Interview with Ricky Vaughan - March 29, 2002
by Deborah Barber
Ricky wanted to share one of his favorite places with me, so we walked down a path behind his apartment, over a dam with young pine trees lining the walkway demarcated by the treading of feet of Ricky and fellow seekers of solace. We came down to the Little Cahaba at a turn in the path; we walked down to the shore and sat on a log. The opposite bank was what zoo habitat designers seek. The bank climbed from the stream and embedded in it were rock outcroppings with burrows and little nooks and young cedar trees. During our talk we both watched the bank and listened to birdsong.
I want to be sure all of this is right. You were born in Alabama?
Right.
And you think you wrote your first song at about 16 or 17?
I think I was about 17.
And you placed your brother's fingers on the neck of the guitar...
Found the roots of chords by hitting just the bass note that worked with the melody. I would sing the melody to him, and while singing the melody to him I would be tapping the rhythm on my knee so he could get the feeling of what kind of rhythm we needed to have on guitar. And then we would find just the root of all of the chords. He would play just the bass notes. And from those bass notes there was either some intuitive play on his part of what chord I was trying to find, or I would sing other harmony notes on top of that that I could hear with the melody. Then I'd say, "I like that chord, Tom, but could you get this note in it?" Lah (sings a pitch) "Uh, well, no Ricky, I can't stretch my finger that far to where the note is, but I'll try." And we would get to the song, finally.
Aren't you glad you didn't start in Eb or something.
Yeah. There were plenty of times he'd say, "Ricky, you like weird chords."
You were his brother, I'm sure he understood. But, I'm wondering how much further back than when you actually told him where to put his fingers that just the melody kind of came to you?
That was on my own. I would sit around and think of words and melody, and it was usually a melody first. And then I would start singing words to it. And then I would come to him and say; "I've got a song. I can sing you the whole song." Then we'd start working with the guitar part.
You are so unique.... And I have this little question, which is kind of big. Why do you think you wrote it?
Escapism. Exploration. Wanting to have something that was uniquely mine, that people would admire. To be able to express my emotions, my personality in a way that would be more clear. So they could understand me better. I wanted to index my soul and my emotions into the music.
So, your brother played guitar and then you kinda taught yourself. Did you use any books or anything; did you have any visual things that told you where to put your fingers to help you learn?
No, I got my brother to show me the basic chords that he knew and then from there I would hunt and try to find other chords on my own. Try to play variation on those chords, and I learned it on my own, I didn't have any books, I'd just look at those dots on the fretboard.
Were either of your parents musicians? Did they play music or did they have a lot of music in the house?
There was some music in the house. There wasn't a lot, but what there were were some really good albums. Both of my parents played a little bit of music. My mother a little bit more than my father. My mother played piano and picked up and learned a little bit of folk music on guitar. She wrote a couple of songs but it didn't hold her attention to keep writing music. When my dad was in high school he played English horn. I think that's about the extent of it.
They were both real creative though. Not in music, they did other things. What did they do in creative ways that kinda made them role models for your creativity?
My dad really wasn't around during the years that I was really finding myself creatively. But he has always been interested in writing, and that's what he does by profession now. He is a writer. He writes novels. My mom had always been very strong in the visual arts, and has had some flare with communicating and writing. But she has not been as much into the writing as she's been with the painting, drawing, things like that.
And your brother played guitar. Any other family members, cousins, grandparents, that played?
My grandmother played the piano. She had a little organ, that she would press the buttons with built-in programmed rhythms like bossa nova. She really liked that.
I remember those. I mean, we never had one, but some of my girlhood friends' parents had them. I thought, "Oh, wow!" Pre-computer, it was the best thing you could think of. A one-man band.
We would get on that thing when we were little kids and press the different rhythms and goof around with it. And my brother played guitar, of course, and he played trombone in the band.
Do you remember music in kindergarten or elementary school at all?
I had a teacher that put aside 30 minutes of the day for us to sing in kindergarten. We would sing Little Red Caboose, Chug Chug Chug. She had a big puppet that she made out of a sack, and I remember that.
Did you dance around?
I don't remember dancing; I just remember we were excited when it was time to sing Little Red Caboose.
And you were in high school band. What age do you think you started that?
Well, beginner band started in seventh grade and it went on through.
And you started on the drums to begin with?
No, I loved the unusualness of the glockenspiel.
Yeah!
