Interviews: Tim Barry (Avail)

Katie Ellsweig recently gave us a wonderful interview she did with Avail front man and solo artist Tim Barry. She explained:

Tim Barry doesn't know why he writes songs. Sometimes it's because he's lonely, sometimes he's angry and sometime's he's had one too many beers down by the river James. Whether he's singing in seminal punk band Avail , or writing folk songs with his siblings, Barry makes sure that whatever comes out of his mouth also comes out of his heart. "Rivanna Junction," his debut solo effort, is a collection of acoustic guitars, violins, pianos and stories about a life lived hopping trains, driving trucks, writing songs and trying to keep up. Go ahead, ask Tim Barry if he's happy.

You can click Read More for the interview.

You work at the Richmond Ballet Theater, what do you do
there?

You can walk down the street [in Virginia] and there are some of the most redneck mother fuckers you will ever meet, and then on that same street, you find some of the brightest.

I love ballet; it’s very strange. We’re doing The
Nutcracker, so I’ve got Tchaikovsky running through my head
all day. I’m a carpenter, but not quite the master carpenter
so when I say that it seems deceiving. I take care of set pieces
and drive a lot of trucks. I’m in charge of a crew of about
twelve people. The show opened on Friday but we’ve been
on tour with it since the beginning of the month.
How’d you fall into that? Were you always interested in
ballet?

I just kind of happened. I swear, everything in my life just
happens. Years ago, the whole band lived in the same house and then
one of the guys got married so everyone started bailing. We
weren’t touring like we were (9 months out of the year) so I
was trying to find extra money. I started working as a stage hand
and somehow after learning all the union shit and doing Wrestling
matches, area concerts and Disney on ice, I started working at the
ballet and never left.

I never really thought much on it (ballet). I worked my way up
from a shop in the basement of the ballet just doing things here
and there, and then I started running shows. If you listen to a
band and you like the people in it, you pay more attention. You
know, it’s the idea that one day your friends start a band
and you like them a lot so you’re more interested in the
music and where they’re coming from. I got to know a lot of
the dancers pretty well and I began to enjoy it. I don’t know
how you make a living out of dancing on your toes; these people
have done it their whole lives and their bodies are just destroyed.
It’s got to be weird for them to quit at age thirty; those
are the top dancers. They’re unbelievable. I love this
bizarre, fucked up, twisted life of going out on the road, getting
in fist fights and drinking and then coming home and working at the
ballet. I play music and then I come home and help entertain the
social elite.
You don’t even have a computer, right?
Actually, I just got one and it has a virus. It barely works.
I’m that guy who never had a computer and still doesn’t
have a cell phone. I manage Avail and do all this solo work on my
own and it’s really more work than I think anyone would
understand so when I’m home, I feel swamped. Even having a
cell phone or the ability of bringing a phone with me would ruin
that peace I feel when I leave my house. I think it becomes
compulsive; I just got the computer and already I’m checking
it four times a day whereas when I didn’t have one, I did it
maybe once. My brother lives in Astoria, he’s a classical
music composer making $10 per hour and he’s got one of those
Blackberries. Basically, it’s an anchor. He’s always
working and anywhere he goes, he is expected to be working because
the company gave it to him.

Well, you never leave your house so a Blackberry
wouldn’t exactly be practical for you.
I live three blocks from the river. The Neighborhood is called
Oregon Hill. I don’t have a lot of money, I like to drink, I
don’t like to go to bars and spend all of my money so I
don’t really leave. The beer store is right in the
neighborhood and I spend all my time with my friends. When
I’m on tour, I’m in bars and clubs every night and
every day. I love it. Actually, I don’t know if I love it or
not anymore but it’s such a normal part of my life that
it’s almost like I’m as comfortable on the road as I am
at home. Doing this solo tour is totally different. I have more
autonomy and I don’t have to be at some big venue at 3:00pm
to do a sound check when we go on at midnight. It’s just my
sister, my friend Josh and I, and whomever else we want to bring
with us.
Your brother and sister both played on the record. I know you
mentioned your brother has a professional music background, but
what about Caitlin?

