Q&A: Hezekiah Jones
Photography by Lisa Schaffer
Why you perform under an assumed name: My given one is too much of a mouthful.
Aptness of the “new folk” genre to which you’ve been assigned: New folk. Weird Americana. New American folk. They’re all just fine.
Your middle-school soundtrack: Metal. Biohazard and Metallica.
How you transitioned to folk: I heard Will Oldham play guitar not very well on Days in the Wake and thought, “I can do this.”
Whether folk gets a bad rap: It gets pigeonholed a lot. Three chords. A guy with a guitar.
Why you don’t deserve said rap: Horns. Lap steel. Xylophone. Glockenspiel. And more than three chords.
Age when you wrote your first song: Twelve. An instrumental. I had dreams of being Philip Glass and doing soundtracks.
Whether there’s still a demand for folk, new or otherwise: There’s actually a real renaissance happening in Philadelphia right now. Plus, in Spain and Italy we’re doing well.
How you’ll follow up March’s sophomore album, Have You Seen Our New Fort?: With a soundtrack to Bride of Frankenstein and, possibly, Eraserhead.
Why you don’t live in Fishtown with all the other bearded musicians: I like the quiet and all the room I have in the ’burbs.
Recording-session beer of choice: Ha, we only drink whiskey.
See Hezekiah Jones at the XPoNential Music Festival on July 23rd in Camden’s Wiggins Park.
