For the Poison

PH: So let me ask you, because I think my take on a lot of your music was that you’re singing from the perspective of a character, but it sounds like a lot of it’s autobiographical. Do you think you ever put yourself in the mindset of a character when you’re singing a ballad kind of song? Or is it more just you singing as Jonny?

JJ: I guess I’ve done both for this album, but I do think of it more as a personal biography. And there’s obviously branches that don’t exist that I’ve written about. Most of it is true stories or experiences, and times that I branch off are a way it could have gone.

PH: So songs like “Sailors Lament” where you’re singing as a ship captain or “For the Poison” where you’re singing about the darkness in a faith community. Are those ones autobiographical?

JJ: Yeah, mostly. There’s liberties taken there with the extent of the journey and places that I have or haven’t been. I’ve been to most of the places, but on “For the Poison,” I wanted it to be relatable to America, so it’s got lots of references to American classic songs like “Amber Waves of Grain.”

Actually, that one was special for me, and I named the album after it, because it’s a journey through growing up in religion and alcohol problems, and it’s still unresolved at the end. It’s almost like coming to terms—this is kind of how I am and who I am. If I were to sum up a lot of this album, it’s about the awareness of some of the things that have weighed on me. So maybe the next album will be resolution.

PH: When we’ve talked before, you mentioned that you do all your recording at home. Can you tell me a little bit about your process for getting these songs down?

JJ: It’s very unstructured—I’m doing it all myself, and when I first started releasing these songs, I had just the barebones equipment. And then, over time, I was like, oh, that sounds like shit. I wanna get a nicer mic. So I slowly built it.

By the end of the album, at this point, I feel like I have the equipment I need to do a solo songwriter’s album properly, not a full band.

I usually just sit down in my basement—it’s real quiet, no disturbances—and I will record my guitar and vocals, usually as one take. So most of these are played almost live. Then I’ll go back and make fine edits to those tracks and add the layers after the fact.

So it’s primarily a live sound, which means it’s not perfect, right? And I don’t use a click track. I tried to play a click track. Tons of artists said you have to use a click track, but to me, it felt very mechanical. I was either speeding up or slowing down.

PH: Almost 20 years ago, in 2007, I got to Fairbanks in February, and the first night I was in town, I slept on my brother’s dorm room floor at UAF. I met everybody who lived on the floor with him, and one of those people was Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson. After college, people went their separate ways, and I don’t think I saw you again until, maybe a couple years ago, when you were opening for Steve Brown and the Bailers at the Malamute. And you were just absolutely killing it. I had no idea you were still here or playing music.

So tell me about the journey: how you grew up mostly outside of Alaska, in California then high school in Abu Dhabi. And then found yourself in Fairbanks….

JJ: Kind of a boring story just for college. It was the cheapest place to come to school. I came for engineering. I grew up in a pretty strict household, where it was never a thought in my mind that I could choose what I want to get for a degree. They told me what to get, and maybe it played to my strengths, maybe it didn’t.

I actually applied for West Point since my brother went there, and that’s what they really wanted from me. I didn’t get accepted. I don’t know why. I had pretty good marks. My older brother went there. I actually have a song about him. It’s not on the album, but I was thinking about playing it, though. It’s called Memory Bank.

He at one point was in Iraq and came back; he had lost some close friends—as happens in war—and came back a different person. Maybe I should play that one. That was one of the first songs I wrote.

PH: One interesting thing that I’ve noted is that it seems like a lot of professional engineers are also talented musicians in the background. [Fairbanks musician] Casey Smith, obviously, comes to mind. But also, you know, even the dean of the UAF College of Engineering & Mines has a rock and roll band. What’s the deal? Is there something about the skillset of engineers that lends itself to songcraft?

JJ: I don’t know. A really good question. It’s odd, right? I would think it’s the opposite, because a lot of engineers are hard to have a conversation with. And engineers aren’t known for being expressive with their emotions or having a high emotional intelligence necessarily. Or at least not communicating it. Frankly, I don’t know that I have historically had a high emotional intelligence, but the process of songwriting has honed that part of my brain.

And I like that, because I remember at one point I was sitting at work back when I was just a CAD monkey—now I’m managing projects, schedules, and budgets, which is worse—but back when I was a CAD monkey, I could put my headphones on and zone out all day, and not to talk to anybody or interact in anyway. I remember getting a phone call, and I picked it up, and I forgot how to speak for a while. Not even “Oh, hello, this is Jon.” I couldn’t do it.

That was a memorable moment because I was like, man, I need to work out a different part of my brain. I feel like this has made me a better engineer, certainly more creative. Anyway, working out different parts of my brain.

PH: What brought you to the Irish sound that’s prominent in a lot of your music and the ballad style of song?

I don’t know. The Irish thing is funny. For some reason, the energy, it definitely speaks to me, like, just the relentless rhythms were instantly infectious to me. I really like that Irish music has a lot of aggression in it. I’ve got aggression inside so it’s a really nice release for me. And it’s not an aggressive album. It’s actually quite the opposite, but when I play live, I really enjoy just the explosion of intensity.

I came from being a beach kid, surfing every day in Abu Dhabi in high school. Then immediately to Fairbanks winter. And in 2004, when I first came here, it was a record cold year and a record bad year the following summer for air quality, because of the forest fires. And the ice fog was horrendous. I remember just being like, where the hell am I? Why did I come here? So I picked up an electric guitar and just pretty much learned every single Metallica intro very poorly. It was the $100 package deal: guitar, amp, songbook.

PH: Classic starter pack.

JJ: Yeah, I mean, I played it obsessively, to the point where my roommate, Chris Eversman—and I give him props to this day. I buy him beers every time I see him, ’cause it’s like, dude, how did you not just murder me? We laugh about it now in hindsight.

