MR: Chris, I'm doing well. Thank You for asking. Very hopeful and busy.
 
HOLV: MRVSS is probably the second best album I've had the pleasure of listening to this year (just behind Heretic Pride by the Mountain Goats). What are your expectations for the release?

 

MR: This is probably the second or third, maybe even 5th best interview I've ever done. How's it feel, punk? No. I'm smiling. Thank you. The Mountain Goats are quite good. I've gotten to the point where I have no expectations. It seems to me that art is made useful by the intent when creating it. I think the world is dependent on the purest intents managing to be competitive with all the static. I hope this record arms people with true beauty. It's songs for the strong but embattled. It's for people that deal in idealism regardless of the chaos and static that may challenge the big questions that inspire and daunt all. It's pretty heady, but it comes down to skin, bone and promises.
 
HOLV: For me the sound of MRVSS isn't specific to any one genre. How would you describe it to readers who haven't heard it yet? 

 

MR: As a listener, I am only moved by music that gets under my skin. Music that feels like breath or weather. Honest music. It doesn't matter if it's a film, a story, a book, a poem or a song. Innocence and wisdom are just as potent. It just has to feel true. For me, those things are found in everything from The Clash to The Blue Nile, from Tom Waits to Dean Martin. MRVSS is music for people that are falling in love for the first time. As well as it's for people that understand what goodbye really means. If you like old architecture, you'll like MRVSS. If you watch the news, you'll like MRVSS. If you see the beauty in an airplane so far up in the sky that you can't hear, well, this music is for you. 
 
HOLV: Since you released May Day in 1997 how has the music world changed for you? Have things like the internet brought you more fans or more competition?

 

MR: If things in the industry had stayed how they were, I would still be making music. It would just have been even harder for listeners to find me. While the old industry acted as a gateway, it also oppressed things. It created the weather. It became more about perception than reality. Almost like when a government loses understanding of its people. Now listeners are the advocates. And I love that. I like the new world. I feel that I was built for these times. The competition, as you put it, is profound. But people know the difference. Nowadays I state my case with little to no interference. And I want to prove that music is the great communicator. It's a unifying force. I believe I'm up for it and that the line between art and entertainment will glow like lava through dry brush. I would only urge listeners to be their own leading women and men. Live their lives as their own. Because in there lies all the context necessary for the better self to emerge. Being simply a consumer of hype and compression is like living on candy. The emptiness can rot you.
 
HOLV: I think it would be fair to say that music in the US over the last few years has become much more political, do you think that this has been a positive development?

 

MR: I've always felt that it was important for artists to express everything they felt. Politics is a part of that. Politics is often viewed as the territory of academics and politicians. And nowadays, MEDIA. But artists, when they write, they write from imagination, some even apply historic perspective. And those are the most powerful and useful songs in my mind. Springsteen and Steve Earle have merged this magic very well. So has Billy Bragg. There's also a collection of poems called Against Forgetting that I feel should be required reading for every single soul on the planet. In America, many fear we're riding on a wave of policy that is imperialism under the guise of patriotism. Very scary stuff. And historically a dead end. Our world is in a serious state of dependency on each other. Our economies are so entwined they suggest a brotherhood that our politics doesn't seem to honor. It's gonna take imagination to suss it all out.  There's a lot of chaos and the truth is hard to find. The collective message of art is the wisdom that DNA doesn't offer when we're born. So that's a good thing. I guess as far as music goes, we can only hope that most people are listening to the right songs. And it's hard to define that. But I was disappointed when Toby Keith's Shockin' Ya'll came out around the start of the "war" with Iraq. Our military dubbed the campaign at the start of the "war," Shock and Awe. It still makes my skin crawl. While Keith's record sold millions, Steve Earle's Jerusalem may have sold 150,000. Hmmmm. It feels so dangerous to me. Like I said though, I believe beauty will emerge from all the static that the new world offers. At our centers we're all essentially decent, hopeful people. We have to be suspicious of propaganda and demand more creativity and humanity in government in the new world. I believe that can start with a song. The right song that is.
 
HOLV: You've set up a pretty impressive US tour starting in April, can we expect to see you this side of the pond any time soon?

 

MR: I'm currently looking for a booking agent in the UK. One Little Indian is doing an excellent job helping to create a life for my music in your country. Once I settle on an agent in the UK, we'll start planning some visits. I hope that people or listeners that read this understand how much their advocacy means to my ability come a perform where ever they are. So please, share the songs you love with anyone that will listen. Offer the songs context. Not just for me, but for any artist you love. I've been taking the rural route to success, but I'm getting there. Even still, there's work to be done. And in the UK, I'm just getting started. My dream is to play Wembley. We're working on playing a great rocknroll show. The kind where the audience understands it's not about a scene or ego, but about community and he fight for beauty. I'm hopeful I can bring the whole band to the UK. But the economics of such things makes it difficult. So all the more important the advocacy of listeners.
 
HOLV: Lastly, you've got ten dollars, what's the best way to spend it?

 

MR: On a woman of course!
 
Interview by Chris Hammond