The Hard Country Sound of Robbie Fulks
By Zayne Reeves



“I just wrote a country song that'll break your heart!” proclaims Robbie Fulks while we're waiting for menus at Jim N Nick's Bar-B-Q in downtown Birmingham. Except he's not bragging about his own considerable gifts as a songwriter but rather doing an impression of fellow singer/songwriter Greg Trooper, complete with spot-on "Joizy" accent. Upon meeting the members of Robbie's band, I made the off-hand comment to drummer Gerald Dowd that I thought he looked like Trooper, which amused everyone. "Ok, so far this week I've gotten Neil Sedaka and now Greg Trooper," noted Dowd. This prompted the entire band to discuss the finer points of how to be Trooper-esque, which involved much analysis of appropriate hat wear and eventually led to everyone aping his gruff-but-endearing accent to the point that our table sounded like the wrap party for Goodfellas.

Fulks, Dowd, Grant Tye (guitar) and Mike Fredrickson (bass) have the easy rapport of a bunch of guys who spend a lot of time together on the road and have learned how to entertain each other while they are away from their families. I instantly liked them and found myself fighting the urge to be the kind of interviewer who tries too hard to ingratiate himself only to wind up looking like a goober. You go into these things wanting to be Cameron Crowe backstage with Deep Purple circa 1976, all the time praying you don't end up like the student from Don't Look Back that Dylan and Neuwirth tore to shreds. While nothing so dramatic played out while we ate pulled pork sandwiches and catfish, I did at least give the guys a new road game to play when they're bored.  Before we started the interview, Fulks asked me about Being There, and I explained its origins and how Adam finally decided on the title. "It's a book, a movie and a record...and they're all good," Fulks noted. Intrigued by the concept, Fulks explained it to the band, and for the next five minutes, everyone tried to come up with another trifecta which led to sidebar discussions about whether or not Van Halen's 1984 was admissible and if it was Jimmy Stewart who costarred with Carole Lombard in 1939's Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Released by Yep Roc Records, Georgia Hard finds Fulks dragging alt. country into the more urbane, mature territory of 1970s countrypolitan. That so few of his peers are releasing records that sound like Sherrill-era Charlie Rich makes Fulks' new album something of a revelation. Songs like "Coldwater, Tennessee," "You Don't Want What I Have" and "I Never Did Like Planes" effortlessly evoke the era of CB radios, Warren Oates and gas shortages while never once sounding like retro shtick. After the baroque pop of Couples in Trouble, his overlooked 2001 masterpiece, a lot of people seem to be glad to have Fulks back in his familiar role as country music's smartest smartass while, at the same time, griping under their breath that the record feels almost like a concession to them because they didn't buy up Couples like hotcakes. Personally, I can't imagine Robbie Fulks making concessions to anyone other than perhaps Donna Fulks, and it's a flat out mistake to categorize music this lived-in and brilliantly written as anything other than being exactly what the man wanted to create. It makes perfect sense that Fulks would gravitate towards the likes of Bill Anderson and Roger Miller because, as he so eloquently explained in the Georgia Hard liner notes, they made country music for grownups who have marriages, mortgages and P.T.A. meetings, and just because the steel guitar isn't set to 11 doesn't mean it isn't as real as "There Stands The Glass" or pretty much anything Charlie Feathers ever committed to record.

I interviewed Robbie a few hours before he and his band played a dynamite set at Birmingham's annual City Stages festival. I had hoped to avoid having a second consecutive lunch at a bar-b-q joint but my suggestion that we meet at a Thai restaurant was greeted with cries of "We didn't come to Alabama for Thai!" After enduring my bad directions to Jim N Nick's (although, in my defense I will say that Birmingham was gridded by an alcoholic) we all sat down at a booth and waited till our server brought out the food before I decided that it was a good idea to start the tape while we were stuffing our faces.

Being There: 13 Hillbilly Giants, which I love, was the first album of yours that I bought and right after that I picked up Couples in Trouble.  Initially, I didn't really get Couples but when I listened to again a few months later something just clicked and now it's one of my favorite albums. Do you get a lot of fans telling you that they've come around to that record?
 
Robbie Fulks: A couple of people like you have mentioned that they go back and hear it a second time, fourteen years later, and it sounds different for some reason. I think that record, people either love it or they hate it. It's very polarizing. Well, that and the Geffen record....people are either fans of those specific records and don't really care for the rest of it or the other way around. I don't have any fans who are fans of everything I do. They have one sound that they like. [It should be noted that Robbie is a master at deadpan humor and everyone at the table was cracking up over those last two sentences.] 
 
BT: You produced your last three albums on your own dime. Now that you're with Yep Roc, do you still plan on making the records with your own money?
 
RF: The next one I guess I won't. I think the budget for the next one is calculated into the contract that I did with them so the next one, they'll pay for. And that'll be a cheap, probably shitty record.
 
BT: How has Yep Roc been so far compared to Bloodshot or Geffen?
 
RF: They've been absolutely fantastic. Very resourceful, intelligent and accessible. They have the derring-do and the hands-on attitude of a really small punk label and they have the professionalism and size of a much larger company.
 