But my parents and grandparents said, "Oh, you need to play a trumpet or something like that." I stood my ground and I wanted to play. I just thought bells were really cool. I remember sitting by the bands when I was really young, on the same row as the drum line, and the girl at the very end closest to me had a glockenspiel. She would just slam the notes out of that thing and it was just so bright and exciting and cool looking. And I just thought I really want to be able to play that instrument. So I played that for about the first three years, and then my junior high band director, Jimmy Harrison, said, "Ricky, this time I want you to show me some drum rudiments and some percussion technique if you want to pass tryouts for this report card." And that really scared me, because I thought that's not fair. I am in percussion, but I am not a drummer. I felt like, "I don't know if I can do this." But I picked up a pair of sticks, and a friend from band, Phillip Camp, came over in the afternoons and tutored me a little bit, and then I was hooked. I started learning flam accents, paradiddles, flamaques. And then I made first chair in tryouts.
So, other instruments that you play... you play the drums and the glockenspiel...
And just everything in the percussion line after that. Chimes, tympani, you know, show me technique on every kind of percussion instrument there is. That really got me excited. I was already excited about being in the band, but when I found that there was this drummer that wanted to come out, then I was just experimenting with what kinds of rhythms, and it just opened up a whole new world.
Right. Since you got first chair you were like a role mode for the others. "I want to be like Ricky."
At first they resented it. The different ones had been first chair for a long time, and it was like, "Ricky's first chair?" And so I was very humble, and I didn't say, "Hey, let's try this," and come up with cadence ideas until after I passed the second and third tryouts for first chair.
Here is a very, I think, key thing to my creativity with playing in the band. I had a high school band director, Mr. Peek, who allowed the first chair drummers to write the cadences. And not every band has that luxury. I used to think that every band did, but since I've left I found that wasn't always the case. So, I wrote a cadence for the high school band for three years. And every cadence each year was more adventurous and had heavier things going on with the rudiments. We were at the point where we had people from the University of Alabama and Auburn University that were in the drumline that were asking us, "Where are y'all going to college? Are you going to be in band?" So, that was a big boost to my confidence in writing and creating.
You ought to publish those. Put them on a CD for posterity.
There is one on cassette tape somewhere. I don't know how well it is holding up after all of these years.
And I know you have a keyboard that Maryanne plays, but do you play it, as well?
No, I don't. You know, I just never took the time with it. And then while it has been around, more recently, I haven't really tried to get on, because I feel so comfortable and so fluid with the guitar in writing and it just, to me, has a greater feeling of intimacy with the words that I am trying to get across. And you know I grow the fingernails long on my right hand a lot and it feels funny when I am trying to play the keyboard, so I just consequently never have gotten as much into the keyboard.
We talked a little bit about media role models, people that made records that you bought.
During the time that I began writing songs on the guitar I was listening to the progressive rock bands of the early seventies. It was groups like Yes, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd. And it was early Genesis, when Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins were together. And I would take the arm of the record player and put it down on the cuts that were really acoustic cuts. Like I remember on the album "Selling England by the Pound" I would just have to put on the song Cinema Show, because it was so beautiful and acoustic. Just complex acoustic sounds intrigued me. I remember going up to a friend's house, when it snowed here in Alabama in '72 or '73, and we were all out of school for a week or so and he had the album "The Wizard" by Uriah Heep. He put on the title cut The Wizard, which starts out with this very powerful finger-style steel string guitar. Sounds like that, and the beginning of the Yes song And You and I, were very compelling sounds to me. When Steve Howe is just sort of chiming around harmonics and coming back again with a little acoustic reprise, it really inspired me for some reason. I just loved the atmosphere and the sound of it. I really felt like I was going to unique places. Which by the way went along with reading J.R.R. Tolkein, which is what I was reading at the time. Lord of the Rings- and I was listening to that stuff.
We would sit around at campouts, a lot of the drummers and I, and talk about how with our cadences we wanted to communicate stories. Kind of like they were becoming anthems for tribes. We really got into it. We wanted to be so fluent. We would sit around and think about rhythms that are so complex that the density of crushed rolls, between more loosely-sticked paradiddles or radamaques, actually had descending and ascending note values to it. Where the cadence was becoming so complex it was kind of becoming music itself. We would envision cadences from another planet that was more advanced.
In Ozark, Alabama.
You've got to come up with something, because there is nothing to do!
That is just like a little shining star on the map to me. If I were thinking about things that were happening that would make you glad to be on the planet, that would be one. Think about a bunch of teenaged guys sitting around and thinking of almost metaphysical stuff to do with the drumming they're doing.
I am going to ask you a question. And I am not sure if you have an answer. Or if you want to have an answer. What style do you think you play or write in?
