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by Keavin Wiggins
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[Authors Introduction: If you cover the music business for any length of time it is really easy to become jaded. You begin to see the business side of it, labels pushing out product instead of art, and you start to lose hope that visionary music that flies below the radar or strays from the norm will ever get a fair shot again. I’m talking about the music that inspired you to first write about music in the first place; music with integrity from artists that change the musical landscape, not just ride a wave to success. Over the past six years I’ve seen more than my fair share of “flash in the pan” artists sell millions, never to be heard from again. I’ve also seen several truly gifted artists ignored or promoted with minimum effort. It’s maddening and makes you kind of cynical about the record racket. But from time to time, there are success stories about artists that break from the norm and against all odds--find success. These artists give us hope.  Gary Jules is one of those artists and his story is rather inspiring. It is fitting that this month as we mark our sixth anniversary that we honor an artist like Gary as artist of the month, because this magazine was started to cover unique and talented artists just like Gary Jules, and the story of how he found success should give every aspiring musicians not only a little hope but also a reason to smile. Sometimes if you stay true to yourself and the music, success does come. The follow article and interview are a bit informal and more a blog entry then a feature article, but after I drafted it this way I  thought that it seemed appropriate to keep it that way. - Keavin NP "DTLA" 4/1/04 ] 

Gary Jules and his musical collaborator Michael Andrews were not looking to score a No. 1 hit with “Mad World”. Andrews was charged with coming up with the score to the independent film “Donnie Darko” and asked his long time collaborator Gary Jules if he would be interested in laying down a vocal for a cover song for the film’s soundtrack. 

It wasn’t a big budget project; it was simply two friends collaborating one day. In fact, the song was recorded in 90 minutes for about $50 bucks in Andrews’ basement in Los Angeles. Michael played the piano and Gary laid down the vocal. But the resulting song betrayed its humble origins. Jules and Andrews took what was basically a dance song from 80’s group Tears for Fears and turned it into a haunting ballad that fit perfectly into the concluding scene of the film and the song stayed with the viewer long after the movie was over. 

Upon its release on home video in 2002, “Donnie Darko” became an instant cult classic. But Andrews and Jules had long since moved on to other things, primarily the recording of “Trading Snakeoil for Wolftickets”. But the song had a life of its own. It was released on the score album for the film and over a year and half after it was released “Mad World” exploded on British radio. It raced to the top of charts and bested the two singles that bookies had predicted would compete for the top the charts during Christmas 2003 – Ozzy and Kelly Osbourne’s remake of “Changes” and The Darkness’ Christmas single. 

That success led to the major label release of Trading Snakeoil for Wolftickets, which Gary had previously released independently. Fans of “Mad World” were in for a bit of a shock when they put Gary’s full length CD on. They expected music along the lines of “Mad World” but were greeted with music from a compelling singer/songwriter instead. 

Most were pleasantly surprised with the discovery and fell in love with Gary’s primary musical focus, which is finding plenty of success outside of the “Mad World” phenomenon.  That is as it should be and actually the way Gary prefers it. As you’ll read in the interview that follows, Gary is pleased that it was “Mad World” and not one of his own songs that broke him into the big time. He saw the song as a one shot deal that can’t be duplicated, “It kind of falls into the category of pure art in that way, it just is what it is and can’t be rehashed, which I sort of appreciate about it,” says Gary. “Also, it’s kind of strange that that was the one that became popular, because I don’t think I could have handled it if it was my own song.” 

And that’s the most important thing to understand about Gary Jules. He is not out to top the charts or claim fame and fortune. He simply wants to write and perform what he calls his “little songs”.  But they are anything but little. Although in production they are not mind blowing “walls of sound”, Jules has the rare talent of the born singer/songwriter. He can write compelling acoustic music that doesn’t threaten to put the listener to sleep. All the ingredients are there—melodies and hooks—and unlike a lot of his contemporaries that strive to measure up to the “greats”, Jules easily lands in the league of the pioneers of the genre—Cat Stevens, James Taylor, Simon and Garfunkel and Peter, Paul and Mary. In fact, you will find a lot of similarities to those artists in Gary’s music. There are a lot of singer/songwriters out today that aspire to that, but Gary could comfortably be transported back to the heyday of the genre and fit right in. That’s not to say the music is dated--like those artists, the music has a timeless quality and should sit well with today’s music buying public. 

Trading Snakeoil for Wolftickets is one of those albums that grows on you more, each time you listen to it—as you delve deeper into the songs and make new subtle discoveries with each new spin. If you have an ear for great singer/songwriters then this is the album you have been waiting for. 

