“Once you’re on the outside looking in, it’s very hard to walk in the door again.”
American singer-songwriter Tim Scott McConnell has been living in Norway for the best part of three decades, and has just released a most excellent new album called ‘Outsiders’ under his LEDFOOT moniker. A perfect opportunity for Keys and Chords for a ZOOM chat with the friendly and talented musician.
Julian De Backer: ‘I just got your album today, the day of the interview, haha. Needed a very quick listen. Congratulations on the album. What was the initial idea for this record?’
Tim Scott McConnell: ‘I had some songs that I had been collecting. I grew up in the south in North America. One of my all-time, milestone favourite records in the world was ‘Gunfire Ballads’ by Marty Robbins. The whole record is about losers. About the fact that they recognized the fact that they were fucking up against, and it wasn’t gonna work out good. But they still had this pride, and this ‘Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, I’m going to get through this’. The same with writers like Charles Bukowski and Tom Waits. I just wanted to write songs about fucking trying, you know? (laughs) And about how these people are minimalized in and by society. They’re just as proud as anybody else. I thought ‘Fuck it, I’m gonna write a record about these guys’.’ Julian: ‘Beautiful losers. They’re genuine, they’re real.’ Tim: ‘It’s that cliché. To dream the impossible dream. That’s what it’s all about. Whether or not you’re a fucking stockbroker or a junkie in an alley, you have the same fucking dreams. The dreams are not really consequential. What’s important, is having that dream and holding on to it like a little beacon of light. When I write songs as Ledfoot, I do everything myself. This record was more about a collective consciousness. Everybody who is on the outside. My interpretation alone would be too specific. So I thought ‘I gotta bring in other musicians’ and then I put them up against the wall’. We did all the tracks in three days. Fuck you, you’re gonna get it right, because that’s what you do when you’re suspects to a murder. You’re sitting in the fucking confession room, and you’re going ‘I better get this right this time’.’ Julian: ‘You only have one shot. I really like the title as well. ‘Outsiders’ says it all. You guys are on the fringes of society, trying to make the best record you can.’ Tim: ‘It’s about honesty. There’s all these shiny motherfuckers in the world. All these big people who say: ‘Enough about me, what do you think about me?’ That kind of narcissism. There’s a whole lot of people that have small dreams, but those dreams are big as shit in their world. Nobody sings about them. Except in blues, and in old school soul music, and in country and western. Three chords and the truth. To me, that’s essential. To be a part of the public consciousness that’s very quickly being smothered by narcissism. It’s one thing to say ‘look at me’, it’s another thing to say ‘don’t take a good look at me, because things aren’t working out right now, but I’m fucking trying!’’ (laughs) |
Julian: ‘The back artwork features you guys’ mugshots. There’s a very famous one of Bill Gates, I don’t know whether or not you have seen it.’
Tim: ‘No, but I’m sure it’s up there with Elvis’ and Sinatra’s.’
Julian: ‘Have you ever had a real mugshot taken?’
Tim: ‘No, I’ve spent the night in jail three times, but they didn’t book me.’
Julian: ‘Would have been cool to feature your real mugshot on the album.’
Tim: ‘No, no, you’re completely wrong, there’s nothing proud about being brought down. Despite everything, I’m pretty proud about never being arrested.’
Julian: ‘Do you still feel like an outsider after thirty years in Norway? Are you still the foreigner, the American?’
Tim: ‘If I was ... if I thought too much about me, then I would say yes. But knowing where I come from. I’m a Southener, I was born in a trailer home, I’m Southern white trash. Even in your own country you can feel like a foreigner, because you don’t fit in. You just don’t fucking fit in. Whether or not that’s America or Norway or anywhere that I may go in the near future, once you get that instilled in you at a young age, once you have that feeling, you can’t lose it. You know what I’m saying? Once you’re on the outside looking in, it’s very hard to walk in the door again. Wherever you are.’
Tim: ‘No, but I’m sure it’s up there with Elvis’ and Sinatra’s.’
Julian: ‘Have you ever had a real mugshot taken?’
Tim: ‘No, I’ve spent the night in jail three times, but they didn’t book me.’
Julian: ‘Would have been cool to feature your real mugshot on the album.’
Tim: ‘No, no, you’re completely wrong, there’s nothing proud about being brought down. Despite everything, I’m pretty proud about never being arrested.’
Julian: ‘Do you still feel like an outsider after thirty years in Norway? Are you still the foreigner, the American?’
