Middle Brother: The Extended Interviews

Videos by American Songwriter

Taylor Goldsmith

Who’s the artist that made you want to become a musician?

When my dad was showing us the first music we started hearing – me and my brother – it seemed to be all R&B and soul music. That was the world that he came from and I became, because it was his biggest influence, as a little kid, I was really obsessed with James Brown. I’d say as a four-year-old to my parents, trying to convince them of something, “I swear on James Brown that I will clean my room” or something like that, and they’d laugh, and I wouldn’t know why they were laughing.

And then later on as I got older, when our band broke up and we started figuring out if we were going to keep playing music, the musician that had the biggest influence on me and reminded me of all the right reasons for playing music and made me want to stick with it was Will Oldham. I feel like he, as a songwriter, was very important for me. He’s still the most influential artist I’ve every come across.

Was it partly the way he approached his career, or the music itself?

I love the way he approaches his career. It’s very romantic, but it also seems like it could only be him. I feel like if I or anybody else were to just try to only play in churches, or only release records when there’s no press and have these cool EPs, I don’t think it would work. It’s only for him that makes it part of the mystery and part of the story.

But the material itself is what really helped me so much or what means so much to me. With him, there’s not just some connection on a musical level, like, “Oh, listen to how smart this is, listen to how unique this is,” comparing it to other artists. It’s more on a human level. Through his music, he’s shaping my character, and he’s teaching me patience. It was more on this universal level, I feel like he’s able to show someone how to be a good person, which is a real gift.

When you say patience…

I just mean as a human virtue. There were times in my life where I got a hold of “Master and Everyone” or “I See a Darkness,” these songs were able to help me acknowledge unfortunate situations or healings and at the same time make sense out of them and readjust my perspective and learn how to be a more open person and recognize organic beauty a little more and just calming me down in a way that I needed.

What’s a song that, every time you hear it, it still grabs you emotionally the way it did the first time you heard it?

“The French Inhaler” by Warren Zevon. At a party or something when everyone’s passing around a guitar or playing songs at the piano, I like to play “The French Inhaler.”

I don’t know that one. What’s going on in that one?

It’s about Norman Mailer and Marilyn Monroe’s relationship, but it’s clearly about Warron Zevon’s relationship with his wife, or at the point, ex-wife. It’s talking about these qualities of LA and aspects of the situation. He says, “I drank up all the money with these phonies in this Hollywood bar” and then he repeats the line but just changes the word – “these friends of mine in this Hollywood bar.” It’s something not a lot of songwriters could make happen, because it’s a complicated emotion and I feel like he nailed it.

What was the first song that you ever wrote?

I don’t even necessarily remember. I think I was 12 years old and it was called, “Why Don’t You Like Me?” or something, and I think I learned three chords.

How about the first song you wrote that you thought was good that you kept?

I’m still not sure on that either. With everything that we did before on the record, I eventually thought, “This is a joke” mainly because those songs were written at, like, 16 years old when I had nothing to write about and no insight into anything. But then after the Simon Dawes album, Connect Sets —  I’ll still play any song off that record. “Blood and Guts” was a turning point for me. That’s a song I’m still proud to play. And everything before that, I’m not. [laughs]

Middle Brother had an amazing year. What was the best thing for you about being in that band?

It was a really quick experience. The record came out the same month we went on tour and now it’s all kind of over and now we’re doing Dawes stuff, but it was really incredible to get on some of those stages. I remember Williamsburg Music Hall and people singing along to music that had just become available. It was really a trip, so that was definitely a big deal for us. I was in LA and I ran into Jenny Lewis, who I’ve always admired and thought really highly of, and she said, “Hey I love that Middle Brother stuff. That was really cool.” I was really honored to hear her say that.

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