:: Monday, April 11, 2005 ::

John Davis Interview
by Randy Brandt (with Erika Brandt)

John Davis attained rock stardom as the frontman for Superdrag, but it took God to bring him happiness.

Note: Click for my review of the John Davis CD.

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The Interview

Randy: First question I wanted to ask you is, is baby Paul letting you get any sleep yet?

John: He's real good about it now. He sleeps in his "big boy bed" now. He's in the crib, full-time. At first he was in there with us. Then he was next to us, and he did pretty well with that. That was when he would actually sleep for three or four hours at a time. Now he'll usually go from eight o'clock to about three o'clock and then four to seven or eight, whatever it is. I really think we got off easy, personally.

Randy: She (gesturing at Erika) was the easy one. We had five kids, and she was number two. The first one never slept more than two hours the first two years, I think. She turned twenty today.

John: Wow!

Randy: My wife was crying when she was pregnant with this one: "I can't survive another baby with one hour of sleep every night." She came to the hospital and slept eight hours the first day.

John: That's fantastic. Good for you! (to Erika)

Randy: I'm taking her to GMA to reward her for sleeping through the night.

John: Good job!

Randy: They vary. So there's no guarantees you'll have it easy on the next one if you have another one.

John: Right!

Randy: Do you think being a father affected your approach to songwriting?

John: I don't know that with my limited intellect and ability that I'd be able to do justice to the feeling I had when he came on the scene. It's unlike anything...the only thing that even comes close to being in the ballpark with that moment is meeting God.

Randy: That's a new birth, too.

John: Exactly. I really think it would be hard to go through that entire process--not only for the nine months leading up to this event, just to watch it happen... but then to be there at that moment when that child is born--and not see God. Randy: Yeah, I don't know how you can believe in evolution when you see a kid born.

John: You'd have to go out of your way, I guess is what I'm trying to say. You have to do a lot of hard work to take Him out of it.

Randy: It's definitely a miracle. And then, you turn around, and they're all grown up.

John: (laughing)

Randy: Trust me John, it goes fast.

John: The first time I held the little guy, I knew he was going to teach me how to be a better man. He started doing it immediately. There's this entirely different situation where all the sudden, at the best of times, your notion of how things should be or how you want them to be or how you think they need to be at least is playing second fiddle to this little guy or gal who is helpless. Everything else can wait. That was something else. You know, all of a sudden realizing there is nothing that I wouldn't kick to the curb in two seconds flat for his sake.

Really I felt like I had a much broader and more profound understanding of the gospel itself. I felt like I had it down pretty good to start with, knowing that it's written on my heart. But when you read the language of God's son being handed up to his enemies, being tortured, killed...and suddenly you have a son or daughter and you think about, in real time, what that is, or even the story of Abraham and Isaac--his middle name is Isaac--I mean, it adds a few decimal places; it adds one of those little checkmarks with a number to what the whole thing means when it's laid over top of the human condition and it's not just the most significant moment in history or the defining moment for humankind. It's something else...

Randy: The personal element makes it more real.

John: Definitely!

Randy: Moving on from family, talk about Superdrag a bit. We can't really avoid that especially this early in making the switch, it's going to come up.

John: Well sure! I'm proud. I have a lot of pride in the work.

Randy: Do you still have close contact with Mic and the other guys? Do you stay in touch with him?

John: Yeah, he came out and did some shows with us last month with his new band...of course, he has a new record out. He was the first one to get a solo record out. Like Ringo--Ringo was the first one. Man, I'm just such a fan, such a fan of Mic's. I was a fan of his for years before we ever worked together and just hung out. Same goes for Sam.

Randy: Sam just had a baby, too, didn't he?

John: Yes. His son is about three weeks older than Paul. He works for Sony Music Publishing out here on Music Row and in his spare time, just for fun, is writing the best songs of his life and is recording them in this guy's basement just for his own enjoyment. And Don is producing bands and running a studio full time.

There were disagreements and there was a period of trying to make one's self understood.

Randy: There are disagreements with brothers. That's normal.

John: Sure. But there was never--nor would there ever be--this acromonious thing where you say, "Man, I don't ever want to see you or talk to you again," 'cause those guys are like my family.

Randy: Is there any possibility of doing any more projects down the road? Or do you think that chapter is pretty much closed? Or do you think you might collaborate with them some more in the future? John: Well, there's lots of archival-type projects that are kind of on the back burner, but there's so much material, man. There's easily--I could walk in the house right now and put my hands on five hours worth of music. People are not going to bum rush the Best Buy in droves to get ahold of our first session or our four-track demo of Destination Ursa Major or whatever it might be, but there are people that care about that stuff. The same people that will buy Guided by Voices: Suitcase where the guy puts out 5,000 songs or whatever it is, just for the sake of...I'm that kind of fan. I couldn't just get all the Beatle albums. I had to get all the Japanese pressings. Then I had to get all the Parlophone albums. Then I had to get the mono albums.

Randy: Complete the collection.

John: Sure. There's stuff like that, that could keep us busy in our spare time for a good long time. Mic, when I saw him last, already hit me up to play steel guitar on his new record, which I would jump at the chance to do. I don't really expect us to write a new record's worth of material, make an album and go on a tour. I don't really see that happening.

Randy: Still there might be some informal stuff, guest appearances...

John: Stuff for fun because there's a lot of admiration and expect going back and forth.

