Musician Interview: Barry Privett of Carbon Leaf

On April 26, Carbon Leaf will join five other bands on the stage at Top of the Stairs for the 20th annual Sudflood Music Festival.

Barry Privett is the lead singer of the Richmond-based band, and he recently sat down with Planet Blacksburg to discuss Carbon Leaf’s involvement and success in the music industry.

Following is a selection of questions from the interview.

Q:  How did you first get into music, and what made you want to be a musician?
Privett:  Well, we met [at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia], and it wasn’t really an ambition to “get into it.”  It’s just that we were friends, and we just got together and started playing.  We started playing around campus a lot, which was a lot of fun.  A couple of the other guys had been in some bands, but really just didn’t have any ambition.  We were all different years, from freshman to senior.  Two of us graduated, and it kind of took us the summer to realize that we didn’t want to get real jobs, so we decided to try to take a professional stab at it.

Q:  Where did the name Carbon Leaf come from?
Privett:  We were coming back from a rafting trip in school, and this was before we had any gigs or anything.  We were thinking of names while we were coming back from Tennessee, I think, and just kind of throwing out names. We were just looking at the scenery and the street signs and those two words just came together and evoked an interesting image, so we kind of sat on it for a while.  Then we were hired by this girl on campus to play her porch, and we were like, “man, we have to have a name.”  So we were thinking about it, and we hadn’t really decided on it.  But she ended up putting Carbon Leaf on the posters and smacked them all around campus, so that stuck.  We were too lazy to think of something else.  It doesn’t have a whole lot of deep meaning to it.  Although one could argue that it’s kind of like art, itself.  Sometimes you’re not really sure what you’re doing; you’re just doing it on instinct, and then it sets up and defines itself.  That’s kind of the road we’re on right now.  Whatever Carbon Leaf means is what it’s become since we started.

Q:  How did you guys break into the music industry and first get a record deal?
Privett:  It took a long time, really.  We were an independent band for nine years.  We started in ’93, and it took six years to really get going.  To get everybody out of school took four years, and then everyone had to get settled.  Then it took a few years to really start figuring out what we needed to do, so it was such a long arc as far as beginning goes.  It was a different world back when we started.  The bands are now getting more into the do-it-yourself approach now more than ever, kind of like when we started.  But the big turning point for us was when we won that AMA award, and that was off of an independent album that we had just finished touring behind for two years, Echo Echo. 

Q:  And this award was for the single “The Boxer”? 
Privett:  Yeah. So then it kind of played out.  We won this contest on the tail end of that tour, and it regained new interest.  And then a couple of programmers started playing the song because of the contest.  When we did this contest, it was sort of at the dawn of reality TV, where the only thing that was really reality-based was the Real World, and then Survivor had just started.  Those are the ones that had really bolstered that whole industry.  So it was a bigger deal for us to do that than it would be today because it’s kind of common, and that was just six years ago.  And so the radio programmers thought this was a big deal, and a couple of them picked up on the story and started spinning the song, which is kind of unheard of for an independent band because we weren’t signed at this point.  And the song actually was getting requested in a few places like D.C. and Seattle.  So from there, the song kind of had legs and we just got the attention of some record people through that.  Then by this time about a year later we had just finished the Indian Summer CD, which was still independent; we paid for it ourselves.  Then we licensed that to the record label.  We just said, “hey, take a listen to this,” and they were like, “yeah, this is cool.  We want do a deal.”  So they licensed that, and then “Life Less Ordinary” did pretty well.  So that’s kind of the long story about it.

Q:  How did Carbon Leaf begin touring together?
Privett:  We were doing a lot of stuff on our campus, and when we got out of school and got more organized, we started doing a lot of the Virginia schools.  We were playing clubs near campuses and the sorority/fraternity scene.  It was whatever we could get our hands on, really.  There are so many mid-sized schools in Virginia that we could do that pretty easily.

Q:  Did you major in anything music related?
Privett:  No, I was an English and drama major, so writing and performing, which is what I’m using, I guess.  Terry [Clark] was a music minor.  Jordan [Medas], our bassist, who actually went to JMU, was the one guy in the band who officially studied music in school.  That was his major.

Q:  How has your sound evolved over the years?
Privett:  Well, for us, it’s just about staying interested in what we’re doing musically.  So, it really has to be dictated by that and not like, “well, what’s our sound,” so to speak.  Because if you start doing that, you really start playing more to what you think an audience is going to pay for, as opposed to what you’re motivated to do.  Sometimes you have to risk failing, but you have to do it.

Q:  What is your favorite song to perform live?
Privett:  It depends on different times of the year, and it depends on different audiences.  Some stuff we pack away for the spring and summer, and we only bring it out for the winter.  That’s kind of cool because it becomes more seasonal.  Like “Toy Soldiers” is fun to play in December and March, but we generally don’t play it any other time…, which is cool for us and for fans because no one gets tired of it.  Songs like “The Boxer” and “Life Less Ordinary” I never get tired of playing just because it’s cool when the crowd is into it.  But when the summer comes, I like to play “The Sea.”  But I don’t know, I don’t really have favorites.  It’s really more about what kind of rapport you have with the audience at that time, and how they’re reacting and how you trade that energy.  That’s kind of what’s exciting for me.  Without that, anything you play is going to be a bore.

