Interview with David Lowery

I got the chance to talk with Cracker frontman David Lowery as he prepares for his show at Toad's Place next week.

Congrats to Boyhowdy from Cover Lay Down for his question which was presented to David in the interview below.

Click here to listen.

What's the best show you ever played in Richmond, Va?
I think the best show we’ve ever played in Richmond was at the old Flood Zone. It was about the time when we had 3 songs on MTV simultaneously. It was a big homecoming show and we had sort of this big hit going on. At one point, my girlfriend at the time who’s now my ex-wife was standing on stage next to me having just stage dived and she had a black eye. It was funny because I didn’t recognize her at first. It was just a classic Richmond show.

How are Richmond audiences different from other audiences?
That’s hard for me to really say because this is really a hometown for us and the hometown audience is always different. Johnny and I started out on the West Coast, so in a way San Francisco acts like a hometown as well. They [the fans] know us and have supported us for all these years.

Favorite song to play live?
Our favorite song is going to be different from the one you always have to play live. I think a lot of people will think “Low,” being our hit single, would be the song we love to play, but actually our favorite is “Eurotrash Girl.” That is sort of known not only in the United States but also all over the world. That’s probably the song that we cannot get away with not playing. Otherwise we’ll have about 400 angry strippers that want to kick our ass after the show.

Who’s opened for Cracker that you’ve enjoyed?
I think lately my favorite has been Jason Molina and Magnolia Record Co. I just think they’re really phenomenal – like a modern day Neil Young. We just did a tour with Jason Isbell formerly of Drive by Truckers and I think he’s sort of another up and coming songwriter. We’ve had all kinds of famous people open for us – the ones who become famous later like Counting Crows.

Tell us some of the bands for which Cracker opened.
Grateful Dead, the Ramones, Lynard Skynard -- that kind of sums it up. It was a great experience opening for the Grateful Dead. It was pretty intense legendary rock stuff. And the Grateful Dead didn’t have opening bands very often and so it was kind of an event and we had full use of the stage and the PA.

Why has Cracker lasted when so many bands from the early 90s didn’t?
We had more than one album at the time when many of the bands at that time only had one hit single. Also, we’re pretty eclectic and we didn’t just do alternative rock. There were Americana stations, country stations playing us. There were “adult alternative stations” playing us. College radio played us. We weren’t stuck in one format.

We were also pretty early on the Internet scene. And we’ve always kept a very strong grassroots following by keeping in contact with our fans. We even have our “urban achievers,” which are people that are our fans that volunteer for each show to put up posters, hand postcards out. They’ve been very helpful in keeping that grassroots following going.

Boyhowdy's question:
Your musical collaboration with Leftover Salmon ("Oh Cracker, Where Art Thou") was a genre-busting masterstroke. Now that you've conquered the psychograss/rock connection, what other "non-traditional" types of music or instrumentation would you enjoy working with? Opera? Hip-Hop? Tuvan Throat singing?
There’s a classical composer [Sam Shalabi] who wrote a piece called “Eye of Fatima (Part Three)” which is a reference to the Camper Van Beethoven song “Eye of Fatima (Part Two).” I just thought it would be funny to collaborate with him.

How could Richmond’s music scene be improved on in the next 5 years?
It’d be nice if people actually went to concerts in Richmond and supported the local music scene. I’ve been here 17 years and that’s been continuing. That’s been the problem for 17 years and I don’t know what that is whether it’s the venues not located in the right part of town or if it’s problems with our ABC laws that make it hard for venues to stay in business. I think there’s a lot of apathy towards local music. Which is a shame because a city this size, there are a lot of groups that tour nationally and internationally and it’s a large percentage of the size of this city.

How do you feel about your upcoming show at Toad’s Place?
I actually haven’t been there yet because I’ve been doing about 160 shows in support of Cracker’s latest album Greenland and I’ve been home very little. It seems like there’s a lot of national acts going through there. It’s seems like they’re really trying to get a lot stuff back through Richmond.

When the Flood Zone was open in Shockhoe Bottom, I think that was sort of the peak of Richmond’s live music scene because we were getting national acts coming through the city all the time. Richmond needs a smaller venue too. I think it’s a good thing. I hope it remains in business and sticks around. Richmond doesn’t have a great track record for that.