Howie Day is a nice mixture of hype and substance. Day, a young songwriter whose major-label debut, Australia, is gaining favorable comparisons to other acoustic wunderkinds like David Gray, is a musician of surprising depth and resonance. Day recently spoke to the Badger Herald about his developing career.
Badger Herald: How would you describe your sound?
Howie Day: It’s really a mixture of a lot of different things, I guess. It’s just a sort of singer/songwriter, acoustic, live kind of thing. I guess you could say that it has a lot of the sound of British music in it, with maybe some Jeff Buckley too. It’s just a mixture of influences, really.
BH: Along those lines, who do you consider to be your major influences?
HD: Major influences would be Jeff Buckley, U2 and Richard Ashcroft (former leader of Brit-pop band The Verve, that’s major hit was “Bittersweet Symphony.”)
BH: You’re considered an up-and-comer on the music scene. What are your impressions of the scene you’re entering into?
HD: Well, I like my label a lot, which I guess is sort of unusual. Everybody at Sony has been really good about letting me do my own thing, providing encouragement and that sort of stuff.
Previous to this, I’ve always been a really “DIY” (Do It Yourself) guy, and on this record, I’m just learning about the studio and what kind of stuff can be done in that setting. It’ll probably be a lot of that on the next record too, but maybe someday I’ll get to be an expert. (laughs)
BH: This seems to be a very healthy period for singer-songwriters, as far as breaking into the mainstream is concerned. What do you attribute this to?
HD: To me, it’s a cycle, and it always has been. You know, whenever record companies grab ahold of something, they start signing as many people as possible in that particular style or genre, because it gets hot. It makes sense, I guess, but that means that eventually people burn out.
We’ve had a lot of really heavily produced stuff in the recent past, and maybe now is the time when people swing back around towards the more “DIY” stuff that I was speaking of. I don’t know, but I’m just glad to be a part of it.
BH: Your songs are readily available as MP3s on the Internet. What are your opinions on downloading?
HD: I’m really intrigued by it, actually. I don’t entirely know why this is such a big thing right now. I think it’s too easy to do, but it’s forcing artists to make good records, instead of just one single.
It makes the music more genuine, I guess. I don’t really know why, though; I’m kind of a novice, but it seems to make sense. I think it can be a bad thing, but, then again, I do it too. (laughs)
BH: You contributed to the soundtrack of “I Am Sam,” a soundtrack [that] consisted entirely of Beatles songs. Aside from the obvious, what have the Beatles given you as a songwriter?
HD: Most of it is just the songwriting, which is still really incredible — just to watch their evolution and their development over the years. Just like anybody, I guess, I went through my Beatles-obsession phase.
Actually, a friend of mine and I were talking the other day about Elvis and The Beatles, the way in which Elvis is so much cooler than The Beatles, and yet The Beatles’ music is so much better than Elvis’ music. Don’t get me wrong, I like Elvis, but it’s interesting to me to compare those two icons.
BH: What are you listening to right now?
HD: Tori Amos, because I’m touring with her in November.
Coldplay’s new album is really great. David Gray, too. To be honest, I’m actually listening to myself quite a bit. (laughs) I’ve got a whole bunch of demos in my car, and I listen to them, trying to pick them apart and see how to make them better. That’s about it, I guess.
Howie Day is currently opening for Tori Amos on her tour, which will land in Milwaukee on Dec. 1 at the Riverside Theatre.