Tim: ‘If I was ... if I thought too much about me, then I would say yes. But knowing where I come from. I’m a Southener, I was born in a trailer home, I’m Southern white trash. Even in your own country you can feel like a foreigner, because you don’t fit in. You just don’t fucking fit in. Whether or not that’s America or Norway or anywhere that I may go in the near future, once you get that instilled in you at a young age, once you have that feeling, you can’t lose it. You know what I’m saying? Once you’re on the outside looking in, it’s very hard to walk in the door again. Wherever you are.’
Julian: ‘You’ve never felt particularly American?’
Tim: ‘I went to twenty schools and I skipped grades. I went to four kindergartens, too. My father was a boiler maker and a troubleshooter. So we’d go to an oil rig or a refinery, and if it took two months to fix it, then we’d move again and go to a next stop. I learned to lose my accent when I moved to the north, because I realized (emphasized drawl) IF ... I ... TALK ... THIS ... WAY, they’d fucking kick the shit out of me. I’ve never really had a home in America. In Norway, I’m home. I have four kids. I still don’t FEEL that I have a home, but I’m a father. I have become the home.’ Julian: ‘Your kids are adults now?’ Tim: ‘My two youngest are 13 and 16, and they’re my best buds. When my youngest leaves home, I’ll be 72. It’s going to be sweet revenge. This motherfucker, I pushed him around for years, and just when he fucking becomes an adult, he has to push me around.’ Julian: ‘In a wheelchair.’ Tim: ‘Irony, it’s a beautiful thing.’ Julian: ‘It’s quite cool that you picked Norway out of all possible countries. It has always fascinated me, intrigued me, my favourite pop band a-ha is Norwegian, it’s in my top-3 ‘to visit’ countries.’ Tim: ‘Back in 1993, my band The Havalinas had just toured with Bob Dylan and Crowded House. We split up, and I got offered a solo tour of Norway. At that point, I hadn’t had an apartment, because I was on the road so much. I didn’t have a reason to own an apartment anywhere. So the band broke up, and I said ‘Fuck it, I’m going to tour Norway’. The plan was to take a couple of months off and rent a place there. Which I did, and then I started having kids (laughs). I’m a no-bullshit father. If this is their home, then it’s gotta be my home. I didn’t choose Norway, Norway chose me. It is a very interesting country to come to, because it has been isolated, almost xenophobic. They stay out of everything. I can relate to that, in a way. It’s very hard to become a neighbour here. But I never wanted to be a friendly neighbour anyway. People are more standoffish here, and that doesn’t bother me at all. You only need two or three friends in life. Norway has humbled me a lot and taught me a lot. It’s made me realize that it’s inconsequential to say that you’re from ‘somewhere’.’ |
Julian: ‘But you did make one or two friends?’
Tim: ‘It’s my home. I have worked hard to establish myself here. I have some really close musician friends, and my kids. I wouldn’t wanna be anywhere else. I’d love to visit Belgium.’
Julian: ‘Please feel welcome.’
Tim: ‘I went there briefly, ten years ago. It was on the way to France. I think I did two shows in Belgium, but they were basically ‘Let’s just fill in our nights with a show’.’
Julian: ‘Do you happen to have a favourite venue for performing?’
Tim: ‘I have a favourite audience, one that’s three beers before drunk. They have to be adults, and I’m not talking about age. Some of the most crass, asinine youngsters I have ever met were my age. I like a wise audience. Sometimes it can be 3000 people, and sometimes it can be 25. All you’re trying to do is make one person cry, or make one person laugh, or make one person’s hair stand up. If you can fucking convince that motherfucker, you’re probably doing a good job. So I don’t really look at audiences so much. I take out two or three people that I can read like a barometer. I work for those motherfuckers, and I work very hard for them. I played Glastonbury, I’ve done shitloads. It doesn’t matter.’
Tim: ‘It’s my home. I have worked hard to establish myself here. I have some really close musician friends, and my kids. I wouldn’t wanna be anywhere else. I’d love to visit Belgium.’
Julian: ‘Please feel welcome.’
Tim: ‘I went there briefly, ten years ago. It was on the way to France. I think I did two shows in Belgium, but they were basically ‘Let’s just fill in our nights with a show’.’
Julian: ‘Do you happen to have a favourite venue for performing?’
