What The Music Wants To Be: An Interview with Mike Doughty

Mike Doughty in Toronto
Photo © Barry Sanders

Popshifter: So you sort of designed this album so that it is playable live?

Mike Doughty: Yeah, not that I’ve really ever had difficulty playing anything live—

Popshifter: Well, there’s a big history of samples in Soul Coughing—

Mike Doughty: Yeah! Which were all played live, they were being triggered live. In the Knitting Factory in the early 90s there were all these guys playing samplers with jazz trios and stuff; it was a very normal thing to do. We weren’t a loop-based band, where we’d come out, start a track, and then play to the track.

Just in terms of playing songs in general, I’ve never felt obligated to reproduce something on a record. I’ve always tried to find a way to twist it just a little bit when I play it live.

So it wasn’t necessarily playability that I was thinking about. In fact, there are tracks with an extra guitar or an extra keyboard, and I could have actually brought another guy. But I didn’t want to bring another guy; I wanted it to be this particular quartet.

Popshifter: So tell me about the current line-up of the band. Is it very different from Haughty Melodic? Who’s in it and why did you pick those guys?

Mike Doughty: Yeah, Haughty Melodic was done piece-by-piece, so we started with a drum machine, a piano, and a guitar, and then thought, well, let’s get bass, let’s get horns. . . and it sort of stacked up as the process went by, which was a really long, two-and-a-half year process. And we’d go home for a month. And when you’re home for a month, you end up thinking of like, thirty other things that you can do, rather than being in sort of a high-pressure situation like, we’re gonna get this thing done in six weeks, which is more what it was like this time around.

Andrew “Scrap” Livingston
Photo © Barry Sanders

Actually, Pete found me, actually, and wanted to play with me. I wasn’t looking to reproduce Haughty Melodic and I just had an intuitive connection with him. He brought John Kirby in and I gradually began to integrate those guys.

Popshifter: Is small rock dead?

Mike Doughty: Is small rock dead?! (laughs)

Popshifter: Will small rock come back?

Mike Doughty: Well, I did this show. . . I didn’t do it in Toronto. . .

Popshifter:. . . The Question Jar Show.

Mike Doughty: The Question Jar Show! . . . I didn’t do it in Toronto, I did it in Vancouver, didn’t do it in Toronto.

Popshifter: . . . and we cried (laughs). . .

Mike Doughty: Oh yeah, you cried! (laughs) My ass, you cried! (laughs more) Really, they were fun shows. It was me and Scrap who plays bass in this quartet, but he also plays cello and guitar.

And man! They were so much fun. We’re looking to do a multiple-night-stand at someplace really tiny in New York. We can maybe record—we might just do it for the hell of it—but we might record it and do a live album, I might do an album that way. . .

The other thing I’m doing right now is like electro-house music on a laptop. I’ve been spinning, well, I’ve been plugging my computer in and manipulating—mousing—at after-shows on this tour. On the one hand, I’m really into this acoustic thing with cello and guitar, and on the other hand, I’m really into house music.

Popshifter: And for those who don’t know, geeky fanboy that I am, I’m referencing stuff that you know, so why don’t you explain the “small rock” philosophy?

Mike Doughty: Basically, on my first solo tour, I played and really liked these guitars made by Taylor. They were practice guitars and they cost about $150 and they’re called “Baby Taylors” and they’re maybe half the size of a regular guitar. And I’m a big guy, so they look kinda funny on me? So I just started making fun of myself at shows and saying, “This is small rock. Big rock is over. Small rock is here. The small rock way of life will gradually permeate every level of our society. . . ”

Then I got a band and it became “medium rock.”

Click to read more from Mike Doughty on. . .

Song development and self-plagiarism
Words and war
Politics and parameters of the new album
Scrap, Pete, & John and “Small Rock”
Secret codes and Scott Wynn from The Panderers
The Rock Star Echelon and retirement plans

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