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A Conversation with
Nick Seymour (continued)
PM: Are you much of a book reader? Do you make time for that?
NS: I do. I like to get it in bursts, though, so there will be times between books, when suddenly I say to myself, "Jeez, I need a good book to read." Why do you ask?
PM: Well, the readers like to know what are the people we like to listen to reading.
NS: Yeah.
PM: Anything lately that turned you on?
NS: There's a book I'm reading at the moment called Witness, and it's by J. G. Bennett. It was written in the 1950s. It's his autobiography. He was the guy who started the Subud movement out of the UK. He's kind of an inventor, kind of a scientist and spiritualist, an odd guy.
PM: I haven't heard that word in so long, the Subud movement. I can't recall what it is.
NS: He was a student of the Russian guy, Gurdjieff.
PM: Gurdjieff, right. That's what Subud is related to?
NS: Exactly. And so there's a lot of references to the Whirling Dervish movement of Turkey, and kind of this spiritualism that is not that incumbent of particular religions, but pushes the right buttons in our heads to make us know that we are but specks in a big resonant vibration.
PM: Which is an unpredictable connection to my following question, which is: Are you, in any way, what you might call a spiritual guy?
NS: Not particularly, but I do know that there is--as I said, a kind of a frequency of vibration that all living things are part of. Let's say that.
PM: Yes, sir, I do believe.
NS: And that's probably no more metaphysics than it is quantum physics. There's a little fine line there where it goes between science and spirituality.
PM: Yep. Absolutely. When you like to, or need to get away from it all, where do you go?
NS: I have a little beach house that I built for myself over five years that was completed a year ago in Victoria, in southern Victoria, near Phillip Island, which is just near Melbourne. My place backs onto a surf beach, and there's a local cafe/general store. And I usually get down there as often as I can. It's kind of like a mud brick place. It's really, really cool. But it's very modernist.
PM: And you built it yourself?
NS: I did--myself and a sculptor mate of mine.
PM: Unbelievable.
So in the latter part of July somewhere, I know Crowded House will play a secret show in New York for the Artists Den. I wonder how the hell one gets an inside track on that information?
NS: [laughs] I'm not sure! It's so secret I don't know about it.
[laughter]
NS: But I'm sure you could get in on that if you contact ATO Records.
PM: Right. Yeah, I'm going to try and wind my way there--
NS: I think it's at some kind of Masonic lodge or some kind of building like that in New York.
[laughter]
NS: You just got to scratch the right kneecap at the door, or something.
PM: You got to wear a hood. Because I know you're playing the Ryman here in town with Pete Yorn, on 9/11, of all days.
NS: Oh, wow. Oh, God, we're going to have to be careful about what we say on stage.
PM: I'm coming anyway, of course.
NS: None of the usual transgressions. We will be reverent that night. It will be goodwill to all mankind.
PM: So how long a tour lies in store? It must be all over the world?
NS: Yeah, it is. And if I keep saying that we're going to be recording in January of next year, it will happen.
PM: [laughs]
NS: The management and record company are starting to realize that there's a kind of a little vortex, a little hole in the time continuum that says "January the guys want to be recording." So we're planning around that.
PM: And are there tunes aplenty already, or to be written between now and then?
NS: Yeah, Neil says he's got a few in the breech, he just needs to squeeze them out--
[laughter]
NS: --and fashion them into something combustible.
PM: Well, it's very kind of you to take time with me today, Nick.
NS: Thanks for calling. I'm glad you're interested.
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[If that photo of a tiny house on wheels is intriguing to you, visit tumbleweedhouses.com and see what Jay Shafer is getting up to. His houses aren't "crowded," just wonderfully compact.]
