A Conversation with Danny Barnes (continued)

PM: So it's amazing how your very eccentric and yet singularly pointed path has ended you up in this kind of steady employment at the moment with guys like Robert Earl Keen and Tim O'Brien.

DB: [laughs]

PM: So what was it like--how did those two gigs come to be?

DB: I've known Robert for 20 years.

PM: He's a Texas buddy.

DB: Yeah. I've known him for a long time down there, off and on. And then two of the guys in his band were friends of mine that were in other bands. Rich Brotherton is a really good guy--he's actually the one who hired me and got me going in that. And they had a new record, they wanted me to play on a couple of things. And so actually he asked me first to go out and just open some shows for him.

PM: Do you like playing solo in situations like that?

DB: Yeah, because I have this thing with my solo act where it's kind of like confrontational standup comedy.

PM: Oh, really? I'd love to see that.

DB: Where if you go out there and they're totally indifferent to you, and there's ways you can sort of like irritate them and sort of get their attention, and push them around--

PM: Oh, yeah? [laughs]

DB: Even just one guy.

PM: Even one guy with a banjo.

DB: I totally get off on the irony of that, too. A lot of places, they didn't know who I was, and they wanted to see Robert. And here I come out there, and you're going to have to deal with me for a half an hour, or whatever, because I'm playing the full deal.

PM: And that's some pretty drunk frat boys sometimes.

DB: Well, they can be a kind of interesting crowd. They told me right before a couple of the dates, "Some people have left this gig in tears."

PM: [laughs]

DB: And I said, "I'm totally ready for this." It was fun because you can kind of fake them out, push them around a little bit, and stuff. So I've developed that with my solo work. I worked on a lot of solo shows and developed a little way how you can react to what you're presented with.

I don't have a set list where I know what songs I'm going to play. I just go out there and kind of see what happens. It's like pitching a game, where you got to see how the batters are swinging to know what you're going to pitch, instead of trying to work it out in advance, or whatever.

PM: Did you pitch growing up, because you're very tall and strong looking.

DB: No, no, no. I respect pitchers. But I have always just been in music.

PM: Right.

DB: That's all I've ever really done.

PM: But on the other hand, you have a lot of strange extracurricular activities.

DB: [laughs] Yeah.

PM: Are you still avid about some of those?

DB: Yeah.

PM: What are the current ones?

DB: I like airplanes. I fly airplanes. And I like fly fishing. I like to ride unicycles and skateboards.

PM: I've never ridden a unicycle. Is it hard, and can you ride them uphill?

DB: Yeah. The hardest thing is riding them downhill.

PM: Right.

DB: It's easier to go uphill, because if you lean forward, you just kind of fall uphill, it's not too bad. But when you're riding them downhill, they're constantly trying to get away from you. So downhill is actually harder than uphill. It was interesting, I read on a website that it takes roughly twelve hours to learn how to ride it. And that's twelve hours of pushing yourself off of the wall and falling, pushing yourself off and falling--just over and over and over, for twelve hours, and finally you get where you can ride it across the garage. And it literally took me like almost exactly twelve hours to do that. I don't know if it was a self-fulfilling prophesy or not, but I read it on the internet.

PM: That's a lot of falling.

DB: Yeah. It takes a long time. But once you get it, though, man, you can ride--I mean, I can ride to the library and stuff.

PM: Wow. Have you ever run into a good singer/songwriter named David Wilcox? Do you know him?

DB: I've read that name.

PM: He's a unicycle guy as well, yeah. [see our interview with David]

DB: No kidding. I'll tell you something funny about unicycles, though, there's a website called banjo.com.

PM: Yeah, I've been there.

DB: Yeah. It's a good place to find used banjos, or whatever you want. It's a cool site. Well, lo and behold, there's also a website called unicycle.com, with the same setup--if you need a new seat for your uni, or you want to get some cool pedals, or you want to get like a longer seat post, or whatever, this is like the place, right? So I'm in my friend Scott's shop, right--

PM: What's his last name?

DB: Williwaw--actually, Scott Jaster is his name, but he runs Williwaw Cycles, which means--"williwaw" means a big storm. Anyway, I'm at his place, and I notice he's got these banjo.com bumper stickers.

PM: [laughs]

DB: And I said, "Where in the heck did you get those?" And he goes, "Man, I ordered this stuff from unicycle.com, and they put these in there for some reason." Turns out it's the same guy that does banjo.com and unicycle.com. Same guy.

PM: So this guy has become a friend, right?

DB: Yeah. I immediately had to call, yeah--"I don't know if you know this or not"--but anyway, it's so funny that it's the same guy.

PM: [laughs]

DB: And so I told Darol Anger about that. And Darol says, "What is it with that shape that gets that guy all obsessed?" He collects frying pans and--

PM: [laughs]

DB:--something about that shape--

PM: That shape just killed him. [laughs]

DB: Yeah.

PM: [laughs] When it comes to the banjo, it seems very unusual to me that you seem equally at home and adept with the clawhammer style and the bluegrass world. Isn't that kind of unusual? Aren't people usually in one camp or the other?

DB: That's funny. I've never really understood that, but all my life, even now, my clawhammer friends and bluegrass friends, they don't really interact. I don't know why that is, really.

PM: It's not as if guitar players were different camps that were separated into finger pickers and flat pickers. That doesn't happen in guitar playing.

DB: It's really odd, I don't know. I've never really caught that. I figured, and it's proven itself to be true in my case, in order for me to make a living, I have to be able to do a lot of things on the banjo. I have to be a complete banjo player. I have to be able to play slow stuff, I have to be able to read, I have to be able to play jazz, and read music for commercials, and jingles, or whatever, and be able to write for it, and write for other instruments. That's why I'm still taking lessons and studying.

PM: Lessons on banjo with anybody?

DB: Yeah, yeah.

PM: Who is there for you to study banjo with?

DB: Oh, man, there are so many good banjo players. Mainly, when I get with somebody, I have a particular question to ask. And then it might take me three years to work out what they say. Like when you're learning to play, and someone shows you a scale, you can come back the next week and play the scale. But a lot of things that I learn from people, it's like it may take me three years or a year to get together what they say.

PM: Right. It'll be about theory or it'll be about harmony.

DB: Yeah, or some little technique or something, where you've got to rethink everything to get it, or something like that.

PM: Who are some of the guys who can point you in new directions on your instrument?

DB: Well, like this guy Reed Martin, he's my favorite clawhammer banjo player. He's an old-time banjo player.

PM: Reed Martin. And where does he live?

DB: He lives in D.C. He's an interesting guy. At one time he was John Kay's chauffeur.

PM: Wow. [I later went to a banjo site and listened to Reed play a version of "The Old Stillhouse," it was beautiful. You can hear it here.]

DB: He's got the weirdest resume. Also, he retired from the Smithsonian as a model builder. He built all the little scenes. Like when they have like a little scene of Gettysburg, and all the little figures, he would build that. But he's a really awesome banjo player.

PM: So how did you get onto him?

DB: I just met him teaching at a banjo camp. He's just a phenomenal banjo player.

PM: Who are some of the other banjo guys that point you in a new or better direction--

DB: Eddie Adcock.

PM: He's more on the bluegrass side, right?

DB: Yeah, but he's got this whole lexicon of banjo that's like his own vocabulary of the instrument. There are so many of them. I mean, jeez, there are millions of banjo players. Every time I see Bill Keith somewhere, I try to snatch a little something from him.

PM: I love that melodic style.

DB: He's a brilliant guy.   continue

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