Charlie Mars is an Oxford, Mississippi based singer-songwriter who believes in the craft of making records. He’s toured with R.E.M. and he’s done photo shoots for Billy Reid. His new record, The Money, is personal and intimate, a combination that will complement the Sound & Page room he’ll play on Friday beautifully.
He spoke to Weld about his relationship with Reid, the meticulous effort he put into recording his record and the scene in his hometown Oxford.
Weld: I was at the Danny Clinch exhibit with you at Billy Reid Shindig in Florence this year, and I had no idea that you had a relationship with Billy. How was it formed and what’s your relationship like now?
Charlie Mars: Yeah. My uncle and his father are very close. That’s kind of how we originally met. I was in Vogue magazine for Billy Reid when he won the CFDA Fashion Award and I was living in New York City at the time. I also played a charity thing for him in Florence around 2008. We’ve just kind of slowly over time gotten to know each other, and we’ve done a few things together, and I actually introduced him to Danny [Clinch], because Danny was going to be there and I wanted to go to that Shindig, I just kind of on a whim had the weekend off so I went over there. It was so fun.
Weld: You live in Oxford, Mississippi now. What is that scene like?
CM: Fat Possum Records is based there. There’s young guys making records, like Bass Drum of Death is from Oxford, and they tour nationally and internationally. And of course there’s the old guard like the Blue Mountain, Kudzu Kings type era of music. A lot of those guys are still around.
I would say it’s good for a small college town. We get a lot of good music coming through there, and we have a couple of really good clubs. There’s younger guys that are trying to make a go of it.
Weld: I’ve always thought that Mississippi music was underappreciated. When you were younger, what inspired you? Was it your surroundings? Or just national acts?
CM: I would say it was not my surroundings. I mean, I knew some guys in my high school that played guitar and I wanted to be a part of what they were doing. The truth is, if I had to say why I wanted to start playing guitar, it’s from watching, like, ’80s metal videos. Like Poison and Van Halen and Guns ‘n Roses. Those were the things that had me looking up, starry-eyed at the television going, “I wanna [expletive] do that.”
C.C. DeVille. I remember being a little kid and seeing that guy on TV and being like, “I wanna do that.”
He was in Poison, by the way.
Weld: Yeah. I’m old enough. [Laughs]
CM: Right on. [Laughs] But then of course, you listen to my music and as I got older and my tastes became more of what they are today; I love singer-songwriters from the ’60s and ’70s, ’50s even, like Buddy Holly and Jackson Browne or Neil Young or early Springsteen. You know, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what I like based on what my music sounds like. There’s a palette of instrumentation that’s prevalent throughout ’70s recordings that I try to further. I try to have a contemporary voice, a modern voice, but there’s something sonically about instrumentation, you know. Like Fender Rhodes or a B3 organ or an acoustic guitar or a real drum kit versus a drum loop – I’ve always gravitated toward those kinds of records and wanted to make those kinds of records.
Weld: You started out playing in bands – what was the sound like? How is what you are doing now different from what you were doing 10-20 years ago?
CM: I think my stuff was a little straighter back then. There wasn’t much emphasis on the groove aspect of what I do. I was a real child of the alt-country movement and the folk movement and I think my music was a reflection of that. In the late ’90s, it was all Big Head Todd and Dave Matthews Band and I was just starting out and I wanted to model myself after something I saw. So I would say it was a combination of all of those elements that since have morphed into more of a minimalist groove sonically – that’s what I really, really love. People like Bill Withers or J.J. Cale. I went to a few shows and I’d look around and there’s nothing but fat guys with Pabst Blue Ribbon cans, and I wanted to play for some girls. So I changed things up a little bit.
Weld: The Money is a really gorgeous record.
CM: Is it?! I wouldn’t know. I’m so close to that thing, I wouldn’t – it’s like talking about your brother.
Weld: Why are you so close to it?
