A Conversation with Brett Dennen (continued)

PM: Will you talk about matters of spirit with me? You seem to be a very spiritual cat.

BD: Sure.

PM: Is that how you'd describe yourself?

BD: Yeah, yeah. I wouldn't know how to call it--how to name it. I wouldn't be able to put a name to it, but I definitely agree with you.

PM: Yeah. There's a lot of that in your music. But you wouldn't necessarily lean any more toward Buddhism than you would to Christianity or any of that?

BD: Well, from what I've studied, yeah, I would lean more towards Buddhism, but I wouldn't ever be able to call myself a Buddhist, because I don't do any kind of practice, and I haven't read enough about it, and I don't really know what it's all about. But I'm definitely not a Christian.

PM: Right. But you're definitely a guy that doesn't think that life begins and ends with human beings.

BD: No way, definitely not. There's something much bigger out there, for sure.

PM: Yeah, I certainly agree.

We've begun, in Puremusic, to do video interviews, Puremusic Television. And we just did one with an English guy who sings like Sam Cooke, named James Hunter.

BD: Yeah, I love him. He's awesome.

PM: Isn't he something? Yeah. We love him, too. We had a great video interview with him here in our recording studio in Nashville. And I'm hoping when you come to town in mid-January that maybe we could hook up such a thing with you. I'd love to sit down with you and talk live, and get you to play a couple of songs.

BD: Yeah. Could I have a guitar in my hand while we do it?

PM: Sure.

BD: Yeah. Yeah, that would be amazing.

PM: And we could get you to play a few songs, and put it up on the web, and maybe even put a teaser on YouTube to drive a lot of people to visit--because I really want to spread the word about Brett Dennen.

Besides, you and I would look great on film together, because you're 6'5", and I someday aspire to be 5'5".

BD: [laughs] Awesome!

[laughter]

PM: So we'll cut a good image. [laughs] Well, Brett, it's really great to talk to you, because you're such a fresh sound, and it's catching on. And it's amazing what's happening with the songs on TV.

BD: Yeah, isn't it?

PM: Now, how did that happen? That's incredible!

BD: I don't know how that happened. I think it's probably because lyrically--well, musically, the songs are fairly mellow. A lot of them have really good strong grooves, but they're fairly mellow and melodic. But lyrically they're very narrative, and I think maybe these people that program music in the television shows, they're looking for songs that carry a narrative that can kind of like be another voice in the TV show. Like you know how that outside voice, the narrator, comes in and kind of says what's happening that's out of the context of the character, someone speaking from above, or outside, outside of what's going on in the show. And I think maybe that's part of the appeal to why it's been such a good fit for TV shows.

PM: Well, you do have a very astute way of putting things. I think that hits it right on the head, my man.

BD: Thanks, Frank.

PM: And let's get together in mid-January when you come, and let's do a bit of Puremusic Television with you.

BD: All right. Thank you so much.

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