I caught up with Mayer Hawthorn (Myspace, Wikipedia, twitter) in the Róisín Dubh and had a chat with him, for FlirtFM.

Mayer is very much an artist to watch. He’s immensely capable technically (producing his own work) and has shown promise in both soul and hip-hop. We discussed his recent signing to Stones Throw records, pursuing your passion, the need for production (but not a producer) and collaborations (he’s not aiming low).

We also talked about twitter and his secret reasons for touring. It’s not about the music.

Enjoi.

The audio and text of this interview is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (CC-BY-NC).

DD: I’m here with Mayer Hawthorne.

MH: How do you do?

DD: Just about to do a gig in Galway, Ireland.

MH: Yes sir, my first time in Ireland.

DD: Really? When did you arrive?

MH: This morning.

DD: Have you been enjoying the rain so far?

MH: Yeah, it feels like home.

DD: Where are you from?

MH: I grew up just outside Detroit, MI. It rains there all the time.

DD: Looking forward to the gig tonight?

MH: Yeah, defiantly. I wish my voice were in a little better shape for you guys, I feel bad but that’s how it goes sometimes.

DD: Sure, you’ve been touring for the last week or so, and it looks like you’ve got a pretty impressive line-up in front of you, The US, Europe, and Australia at the end of the tour.

MH: We actually just did the whole US, we’ve just finished 30 dates in the US and we’ve been in the UK for about a week now.

DD: How did the UK go?

MH: It’s been awesome, every show’s been sold out and the crowds have been really good.

DD: You recently signed to Stones Throw, tell us a bit about that, how did that come about?

MH: I moved to Los Angeles a couple of years ago to pursue music as a full time gig, trying to lose that day job, and I bumped into a gentleman named Peanut Butter Wolf who is the CEO of Stones Throw records, I met him at a party in LA. I got introduced to him by a mutual friend, she had heard my Mayer Hawthorn demos, which at the time was just a side project that I didn’t take very seriously.

DD: While you were haircut?

MH: Yeah, I’ve always been Haircut; Mayer Hawthorn was really just something for fun I was doing on the side. I never imagined in my wildest dreams that would take priority, and that I would have a career singing soul music. I was a hip-hop DJ and producer, that was my main focus at the time. Wolf seemed intrigued by my soul demos, he wrote me back [sic] and said “Hey, this sounds great, but what is this, what am I listening to?”. I said “Well, there my songs”, he said “What do you mean they’re your songs? You have the rights to them?”. He thought it was an old record that I dug up that I was going to re-issue, and I was like “No, these are my songs, that’s me singing on there, and I wrote the song, and I played everything on it, and produced it myself, and recorded it in my bedroom”. When he found out the real deal he was just blown away, he asked me if I would record a whole album of that material for his label. Which, you can’t really say no to that.

DD: You mentioned that you’re self produced, and that you produce your own stuff [I do, yeah]. Do you think an external producer is necessary for a band, for the quality of the record?

MH: I think it depends on who’s in the band. Somebody’s got to produce it, but I don’t think you necessarily have to have somebody else come it. You do have to have a good producer though, but alot of times somebody in the band can be that good producer.

DD: It’s not necessarily a fresh set of ears that’s necessary?

MH: I don’t think so.

DD: Yeah, it works for you. Do you a future for big labels, for mainstream labels?

MH: I defiantly think major labels are going to be around. As far as me being, in the future, with a major label – it’s a possibility, I don’t shut it out as a possibility, I’m fielding offers at the moment for a lot of different major labels, and we’re going to hear everybody out. If there’s a deal that comes along that’s right for me then I’ll take it, if not, then I won’t.

DD: Good luck with that. What advice would you give to upcoming artists? You mentioned that you were passionate about one thing and this side project took over and became what you are now making money from. What advice would you give to people who are now coming up?

MH: I would say, don’t make music for other people. Make music for yourself, and have as much fun as you can making it. People will find it, people will find [what you’re passionate about], people will love it. People will be attracted to your passion. Go for what you want to do, and be creative, be original. That’s my #1 advice; don’t do what everybody else is doing.

DD: Speaking on collaborations for a moment, I noticed on your twitter page yesterday you were exchanging views with Dita Von Tesse.

MH: Yeah, that was a trip. I don’t actually know that much about her, but she’s got 100,000 followers on twitter. I know a little bit about what she does. That kind of thing has been happening all the time on twitter, that that’s one of the great things about twitter, I really like twitter as a social media forum.

DD: Yeah, you seem to use it, actually, genuinely.

MH: I do, I love it, and I tell everybody to follow me on twitter.

DD: Excellent. A lot of artists are using it as a promotion/media platform, they have a ghost writer writing stuff, but you, genuinely, it’s in your pocket.

MH: Oh yeah, I’m on it. Ask the guys in my band, I’m on it all the time and almost everybody gets annoyed with me, with how much I’m on there.

DD: About remixing and collaborations, do you have any other offers in terms of collaboration, serious potential?

MH: I’m working with Snoop Dogg on some stuff right now, that’s going to be awesome, I’ve been talking to Ghostface Killah about doing some stuff, I just did a track with Freeway for his new album.

DD: So you’re still very much in the Hip-hop space as well?

MH: I guess it’s just sort of been happening that way, that’s actually a really good point. It’s not that I’m out there particularly going after hip-hop artists to collaborate with, but that’s who has been coming to me.

DD: You do also see strange crossovers, I mean, Mark Ronson’s been interested in you, and even in his music there are odd crossovers between Hip-hop in his earlier stuff and Jazz.

MH: Yeah, I guess people can defiantly hear the hip-hop influence in my music, that’s attracted them.

DD: Speaking of, soul is quite old, originated in the 50s, and you mentioned [Peanut Butter Wolf], who thought you had dug up this old record. How are you using modern recording techniques, technology, to bring a more modern sound to soul?

MH: I think a lot of my modern sound comes from me not even being alive in the 60s and 70s. I grew up in the 80s and 90s listening to Public Enemy, LL Cool J and the Smashing Pumpkins. It’s kind of impossible for me to know what it was like back then, when people were recording music. I can only use [the] techniques I’ve learned in my lifetime. I’m an indie artist on an indie label with no budget, and I’m using equipment that I have available to me, which is the cheapest shit I can find and I think that adds a lot to my sound. That’s just the way that it goes. Honestly, if I had all the money in the world, I’d probably do it the same way.

DD: Just to finish up, we mentioned earlier big labels, remixing. What are your views on music piracy?

MH: Music Piracy. The main thing is that there’s nothing you can do about it. You have two choices, you can either be Metallica and yell at everybody and be pissed off all day, or you can say “Hey, that’s how it goes” and figure out other ways to makes money. That’s the way that I go about it.

DD: Hence why you’re touring extensively?

MH: Yeah, get on the road and have a good live show and people will respect it.

DD: Any big gig’s you’re looking forward to? Where you’re saying “that gig’s going to be great”.

MH: London was awesome, we just did two sold out nights in London, I was really looking forward to those, they were great. I’m really looking forward to Ireland, just because I’ve never been here, I’ve never performed here. Same thing with Spain, we’ve got some Spain dates. I’ve never been to Spain. I’m always looking forward to places that I haven’t been and places that I haven’t tried the food, because I’m a really big food guy. That’s part of the fun for me, honestly sometimes I have more fun with the food than I do at the shows. It’s really the “Mayer Hawthorn Lonely Food Tour”. I just pretend it’s about the music, really I’m in it for the food.

DD laughs.

DD: Brilliant, thank you very much, and good luck with the rest of the tour.

MH: Thanks very much man.