I'll answer it in two ways. When I was in Nashville, a gentleman by the name of Clay Bradley came out to see my show. I don't know what his position is now, but he was very high up at BMI. He was very impressed with my set. He and his girlfriend were out there and he pulled me aside and told me to give him a call and drop by his office. And I just gasped, because I found out that he was associate director of BMI and he was interested. Maybe he could help give me an idea what category my music was. Because people were saying, "You're like New Age." No. "You're like Folk." No. "You're like Rock music, but you are playing an acoustic guitar." And I really wanted to have something to say that would capture it all. And I was even thinking, and I still think sometimes, about creating a whole new name for the style of music that I play. Because it is incorporating different styles; from Jazz, Folk, Rock. He said that the best title that he thought was for me to call myself either Adult Contemporary or Alternative Adult Contemporary. It sort of captures a little bit wider band. More mellow like Folk, but then a little edge, like Rock. I am not Heavy or Hard Rock. There are elements of New Age in it. And there are singer/songwriters out there now that play a lot of acoustic stuff and are sort of experimenting a little bit with different styles, and they are out there under that broad style of Adult Contemporary.
So, I would call myself Adult Contemporary or Alternative Adult Contemporary, just to have something to throw out there. I don't really like putting a name on it. I don't feel like strictly that is what it is. But for now that is what I am going with.
Well, I will tell you. On our trail ride yesterday, I asked my two trail companions about that question: "Why do you think we put categories on music?" And the person riding behind me is an elementary teacher. Not a musician, though she has a nice voice. She didn't say anything for a long time then she said, "I think it is the receivers of music, rather than the givers of music that put labels on things."
That is a very good statement.
Isn't it!
Yes, because when you entitle it, you sort of limit what someone else might perceive it as. Rather than do that, just play the song, and let the audience have their own blank canvas. That way it paints more pictures for more different people.
I don't like to put a label on my music. If I am pressed to put a label on my stuff for marketing, then I have to right now say Adult Contemporary, because it is giving me the most options now. And I hope that I don't get typecast into something that would limit people's perceptions before they get a chance to hear it.
You've got a lot of good people in there with you in Adult Contemporary. And a wide range.
Yes, but the categories have changed over the years. After going through that time of listening to the Progressive Rock bands, I listened to artists like Joni Mitchell, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and Dan Fogelberg. You probably find many similar kinds of musicians in that category today. So, that seems to be for now, the best title to work with.
This one, I know we kind of covered it, but do you think you had a lot of options as far as chords and melodies available to you when you wrote your first song.
I felt like there were things that I wanted to write on the guitar that I couldn't get to yet, until I learned a little bit more guitar technique. My brother was helping me and we were writing some songs. With what I had to work with, I came up with a couple of songs that I felt were getting close to what I wanted. But not completely what I wanted. Because I didn't have the full vocabulary yet, on the guitar. I did feel a little bit limited. In my head I could hear things, but I couldn't express them. And there is still a little bit of that that eludes me even today. I am always trying to chase after that sound that I am hearing in here. There might not even be a guitar, unless it is like, and you know I can picture in my head, guitars that have nine strings that are played by beings with twelve fingers on each hand. Something like that.
What I do is like turning a kaleidoscope and turning it the right angle, the right turn that makes all of the pieces fall in the place that you like. So, there is this accidental beauty that occurs with my writing. Some of it is being pushed in a deliberate direction, but then I am relying on that accidental chance.
When you write now, do you record as you are writing, or do you wait until you have it down before you record it? Or a combination?
It's a combination, because I used to just put the recorder on as soon as I sat down and started playing on guitar. Now, I am kinda feeling like, if I don't remember it right away, who else is going to remember it? And I've been taking that approach more lately.
Yep. That's the way I've been doing it lately. But when I first started, I'd turn that thing on, then I'd go listen to it. "Oh, I like that." It's just like hearing somebody else's music. "Oh yeah. I'm going to learn how to do that" and it was me in the first place, but I didn't remember doing it.
How does being a songwriter affect your identity? Let's think about when you first wrote; did it affect your identity? As you were walking in the school.
To me or to other people?
How you thought people perceived you and maybe how you perceived yourself.
I felt more empowered because I'd played a couple of songs and my brother was the first person to reinforce, "That's good."
A Zebra Swallowtail. Flying between us. I feel like that is a good omen. My album is Zebra in a Cowfield and I was just talking to Maryanne about how we could use little Zebra Swallowtail icons to click on to get to other pages. That way it wouldn't be so pat as a zebra.
