"The day before his senior year as a playwright student at the
University of North Carolina, Joe Pug sat down for a cup of coffee and
had the clearest thought of his life: I am profoundly unhappy here.
Then came the second clearest. Pug packed up his belongings and drove the longest route possible to Chicago."
Quoting Joe Pug's biography, you get the impression that you've dipped into a piece of American folklore. Having covered him in a Pitch Pile back in February, we snagged Joe over the phone for a few words before his 8:00 PM gig at Schubas' tonight and tomorrow.
Hello! Let me be the first to welcome back to Chicago...
I’m actually still on the road right now. I mean, literally, in
the car—we’re coming back from playing Minneapolis last night.
Chicago’s your home base only after growing
up in Maryland and then going to school in North Carolina… What brought you to
the Windy City?
I had a buddy that lived in
Chicago and I stayed w/ him for a weekend one August. And August is the most
beautiful time to be in the city. I really fell in love with [it] then; it’s
clean, people are nice, it’s not too
far from Maryland and, y’know, my parents are there. When I decided to leave North Carolina, that wasn’t— it was one of the few decisions I did not
second guess ad nauseum. That was a good decision.
It takes some serious balls to pack up and
leave a place for somewhere you went one weekend.
Yeah, it does. (laughs) And I
mean, I’m not really talking about me when I say that, but for anyone, I think.
It’s always hard, deciding to pack up and leave.
You were a playwriting
major in college, so obviously you've got an affinity for writing. Did you
begin life as a writer or a musician?
I played music when I was younger, then I went away from it for a
couple years, learned how to write, and came along back …I think it’s all sort
of the same thing. The difference is superficial, you can add the frills and
stuff later.
So is that how you write?
Kind of making it up as you go along?
You should probably always feel like you’re making it up as you’re going along. That if you really push yourself and push yourself you’ll get what you need. It’s probably how you should do any job, make it up as you go and hoping for the best. It varies from song to song. The only thing that you’re really aspiring to is just writing something that you’re really, really happy with.
I noticed on your press
page that you get a lot of tie-ins to songwriters like Bob Dylan, Josh
Ritter... What is that like? How do you respond?
I take it as complimentary
as possible. It’s the spirit of when the remark is made that’s most important.
And I try not to read my own press—I mean, sometimes someone will say ‘you
should read this’ but for the most part you try not to get wrapped up in that
kind of thing. A person can seriously psych themselves out that way.
You just got back from
tour, and now you're off again. What's your feelings on touring? Your songs
imply kind of a wanderer style, but that could just be songwriter mythos jammed
into my brain.
I love it. It’s the best job on the face of the earth. And it’s
not bad, I talk to friends and family on the phone. I’ve been pretty
consistently out since September of last year, with two weeks off here and
there to catch my breath, but it’s been pretty much a full time job. And I sort
of just try to maintain. That’s a fulltime job in and of itself. Y’know, listen
to music, eat greasy food… change the strings on my guitar a lot.
Do you miss your day job?
You used to be a carpenter, yeah?
Your dad was a carpenter
too.
What’s next for the Pug?
First heard the sound of magic to the United States Beats series or the beginning of my buddies introduced Iran, had only known the wire Monster particularly good, there is turbo series.
Posted by: monster beats | 06/13/2011 at 02:23 AM