CASIOTONE FOR THE PAINFULLY ALONE
The BOTTLE TREE, BIRMINGHAM, AL
4.08.2008
WORDS & PHOTOS: ALEC NIEDENTHAL

Casiotone For The Painfully Alone's Owen Ashworth allowed us to briefly interrupt his solitude before his performance at Birmingham's Bottle Tree last month, and here's what he has to say about Otis Redding, Missy Elliott and the autobiographical element to his songs:

'SUP: You've released several 7-inch singles this year. Do you prefer releasing material in that format?
CFTPA: I decided I would spend some time saying "Yes" to various releases. I was really worried that I wasn't going to write anymore good songs, and I didn't want to stockpile everything I wrote for an album. I just wanted to release singles, and not necessarily worry about what would happen with the next record yet. I've released probably an album's worth of stuff through parcel, and it's been really nice to have a really quick turnaround. I'll write a couple of songs, and then a month later they'll actually be released, as opposed to waiting for an album, in where it will be a year or two before a recording actually gets heard by anyone.

It's almost like a short story format.
Yeah, definitely. It's nice just letting a song sort of stand on its own instead of worrying about how it's going to fit in with eleven songs or whatever.

In addition to "Ice Cream Truck" and "Town Topic (instrumental)" how much new material was written for Stay the Same Never Change"? Any idea on when the rest will be surfacing?
"Ice Cream Truck" was the only actual song I wrote for the film. There were a lot of previously released songs that she was interested in using. I've been doing a lot of sound design work, sound effects. There are 19 minutes of music that was recorded specifically for the film, and then there were three little songs that were used, probably twenty minutes of instrumentals of old songs. [Ambulance sirens.] In just a couple months there will be another seven inch of instrumental pieces, like ten tracks, quite short. Between songs off the EP and the second one will be all of the music that was recorded for the film. I didn't think it was interesting to have redundancies between my other records, so I'm not going to release a soundtrack.

When will we see a new full-length?
I've been working on a new album for like a year and a half, just pieces, songs that are slowly piecing together. The soundtrack took up a lot of time, as well as singles and EPs. It's a slow process. It should be released about a year and a half from now. There will be some other junk, though, some weird, smaller releases.

What are the differences in sound between the new album and Etiquette?
I'm hesitant to talk about the album too much, because it's still a work-in-progress. Many songs have been recorded several times, and I'm still trying to figure out which sound I'm most happy with. It's definitely a different production style, and a different songwriting style. It's stuff I wrote and recorded with The Donkeys when I was on tour with them. I think it will be quite different. I'm not sure how different, though, from what I've done in the past.

How much of your material is autobiographical?
There is an element of autobiography in most songs, and a lot of songs are based off of friends of mine. Some songs are much closer to the actual story; I don't go around changing details too much. Most of the songs are pretty much well-alive.

Do you write songs for catharsis?
When I write songs, I write with the idea of attempting to write a good song. Growing up, I listened to a lot of country music with my parents, and that's the kind of music I've always responded to. And when I would hear a Hank Williams song, I would think, "Wow, that was a really well-written song. That was really effective," more so than, "Wow, that guy has the worst time. Wow." I don't know; I just appreciate it when a song is well written. What's most attractive to me is writing a song that achieves its purpose, that accomplishes a task, getting under someone's skin, a song that really means something to someone, gets under someone's skin.

Your music, to me, sounds sort of like a composite comprised of an electronic Smog, a less bleak Suicide, and a less flowery, baroque, overwrought Leonard Cohen. Who are your primary influences?
Well, I can't point to a certain artist and say, "This guy influenced me." I just really like music, and I listen to records and when I dislike something an artist does, I say, "Wow, why did he choose to do that? Have I done that? I probably have." But yeah, I really love Smog; I have a bunch of his records, and I think he writes great songs. I really like Suicide. That first Suicide album was actually a direct influence on that "Ice Cream Truck" song I did. You know, there's just so much music I like. I could make you a list on the phone right now that would take all day. Willie Nelson and Smog are pretty closely linked to my music, Willie Nelson's vocal style particularly. I like Otis Redding a lot. I like a lot of soul music. When I started the band, I was really influenced by girl groups, like The Shangri-Las and groups like that. I listen to a lot of hip-hop. That was the first music which I felt was, like, mine. The first music that I loved that wasn't introduced to me by my parents, that was really personal and great.

Your cover of "When You Were Mine" is one of my favorite of your songs. What other covers might you be recording for future EPs or LPs, even?
I think I'm done for awhile. I did a lot of covers, and they were all songs that I loved. I covered that Prince song, a Paul Simon song, a couple Bruce Springsteen song, a Missy Elliot song. I have a concern that all of these covers are keeping me from writing as much as I should, though.

So the Missy Elliot song was covered in earnest?
Yeah, I love that song. When I first heard it, it was hypnotizing. The beat was incredible. So when we sat down to record it, we said, "This feels a bit ridiculous, but this is a song we love and we should try to do it." The cover wasn't any kind of a dig on the song itself.