She teaches violin. Also, anyone who’s classically trained
makes a lot of money playing weddings and sitting in for different
orchestras and symphonies. It’s almost sad how good she is
and we just sit around drinking and playing. She can do anything.
After friends will pass through town, we end up just playing music
all night; she can be there playing with the best of them while
I’m sitting out because I can’t understand the chord
progression. She’s such an inspiration.
That’s so great that you can just play music with your
family. Did you all grow up playing together?
I’m 35 and my sister just turned 24, so there’s an
eleven year difference there. I grew up playing with my brother,
and my mom played in the church Choir. I still have her guitar that
she played while I was growing up. Of course, my sister is so much
younger that she didn’t stumble into it until much later.
I’m trying to get her to sing more, but she’s just
lacking the confidence. She has a beautiful voice; a younger voice.
I think after another year or so she’s just going to nail
it.

Your sister lives in Richmond as well, did you all grow up
there together?
We all grew up in Northern Virginia. I’ve been down here
for about 17 years; I just bailed right after high school. My
mother is kind of like an ‘earth mother’ and the place
where we lived is supposed to be this Utopia where everything you
need is right there and no one needs cars or anything. It’s
the worst of suburban sprawl now. My sister followed the same path
and so did my brother, he was the first one to move down here in
the mid 80’s.
Have you ever thought of moving out of Virginia?
I wouldn’t have the money to anyway, but no. I’m not
the type of person that could work to live. What I do with the
ballet is seasonal and I work as much as I can during the season.
I’m not under a contract, so there’s no issue with my
leaving. I’ll be on the road from the beginning of January
until March. I’m doing an Avail tour with The Draft on the
west coast and then I start a solo tour. I’m going to do an
easy coast run with Smoke or Fire in April.

The Smoke or Fire tour’s going to be solo, and not with
Avail?
We had a busy year last year and we just came back from
Australia so I think everyone’s ready to ease up for a
minute. They all have real jobs and two of them have kids.
I’m the only one who can be so readily available. I never got
married, never had kids and never kept a girlfriend.
Never kept a girlfriend? Never got married? Was that your
choice or just the way it ended up?
I have the ability, I just have no interest in it. I don’t
like feeling tied down and I’m not saying that women make me
feel that way, but I have a job that’s not real. I work when
I’m home. I don’t like feeling trapped in anything, but
with kids and relationships even if the person is beautiful and
perfect, I just feel that way.
But, are you happy?

Half the time. Who the fuck is happy? I’m happy half the
time. I have close, great friends and really that’s all you
need. As long as I get by and have my friends and the river, I
don’t really need much else. I don’t like shopping. I
talked to my mom the other day and she goes "What do you want
for Christmas?" I don’t need anything. I don’t
want a lot of the things people seek in life like commodities; toys
and shit. I just want to pay my rent, drink and play music. I
don’t need fucking fancy clothes, fancy televisions or
cable. Every year I buy myself one present and I just
recently bought a DVD player. The first thing I did was break the
VCR part of it. It was like $80.00 and that’s a lot for me to
just spend on a DVD player! I’m buying myself a nice guitar
this year for all these tours coming up. I’ve always played
but I never had my own.

Yeah, living up here it’s not easy either. I just
bought a new car because of my commute to work. Now there’s
so much to worry about.
Yeah, you’re locked into payments now. I put gas in my car
maybe every two months. You don’t need that shit around here.
I have no idea what the price of gas is like and the last time I
did fill up, it was around two bucks. You know what’s
sad? The amount of people who are part of this work force, and
that’s all that they do. They wake up, commute their forty
minutes to their 9-5 job, go home and watch TV. There are different
types of people; those people all feel frustrated and they
don’t know why. I’m working right now with the notion
of being able to go out there and play music. I’ve got
friends who do the same, but they’re working to write books
or make paintings.
Or to write in magazines. I have a younger brother who comes
home from school every day, sits down in front of the video games
and won’t move until he goes to sleep. I can’t imagine
what he thinks about every day, how there’s nothing more for
him.

