Feature
Not Quite 20 Questions with Bill Goffrier
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(photo courtesy of Mike Fizer)
Growing up a kid in rural Kansas and learning about The Embarrassment (the Embos, as their fans call them) opened my eyes to another world. You didn't have to be from the coast to put out your own album. You could sing songs about the things around you: old men in small towns helping you fix your car, cruising main street, Elizabeth Montgomery's face. You could be arty and not be pretentious. You could be from Kansas and still be witty and art damaged songwriters. You could live in Wichita and still be the best band you never heard of.
The Embos never really did break up, but some moved on to the band The Del Fuegos. Bill Goffrier moved to Boston to study painting and met Gary Waleik from Volcano Suns. They formed Big Dipper, a band anthologized recently by Merge Records.
Hiram was honored to talk recently with Bill Goffrier about his art, his music, and Kansas.
HL: What led you to start doing art?
BG: I discovered in 3rd grade that I was good at art. People around me praised my work and encouraged me to keep drawing.
HL: Music?
BG: I was a huge Beatles fan by 4th grade, put on the official wig and
pretended I was one. My parents arranged for guitar lessons when I was eight. I didn’t stick with it for long, but by high school I wanted badly to play Alice Cooper guitar parts. I had to teach myself, and never did master the AC parts. The convenient timing of the Ramones first album and learning moveable chords opened up a world of chord progressions.
HL: Seeing that you're from Wichita, Kansas what was the moment
that led you to realize, "Hey, I can play music in front of strangers"?
BG: I don’t remember, but that’s probably because there had to be a lot of beer involved. I was otherwise painfully shy and stricken with stage fright since third grade.
HL: How did The Embarrassment start?
BG: That band evolved out of a few previous attempts among childhood friends to have a band playing original material. Brent, John and I had turned one another on to music since 4th grade. We were a trio at first, The Lemurs, and set up some local “New Wave” events to seek out other Wichita enthusiasts.
HL: When and how did you start playing with Big Dipper?
BG: I moved to Boston in 1983 when the Embos stopped performing. I went to grad school for painting at BU, and put music behind me. Then I met Gary Waleik from the band Volcano Suns, and music started to seem fun again. We agreed to form a “songwriters’ collaborative”, not a band that would suffer the same pitfalls that we had already suffered. We asked Gary’s friend Steve Michener to join us as songwriter/bass player and Gary’s young cousin Jeff to keep the beat. Ooops, somewhere along the line we mutated into a band.
HL: The idea of place seems to play a part in your paintings, do you
think that place is important to your songs as well (i.e. Wellsville)?
BG: Not particularly. I just like nice interesting pictures, those that take you to a special place. Oh, I guess you were right!
HL: Are there any people (writers/artists/rockers) that you can point to as having a direct influence on your music style?
BG: I mostly react to individual songs. Whenever I hear something I like I want to learn more about it. Sometimes I dissect it, sometimes just absorb the feeling. If I learn something useful I might try to write or play a similar idea.
HL: Are there any artists that have influenced your painting/drawing style?
BG: Many. Vincent Van Gogh, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and most recently Charles Burchfield.
HL: When you're touring or at an art exhibit and people find out you're from Kansas, do they make Wizard of Oz jokes?
BG: I try not to leave Kansas for that reason.
HL: Do you have a favorite Embarrassment memory(ies) you can
share?
BG: I really don’t. The whole trip was wonderful, now that I have forgotten all the bad parts.
HL: Big Dipper?
BG: Making it all the way to a tiny old stage in Hamburg and
rocking out in the Beatle dust was a “fab” thing. It’s the farthest I have been from home, and I could still relate to people through the music.
HL: I read that Big Dipper is working on a new album. How's
that going? Are you working on a solo album as well?
BG: The Dipper project started in 2008 when we played some shows to promote our Merge Anthology. For the next two years we became more of a “songwriters’ collaborative” than ever, recording guerilla-style when the mood hit. We want to add a few more songs to the pile before we package something together. And then we need a record label. Or do we…?
I have written and recorded many songs myself, and hope to finish a solo project by the end of 2010.
HL: Do you think there's a difference between what the underground
music scene was when you started and what it is today? Why/how?
BG: I can’t get a handle on the underground scene today. I want to be on top of the ways of getting music out to people these days, but I don’t have much interest in what the “kids” are doing. I want to hear from people older and wiser than me. I think I learn more that way. I’ve been a cranky old guy that way since 1983!
It sure seems that the internet has changed the business drastically, but bands are still putting out their own 45s and albums like The Embos did thirty years ago aren’t they?
HL: Are you still teaching art? Do you have any art shows coming up?
BG: The job hasn’t been eliminated yet, so I’m still a full-time teacher of art. I have a small show in Lawrence, KS, at Ichiban Tattoo Studio (!) and some of the work will likely be traveling to another gallery next.
HL: Any words of advice that you'd like to leave our readers with?
BG: Yes. Look for the good and the humor in everything. Be aware of how precious the present is. And if it still sucks, be glad it will be the past very soon.
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