Tales from the Tavern: He Said She Said

Excerpts from the Tales from the Tavern Interviews


Audrey Auld Mezera, Katy Moffat, and Andrew Hardin - March 19, 2008
Andrew Hardin: This is what is known as a great gig. It’s got great acoustics … great technical support … great location … great area … great audience … great promoter …

Audrey Auld Mezera: Great food!

Andrew Hardin: The food – my god … I’m sure we are all very grateful. I know I am … So these are the gigs that you live for.

Katy Moffat: That’s true. It’s very very special, and it only happens when there is someone like you who makes it happen - so once more, gratitude.

Audrey Auld Mezera: And it’s arriving and having a sound guy (Tyson Leonard) that doesn’t lay a trip on you or treat you like you’ve never used a microphone before, and having someone there who helps out with the merchandise (Robbie Van Gelder); that’s a big weight off your shoulders.

Andrew Hardin: And not taking a percentage (of those merchandising sales) as well.

Audrey Auld Mezera: It’s a general feeling of everyone you work with - they all care about the show. I was asked so many times tonight - are you ok? Can I get you anything? I wish I wanted something so they could get me something.

Andrew Hardin: For the first time in my life I’m actually fine (laughing) - I don’t need anything.

Audrey Auld Mezera: Yea, but it’s really nice to feel looked after - respected and appreciated. I’m sure the audience would say the same thing - you can tell they are in 100 percent a great mood. They all turn up on a Wednesday night and they are all pumped up and ready to have a really good time.”

Katy—once again it takes someone who actually has built up a series because the people have confidence in you—they believe in you and they know that you are not going to let them down so this is really once again what makes a great gig

Andrew---yea that’s actually kind of a miracle in a way---something that defies the laws of everything else—big media –business and everything –it more like personal good vibes and knowledge and soul—and you put soul into this and we put soul into our performance---

Ron ---the audience puts soul into it---

Andrew---it’s not like rolling into town taking your money and leaving


Danny O'Keefe - April 2, 2008
Danny: One of the crucial mistakes of my life is that I never went out there and worked the road. I never really got the performing thing until years later---it took me years to get a second set.
I’m slow that way and it took a long time to mature into that whole process because I didn’t start out as a performer—I started out as a writer and that was the thing that was always more important. I would go out for six weeks to promote a record and then I’d escape
Ron: Is it still the thing that’s most important?
Danny: What, the writing? The creation is more important. It’s not so much the writing anymore cause you can re-create the song.
Ron: What do you call the creation?
Danny: It’s that thing that moves you. You can feel it when you start to write a song - you get emotionally fragile and you don’t know what it is, and threads come and you keep pulling the threads and eventually you pull them into some kind of fabric and that begins to look like something, and you know you’re getting one. The other ones are just constructions, you know. You can go to Nashville and construct 10 songs in a day but very few of them are ones that make a mark on you, and those are what you want--- the ones that leave a mark on you 'cause that’s what you are looking for."

Excerpts from the Tales from the Tavern Interviews

Mark Stuart & Stacey Earle - 11/14/07
Mark Stuart: I’ve had people tell me something in five minutes I wish I had known 20 years ago—and all it would have taken is someone to pass it on to me 20 years ago
Ron: Can you think of an example?
Stacy Earle: Well, such as - Don’t go throwing your heart out there somewhere where it’s going to get broken. Don’t go take your songs and yourself and try and sit in a rowdy bar and play. Don’t pick the wrong venue. You have to seek out the right venue; the people who want to listen
Mark: Let me expend on that. If you want to be an artist who’s creating and doing something that’s unique to you, generally don’t put yourself in or subject yourself to anything that’s going to crush you or be counter productive to that. Now, in my case it was 20 years of playing in the rowdy bars with people that didn’t appreciate what I was doing and you think - you know, I’m not here to do my stuff; I’m here to do “Rock and Roll Hootchie Coo” and “Mustang Sally” all night long. OK, but at least I’m still singing and playing and getting paid at the end of the night, but actually what’s going on is slowly but surely they are pounding away at you and they are forcing you to be something that you never set out to be and it’s seeping into your psyche and you are becoming something that you never set out to be and you are driving home after a gig unrewarded and you’ve lost sight of what it is you wanted to be. So what’s the answer to this? Get out of that situation; quit doing it, and that’s a tough thing to do when your making a living doing it.


Michael Smith 3-12-08
The level of vivacity, the level of excitedness that comes from the Tales from the Tavern crowd is on a different level, a different plane.
They’re light-hearted and they’re social and they’re verbal—but they were definitely saying – I’m having a good time are you gonna get in the way or are you gonna help me have a good time - you walk out there and you can feel that. It’s great because it makes me think I’m not a sedate little folksinger. It makes me think that I am capable of playing to people who have a life going on – the audience has a life going on, and I’m happy to rise to that occasion, and I am aware of the fact that it is demanding. - Michael Smith


Chris Smither - from 3-22-05
“It gives me a great deal of pleasure to see people trying desperately to do something that means so much to them. You’re told from the time you’re little, find something you like to do and figure out a way to make a living at it … so few people get to realize that. It’s important to encourage the ones who are trying.”* - Smither