There was an article in the paper the other day, I can’t
remember exactly what the numbers were but they said
America’s teenagers spend as much as five months of the year
with some sort of electronics device in their faces. It sort of
sucks everything out of a person. I have a friend whose kid must
have been one or two years old and he was teaching me how to use a
remote control. Right from the time he could stand up and start
saying "Ma Ma" he was using electronics. What direction
is this kid going to go in? It’s a great way to foreshadow
how difficult it’s going to be for kids to keep an attention
span beyond a thirty-second song. Not to be critical of parenting,
but it’s too much.
Right, and then doctors will diagnose every other kid with
ADD and put them on some sort of medication. It makes you wonder if
they even look for the root of the problem.
I think people do but they just don’t know how to address
it. How do you tell a kid who is always surrounded by their friends
playing video games or constantly being satiated through some sort
of outside stigma that they can’t do it? It’s normal
now, as normal as being outside making forts when I was a kid.

When I was a kid, I wasn’t allowed near video games. We
read books.
Well thank god for Harry Potter! If that didn’t exist,
kids wouldn’t read at all. A friend of mine is a second grade
teacher and she’d addicted to those books. Imagine, being so
bright that you’re able to get children to read obsessively.
What a good thing for America! Americans aren’t as stupid as
you think.
I think she was English.
Oh, right. English people are as stupid as Americans.
They’ve got Tony Blair, we’ve got George Bush.
Actually, Americans aren’t stupid at all. Politically, yes.
They know the stats and names of every football player in the NFL
but they can’t tell you the name of their own senator.

That’s another thing, I’ve lived in New York all
my life. You’ve lived in Virginia all of yours. People up
here have such a generalized opinion of people down there; you
know, that they’re all stupid rednecks.
If you ever come down to Richmond, I will prove to you that they
are right and they are wrong. You can walk down the street and
there are some of the most redneck mother fuckers you will ever
meet, and then on that same street, you find some of the
brightest. We’ve got guys wearing Real Tree camo
jackets and driving pickup trucks. People are always going to talk
shit, that’s just how it goes, but the dichotomy over the
north and south is funny. People write letters to the editor about
these ‘damn Yankees.’ It’s highly
entertaining.
John K. Samson from The Weakerthans talked about his hometown
of Winnipeg and why he always writes songs about it. He said that
it’s his place, and that it’s a place the he loves and
hates but still doesn’t fully understand so he’ll be
writing about it for the rest of his life. I’m wondering if
that’s how you feel about Richmond?

That probably sums it up pretty closely. I would say that I
can’t write about things that I don’t understand, and I
don’t understand a lot of things outside of Richmond. What I
draw inspiration from comes from my interactions with people around
here; the locals, the college students and the changes that are
happening throughout the United States with urban renewal, and
censorship running rampant. Those are the things I understand. I
also understand that I won’t be able to stay here much longer
because the rent is doubling. I travel so much that maybe I feel a
deeper connection with this city because I don’t get to be
here that much. I feel both a deepness and a frustration with the
river and the people and the things that happen around here.
In one of the songs on the record, the narrator kills his
sisters abusive husband and goes to prison for it. You said you
take inspiration from the people around you, is this particular
song just a story, or did it happen?
Let’s just say a buddy of mine was just sentenced to 28
years in prison. That song came out of nowhere. I don’t even
think I wrote it; it just came to mind one night when I was sitting
down at the river by myself. I had gotten a call from a family
member of his and it just hit me like a brick. As I was writing
these verses, I realized I was being way too personal and telling a
person’s story that wasn’t my place to tell. I switched
it up a lot so that it couldn’t be traced to him. I mean, he
would know where I was going with it.
It’s amazing how all of the songs seem to have such a
deeply personal story behind them.