Tim: ‘I have a favourite audience, one that’s three beers before drunk. They have to be adults, and I’m not talking about age. Some of the most crass, asinine youngsters I have ever met were my age. I like a wise audience. Sometimes it can be 3000 people, and sometimes it can be 25. All you’re trying to do is make one person cry, or make one person laugh, or make one person’s hair stand up. If you can fucking convince that motherfucker, you’re probably doing a good job. So I don’t really look at audiences so much. I take out two or three people that I can read like a barometer. I work for those motherfuckers, and I work very hard for them. I played Glastonbury, I’ve done shitloads. It doesn’t matter.’
Julian: ‘You wanna convince your audience.’
Tim: ‘If you’re not AC/DC, you have to look the fucker in the eye. You make sure you connect with your audience. I come from the South, and I remember my aunt Martha. She said to me: ‘Timmy, you know what I love more than anything else in the world? I love to see a man work’. And that’s what every audience too. They wanna see you fucking work for them, and then they’ll love you.’ Julian: ‘I once talked to a Belgian songwriter who had a reputation for being arrogant. He told me: ‘I’m not arrogant at all, I always play the audience’s favourite songs, I always play the hits they wanna hear. I want them to have a good time’.’ Tim: ‘I want to convince my audience that I’m allowed to play my B-sides, the small stuff. I want them to understand why these songs are significant, they have to get to know me well enough. You get to understand why they mean so much to me. I know they want to hear the hits, but you know what? Small songs are little moments, little secrets that people tell. Modern listeners seem to miss getting into the whole catalogue. Artists have a vista, a big picture to tell. The little secrets give an insight into an artist’s soul, instead of the listener just peeking through a peephole. I’m sorry, I’m talking too much.’ Julian: ‘Not at all. You mentioned Tom Waits earlier. I’m a big fan of ‘Orphans’, his 7-LP collection of B-sides and sketches. Waits himself said something very funny about the collection: ‘These are the songs that fell behind the stove while making dinner’’ Tim: ‘You know what, I knew Tom Waits in the old days. I used to run into him all the time. I was in England recording with a band I had back then called The Rockats. We were signed to Island Records, and we were making an album in Basing Street Studios where – amongst others - Roxy Music laid down their tracks. It’s 1980, we wander out in the factory neighbourhood, it’s about eleven o’ clock, and there’s a Kentucky Fried Chicken. We order some fucking food, we sit on the fucking steps, and I’m not bullshitting you, we look over, and there’s Tom Waits. And he goes: ‘Hey, you’re hungry too?’ For him, it was business as usual. He didn’t bat an eye. We were like: ‘Isn’t this fucking weird?’ Cool guy.’ |
Julian: ‘One of my favourite tracks on your new album is the opening track, ‘Thunder and Rain’. There’s something laidback AND energetic about it, which is a peculiar mix. There’s a raw energy, but it still is a song you can play during a party, and sit back, and enjoy. That’s rare.’
Tim: ‘That’s what you’re looking for in a song. For me, the most magic tracks are the songs I can put on in my car at fucking seven o’ clock with a hangover. Or the songs I can put on when I’m with my girlfriend. ‘She’s gonna like this, this is gonna be okay’. They’re not usually ‘big’ tracks. I’m a workaholic, I’m already working on my next record, which is gonna be a motherfucker (laughs). I just fucking throw it and I say to the record company ‘You pick a single’. To me, the reason I usually like a record is because there’s just one track that just fucking tells me the truth. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the character in that story. But I have the same fucking mentality in my head. Even though I’m not gonna fucking kill somebody, I’m gonna get my justice. That’s why I went back to Marty Robbins. Songs like ‘El Paso’. He’s not saying he won, he’s not saying that things turned out right, all he’s saying is: ‘I stayed true’. My songs need to have that. Every song needs to say: ‘Fuck you, I’m trying’.’ |
Julian: ‘We all try. It’s hard.’
