Dave Crossland

June 2007 Kerrville Folk Festival

FAF:  What do you think is the most important issue facing us today?

            “I think greed is the source of all the issues in some way or another.  Why is the environment in trouble?  What’s causing that?  Why are people doing what they’re doing that’s destroying it?  If you care about what’s happening to the people, or the species, or the world: there’s something they do care about, and it doesn’t have to do with giving.  It has to do with taking and being indifferent to what the consequences are. 

            “For me, I go right down the line and I look at the environment, the war in Iraq: look at just the way the military is set up, how we have a voluntary system, but it means that the people who have the least opportunities are the ones who naturally are going to be the ones most likely to volunteer, and see this as an opportunity, one of the few that they have.  And I feel that sometimes things are done for a specific reason.  Sometimes people find situations where it’s convenient and they allow it to continue because it serves their purposes.  What are their purposes?  Doesn’t have to do with taking care of others.  I think that’s the big problem.

            “Things like Matthew Shepard [Blood in the Fields], you mentioned that song, that’s not so much greed as it is a type of fear.  Why does somebody have to find someone who is gay and then just beat the living crap out of him and leave him for dead?  What is that about?  There is something scary to that person, and they don’t know how to deal with it.  And I think that people are just, I think they’re ill. 

“I do believe in the inherent goodness of everyone.  Remember when you were a kid, and somebody treated you unfairly, and how that felt the first time you understood that, ‘hey, that’s not fair.’  Those kids grow up and they turn around and do the same thing.  I think everybody inside is born with an understanding of what’s fair and what’s good and right and as we become disillusioned we take different paths from that.  Sometimes they react and take the exact opposite stance from everything they’ve ever really felt inside, just to show that, ‘it’s not gonna hurt me’ and ‘if this is the way it is, well, screw them, I’m gonna do this then,’ and ‘I’ll show them.’  Or, some people just end up hiding away because they’re so hurt by it.

“I think greed is big.  I think fear is big.  I’m disillusioned in the way they all kind of interact.  And I don’t know how you fix that.  You can’t mandate it.  To a certain extent you can control what’s going on in a country in terms of what rules are for business, or for politics, or accepted public behavior. 

“But you can’t legislate compassion.   You can’t enforce altruism.   By its very nature

then you have destroyed it.  So, I just think it has to happen one heart at a time.  And that’s what I try to do with my music, just reach people on a level where ‘I can see you,’ ‘I see what you’re feeling,’ ‘I see what you’re thinking or going through,’ and ‘hey, you’re not alone,’ and then you have to make a connection like that before you can even get to that other stuff.  So I think that’s for me a big part of where my music is always coming from.  If it’s an overtly socially relevant song or if it’s just a goofy love song, it’s all about sharing humanity, and maybe thinking about something in a way you haven’t before.

FAF:  That leads into my second question: Do you think that we, as musicians, are doing enough, considering the situation?

“Is anybody doing enough?  I think some musicians, and artists in general, are very comfortable in the essence of their being, to just take something head on and just argue with it; just come out and say, flat in your face, ‘this is what’s going on’ in a very challenging way to people.  Annie DeFranco is great at that.  Wham.  This is it.  Deal with it.  Chris Chandler is like that.  He just puts it right in your face.  I first met Chris Chandler when he was singing on the streets of Boston.  When I first started coming to Kerrville we used to camp in the same spot, and I always had a deep appreciation for everything that he does and who he is as a person.  He’s one of those guys that, it’s not going to be a sugar pill. 

“In fact, I remember, here at Kerrville, hanging out at a campfire, and there was an

argument going on about ‘What do we do as musicians, as artists, given the world situation?’  And this was some time ago, before the Bush II presidency.  There was another songwriter there too, Chris was one of them, and Steve Fisher.  I love Steve.  He was one of the first songwriters I met here.  He came up to Boston one time and I drove him around some.  I can just sit and listen to Steve play all night, and he has enough songs to do it.  You look at Chris, you look at Steve, and they are two very different people.  Steve is not going to go on and say, “Republican Woodstock!”  He’s not going to be throwing it right in your face.  And he might not even sound like he is addressing something, but what he does, he just creeps into your heart.  And maybe he is addressing some of the same things that are deep inside somebody, those forces inside, those feelings, those perceptions: sneak in and touch a little heart there a little bit, don’t have to push it too much, but just give it a little something, something to think about or ponder, or just go, ‘Why am I feeling this way?’ 

“And I remember this well, there was this big talk, ‘What are you going to achieve if you don’t just come out and say something?’  And it wasn’t just the two of them.  There was a group of people around and they were pointing at Chris saying, ‘What if you do it this way?  How are you going to make a difference unless you just tell what people need to know?’  And there was another group of people pointing at Steve and saying, ‘How are you going to make a difference if you just piss people off?  And you just confront them with something that is ugly and repulsive to their experience, and it’s scary, and they shut you off?  How are you going to reach them?’ 

“And I guess my whole thing was, when I finally got a word in there, and this is how

I feel about these things: every artist, in order to be true to your art, you have to be true to yourself.  If I try to go and do Annie DeFranco or Steve Fisher, it’s not me.  Everybody has to bring who they are, musically and stylistically. 

When you’re starting out, you admire certain artists and so you learn their stuff and maybe your sound sounds like them.  It’s the same kind of thing.  It’s finding whatever that essence is that’s you, and bringing that out.  And that’s in your writing and how you approach these things.  And I think that’s the only way people can be effective.  And I think it’s good you have a huge spectrum like that.  You’ve got the Chandlers, you’ve got the Fishers, anything: if it has to do with love, if it has to do with giving, forgiveness, salvation, redemption; or then, you know, confrontation, rethinking things, taking care of somebody, or just waking people up sometimes too ... anything that makes you ask the question, ‘Why am I doing this the way I am doing it?’ or ‘Am I really doing this for the right reasons?’ and ‘Why am I thinking what I’m thinking?’