The last song on the record, that’s personal. I decided if
I was going to start doing this solo shit for real, I’d have
to learn to play live. I went over to Europe for a while and played
solo. It was lonely and it was sad and I wrote that song in Milan,
Italy. The second track, too. It’s so simple. I was working
for the ballet and I had to drive up to Brunswick to pick up some
lights and next thing I know I’m sitting in this hotel room.
I was schizophrenic, insane and neurotic. That’s how it all
comes out, me sitting down at the train tracks getting drunk.
One of the local women who just lost her house because the
neighborhood was coming up so much it basically got stolen from
her, is now homeless and lives down by those train tracks. She was
down there one day trying to jump in front of a train. I watched
her try to kill herself. She was screaming, blacked out drunk. I
doubt she remembers anything about that but the song is directly
about her, I came home and started throwing it down on a piano
which I can’t play at all. People might listen to them and
get something completely different, but each song is really
personal.
You know, I didn’t even write questions for this
interview. I just kind of blindly hoped you’d be able to have
a great conversation with me.
If two people can’t have a conversation, than it just
shouldn’t happen. It shouldn’t be formatted. A lot of
people in bands though are self righteous ego ridden fucks.
It’s obscure to me and I don’t understand why people
are that way. It’s just fucking music.

I can’t even imagine some of the things you’ve
been asked in interviews like that. Things like "what’s
your favorite color?"
You wouldn’t believe some of this. I’ve been doing
interviews for so long. Someone requested an interview by computer
recently because people are lazy and they don’t want to
transcribe. When it’s all there in front of them all they
have to do is cut and paste. I’ve done some wonderful
interview that way because the questions evoked a strong answer or
a strong opinion. But that’s more like writing or what you
would call corresponding.
Interviews are like art to me. I’m trying to put
together a book of interviews I’ve done.

That’s cool, man! I always wanted to do a book called
"Letters to a Band," and print all these letters
we’ve gotten as a band. Before anyone started doing things
via e-mail, the P.O. box would be stuffed full of letters, and some
of them were so personal. I remember in the mid 90’s I got a
box in the mail. It was about eight inches tall and four inches
wide with a heart on top. It was from South Dakota and was
addressed to Avail. I opened it up and it was a human heart inside
that formaldehyde with the woman’s name on it and everything.
It was truly disgusting. Who the hell sends a band they like a
human heart? I felt like I had to bury it or something.
Was there a return address? What did you end up doing with
it?
I was trying not to write this guy, but about three weeks later,
Joe (Guitarist) answered the telephones and it was the detectives
in South Dakota. They’d caught this kid who had stolen it
from a morgue. We gave up the address and sent it back immediately.
I was so close to burying it!
Wow, I think that book idea is great. You should seriously
consider it.

I’m so absolutely drained creatively. I re-typed it all
and put them on a disc. A lot of them are very old, so it’s
not like some kid would be like "I wrote you that last week,
what the fuck." I’m thinking that one the next
record I do, I’m going to put a hidden track on it and just
include a full spoken word monologue of a freight train riding
story or maybe the time when I got beat up by skinheads in
Germany and put in jail.
You were beat up by skinheads in Germany and put in
jail?
I’ve lived a life of chaos. I kind of always cut those
stories short, but I could actually go into detail and do a twenty
minute monologue. I was telling a buddy of mine down by the river
and I said I’m going to write a solo record every year until
I’m 40 and then once I’m 40 I’ll just write
books.

Then you can do book tours. Don’t you have a ton of
press to do tonight?
I’m doing an interview for Chuck D’s radio show.
Evidently I get to do one for Steve Earl’s radio show as
well. He tells you to pick four songs you want to play, other
people’s songs, and then talk about them. I’m thinking
about choosing one Richmond artist and then a couple others that
are personal to me.
Wow, a radio station that let’s you choose songs.
That’s rare. I thought Clear Channel had taken over.
We have one independent station around here. But yeah, Clear
Channel is fucking genius. They bought up the entire Virginia
market, used and abused all the stations and now they’re
selling them privately. They changed FDC regulations so that they
could make a monopoly and flip them.

