share

SPM - As a matter of making a living, I realized that I had to play as many shows as I could to pay for my gas. With the economy doing what it’s doing, it’s not like playing bars is anyway to make a living but if you work at playing a lot — like you would want to put in hours at any other job - then I find that I can make a living. And besides I have fun playing little taverns by myself – it’s like hosting a party and at the end of the night you leave with some cash in your pocket.

So far as venues go we are ALL over the place. Last week for example: We played for maybe 40 people at the Sportsmen's in Buffalo and then the next night we opened for Luke Bryan at Towson University for about 500, played in Vermont the next night for a couple hundred and then I played Sunday afternoon at Kennedy Grill for a handful of people. So long as the audience is having a good time it’s all the same to me.

ND - What will Friday's CD release party at Valentine's consist of? Solo? Or with your full band? And will you be playing the new CD start to finish? Or mixed in with some of your older stuff?

SPM - We’ll be playing about half the CD. Full band. A bunch of older original stuff and some old school country — and if that doesn’t get the crowd rowdy, we’ll go to plan B. I have NO idea what plan B is, but we’ll go there.

ND - We spoke earlier this year, in January, I think, and you had mentioned having played more than 140 shows in 2007. How did 2008 shape up? More? Less? And what does 2009 look like it will hold for you? Time off? Or more touring because of the new CD?

SPM - I had fully intended to slow down the whole touring thing for 2008 but when the price of gas went up to $4.50 a gallon everybody else started canceling shows and my phone started ringing and I was too stupid to say 'No.' 2009 is looking busy so far. We're going to Key West, to Wyoming, to England. I tour to pay my bills and 'cause I'm still having fun doing it.

ND - How long has the new CD been in the works? Your last CD, 'Songs For Saturday Night,' came out when? 2005? Have the songs on the new CD been kicking around in your head since then? Do any of them pre-date 'Songs For Saturday Night'? Or were they all written more recently?

SPM - I basically started writing the new CD before the last one was even done and I'm already recording my next record as we speak. Putting together a recording is a matter of balancing out the heartfelt stuff with the crap that people can dance to. But seriously, I just try to assemble a bunch of song I've written that people respond to.

ND - Describe your typical songwriting process. Or does each song come about in different ways? Early on, some of your songs were recorded by other artists... right? Is there a difference in writing songs for other people versus putting an album of songs together for yourself?

SPM - Sometimes I 'write' songs, and sometimes I just kind of receive them out of thin air. If I'm not writing with another artist in mind - meaning I'll steer the idea toward what I think that artist would say - then I'm trying to find things to say that I think my audience will respond to - hopefully meaning they'll dance as opposed to throwing stuff at me.

ND - How does 'Long Way From Slowin' Down' shape up in the Sean Patrick McGraw catalogue? Is there a sound you're moving toward with this release? Or a sound you're moving away from? I haven't heard anything from 'All Things Texan,' 'Mmiii,' or 'Tales From the Wild Midwest,' but I've got to imagine your songwriting has evolved during the course of the last decade. Do you think it has evolved? Or is it not a matter of evolution? And these songs are as good as the others in your catalogue, just different?

SPM - The songs on the new CD are probably a little simpler lyrically. I've learned a lot from being on the road so much. The word of an original song in the kind of places I play have to connect with the audience right away or I'm just gonna lose 'em. My other CDs were written without any of that in mind.

ND - Have the last three years of your life, since releasing 'Songs For Saturday Night,' been much different than the three that preceded that release? Have you toured more? Or about the same? And were there experiences in the last few years that served as fodder for some of these songs? How much of your songwriting is recent experience? How much is stuff from your youth? And how much is fictional narrative stuff you've come up with?

SPM - I've been totally self-employed for the last several years. No sideman gigs, no songwriting deal. And the amount of time doing what I'd consider 'working' has been pretty much what I do all day every day - I'm a one man booking agent, road manager, den mother. Of course the lifestyle influences the songs, but I hate to reminisce - I'll leave that to Kenny Chesney. Let me see: on the new CD, I've written about living fast, broken relationships, barrooms, barmaids, drinking in bars, cowtipping, guys with mullets and the sad state of the economy which leads to more about barrooms and drinking in barrooms. I try to say something in my own way about the way we all feel.

ND - Do the stories in your songs come from your upbringing in New York? Or do you draw more on the experiences you've had out-of-state, in more southern states? You've called Nashville home for a long time now, right? Do you think your music has moved toward a more authentic country in recent years? Or is that a silly question? I know some people are nuts about authenticity and 'street cred' and whatnot... and I'm wondering whether anyone's ever given you trouble about having been brought up in New York and then your becoming a country musician. Have you had to respond to that sort of criticism? How do you respond to that sort of criticism?

SPM - I've had people wonder how the hell I got into country being from N.Y. I'm not from New York CITY, I tell them. You can be from Texas and grow up in Dallas and that's a big city and no one questions your 'street cred.' But it happens to me, a guy from Dunkirk, N.Y., population 15,000? Nashville is 10 times as big. But whatever. I started writing a song about that whole issue - it's called 'Countrier than Thou.'

ND - Anything else you want to say about you, your band, your music or this CD? Or anything you want people reading this Q&A to know about all the aforementioned stuff or about this weekend's show?

SPM - I’m really fortunate to have the band I have. They’re great players and great people. We’ve lived in close quarters for a long time now and everybody still enjoys eachother's company so far as I can tell. I didn’t want to be pretentious about having a “release” party, but ya have to self-promote in this world. So there ya go.

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