CM: I mean, I lived and I breathed every second of that record for two years, you know? Writing it. Living with those songs. Raising the money to make it. Making it in a place that — most records these days are made on computers in a small room with a producer; my last three records have been made using a combination of digital and analog tape and real musicians that are some of the best musicians in the country and using real studios and taking long periods of time.
There’s no shortcuts when it’s come to these last three records. Not many people come up and comment on the sonic quality of the record or the aesthetic of what I hold as important principles in making records and music; very few people even ever comment on any of that stuff, yet I spend a lot of time trying to get the money to make expensive records and I make no compromises. So I’m close to it because it’s so personal. I believe in it wholeheartedly, although it’s possible that I’m delusional. [Laughs]
Weld: Why is it important to you to put that effort into it when so many other people take shortcuts?
CM: Because I want to look back and know that I did what it is that I love. And I love making records in that way because you get to hang out with guys and you get to spend long hours in the studio – we cut together in the studio on the floor, and someone used this metaphor – it’s like a field of wheat and if you don’t have all the players in the room, when a breeze blows across the field, the wheat blows twenty different ways. You’ve got a guy in New York City that’s recording the keyboards and a guy in Dallas who might be doing the drums. But when you’re all in the room together and you’re doing it live and the wind blows across the wheat field, it all blows the same way. There’s an energy to that that you can’t duplicate by laying things down on a grid and doing it on a computer.
I know some of this stuff isn’t important or maybe people don’t even understand it, but I do it because I can’t live with not following my instincts. And my instinct is what I’m doing.
Weld: Will the record be available at the show on vinyl?
CM: No, but the vinyl is being pressed. Vinyl’s a [expletive] now. It takes forever to get that [expletive]. But they’re pressing in December, so I will have vinyl.
It’s a similar kind of feeling when you make records that have a certain kind of aesthetic and integrity, vinyl feels the same way. When someone comes to the merch booth and I sell them a vinyl record, it feels differently than when I sell them a CD. I just want to give them a big hug or something.
It’s just something so tangible, which means there’s something so human about it. It’s not a serial, digital, x’s and o’s.
Weld: What distinguishes this record from your previous work?
CM: I would say it’s more streamlined, which is surprising compared to most of my last records. I really focused on groove and not adding anything that didn’t belong. I think it’s a strong batch of songs and from the three records, when I looked back on these last three – it’s very personal. They’re about me. I write songs about my life and I try to connect with other people through that. Those three records, to me, are about being a young man and recognizing that there’s things about life that you want to escape — things about yourself, things about the world — and how do you do that? How do you rise above the pain?
Blackberry Life was a more realistic, I think, look at some of those things, and I think The Money about accepting things about yourself that you maybe would like to change, but they don’t seem to be changing. And taking a look at it and laughing at it. Things like human nature, character shortcomings that seem to crop up when you swear them off.
So, I don’t know how much different it is, other than I think it’s a strong batch of songs that are about – it’s called The Money because “The Money” is a metaphor for anything that, in life, I pursued that wasn’t spiritually fulfilling. Whether it was success or status or fame or money or a new motorcycle or this job or this girlfriend – it’s about that. It’s about that chase for things that don’t fulfill. Taking a look at them sometimes in a humorous way and then – what does? What does fulfill? What is the answer? Where does the salvation lie? I think that’s what the album addresses.
Weld: You mentioned recording the record live with other musicians — where was the room?
CM: This was recorded at Sonic Ranch, which is about 40 miles east of El Paso on a 7,000-acre pecan plantation. It was a really beautiful, old analog studio – incredible, actually. The two previous records were made in Austin at a studio called Jack Rock’s. All three were made in Texas.
Weld: Who are the top five American rock bands of all time?
CM: R.E.M. Wow. You’re springing this on me. Can it be a solo artist or only bands?
Weld: Solo is fine.
CM: Springsteen. Jackson Browne. Pixies. And Guns ‘n Roses.
Charlie Mars comes to Sound & Page on Friday, November 14 at 8 p.m. Doors are at 7:30. Tickets are $20.
