Music is Blue-collar Work

For Nashville folk singer Derek Webb, his music-playing is very much like the careers of the audience he's crooning to on any given night.

"For me, music is blue-collar work. It's my job, it's what I do. Hotels and airports are my office, it's just what I do," he said.

His fifth studio album, called Stockholm Syndrome and released Sept. 1, weds a lively, sonorous electronic sound with socially conscientious writing. The smooth, catchy beats of "Black Eye," "I Love/Hate You" and "Jena and Jimmy" reel you in and leave you wanting to hear a lot more. Diving into Webb's other tracks, they splash some cool water on you, make you sit up and consider the lyrics closely.

Warning people that it's "easier than you think" to become mentally entrapped in "Becoming A Slave," and taking swipes at a preacher's stance on homosexuality in "Freddie, Please," Webb said he's not at all worried about possibly having walk-outs at his shows, especially since his writing has a Christian lilt. While entertaining and giving people a release are his goals, Webb believes a walk-out is still an accomplishment.

"I consider it part of my job to engage people with certain issues, and maybe give people a springboard from which to think about things with a little more nuance. ... If that involves them getting up and walking out, I still felt like I did part of my job.

"Any day, I would take half the audience, if that audience was really engaged in terms of what I'm doing, than twice the audience who would not care about what I'm trying to say."

Never having a message of love and redemption far out of reach, Webb's sound still brings an edginess and gravity from his concern over wrongs that go on in the world, and bringing out a bit more awareness of them. When asked about loving something that's probably hurtful, such as a victim becoming emotionally dependent on their kidnapper, Webb sees the amount of information being spread through technology, and its misuse, as hurtful in the long run.

"Technology is a good example, the media, the way we love and obsess over information, but we do not have as much knowledge. We're getting the headlines, but not the knowledge about the people we're talking about. It's going to make us less intelligent over time, and give us less and less perspective."

While on a break from his regional tour, Webb gave CrankIt Entertainment some more insight into his past, and what it took to get his awesome Stockholm Syndrome album put together.

CrankIt Entertainment: What made you want to go with a prominent electronic sound for this latest album, as opposed to the more acoustic sound of The Ringing Bell and several earlier tracks?

Derek Webb: I've never made two records alike. ... The only consistent thing I tend to hold onto is, I consider myself a folk singer. It does not imply a style, it implies an approach. is music for the people, it's addressing the concerns of the people, the stories of the people, what's happening in culture. The folk music I initially connected with was the protest songs of the '60s. And then tracing the socially conscious music over the last few decades, that's coming up through more urban music, electronic music. And as I was just listening to that, it started to influence what was coming out, whatever I was doing.

CrankIt: How long did it take to get Stockholm Syndrome recorded?

Webb: Josh Moore, this friend who I've been making music with, who I played with in Caedmon's Call for 10 years, he and I made the record together. ... We started off talking about conceptually what we wanted to do, that it was evocative and that that was what we wanted to do. We wanted to spend some time putting together a sonic palette that we wanted to use, to get those beats, and we spent months working on that. ... It was a lot of developing and experimentation. In strict recording ... all told, probably two months. But it was probably spread out among four. But that's a really long time for me, because I usually get the recording done within two weeks. But this needed a lot more time to percolate, to throw more things at the wall to see what would kind of stick.

CrankIt: What's a funny or bizarre Halloween memory?

Webb: [Pause] It's all pretty bizarre nowadays, now that I have a couple of little kids, and being on the other side of the trick-or-treating, sending them up to the door. There's nothing not bizarre about Halloween nowadays.

CrankIt: What's something bizarre or funny that's happened out on the road lately?

Webb: My days are pretty much the same leading up to the shows. I'm getting off the plane, dropping off the car, going to some new venue. It's all pretty calculated at this point. If we're doing our jobs right, nothing really unusual happens. ... I only travel a few months a year. Most of the time, it's me going out with my acoustic guitar and reinterpreting my music that way. When I was traveling with (Caedmon's Call), of course, you can't avoid really bizarre things happening. But when you do it like me, nothing really that bizarre happens. If it did, then something went wrong. I don't talk to two people all day before the show. I keep quiet, I keep my head low. I listen to music, read, drive. I go on, I play, and I head out. I love it, and it's my job. It's a great job.

The Carolinas are in for a treat, because Webb has five shows lined up in the area within the next month. The first is The Handlebar in Greenville on Sept. 23, and then the next day at The Neighborhood Theatre in Charlotte. Sept. 25 he'll be at The Lincoln Theater in Raleigh, and then Sept. 30 at Confluence Underground in Winston-Salem. He'll round out his swing through The Carolinas on Oct. 1, at The Grey Eagle in Asheville. Each show, he'll have guest performer, and his wife, Sandra McCracken along with him.

If you can't wait, or can't make it on those dates, do yourself a favor and catch up with all of Webb's music on his MySpace page, at www.myspace.com/derekwebb. And keep checking with CrankIt Entertainment Magazine in print each month, and online at www.crankitmag.com, for info on great music acts who you're gonna want to catch live, like Derek Webb! By T.J. Royal