Q:  Who are some of your musical influences?
Privett:  I grew up with Sting and The Police, and REM back when they were much better than they are now-- back when they were a scrappy little college band.  It’s old school, but that’s the kind of stuff I was listening to.  And I then got into Nirvana and Dave Matthews Band because they were bands that were on opposite ends of the spectrum that were emerging at the same time.  So it was kind of interesting to hear that.  Lately I’ve been listening to Ryan Adams and Jack Johnson.  I’ve also been listening to a lot of us recently.  I’ve been immersed in writing our own stuff for the past year, so it’s a fight to listen to new music right now.

Q:  Do you have any new projects coming out?
Privett:  Well we’re working on one right now.  We’re not going into the studio until we know we’re really ready.  For us that means for the first time writing a bunch of material and then picking what we think is the strongest.  Before it’s always been, “OK, we have 12 songs.  Let’s go and record.”  But now we want to say, “let’s write 30 or 40 songs, and let’s pick the ones that everybody is on the same page about.”  On the last album, we kind of rushed in, and it was really like my story.  I kind of picked and chose what I wanted, and there were some differing opinions.  But we didn’t really have time to really develop ideas fully like we wanted to.  So right now, we’re just going to take a step back and make sure that we can hear our voices and really do it right.  When you release a record, you’re kind of committed for a year to a year and a half to promote it.  So once you start looking down that pipeline, you’re like “man, my life’s mapped out for two years.”  And then you go through the whole process again.  So it’s something you have to just be careful about.

Q:  I know you’re from the Richmond area, and you still live here.  How are you able to stay so connected to your roots?
Privett:  Because we work too hard.  The reality is that this is a 24/7 job, and we’re lucky because we know how to survive on our own when so many bands don’t.  So many bands either fold before they even begin or become hot property early on, where someone takes them under their wing and starts managing them.  But should that fall apart, and it often does, maybe a couple of years down the road, all of the sudden they have something they don’t know how to take control of should they lose their allies.  And that happens all the time.  You have guys out there that want to add bands to their portfolio so they can make some cash, and they can on the short-term.  But once those guys get thrown back into the wind, they don’t know how to govern themselves.  From day one, we didn’t have anybody in our court for nine years.  We didn’t have a steady booking agent.  We didn’t have a manager.  We didn’t have a publicist.  We didn’t have anything, not even a label.  We got all of that late in the game.  Do you see this telephone pole?  (Indicates a telephone pole covered in flyers outside of the window.)  Those used to be flyers for our venues; that was us.  There’s a fair amount of our trash on that pole from when used to go around and literally tack up posters on the telephone poles around town to get people to our shows downtown.   We went through all of that, and we still do, to a degree.  We became self-managed again a year ago.  We had a company out in L.A., and it wasn’t working out, so now we’re back in the same boat, as far as that goes, as we were when we first started.  Which has been actually great because now we’re not in debt to somebody… We’re really just doing it more ourselves until it makes sense to know that you’ve got a really good ally that you can rely on.  But as far as being rooted goes, it really is about keeping your eye on your own thing, and by doing that, you stay rooted.  You don’t have any choice.  There’s almost a blue-collar mentality to what we do.  We have to work for what we get, and that’s really what keeps us rooted.

Q:  Last year, Carbon Leaf came to play at Sudflood in Blacksburg right after the events of April 16.  A lot of bands that were scheduled to play later in the year actually backed out, so why did you guys decide to still come and play and donate your proceeds to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund?
Privett:  It just seemed like the natural thing to do.  The event wasn’t about us.  It became pretty obvious what it was and should be.  There was no way we would ever want to back out.  That didn’t even cross our minds.  I think Andrew, the social chair at the time, emailed us and was like, “man, I don’t think we’re going to have this thing.  We can’t afford it with everything that’s going on.”  So we were like, “he can’t afford it?  Let’s just do it.”  It wasn’t like people were not going to show up.  At a time like that, people just want to gather, no matter what’s going on.  And it was like, “we want to be a part of that, and this is a perfect way for us to help.”  It was already set up, so it was really a no-brainer for us.  We were glad to do it.  We told our agent that we weren’t going to take anything in on this, and he decided that he wasn’t going to take his cut either.  It wasn’t a debate.  It’s not about being generous or trying to get publicity out of it, it’s more about, “what’s the need?”  If you can go and be part of something that’s cathartic in your community, being Virginia, then why not?  I wish we could have played the big one that they had at the stadium.  That would have been awesome.  Nobody called us. (Laughs.)

Q:  In closing, how often can we expect you to play in Blacksburg?
Privett:  It depends now.  There used to be a few clubs that we used to play, like Water Street or Bailey’s, which I think changed names over the years… We used to play those places when they were open, but then the club scene kind of dried up for bands.  So now we just play every now and then when the school hires us, whether it’s in Burruss Hall or playing senior day or incoming class day.  Stuff like that.