Now let’s get to know Gary a little bit better with the following interview where Gary discusses a lot of topics ranging from “Mad World”, his longtime partnership with Michael Andrews, his adopted hometown of Los Angeles, to his unique ‘get out and make it happen for yourself’ approach to the music business and he walks us through the first few songs of Trading Snakeoil for Wolftickets before our interview time ran out. 

antiMUSIC: (the first minute or so of the interview did not record, so this begins with Gary in the middle of an answer. ) the question was about his success for a song that was almost two years old. 

Gary Jules: The single blew up and now the album in Europe is really starting to go, which is really exciting because it’s totally different for me talking about, it’s either album culture or singles culture and the UK is pure singles culture. Like a 5 year-old knows what’s No. 1 on the charts. Their kind of obsessed with it. It’s kind of both exciting and really weird. Like England is really weird, I just did a tour there and I purposely wanted to do small rooms because that’s sort of where I come from. Kind of intimate singer/songwriter thing and I wanted to work that vibe before starting to do bigger places. So it was really cool but press-wise it is all about “Mad World”, “Mad World”, “Mad World”, “Mad World”, you know. 
 

aM: that’s to be expected. They are kind of shocked because the rest of the album is totally different from the “Mad World” vibe.

GJ: Yeah, it’s kind of cool. “Mad World” first of all is such a unique piece, nothing could be like it. I really can’t take responsibility for it, Mike Andrews, my buddy, can’t really either because he obviously didn’t write it, even though it was his idea. His music doesn’t sound like that either. It was the first thing he’d ever done on the piano for one thing. As soon as he was done with “Donnie Darko”, that exact style pretty much died. He doesn’t really do that stuff. His own original stuff doesn’t sound like that and of course Tears for Fears doesn’t sound like that. From which ever direction you go from Mad World towards any of the people that were responsible for it, there is gonna be a difference. It’s kind of cool actually, kind of cool for me because there is no “hey, how come you don’t do something more like ‘Mad World’?” .. ok, a song I didn’t write, on an instrument I didn’t play, that was inspired by a movie that I had nothing to do with. Can’t do it, it’s just sort of is what it is. It kind of falls into the category of pure art in that way, it just is what it is and can’t be rehashed, which I sort of appreciate about it. Also, it’s kind of strange that that was the one that became popular, because I don’t think I could have handled it if it was my own song. 

aM: Oh really?

GJ: It would be too weird, people just calling up.. just like the level of focus and the level of sort of like exposure is something I’m not really accustomed to and don’t really aspire to. And as exciting as it was and as great as it felt to actually be No. 1 on the charts, it was also, you know it’s a little bit nerve wracking… In some ways a little bit embarrassing, because it’s a lot more focus then I am used to. 

aM: Yeah, your music seems to have more integrity then the pop-stars. How do I put this, it doesn’t seem like you are out there to sell a million records. 

GJ: I just think, if I were to sell a million records that would be great because it would be something that happened without me making a video with naked girls in it or dating Sheryl Crow or whatever. You know what I mean, without playing the game that way. It’s sort of like, you look at someone like Norah Jones or Jack Johnson and they just did exactly what they do and a lot of people could relate to it and I think they both probably sold a lot of records because they didn’t try to fit into one genre. They sort of were who they were. And if you’re a real person, you probably straddle several different genres, several different kinds of demographic groups. So if I don’t sell a million records, that will be perfectly fine with me, and if I do, hopefully I didn’t have to, I don’t know, host the Oscars to do it. 

aM: I think that your success gives a lot of independent artists some hope because you really did go the ‘do it yourself’ route and it broke out.  What I’d like to do is get into each song on the album if that is cool. Just get into what the song is about or anything about them. (Note: unfortunately our time allotment ended before we were able to complete this, other people were waiting to interview Gary and we had to let him go but here are the songs we were able to cover.)   The first one is “Broke Window”, can you tell us a little about that?

GJ: “Broke Window” is the first song that I wrote of this album. I had a major label deal before, Mike Andrews had produced. Mike and I, I don’t know if you know our history, have know each other our whole lives. We both come from San Diego--known each other since we were kids—we’ve been making music together. I joined his band when I was 14, I left when I was 18. When I was about 20 we started making, I was always in rock bands, and I had always written on the side like the antithesis of these rock songs I had written what I used to call “my little music”. These little kinds of songs that are on the album now. When I was like 20 or 21, Mike and I started recording them sort as an aside to both of our projects that we were doing and we have continued to keep doing that. We made a record for A&M in 1998, then got caught in the sort of merger of A&M to MCA/Universal so the record kind of disappeared. When we sat down to make a new record it was a year later. I had taken like a year off, taking a break from songwriting and “Broke Window” was the first song that I wrote of the next group. It was just kind of the epitomy of my little music. It was just one particular feeling, I always think of it as, I tell people it’s like sitting in a car that has four people in it but you’re in the passenger seat just staring out the window while everybody else talks. That’s kind of like the embodiment of what that song is about, sort of passing through. 

aM: It’s kind of ironic that you wound up back on Universal. 

