Kim Ruehl: What artists are you listening to these days?
Dan Bern: Snooky Prior. He was the first harmonica player to mike his harp. Postwar Chicago blues guy. Jimmie Rogers. He was pretty much Hank Williams' equal, but he came along earlier.
KR: Do you do a lot of songwriting while you're on tour? Do you find life on the road inspiring or exhausting?
DB: I write on the road and I write when I’m not on the road. Being on the road is part of my life and I thrive on it, but there's limits, you have to recharge.
KR: Do you still play cello?
DB: That's a generously phrased question, it implies that at one time I "played" the cello. I sawed it, more accurately. I played a little on someone else's session a couple months back. In the age of Protools and clever engineers, you can get away with almost anything.
KR: I remember hearing Arlo Guthrie once talk about how his father would never have considered himself a guitar player, because his focus was more on singing stories. Do you consider yourself a guitar player? Or is it just one of your tools for sharing your stories? Personally, is the music your main concern?
DB: That seems right to me. Whatever I know on the guitar I learned in order to serve some song somewhere along the line. At the same time I'd be a little lost without it. Being on stage without a guitar is strange and weird, like if I'm just singing with someone. It helps to have a harmonica or something. But I do want to learn the piano. The songs I wrote most lately I think are more piano songs than guitar. I just haven't learned it yet.
KR: Do you consider yourself a folksinger? Why do you think the word "folksinger" has somewhat of a stigma attached to it (in the context of popular culture)?
DB: We live in an age of categories. Every genre of music, of art, of anything, is fractured and divided and stratified. I don't really think in those terms so much, and I try not to do it to myself. They called Leadbelly a folksinger, and he was Kurt Cobain's favorite singer. So was Kurt Cobain a folksinger? Was John Lennon a folksinger? If "folksinger" includes Woody (Guthrie), Bob (Dylan), Bruce (Springsteen), Kurt (Cobain), Leonard (Cohen), Ani (Difranco), Billy Bragg, etc., then hell yeah, sure, count me in. But not if it limits my next song, you know? I don't mind labels as long as you are able to derive some strength from 'em, when you need 'em, and can leave 'em behind when you don't.
KR: Given your somewhat short career, you've released quite a few records. Which is your favorite? Why?
DB: Well, I released my first record in '96 or '97, but I'd been playing and writing and traveling for a long time before then. Ther’es people that come up and tell me they have a tape of me from '85 or whatever. I always wrote & made tapes and all that. So I'm just doing the same thing I've always done, it's just a little more visible. Favorites, I don't know. Ask me in 29 years.
KR: What do you have to say about the claim that you sound an awful lot like Bob Dylan?
DB: Nothing.
KR: Your work has become considerably more political in nature over the years. I won't waste your time by asking why, I'll just open up this opportunity to talk about the current political climate and what place a folksinger like you has in it.
DB: Gee, there you go with them labels! How about ..."The current political climate and what place a human like you has in it"... There's times to speak out, there's times to curl into a ball. Everyone has to figure that out for themselves. I just think you don't want to look back and say, "oh, I shoulda said this when I had the chance ..."
KR: What's the biggest thing that man has ever done?
DB: We ain’t done it yet, and it's evolving to a consciousness that allows us to exist with the planet and not against it, with other humans and animals and not against them. If aliens attacked from someplace else we would finally think of ourselves as all on the same team. Why do we have to wait for that?
KR: Who's this Cunliffe Merriweather character, and how did you come to work on Quitting Science? (Quitting Science was written by Dan under the alias of Cunliffe Merriweather)
DB: Some scientist. He asked me to write a preface to his book, which I did, although I never read the book. I don't have time for that crap.
KR: When's the Dan Bern coffee table art book coming out?
DB: Make me an offer.
KR: Finally, what's one thing you want everyone to know?
DB: Be aware of your next 5 breaths.