I interned for a radio station a while back and I realized
that all the DJs do now is walk into the studio and push a
button.
The way you said "button," you just had your first
Yankee moment! Not that I’m invalidating what you said, you
just said it funny. I was at work today making my charges for the
show and some of the crew came over to talk to me and I said I just
did an interview with a yankee and told them what you said about
the south, and they were like "you tell that damn uppity
yankee lady to go stick it where the sun don’t
shine!" I work with a lot of rednecks. They have those
redneck names too; Earl, Smitty, Wilbur, Big John, Bubba…you
know what I mean.
That’s too funny.
They’re all hunters, but not the way you’d think.
They live east of the city, and if you recall the civil war, the
early part of it was when the Yankees landed out east by the
Chesapeake Bay and tried to move on to Richmond. They were halted
on the James River about 70 miles down and the confederates turns
them around and sent them home. Those guys live around there. When
they go hunting, they go civil war hunting. They have metal
detectors and they go out in the woods to find rifles, belt
buckles, buttons, cannons etc…

If you don’t live, you can’t sing about living and it’s not even worth it. Pretty boys and pretty girls who get scooped up at eighteen to be rock stars, they haven’t lived enough to have created anything.

I had no idea people could still do that, and there was still
so much to be found.
Think about the war and how many people died; how many people
were involved. Essential, all the males that were in particular
towns and regions. The war started in South Carolina, but it was
mostly fought in Virginia. The South didn’t really go north
of Pennsylvania, so shit’s everywhere. Just in the last year,
I had two neighbors dig up cannon balls in their back yard. I found
a bullet down by my house, too.
Incredible! I’m going to need to come down for a tour
sometime.
Absolutely. When I’m home, I only hang out with good
folks, so there’s always people to show you around. There are
different Virginias. There’s northern Virginia, which has
nothing in commons with the rest of the state, and then
there’s the beach area which really has nothing in common
with the rest of the state either. I always say there should be
four Virginias.
Something I’ve been thinking about when it comes to
your solo music. It’s folk music, and it’s so unlike
anything Avail did which really has this power to bridge so many
age and genre gaps. I played it for my mom who is a huge fan of
country and she loved it. I’m a huge fan of Avail, and I love
it as well.

I certainly do like that you said folk music. I’m a little
concerned about people calling it country or bluegrass. I read a
couple reviews and they actually referred to it as bluegrass music.
This is not it. It’s certainly not a Merle Haggard rip
off. I like the word "folk" used as a description
because it’s just telling people’s stories. Crossing
genres? I’ll use Myspace as an example, which I never learned
about until Avail put out some re-releases and Jade Tree insisted
on it, it’s really a great tool for someone like me who
doesn’t have the money for real publicity. I’m
surprised about the demographic of people who have been writing me
on there: 45 year old women with families and 15 year old punk
kids. I’m surprised about the people who have no knowledge of
Avail enjoying it.
The way I see it is that you play in Avail but you
aren’t Avail. You’re Tim. Of course there’s more
to you than Avail, this is just that something more.

Hell yes, Katie. I don’t know if people ever understand
that people in bands do a lot outside of that. When I go to a bar
people go "oh, it’s that dude from Avail," but
thank god I have friends who don’t even think about that.
Music comes so natural to me because I always played it. It’s
how I was raised. My mom listened to folk and my dad listened to
classical and I’m not really great at any of it but I like it
and I like to make it. The roots of Avail songs are exactly the
same with Joe playing a guitar and then him and I throwing lyrics
together with heavy drums. A lot of people don’t go to the
roots of music, this isn’t really a departure, it’s
just a stripped down version of what I already do.
That’s something to really think about. It must be hard
to know who is being real with you or who is just trying to be
around you because of who you are.
That is one of the biggest nightmares in my life. Now knowing
who is who. I remember this girl I used to hang out with and we
hooked up a lot. I always liked her so much. We lost touch at some
point and I saw her four or five years later when she was older and
I was older and had more miles under my belt. I was talking to her
and telling her how much fun I had hanging out with her and she
laughed and said the only reason she wanted to hang out with me was
because I was in Avail. It’s so upsetting because I actually
really liked her.