BT: I've noticed that they are marketing your record very well. When I go into Barnes & Noble, they actually have some very nice displays set up for Georgia Hard and aren't just burying it in the racks.
 
RF: Yeah, their retail thing is really good and their magazine advertising is good. All that stuff is really good which is kinda bad in a way because if it fails then it's really my fault.
 
BT: Well the reviews have all been good.
 
RF: The reviews have been fine. The radio picture is still really stagnant. There are no real radio outlets playing it.
 
BT: When I lived in Tennessee, there was WDVX -
 
RF: -Well, there's stations like that and I don't mean to denigrate them but they're stations that not a lot of people listen to. So if you get played on WDVX, you get one play at three o'clock in the afternoon and it can actually be to fewer people than you played to at the club that night.
 
[The interview is put on hold for about five minutes as we start playing the movie/book/album title game again. The highlight of this detour was when Gerald asked if there was a book called One Trick Pony.]
 
BT: One of the reasons Georgia Hard stands out is because you've updated the sound from the 50s honky tonk like Hank, Sr. and Lefty Frizzell, so revered by alt. country, to the smoother countrypolitan of the 70s. You would think that other artists would be doing that but outside of Mike Ireland with Try Again, it seems to be unexplored territory.
 
RF: Isn't that weird? I think that's weird.
 
BT: It ties into your song "Roots Rock Weirdos," where people get stuck on one particular sound and can't move beyond that. Do you think that there's a reluctance to embrace the sound of guys like Bill Anderson, Roger Miller or, say, the early Moe Bandy stuff?
 
RF: Well it's harder for that type of ultra elitist to appreciate, in a non-camp way, Moe Bandy. It's much more difficult to appreciate than something that has that strong, earthy quality to it like Hank Williams, Sr. or a rave-up element like Webb Pierce. There's a lot of adolescent energy in it and the stuff that we're talking about in the 70s is the music of sedate, boring middle class people. I think it's a lot closer to home for people that we're talking about and it's not as....it's neither as primitive or high flying poetic as some of that
earlier stuff.
 
BT: One of the things that surprised me on this album was your song "Countrier Than Thou" which turns into A Face In The Crowd (the Elia Kazan film) at the end and -
RF: -Really?
 
BT: For me it had that same kind of, at first it was a continuation of "Roots Rock Weirdos" where people are being too snobbish about country music but then at the end of the song you've got the "hip shooting ex-oil king" who "talks like Buddy Ebsen but he's sitting in the West Wing." It's the same way that they marketed Andy Griffith's character in that film. Among (and I hate to keep using this term) alt. country artists who tend to be more pronounced about their left wing politics, you've kept a lot of your stuff private up until this song, and I was wondering what the impetus for that verse was because it's different coming from you.
 
RF: I don't like political music that much. Like writing a song about....it's like all the worst aspects of lyric writing combined in one place when you write a song about who should be president or any war song. Political songs have an element of writing about something that's kind of personal like writing about your dead dog and it has an element of preaching in it that has this horrible pomposity to it.
 
BT: I wasn't expecting it at all. I mean, I really liked that verse but it took me by surprise the first time I heard it.
 
RF: Well I'm generally right wing so it did kind of come out of nowhere probably to surprise people. [Scattered laughs from across the table.]  It was just a good target, especially in the third verse where you either have to kill somebody to punch it up or
talk about the president.
 
BT: In his piece on you for No Depression, Grant Alden talked about how you have this spirited defense of Shania Twain and then in "Countrier Than Thou" there's the saloon keeper verse where he sneers at the mention of her name. Do you think she gets a hard time from people or is underappreciated?
 
RF: (Smiles) I don't think she's underappreciated.
 
BT: Well, I didn't mean...obviously she's doing quite well for herself but in terms of people being snobbish about what she does.
 
RF: Well, I don't know. I wouldn't deny that her lyrics are kind of offensive or banal but I don't think there's any basis to ignore those records. I think those records are well put together, they have a sound that (inaudible) and well played too. Some of the performances are really good.
 
BT: One of my favorite country albums to come out in awhile is Dallas Wayne's Big Thinkin’, which you produced, co-wrote the songs for, and played on as well. How did you guys meet?
 
RF: We played in a band together called Special Consensus so we were in that together for a couple of years.
 
BT: Is he still an ex-pat?
 
RF: No, he's in Texas now. We're doing a show together tomorrow in Chicago. I don't get to see him too much anymore but, yeah, he's a great, great singer.
 
BT: I loved both versions of "Coldwater, Tennessee" off his record and –

RF: - Oh come on, mine's a lot better. (Laughs)
 
BT: I dunno; he looks like he could probably do more damage to me so I'm not taking sides.
 
RF: Well he has that going for him.
 
BT: I remember when you guys started that flame war with Ryan Adams I think he was offering to kick his ass or something.
 
RF: Yeah, he could do it. He could kick Ryan Adams' ass.
 
BT: Ryan's playing here tomorrow.
 