GJ: Yeah and I got my first record back when I did! 

aM: That's cool. 

GJ: My first record will now be released independently as Snakeoil”was before I came here [ Universal]. 

aM: right on... Let’s move on to the next song, “No Poetry”

GJ: “No Poetry”, the first line obviously is “There is no poetry between us / said the paper to the pen” and it was sort of, I had noticed, one of the things I noticed when I started to write the album—like each song was just wanting to… like “Broke Window” had the “trading snakeoil for wolftickets” in it, was basically about people bullshitting each other all the time. Like people talking trash all the time for no apparent reason. “No Poetry” was “there is no poetry between us / said the paper to the pen” is about how people sit around and complain to each other about what’s not happening in their lives, rather then... you know, if two people spend three hours sitting around talking about how, if you’re a musician, you sit around and say ‘God, the music industry is not fair... all the record companies are so evil, they’re trying to enslave us.. MTV doesn’t show videos anymore and all the venues in town suck’. Well that whole three hours you spent talking about that stuff, the two of you could have been getting it together, making a record independently that you could then put on the Internet or starting a club somewhere or doing whatever you could. It’s about people, hopefully, people getting up and doing something rather then sitting around complaining. 

aM: What about “DTLA”?

GJ: “DTLA”, Down Town Los Angeles—Los Angeles is a really super weird city to me. It’s the place that I moved to from my hometown and downtown Los Angeles in particular is really strange because the way some cities have centers, downtown Los Angeles is like, there are all these huge corporate buildings with these obviously multi-national corporations in them and on the ground floor, the bottom floor of downtown Los Angeles is this whole other world. Like regular downtown life going on in the shadows of these gigantic buildings and unless you like have some specific reason for going down there, nobody’s ever really been to downtown Los Angeles. It sort of gives me the feeling, you know “the Jetsons” and people are flying back and forth from their buildings? The idea of that is buildings eventually get so tall that people don’t even go down to the ground anymore. So affluent people live at the top of these buildings and all the underlings live down on earth. That’s sort of how Los Angeles feels already, so that’s where I got the idea. 

(laughs) aM: Speaking of LA. Where are you favorite places to play? 

GJ: The Hotel Café’.

aM: Oh cool. 

GJ: You know that place?

aM: Oh yeah, I go there all the time.

GJ: You do?! You know I started that place? 

aM: Really? I didn’t know that. 

GJ: Yeah, I started the music there. 

aM: Very cool. 

GJ: My residency on Tuesday nights was the thing that started that whole thing. That was like my big instinct from ‘no poetry’, [instead of] sitting around talking about how every club in LA sucks, I started the Hotel Café as you know because when I said “there is no poetry between us / said the paper to the pen” talking about how people just sit around and complain, I wasn’t talking about other people. I was talking me. That’s what I was doing for a long time, so we finally got up and started a club to do the music and invited all of our friends to start playing and the community was really strong and eventually, you know took over.  I’m getting the cut across the throat right now (meaning our allotted interview time was over). 

aM: Oh no, we gotta cut this off? 

GJ: Yeah, we’re only to which songs? Three?  Anyway “Lucky” is pretty self-explanatory. “Something Else” is about trying to find a different way to live in Hollywood. It’s pretty much what the whole thing is about, which was like I’ve been chasing.. kind of like.. get a record deal and then get on MTV and get famous and I thought that’s what you needed to do and as soon as I stopped focusing on that and began concentrating on something else, which was music is what I love doing, so I’m just gonna do that and play. And as soon as I had done that I started having success. As soon as I stopped chasing it. 

And that was the point where our conversation had to end but as you can see there is a lot more to Gary Jules then “Mad World” and in fact his story teaches us a lot and may inspire struggling musicians. The cards may be stacked against you, but go back to Gary’s description of “Something Else” and how focusing on the music and the story of a song that cost $50 and was recorded in a basement came out of nowhere and propelled him to success. True, he had the rare talent to make it, but a big part of his story is that drive and realizing that blind ambition alone won’t make it happen, you have to make it happen for yourself and that begins with believing in the music. 

(we'll try and get some more interview time with Gary and finish the track by track for a follow up feature).

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