Sometimes I wonder if all of that is because there’s
just too much music out there. It’s a giant rat race now in
the music industry.
There certainly is too much music. I hate to bring up the
‘old guy" shit, but when I was a young kid in the
mid-80’s there was a band that came from my high school and
they had a vinyl album come out. It was the biggest fucking deal in
the world. Then, we all learned how to make demo tapes and that was
even a big deal. Now you can burn a CD off your computer after
writing a bunch of songs, give it to your friends and put it up on
Myspace. I wonder if it’s overkill. It used to be you had to
be pretty talented to have a record out.
Now you just have to be pretty.
I’m glad I’m old and ugly. I think it gives more
depth to the music and looking at some of my heores like Steve
Earle, he is not good looking. But he’s a great songwriter
and that’s all I need. I don’t want to look at some
good looking guy with no soul. You can’t sing about going to
jail if you haven’t gone to jail. You can’t sing about
heartbreak if you’ve never had your heartbroken. If you
don’t live, you can’t sing about living and it’s
not even worth it. Pretty boys and pretty girls who get scooped up
at eighteen to be rock stars, they haven’t lived enough to
have created anything.

It must be pretty frustrating reading reviews like that. Or
just reading reviews in general…
I don’t mind them at all. I just don’t like to read
them because I don’t want what other people say to push me in
a different direction with my writing because I only write for
myself. The most important thing that anyone in a band or anyone
who writes or paints or whatever, the most important thing is for
them to know that not everyone is going to like it and you
can’t let that get to you.
It’s in everything. I tell myself that all the time,
even with writing articles, it’s hard to stay true to
yourself sometimes.
You’ve got t keep those ethics. One of the proudest things
I am about this band is that we’ve never done any of that
corporate shit. We always kept it independent and it’s made
our lives so much easier. We’ve never signed a contract
that’s more than one record, and I manage the band.
It’s hard when there’s all that outside pressure.
There’s a band we grew up with that has spent the last six
years trying to write a record and every time they bring it to the
label, it gets rejected. It’s scary shit trying to pay
your rent doing something you love.

Smoke or Fire is from Richmond, too. Are you guys
friends?
They’re a funny story; a success story. I always try to
use my position as someone who has been doing this for a while to
help people out, people like Josh Small who just got signed to
Suburban Home Records. I put his foot in the door, but his strength
in playing music and in songwriting is what got him signed. But, I
met Smoke or Fire years ago in Louisville, Kentucky when we played
Crazyfest. Avail left me there and I was going to hop trains down
to New Orleans. I woke up in the hotel I was staying at and was
just drinking a beer on the balcony when I looked over and there
were these two guys on another balcony drinking beer. They turned
out to be Smoke or Fire, or at the time, Jericho. They said they
had a bathtub full of beer and I had nothing better to do so I hung
out with them for a couple days before leaving. They gave me a CD
and I really like it. I forgot all about it until I heard they
moved down here and I started hanging around their house all the
time. They recorded this demo and I sent it over to Vanessa at Fat
Wreck Chords just because I like to send her new music. I guess she
played it and everyone was into it and that’s what signed
them.
That’s great! I guess that’s when they
changed their name.
I realized the integrity of this group was insurmountable before
that. We were on tour on the east coast with The Curse when
they decided to break up in Philadelphia. We still had two weeks
left of the tour and I called the Jericho (Smoke or Fire) guys who
had never been on tour before or had a sound check before or
anything and asked them if they could meet us in North Carolina.
Their singer, Brian, called me back a half hour later and all of
them quit their jobs, got in the van and finished the tour with us.
It was so great to see them open this huge show in North Carolina,
and then when we came back and played South Carolina, those same
kids were there singing along.
Is it strange that you’ll be opening for them
now?

Hell no! I told them a long time ago that my favorite day in the
world would be when Avail opens up for them. Just the idea of
getting to be onstage with my homeboys every night is going to be
amazing. Man, I keep calling this "Solo Shit" but this
is for real. This is my retirement plan, I should take it more
seriously.
Did you know that being a solo artist is a trend now?
I’m so out of the loop with pop culture that I
didn’t know it was a trend until my record came out and I
read reviews where people said "following the trend of so and
so…" I told someone in an interview that I’m
thankful I didn’t know. I can see how it’s easy to get
caught up in that, but it’s just my music.