Greenville Scene

by: Michelle Hannon, Tiffany Heuser

GS: What started your interest in music and what inspires you now?

NB: Like most people, my interest in music began as a child. My grandmother was a piano player. She played from the old gospel shape-note hymnals. I supposed my earliest memories are of her playing those songs. The things that inspire me now are so varied. It’s never one thing; be it musical, visual, or literary art. I’ve always been a fan of the subversive approach to art.

GS: What aspect of music excites you the most?

NB: The freedom to create what I want, to shape the outcome of something in a way that is new or different. I like sounds that are uncommon, and I’m always listening to different sounds during the day. Did you know that a Chevy car-horn almost always blows in the key of F? I think about things like that, and the idea that our environment is a gigantic orchestra is exciting to me. It’s very democratic; the tree limbs creaking, cars whizzing by, someone playing a piano on the porch, an airplane overhead, it’s all part of a song. The exciting part is narrowing those voices down to something more manageable to the ear, or the mind.

GS: What aspect of being a performing musician discourages you the most?

NB: The business aspect. There are so many people who make music for their own wallet’s sake. It’s the same with any artform, you have Thomas Kinkade in the visual arts for instance - and he’s built an entire financial empire around his gimmick. It’s the same in the music business, and it becomes harder to find artists who are sincere instead of writing or performing to demographics.

GS: What is your purpose or philosophy regarding your music?

NB: I honestly have none. Maybe I should work on that. I make music because it’s what I do. If I didn’t, I’d probably be making license plates.

GS: What are you listening to now?

NB: I’ve been listening to a lot of Reverend Gary Davis. My friend, Michael King, got me hooked onto the Reverend. Davis was from Gray Court and later moved to New York City. He influenced all the great mid-century blues musicians, as well as Bob Dylan. There is something very timeless about Davis’ lyrics, and his voice commands attention - it’s like a nuclear powered foghorn.

GS: How do you view the Greenville music scene and your part in it?

NB: I tend not to think about it. Greenville is an odd place. The city does seem to have a burgeoning songwriting community, but it’s timid and it feels uncomfortable here sometimes. There is certainly a clique of popular musicians here, and I have never felt like I was a part of it. So I can’t really say that I have any part to play in the local music scene. I look forward to the day when people in Greenville no longer ask who do you play with when they find out someone is a musician. Having said that, there are people in this city who are the unsung heroes; Gene Berger at Horizon Records comes to mind. While not a musician in the performing circles, he has single-handedly done more to further the performing arts here than anyone I can think of.

GS: How has being from Greenville affected you musically?

NB: I’m not actually from Greenville, and having only moved here recently, I don’t know that the city has influenced what I do very much. If anything, it has caused me to become very interested in the regional styles that come from the Greenville area. The Piedmont Blues style, for instance, is very interesting to me and I was wholly unaware of it until moving here.

GS: What are you currently working on? When does it come out?

NB: I’m currently working on a few different projects, one is a collection of songs that will be recorded with very minimal instrumentation, probably just guitar, piano, and vocal. Another project is an instrumental collection of southwestern and Central/South American influenced songs. I’m also scoring a soundtrack to F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922), a silent adaptation of Bram Stroker’s Dracula. Unfortunately, I don’t have any release dates or time frames, but I’m hoping to finish the Nosferatu work by the end of summer.

*See Niel Brooks live Friday, May 18th @ Coffee Underground.

www.nielbrooks.com
www.myspace.com/nielbrooks

Look for free greenvillescene.com stickers available at Eastside Guitars and Drums, Horizon Records, Earshot, and Coffee Underground while they last.