RF: He's playing here tomorrow? [To the band] What time are we getting out? We gotta stay. What time is he playing?
 
BT: He plays at 8:15 on the same stage you guys are on.


In terms of writing more character driven songs, you're sort of the Randy Newman or Richard Thompson of the No Depression set but I noticed on this record, particularly on the title track, it did sound more personal than some of your other records.  Has something changed for you where you're more comfortable showing glimpses of yourself in your songs?
 
RF: Definitely. I took a chance on that with more autobiographical elements in the stories. In part it was like a hedge against the idea that working with a 70s country sound might be a disguise, might be a genre experimentation or shallow exercise. Without anything personal in the lyrics it might just sound like it was trying to copy Charlie Rich records. I think it came off ok; I don't know exactly why I avoided it in the past. Like I said in that other interview you referred to, I try to stay away from the "voice of wisdom" perspective which always strikes me kind of bad when I hear it. But I think you get a little bit more license as you get older probably.
 
BT: You've talked about enjoying the rigid structure of writing a country song. For someone with no musical talent, what exactly is that structure?
 
RF: The structure of a country song? Oh I'm sure I haven't thought about it very much. [Scattered laughs.] Maybe Jimmy Webb would have it classified in like ten types; The Narrative of The Elders, Walking Into The House With The French Windows....I dunno; I'm sure some scholarly person could just break it down into twenty five types.
 
BT: On the Johnny Paycheck tribute (Touch My Heart) you had Lloyd Green (steel guitar legend) playing on it and he was also on Georgia Hard as well. Any stories about him? What was he like to work with?
 
RF: [To the band] How would you describe Lloyd?
 
GRANT TYE: Really quiet, introspective guy. Very professional, really thinks about what he's playing -
 
GERALD DOWD: Really cerebral character. More cerebral than most musicians.
 
RF: That's kind of typical of pedal steel players. He thinks deeply about what he's doing, what he's playing, the harmony, about his place in music, his role on a record and about every aspect of it. I don't know, I think Lloyd and I kinda gradually fell in love with each other while working on the Johnny Paycheck record. [Everyone laughs.]
 
GD: It was beautiful to watch. You should see some of the pictures we took.
 
BT: Yeah, if you ever do that limited edition Robbie Fulks Makes Me Georgia Hard t-shirt you could use those pictures for it.
 
RF: Porno shirts.
 
GT: He was kind of fatherly towards Robbie.
 
RF: Towards all of us. He loves the whole band, not just me. The whole experience was really happy for him. He was getting so much respect from everybody and these old guys they don't get enough respect in a lot of places that they work anymore. Lloyd did a session not long before mine where these young rock guys forgot his name and started calling him Mr. Steel. [Imitating one of them] "Hey, Mr. Steel! Don't play like that." That kind of thing. It's not a business where anyone is inclined to respect you just because of the history you bring trailing into the room. You have to put out every day, do your job and not act like a great figure of reverence, but that's exactly what Lloyd is at this point. Anyway, so I'm happy to give him all the reverence that he deserves.
 
BT: How did you guys get Mavis Staples to sing on Touch My Heart?
 
RF: I was looking for a couple of outside people. I felt like we had the country stuff pretty well covered with George Jones and Mike Ireland and everything. I sat down with the song ("Touch My Heart") one day and I just realized that right in your face, it's a soul song. So I just called her and said this was the record we were going to make and she was just as nice as could be. I would say that we became good friends too except that she can never remember my name. She still thinks I'm "Bobby" Fulks.
 
BT: With Paycheck, did you have a preference towards his Little Darlin' material or the later Billy Sherrill/Outlaw stuff?

RF: Oh, I like that Little Darlin' stuff the best. I think Lloyd put it well in one of the conversations we had about it. He said the Sherrill stuff was better chosen material and obviously way more intelligently orchestrated because Billy Sherrill is such a genius at that. But the incredible energy and kick-ass spirit of those songs (from Little Darlin') you couldn't recreate it with professional musicians, middle-aged people in a fancy studio. There's something spectacular about what they were trying to do which was to kick ass and Lloyd's chops and his willingness to go out on a limb on the steel really made it special. They had it (the songs) mastered by some really terrible masterer in New York where they instructed him to forget about all the low end frequencies. You think about it, it's the polar opposite of today's country music where you're trying to exactly copy what was popular six months ago. In those days, you're trying to do anything to sound different and unique and that's the way to get attention and radio play. You've got to be crazier than the last guy, we've got to make the steel more annoying than the last record and make the other guy fade into the wallpaper. I place Johnny in the context of Porter Wagoner or Johnny Bush, who were roughly contemporary and also doing really over the top, really piercing stuff.

BT: I love this one Bill Anderson song that Wagoner did called "The Cold Hard Facts of Life" where the husband gets off work early, buys some pink champagne to celebrate with his wife, discovers she's cheating on him with some guy so he drives home, champagne in tow, and kills both of them. 

RF: (Smiles) Dark era.


Be sure to check out www.robbiefulks.com for all your Robbie Fulks merchandise needs.