So with Metallica, then I stumbled on the song “Whiskey in the Jar”, which they do a cover of. At the time, I didn’t even know it was a cover, but I liked the song so much. I was like, this is lyrically deep. And rich. So I started researching it more and discovered it was an old traditional Irish song. And then I got really hooked on listening to old traditional Irish music, particularly obsessed with the Dubliners. Their version has slightly different lyrics, so I learned their version.

And that rhythm is just, I’d say, stereotypically Irish. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Just with the melody and with the cadence and all of it, right? I even learned how to sing in a thick Irish accent. Which is pretty absurd. People look at me, they’re like, Are you Irish?
“Sailor’s Lament” has it: [sings in an Irish accent] “I dreamt I was a sailor on a ship in a storm!” I wrote that one to be an Irish ballad.

So anyway, that stuck with me and I quit Metallica intros cold turkey and just switched to acoustic after that. Now I’m looking for other sounds because I’ve been playing that for years.

PH: I think the first time I saw you, I was like, oh, wow, there’s a really strong feel of folk punk in this because you were playing so intensely. But then when I listen to your recorded music, it’s not there quite as much. But folk punk tends to have that heavy Irish folk influence as well, and similar to you, brings it up an extra level with the live performance energy. Have you ever gotten into any of that stuff?

JJ: Yeah, I like a lot of the—I guess I’ll call it like gypsy rock or gypsy folk. Oh, and honestly, the oldest Bob Dylan album when he was doing traditional stuff, and he just had this raw busker style? That stuff is my favorite. It’s a little unhinged. I wouldn’t call it punk, but that’s also a big influence on me.

PH: Any other bands or musicians that are particularly big influences?

JJ: Well, it’s hard to know what’s influenced me, but I obsessively listened to Radiohead for a while. Muse. Bright Eyes is another big influence. Tallest Man on Earth is also a huge influence.

PH: So the night after you play, “Parlor and the Round” is coming to Fairbanks, the 3rd time that it’s ever been to Fairbanks. You played in Parlor in Anchorage, right? How did that go?

JJ: I think it went great. I wasn’t the most experienced with what’s called the lightning round where you’re on the spot—in fact, and I would love to do it over again—but I think I did a great job all in all. And I’m usually pretty hard on myself. I think I wrote a really good song for that. It was funny and had some intensity to it. Got the crowd clapping along and singing, so that was pretty cool.

My favorite part, though, was hearing someone else with a beautiful voice cover one of my songs “Union Pacific Track.” I wrote it to try [to make it] sound like it’s from 100 years ago. Actually, a lot of my songs I’ve tried to write—especially lately—to make it sound like it could be something that was sung 100 years ago, like in an old folk tradition, you know? Like “Sailor’s Lament” feels that way for me. Maybe “Nooks and Crannies.”

But yeah, Union Pacific track, which is about the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, particularly I go from Omaha to Reno. I picked Reno because I have some family ties there, and I visit periodically. And that one’s just another journey song, you know, traveling around, there’s heartbreak involved, and moving forward, not looking back. It’s a pretty old age concept.

PH: Kind of selfishly, when I listen to your music, I sort of wish you wrote an album about Alaska history with major events and historical figures.

JJ: [laughs] That’s funny. Yeah, I do like that.

PH: For young people who are thinking about getting into music, do you have any advice for them? And then I think in your case, since you got into music a bit later than a lot of people I’ve talked to… do you have any advice for mid-career professionals who push papers by day and then they get back to their bedroom at night and jam out, yearning to be rock stars?

You know, yeah, I guess I have a lot of ideas. One, I think there’s tons of talent out there, and there’s barely a barrier to entry in this town. You can hop on stage and someone will pay you 50 bucks—without even hearing you. I mean, it’s not a lot, but someone will pay you if you just tell them ‘yeah, I play music, I write stuff, or I do covers, whatever, and I want to play your establishment for this hour’. There’s never been a resume.

Everyone’s got a hidden talent, find it, explore it, share it. That’s my perspective. There’s tons of people out there right now that, in this little town, could be just, like, unrivaled songwriters, musicians, artists, if they tried it.

PH: So you grew up in California, Abu Dhabi, and then you settled in for the long haul in Fairbanks? What’s one thing you wish people knew or understood about Fairbanks and what keeps you here?

So, you know, we had all these college friends at school, right? Maybe 20 close friends. The ones that have left, even if they’re in the same town, they don’t hang out. They don’t go out together to catch up and get beers on the weekends or do things together. They’re not sharing their lives together anymore.

In Fairbanks, everyone that stayed here hangs out. It’s pretty consistent. Even people who have kids, or, you know, we all have shit going on, we have our separate lives, but we find ways to come together and prioritize friends and community. And I think that exists here on a whole in Fairbanks and I don’t know why exactly. I think I wouldn’t appreciate it as much if I didn’t have the example of people who left and no longer have that.

I’ve had this conversation many times with my wife and other friends that, you know, we’ve all speculated about leaving, and sometimes we’re like, get to the point where it’s like, I have to leave. You know? Like, what are we still doing here? And then five years later, we’re still here. And I don’t regret any of it.I found a new community in music. There’s healthy competition, but people here treat it like art more than a business. I don’t know if that exists in that healthy way in other places. It probably does, but.

PH: Yeah, I think the heartBEAT series alone, just seeing all the fellow musicians that come out to support this kind of elevation of songcraft in Fairbanks. (And, admittedly, this is just one corner of the Fairbanks musical universe.) It’s kind of magical.

JJ: I would agree—I missed the one with Josh. I really wanted to make that show, and I was trying to rearrange my schedule around it. He’s been putting a lot of his heart into it.