1994-04 Raygun Magazine
Brian Dewan, Zither Man
By John Flansburgh, Raygun Magazine, April 1994
Brian Dewan lives in Brooklyn, New York, and has just released his first album of songs on Bar/None records called Tells The Story. He has illustrated album covers for David Byrne and They Might Be Giants, played in the house band for Blue Man Group and gives concerts accompanying himself on an electric zither of his own design.
This interview was conducted over a speaker phone by electric guitarist John Flansburgh of they might be giants, who is holed-up in a residential recording studio in up state New York.
John Flansburgh: Hey, Brian.
Brian Dewan: Hey, how are ya?
Can you hear me?
Sure can.
Here are some short questions. What was the last song you learned?
The last song I learned was called "I know an old woman".
Not the old woman who swallowed a fly?
No. No. It's about a woman who made her husband suck the marrow out of bones. So that he would go blind. So that he would want to kill himself. So that she could run off with another man, but in a snafu she fell into the drink herself and he couldn't save her. Because he couldn't see.
Wow.
It's an Irish song.
What record is currently on you turntable?
I've got a record of ballads sung by Andrew Rowan Summer. He recorded on folkways in the fifties. He was an attorney from West Virginia who learned a lot of folk songs in Appalachia and has been an influence on me over the years.
His style or just the songs he found?
Well. He plays songs he found which are traditional songs and many of them a very old. He fancied himself as a curator of folk songs. As an amateur anthropologist, although he's a pretty idiosyncratic folk phenomenon himself.
What was the last TV show you saw?
Oh, god. It's been a while since I saw a TV show...
No editing now...
Well. The last thing I saw was really on a videotape. Which was about the Donner Party. I don't know what the name of the program was but that's what it was about.
You've been accused of being a folk musician in recent press. Where do you feel your music is coming from?
Well. My record is put in the pop/rock/soul bins in record stores, which is fine by me because it's just the code to not be put in a specialized corner bin. I wouldn't want to be sent off into the folk bin. I think popularly the term folk is used to refer to a kind of acoustic soft rock or acoustic soft pop music that does not really have its roots in traditional music as far as I can tell. Perhaps folk ought to mean what the word avant-garde meant or experimental meant, which is a music that has an independent origin.
There are elements of your music that seem really unorthodox. But from the things you're saying it seems like you put yourself in the traditional camp. Do you think of yourself as being traditional?
The musical roots of the songs I play in my shows and on my record are traditional. I've had a lot of inspiration from traditional music.
There are a lot of different characters in your songs. Do you just feel people are going to understand the songs are not written from your point of view?
Well, I did have a number of people ask me about the song "My eye" and say, "Did you really poke out your eye?" [laughs]. I feel like it is apparent that some of the views espoused in my songs are not necessarily my own. But if somebody doesn't get that, it's not my problem.
What are your thoughts on your song "99 cops" being paralleled to Body Counts' "Cop Killer?"
It really is a nuisance. To me, it would appear obvious that a song about a cop who comes back to life again and again is a fairy tale - like Terminator. Kissing in trees, singing out of tune - that it's a surreal fairy tale. But because of Body Count, stuff people have that as a framework to understand it. So they just hear "He fell dead" and that's the end of it. The REST of it somehow doesn't get heard.
Listening to your record, it seems like there are a lot of themes of authority.
Yeah, I guess so. I hadn't quite thought of that. I guess there is really a spectrum between there being an imperative to respect authority or reject a false authority. So there is no program about authority itself, but rather to raise the issue of what constitutes authority in that respect. I suppose there is a message of, on the one hand, being free of any form of tyranny but on the other hand, to not be insolent and disrespect that which is holy.
I'm thinking how often the word holy comes up in magazines [laughter]. You play an electric zither that you made yourself. Before you built it, how did you know that was the instrument you wanted to make?
I had always had small, toy zithers as a kid that were made out of cast aluminum with masonite backs. So I had always fooled around with zithers. But I didn't start to seriously play it till 86 when I got a beat up antique zither in a junk store in Wisconsin. Then I started to write songs for it and play out with it - amplifying it. But it was difficult to amplify and was in poor condition. It was a friend of mine who suggested I build a solid body electric zither, based on the other zither I was playing but customized and modified and expanded with improvements for the purpose of being a machine to accompany myself with when I sang these songs. My background growing up was that of an organist, which is a solitary activity, and I wrote songs and improvised with my friend in the basement, making weird rock music. But we never had a band that played out. So all my music was an independent basement activity. So that all came together later when I started performing, where I enjoyed the traditional aspect of the zither but also had the power and might of electric instruments and the mechanical sound processing out of the rotating Leslie speaker.
What is you relationship to the vacuum tube?
I can't help but love the tube. The electric organ that was in my parents home had a closet of oscillators and amplifiers into which you could see the tubes glowing in the darkness. And I love what happens to the sound when it's subtly tumbled and modified by the tube and the dreadful beauty that issues from the loud speaker.
Now, you grew up in a house with an actual church organ in it?
An electric church model. Yes.
How loud did that thing get?
Pretty loud. As loud as you want.
Were there noise complaints?
Some neighbors enjoyed it. Others quietly tolerated it. I was just the rock band in the basement that got an irate neighbor to telephone once at midnight.
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