Tim: ‘It’s kind of the essence of blues. ‘I’m not the only fucker who’s falling down’ or ‘At least I didn’t do it as bad as him’. It’s all about empathy.’ Julian: ‘And never thinking that you’re better than someone else.’ Tim: ‘It rates right up there with ... well, I’m not going to get into it, because I am a devout atheist. But it’s the idea that you’re special. In one way, it’s the most precious thing in the world, because that’s the reason you become an artist/writer/director/... but it’s another thing to say: ‘I’m better than you’ That’s the ugliest thing in the world.’ Julian: ‘I’m going to finish with a final question that I always ask. You know the guys from Daft Punk?’ Tim: ‘Barely.’ Julian: ‘Their music is different from yours. They have worked with Italian producer-songwriter Giovanni Giorgio Moroder on a song called ‘Giorgio By Moroder’.’ Tim: ‘Of course I know him.’ Julian: ‘During the bridge, Moroder says: ‘Once you free your mind about the concept of music and of harmony being correct, you can do whatever you want. So, nobody told me what to do, and there was no preconcept of what to do.’ Do you agree?’ Tim: ‘Oh, that’s exactly what I do. If you listen to my music, I never play chords as Ledfoot. I’m always playing passing tones. I’m always going somewhere else. Which is exactly the way that a conversation works. You start to tell something, and then you realize that what they said three minutes ago is the key to what they’re saying now. It’s all about motion. Music is in motion, man. Music starts and stops just like a fucking drag race. During that motion, the way you manipulate it, is everything. You have to always understand that what you do right now is never as important as what you’re going to do next. That’s the way that I write. Even on the ‘Outsiders’ record, I’m using five different tunings. In every tuning, it’s like if you took the piano keys and put them in a blender, and then fucking threw ‘em back on the keyboard. So every time I don’t know exactly where I can go – and most times I can’t go to the place that you would naturally go to musically. And that pushes me into a place where I have to create a new harmony and that’s the beauty of it. The beauty is in the limits. That’s why I started Ledfoot. The more walls that I put up, the more that I have to ricochet off those fucking walls. ‘I can’t play in E minor! What am I going to play instead?’ and POOF! I just found my harmony, because of my limitations. So I agree with Moroder, in a roundabout way (laughs)’ Julian: ‘Have you ever seen the Chuck Berry documentary ‘Hail Hail Rock ‘n Roll’?’ Tim: ‘Yeah, I liked it.’ |
Julian: ‘Berry always found local musicians, and asked: ‘You wanna play?’ They were always afraid, because he would change the key in the middle of a song. He would improvise.’
Tim: ‘My band opened for Chuck Berry eight times. I’ve seen him numerous times. He never had a band, he’d show up in his fucking Cadillac, and he had his guitar in a shopping bag. He didn’t have a guitar case.’
Julian: ‘A gunny sack?’
Tim: ‘He’d go straight into the fucking office, and get paid before the soundcheck. ‘Pay me now’. I saw this over and over again. He’d go on stage, they’d do a soundcheck. Within the first ten minutes, he’d fire the bass player or the drummer. And he wouldn’t say it to the bass player or the drummer. He’d walk over to the promoter and say: ‘Get me another drummer’. And he’d put his elbow on his fucking guitar and wait for another drummer. Jerry Lee Lewis, too. I opened for him, three nights in a row. The first two nights, he’d show up. The third night, his manager made an announcement: ‘Jerry has a hangover tonight, and he’s not going on stage’ (laughs) We’d go out in front of the audience, and our 45 minute set turned into two and a half hours, because Jerry didn’t show up!’
Julian: ‘Thank you for your time and your stories. Please come to Belgium.’
Tim: ‘I’d love to. If I come to Belgium, look me up and we’ll have a beer together.’
Julian: ‘Have a great evening.’
Tim: ‘My band opened for Chuck Berry eight times. I’ve seen him numerous times. He never had a band, he’d show up in his fucking Cadillac, and he had his guitar in a shopping bag. He didn’t have a guitar case.’
Julian: ‘A gunny sack?’
Tim: ‘He’d go straight into the fucking office, and get paid before the soundcheck. ‘Pay me now’. I saw this over and over again. He’d go on stage, they’d do a soundcheck. Within the first ten minutes, he’d fire the bass player or the drummer. And he wouldn’t say it to the bass player or the drummer. He’d walk over to the promoter and say: ‘Get me another drummer’. And he’d put his elbow on his fucking guitar and wait for another drummer. Jerry Lee Lewis, too. I opened for him, three nights in a row. The first two nights, he’d show up. The third night, his manager made an announcement: ‘Jerry has a hangover tonight, and he’s not going on stage’ (laughs) We’d go out in front of the audience, and our 45 minute set turned into two and a half hours, because Jerry didn’t show up!’
Julian: ‘Thank you for your time and your stories. Please come to Belgium.’
Tim: ‘I’d love to. If I come to Belgium, look me up and we’ll have a beer together.’
Julian: ‘Have a great evening.’
Julian De Backer © 2024 for Keys and Chords
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