Adam Faucett brings dark folk music to Capitol

Published 10:43 am Thursday, September 13, 2018

In 2018, with the internet continuing to democratize music distribution and push major labels to the wayside, do-it-yourself artists have become more the norm than anomalies.

Still, most musicians don’t reach the level of fierce independence folk-rock singer-songwriter Adam Faucett has since his 2007 debut album “The Great Basking Shark.” As he recently revealed to GO! Magazine, he finances his tours and recording sessions himself. His last “straight job” as he puts it was in 2008, and that was only to finance his second album, “Show Me Magic, Show Me Out.”

This helps explain the four-year gap that separates 2014’s album “Blind Water Finds Blind Water” and “It Took the Shape of a Bird,” due for release Friday. Faucett and his three-piece band, The Tall Grass, will perform at The Capitol on Monday.

“A lot of things have happened in my life between now and 2014 — I’ve moved six times,” he said from his home in Little Rock, Arkansas, (Faucett was born in that state). “… But more importantly is that I was on tour for about 2½ years (that) followed right after the release of that last record, and I can’t write songs on tour. In 2014, I think I wrote two songs.”

But Faucett is fine with the wait. He’s more concerned with creating good music on his own terms.

“I would rather just leave behind something that I’m not scared to put out,” he said, “because lots of times it doesn’t matter how good it is — if you’re putting something out, putting it out’s a real scary thing to do. Man, I spent so much time and energy, and I like this stuff, but is this gonna be the end? Is this where people stop considering you a good writer? For me, again, it’s just like, let’s just put out a record when you’ve got a good record to put out.”

In conversation, Faucett is plainspoken and unpretentious, qualities that define his songwriting as well. Especially on “It Took the Shape of a Bird,” the stories he narrates are all real and deeply personal. Opening track “King Snake” sets the tone with Faucett’s anguished wail over stark electric guitar chords: “My daddy died when I was 10; Momma soon there followed.”

“That one’s not about me, but it’s about — I don’t really want to say,” he said. “It’s about a very, very, very close family member, so hearing her tell the story in tears — it’s a World War II-era girl that’s getting kicked around and orphaned. That happened, and I had to sit there — I mean, I didn’t have to sit there, I very much enjoyed sitting there paining through listening to this story. Nobody likes to see an old lady cry.

“Everything here is something that’s very near and dear,” he added. “It’s not hearsay; it’s not something I picked up from reading. This is all stuff that, if you were me and you lived my life, these are the things that you’ve come across. These are a few of the things that you could put into song.”

The album also finds Faucett embracing a more electric-guitar-driven sound alongside his usual dark folk wheelhouse. This makes sense given Faucett’s recent tourmates, including Hot Water Music’s Chuck Ragan, Melvins frontman Buzz “King Buzzo” Osborne and fellow Arkansas prog rock group Pallbearer.

It also fits in with Faucett’s early influences. While Otis Redding initially inspired Faucett to pick up guitar, as a teenager he discovered alternative rock bands such as Pavement, Nirvana, Sonic Youth and Melvins (he said he “hit the ceiling” when Osborne picked him up on tour).

“Sonic Youth was the live show that made me know that this is what I want to do, in whatever capacity I could do it,” Faucett said.

By age 17 he performed as a solo act, but soon formed the Arkansas-based band Taught the Rabbits. After six or seven years of numerous lineup changes, during which time the band recorded an album, Faucett moved to Chicago and struck out on his own again.

“It just got to the point where it’s like, is this still Taught the Rabbits or is this just Adam Faucett?” he said. “I wrote all the music, and when you write all the music, it’s hard to keep other kids — like, yeah, let’s keep doing this. ‘Basking Shark’ was just the second Taught the Rabbits record, or the Taught the Rabbits record was actually the first Adam Faucett record.”

He spent a few years in Chicago honing his sound, but moved back to Arkansas to record “The Great Basking Shark.”

“What prompted me to go out there was just the simple fact that I was a young guy who wanted to play music for a living, and I was living in a small town in Arkansas,” he said. “… The landscape of what’s possible from living in Arkansas has greatly changed in the favor of anybody who wants to live on their own, and it’s cheap here, so I came back. I even went out to Nashville for a couple of years, and it was kind of the same thing. All the people I work with still live in Nashville, but Little Rock, man — it’s cheap; it’s where my family is.”

What: Adam Faucett, with Cosmonautical

When: 8 p.m. Monday

Where: The Capitol, 190 NW Oregon Ave., Bend

Cost: $5 plus fees in advance

Contact: thecapitolbend.com, ticketfly.com or 541-678-5740

GO! listen to Adam Faucett: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7KKfgYWNAbHHNOWmgpdn0M