Sean Patrick McGraw
Country Musician To Hold Local CD Release PartyBy Nick Dean
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Chautauqua County continues to be a regular tour stop for Sean Patrick McGraw, who will play Falconer and Fredonia this weekend before working his way back West.
A Dunkirk native and 1989 graduate of the Fredonia School of Music, McGraw has called Nashville his home since the mid-1990s and is in town this weekend for more than just two gigs. On Friday, McGraw will release his new CD, ''Long Way From Slowin' Down,'' at a special CD release show at Valentine's Place in Fredonia.
A country musician who made it to the semifinals as a contestant on the USA Network's ''Nashville Star'' in 2004, McGraw has since been featured twice on Country Music Television. Taking some time between gigs to e-mail The Post-Journal, McGraw answered the following questions earlier this week:
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.''
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For more from The Post-Journal's e-mail interview with Sean Patrick McGraw, visit ''The Dean's List'' blog at www.post-journal.com. For more info about Sean Patrick McGraw or his upcoming shows, visit www.post-journal.com.
