After releasing three well-received albums of original material, Northern California-based GLAMA-winning OutVoice chart-topping singer /songwriter Mark Weigle has turned his attentions to the work of other songwriters on his fourth CD Different and the Same (see markweigle.com). With an emphasis on country-tinged acoustic numbers, including 'Hiding In The Stone,' 'What I Like About You,' and 'East Asheville Hardware,' Weigle's latest is sure to put a spring in the step of his two-stepping country-dancing fans. There is also much to admire in his vintage Motown reading of 'AZT,' his bare-bones interpretation of 'The Truth About You,' and the rocking renditions of '867-5309/Jimmy' and 'And I Moved.'
Gregg Shapiro: Are any of the songs on Different and the Same songs that you have performed during your live shows?
Mark Weigle: Yes. 'What I Like About You,' which was cut by Trisha Yearwood, is just a great song about trying to have a relationship with guys. This album, it's been more than a year in the recording process, I've just been working on it when I'm not on the road. So, some of these tracks have been done for months and I've sort of tested them out in front of audiences in clubs.
GS: What criteria did you use in the song selection process for the album?
MW: It was kind of things that I wish I had written. Subjects that I really wanted to talk about. There's a lot of artists that I love, like Cheryl Wheeler and Mickey Newbury and people that I love as writers, but I didn't feel like there were any of their songs I could add anything too. So, it had to be something as me doing it as a gay man that I could add some thing to the original version.
GS: I brought that up because I am fascinated by the songs by other artists that singer/songwriters choose to cover.
MW: It shows up in my writing too, that I'm really attracted to very specific stories. My stuff, the song about the woman finding out her husband's gay and the song about the deaf lover and the song about losing a partner to AIDS. Some are just sort of general love songs. On this record there's a song about a homeless man, there's a song about HIV medications, a Joan Baez (song) 'Love Song To A Stranger' about a great weekend romance that doesn't go much farther than that, but it's still great. They're just very specific stories. Stories I wanted to tell myself.
GS: How important was it to include material by out artists such as Mary Gauthier, Diana Jones and The Kinsey Sicks?
MW: I have a lot of respect for my fellow out artists, so it feels really good to be able expose their work to my audience and sort of cross pollinate. It really was not a conscious criteria, again, just the same reason I write about gay subjects myself; it's just stories that haven't been necessarily told before. So, I'm attracted to the Kinsey Sicks song, 'AZT,' about HIV meds. Honestly, the only criteria is a great song that expressed something that I wanted to say. Once I looked at it, it seemed to be predominantly women writers, and there was definitely a healthy percentage of out, queer artists on there, which I really liked.
GS: I like the spin you took on '867-5309/Jimmy.' Can you say something about claiming songs, such as the one by Rosanne Cash that you cover, for queers?
MW: The 'Jimmy Jimmy' is a classic example. I mean, who takes numbers off bathroom walls or writes them on bathroom walls, mostly gay men, right? The song is incredibly catchy and everybody loved it. I was in tenth grade and it was the biggest song of the year. But when it's a woman, for me, it's actually kind of creepy. It wasn't her, right? Jenny didn't write her own number on the wall. Whereas, Jimmy did, right? Guys will write their own numbers down, 'please call.' That's what I mean by me doing it puts a whole other spin on something familiar. The Rosanne Cash song, a lot of my gay audience doesn't necessarily know how much great singer/songwriter music is out there. Because that's a Rosanne Cash album, it's not going to be on the radio. That's why I put all of the writer's Web sites on the album. It would be great if I could turn some guys onto David Wilcox and Rosanne Cash's more recent stuff. To me, that Cash song is totally about a closeted gay man. That's the only way I can see it. I don't know what she even intended it to mean. I guess, just an inaccessible man.
GS: You do the same [reclaiming of music] on your cover of 'And I Moved,' a song Pete Townshend recorded on one of his solo albums. How did you feel about him reneging on his queer claims in Rolling Stone in July of 2002?
MW: Yeah, I was totally not aware of that at all. I had kind of heard he had finally come out as bisexual a few years ago. I'm a gigantic Who fanatic. ... To me a lot of torque of that band was Roger Daltrey being the beautiful golden boy, so straight, and then here's Pete, this kind of ugly, awkward, creative genius. He would write these words that Roger would sing and I think a lot of the juice for that whole creative process came out of Pete's queerness. That solo record (Empty Glass) to me, (the songs) 'Rough Boys' and 'I Am An Animal' where he screams on the bridge 'I will be immersed/queen of the fucking universe.' On the cover of the record he's got these two women hanging off him and he looks miserable and then on the back cover the women are sort of faded out and he's smiling and all happy. I'm listening to this and thinking, as this closeted queer kid, my brother's rocking out to this, and I'm thinking, 'How can you not see how faggy this all is?'
GS: Yes, Empty Glass seemed to be overflowing with homoeroticism.
MW: (Laughs) Absolutely. 'And I Moved'—it's a bathhouse hook-up with a shamed, closeted guy. It's so clear (laughs).
GS: Do you feel, as a songwriter and singer, that it is your duty to expose your fans to the work of other songwriters?
MW: I feel like my only job really is to sing really good songs. The gay part was not a criteria for me at all except that these gay writers happen to write incredibly great songs. Maybe part of why they're really powerful for me is because they came out of that writer's queerness. Dave Carter was one of the greatest song writers to have ever lived in my opinion. He passed away last year. The CD is dedicated to him. I wish that singer/ songwriter music was as popular on the radio as it was in the '70s, in the heyday, of Paul Simon, Dan Fogelberg, and Jackson Browne and all those guys. People of that caliber are still out there, but the current thing, now it's Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys, unfortunately.
GS: There is hope. Look at Norah Jones.
MW: There was David Gray with 'Babylon' and Shawn Mullins. There's always a backlash and it's time for the backlash to bubble gum pop (laughs).
Weigle is up for Outmusic Awards (OMAs) June 1 in New York.
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