When I do the next CD it won't be like zebra-everything.
And butterflies go through metamorphosis and your music is metamorphosizing.
Back to the question, I had feedback that was good. And then I wanted to write more because immediately after the first couple of people said, "I really like that. I didn't know you could sing or write or play. You write that?" That was the response. "You actually wrote that yourself?" It seemed like there was a lot of respect for just writing the song. Even if it was not that polished a song yet. The pat on the back for 'You wrote it yourself' was a nice pat on the back to get. So, I just kept struggling with it, because I thought, "It's a pain right now to get these things to come out exactly the way I want them to come out. And I'm so new at this, but if I keep on working at it, at some point I am going to have so much power." You know? "I'll have to be responsible with it." And I liked the idea that music could be a power.
It was an exploration. I wanted to go there and find out just how much power can music have. Can I cause people to change a belief system by playing a song to them? Can I put them in a whole other emotional state of mind just by playing a song? Can I make myself seem more understandable to people? I really wanted to do that. I felt like it was giving me a new identity. I was going through some kind of metamorphosis.
Do you think you have a talent or you worked hard to get where you are?
That is a very good question, because it is something I've thought about a lot through the years. There have been so many times that I've played somewhere and somebody's come up to me and said, "You are SO talented!" And I would say, "I don't know really if it's that I'm talented or that I just worked really, really hard to make it sound this way,"
It was a lot of putting things in a bag, shaking them around, then tossing them out on the ground to see what shapes they fell into. And just hunting by accident until I found something that would work for me. And by doing this it kind of let me explore in ways that maybe some people who had more formal training wouldn't have gotten to as fast. Everything has its downside. So maybe it took me a little longer to understand which words are gonna work better and what would be the next logical chord of where a progression is going. Someone who had taken a lot more theory would know more quickly than I would know. But along the way I found ways to break the rules that they wouldn't even think of. I've seen people like that go, "Well, how in the world did you come up with that to resolve it? I would NEVER have thought of going to that chord." And that was from me having to find my own way of writing.
To this day, I am not sure how much of it is talent and how much of it is just working really hard. But I am tending to lean toward the working to find it more than the talent. The thing about "naturally born talent," genetically I suppose somebody might be wired a little better with hearing and have quick reflexes of the mind and thought which would help to facilitate writing a good song. At the same time, a lot of environmental conditions came in on me to make me feel like a loner. To want to write a song. To have a voice. To stand out. And then there was exposure to some good musicians all along the way. And then there was this incredible will power that I trained myself in sort of a self exile. Using the guitar and music was a way of having company to reflect myself back to myself. To try to see who I was. I feel like it was more work than it was naturally born talent.
You know the composer Aaron Copeland? Somebody asked him why he continued to write when he had written so many wonderful things. He said that he continued to find new things about himself through the writing process. He couldn't stop, because he didn't know who he was yet. He was a pretty neat guy.
You just answered this question: Do you think you know yourself better through writing?
Yes, and I am still learning, like you said about Copeland. Still hunting. Trying to find who I am and everything else that I am connected to through it. I almost feel there is something, a larger voice, an energy there, that is sort of reaffirming as I write it, and it falls into place. I don't know if I'll ever completely find the finite essence of this tap source, but I want to keep traveling towards it.
What kind of time or personal space do you need to write?
I need a lot of quiet around me. I love to find a place where I don't worry about people walking down a hall and hearing me go through the repetitious stages of trying to see if a song works, so I can get as crazy and as primal as I need to. And not worry about being self-confident, how ridiculous a sound that was. Hitting muddy chords that don't sound very good.
I've never really tried to think about 'time.' Some songs just come out really, really fast. Others work a lot harder to get to come out. I've noticed that the past few years that I've taken more time with a song and not tried to do it all at once. I used to feel that I was so compulsive that I had to sit down and finish it in two days. And by the end of two or three days I'd be like, "Don't bother me now for a day or two. My head hurts. My throat is sore." It's sort of like labor, you know.
Now I've gotten more patient with it. I've tried to contain my excitement about a song when I'm getting some really nice chords happening. I put the guitar back and I go, "OK, now you just, like, baste for a while in those chords and I'll be back later with some lyrics."
And your guitar says what?
In a scratchy voice "OK Ricky." "No. I want you to pay attention to me now." "No, I'm sorry you're gonna have to wait there for a while."
Like in a Twilight Zone or something. "Play me now. Play me now, Ricky."
When do ideas come to you?
Any time any place.