STACK NZ Magazine April 2015 Issue 61

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STACK:Your music is a timeless
brand of rootsy Americana; why does
this style continue to connect with
audiences?
POKEY LAFAGE: It’s always been
alive: it’s never died. It’s music that
got its birth, and its evolution, via the
underground – it’s never been ‘popular
music.’ The Grand Ole Opry has
always been a ‘thing’ but only a small
percentage of artists make it to the
Grand Ole Opry. But blues, jazz – very
few genres had an outlet like Grand
Ole Opry. It’s always been music of
the people, created by the people and
preserved by the people.
What is intrinsically American about
your music that even Americans
don’t understand?
Some Americans take culture for
granted. Music, architecture – things
that people through blood, sweat and
tears worked to create and preserve.
The slang sometimes
people don’t
understand: they
might understand
the word I’m saying,
but not the context.
It’s a huge part of the
music. A lot of people
don’t understand that
the influence of the
with POKEY LaFARGE
1 2
Germans, in America and in Mexico,
was huge. A lot of the early brass band
culture comes from Germany and that
influenced the early parts of jazz.
Preservation Hall is seen in the
New Orleans episode of Foo
Fighters’ Sonic Highways
series. It’s tiny, there’s no
PA, it’s just a room. Have
you played in there?
Oh yeah! I have. That’s
the great thing about early
music. People’s ears must
have been totally different.
Go back to rock’n’roll in the ’50s: you
have 1,000 screaming fans, there’s
one PA speaker about them, the bass
isn’t miked, the drums aren’t miked,
the only thing that’s miked is Chuck
Berry or Elvis’s voice, and the guitar is
just blaring. Go back before that: they
were having dances with 3,000 people
with bands that weren’t even miked.
Preservation Hall was like that, but it
only fits 50 people! You don’t need a
PA, you don’t need electricity. But, for
every Preservation Hall, there are 100
other places people don’t know.
Tell me about the video for
Something in theWater, with the
girl chasing you up the street with a
baseball bat.
We were trying to have fun, trying to
accentuate the absurdity of the conflict
that often arises in a relationship. No
matter how tough things are, people
still love each other. That’s my partner
in the clip; she’s the one I wrote the
song about.
“The slang
sometimes
people don’t
understand: they
might understand
the words I’m
saying, but not
the context. It’s a
huge part of the
music.”