Randy: Speaking of Japanese imports, one of the bands we know well that did well in Japan was Sixpence, with Kiss Me. I saw Matt playing on your video that's up on the web. Now is he part of the regular band, or is he just guesting there? What's the status with Matt Slocum?

John: Well, he's out with us all the time, Lord willing. I'd cry if he ever couldn't go, because he's....

Randy: Been a regular part of it.

John: Yeah. He's the ideal guitar player for this music. It's quite unlike Sixpence material. It kind of stretches his plane in a different direction, as it would do for me if I showed up and had to play bass for Sixpence. But, you pretty much any instrument with strings in this guy's hands, and he knows what to do. I really feel blessed, and very fortunate, and very thankful to have these guys out there working with me.

Randy: How did you connect with Matt?

John: Well, it's just that we have a lot of mutual friends, and it was really only a matter of time until we met up. We have a lot in common. Now, he has another project called Astronaut Pushers with Sam Ashworth.

Randy: Charlie Peacock's son, right?

John: Yes. And another guy named Lindsay Jamison who full-time plays drums for Ben Folds, is also involved with Astronaut Pushers, and those guys had asked me to join a while back. It's really interesting where you have this group of people that are constantly working on music together in different configurations. You can kind of go around on the stage and play four completely different sets of music. I really like that.

Randy: You could do a whole concert: open for yourself, then come out and close.

John: Well, sure. The Band was like that. We get Richard Manuel back there on drums, switching over to mandolin. I think it's irritating when bands switch instruments after every song.

Randy: Just for the sake of proving they can do it.

John: Yeah. But, our bass player Josiah Holland was on the band Holland on Tooth & Nail Records with his brother, and now they have a band called THe Lonely Hearts that's just a fantastic band. All of these guys are kind of on loan from other projects. Nate Blackstone, the guy that plays drums with us. He's produced like five records here in town with Jennifer Knapp, Pigeon John, a really diverse crowd of artists. All of the guys just play great, sing great. You know they're good travelers if they're willing to sit in a van for twenty hours without stopping. That gets you feeling goofed up by the time you get where you're going.

Randy: You got to have that chemistry regardless of the musical ability. If you don't have any chemistry it's not any fun, and what's the point?

John: Well, there are no complainers in our group.

Randy: That can make it last a lot longer.

John: Yeah.

Randy: I really enjoyed Too Far Out, Have Mercy were a couple songs that really cut me right off the top. I just wondered if you have a couple of personal favorites, special meaning to you; are there a couple songs that kind of stick out looking back?

John: Well, there are a couple that come to mind immediately. The second track on the record is a song called Salvation, which is like six years old. It's really weird. I wrote the song in 1999 at a time when I was living about as far outside God's will as a person can do, and to be quite honest, was pretty hard-hearted about it. That song--I look at this now, as if I needed any further evidence of God's presence on the scene way before way I had sense enough to realize it.

Randy: Before you recognized it.

John: Here I am writing this song... two years and change beforehand, feeling really crummy at the time and kind of out of it. I just opened my heart up and that's what came out. I didn't change one word of it, or one chord. It's exactly as is. At a time when I most needed to hear it, there it was. It's like it's coming out of your own mouth. You're sitting there playing it on the organ. I look back at my 1999 self and say, (laughing) "What's the matter with you? Why can't you open your ears, open your eyes? Here's God."

Randy: That just shows that God's got to work. We're doing our thing but when God decides to move in, we don't have the power to stop it.

John: So that song, I'm kind of sentimental about it.

Randy: I can see why!

John: The other thing is I didn't start to write until December 2003 when I got back to writing. More often than not, my favorite song is Jesus Gonna Build Me a Home. It just always feels right. It's like it doesn't matter if you get up there, sound check, no sound check, monitors, no monitors, all these other little legalisms of putting on a performance. When you kick that song off and you start singing those words, it just feels right. Especially on the circuit that we do, which is the same old... We played in Boston the other night at T.T. The Bear's in Cambridge. I've been in and out of that place a thousand times, easily. To get up onstage and sing "Jesus is going to build me a home," you feel like we're trying to shine light in to where there's darkness, yet at the same time, it's kind of the feeling of having light shine on you, rather than... it's something else. It's a huge privilege. I'm going to spend a long time trying to work out what makes me deserving of it, 'cause I'm not.

Randy: It's grace. We don't deserve it.

John: I really get a thrill out of singing that song. I try to put it across with maximum conviction.

Randy: I've noticed on the Superdrag website the guys seemed real supportive there. I read some comments by some of the old Superdrag fans pretty obviously coming from a Christian perspective. Overall it seems pretty positive. There's a little backlash from fans that feel betrayed from some of the Superdrag mentality to where you are now, or do they like your music enough that more supportive?

John: I can count on one hand the number of people that are even halfway bent out of shape. The vast majority of people seem to be taking me at face value. They say "Hey, I like rock and roll, this is rock and roll, the guy's doing his best to make himself understood here, as always," and people will say, "I'm not a man or woman of faith, but you're different. I saw you five years ago, flat on your back on the stage, and now you're different. Why?" That's the thing. I never put the last suitcase in the van and slammed the door without knowing why we're there. God always makes it plain. If it's one person, if it's one familiar face that I've been seeing for nine years that goes, "Dude, what's this all about?" That negates a lot of foolishness.

Randy: We're starting to run out of time. John, I really appreciate it!

John: Thanks, man.
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