INVISIBLE HERO
XIREN TALKS TO ROCKWIRED
ABOUT
NEON FISH, HIS NEW E.P. AND SECOND THOUGHTS ABOUT LEAVING DETROIT

WRITTEN BY BRIAN LUSH

There is always that sense of mystery to the performer with only one name. (PRINCE, BONO and STING) The same can be said for XIREN (Pronounced SEER-IN) a singer-songwriter who has set up shop in Denver Colorado after making some noise in Detroit Michigan.

His latest E.P. THERAPY FOR HEROES is a collection of five songs that sound as though they were produced by ENO and LANOIS. Instead, it’s the production of XIREN and songwriting partner BEN JANSEN and the music is compelling enough for you to want to shelf this CD in between U2 and THE POLICE (both fronted by performers with one name)

ROCKWIRED spoke with XIREN over the phone on a Saturday morning and found the charismatic performer to be real down to earth and devoid of the pretension of other single-named artists. The following is everything you need to know about the guy. (except his last name)

Your musical career got started in a garage in Detroit.
Yes. Many years ago and right after high school I used to run around with this gang of musicians and they are  the people you see  on the cover of ROLLING STONE magazine now , so I’m wondering if leaving Detroit was a smart move.

What did you listen to growing up?
Growing up I used to buy a lot of movie soundtracks like GHOSTBUSTERS, stupid stuff like that but the stuff I was force fed by my dad where things like PAT MATHENY. I used to think ‘Great! Now I’m gonna grow up to like crappy music!’ and guess what? I like crappy music. I’ve got every album that he (PAT MATHENY) ever wrote.

Was there a succession of bands before you settled on your current musical identity?
Yes and different variations of them are still around in the Midwest. The first band was called PAINTED GLASS and these were guys from high school. The band was named after that fish that gets neon injected into its spine. It makes the fish look cool but it doesn’t live long.

I had fish like that and I blamed myself all these years.
(Laughs) Yeah that band broke up eventually and then there was a band called URBAN STREET which lasted a couple of years before I moved to Denver Colorado which was in 1997.

Why Denver Colorado?
I moved out here to be with friends that I’d known for years. It’s actually a very exciting time for Denver, musically. There’s this new band out there called THE FRAY and now they’re on a major label and there album is selling well across the country. There are advantages to being in Denver. It’s easier to be a big fish in a small pond here than it would be in LA. Moving here was never a strategic move on my part. It had more to do with lifestyle.

In your biography at XIREN.NET, it says that you’re a second generation American.
Yeah. My mother’s American and my Dad is a Dubliner. He was born in Dublin and moved to England for a while. There are a lot of versions to the story of how they met but my favorite story is where my dad was in line for beer on a boat and my mom was on the same boat doing a tour of Western Europe. They dated by mail for a while then, he married her and moved to the U.S. This was around the late sixties.

What does the name XIREN mean?
It’s an Irish name with some roots in Greek Mythology and the Sirens who enchanted ship captains by hypnotizing them with their melodies.

What inspires you to write?
Living life. The most exciting moments in life are when you declare something, stand up for something or become a part of something that’s bigger than you are and that was basically what my first album BULLETS AND RAINBOWS was all about. I just like writing about all these great emotions, the ups and downs , sex and all that stuff. In particular , the song I NEED YOU TONIGHT (FROM THE E.P. THERAPY FOR HEROES) was written after JOHNNY CASH died and I had realized that that there was never going to be another JOHNNY CASH  and that what he had contributed to the world, that particular artistic expression is gone forever. So his death was the original impetus for the song but later it became something else. When my manager and good friend had lost his father I played it for the funeral up in Washington. In that song there’s a sense of loss but there’s also a sense of hope. Songs are organic things. You never know what moment is going to inspire a song.

Are there any other songs you can think of that stand out for you?
All of my songs kind of have their own story. One that stands out for me in particular is the song INVISIBLE HERO (from the E.P. THERAPY FOR HEROES) which was written when we (songwriting partner BEN JANSEN) thought we were going to have a shot at writing a song for the upcoming SUPERMAN movie. Me and BEN sat and down and thought we’d approach this song by thinking how would SUPERMAN relate to human life. He’s an alien basically with all these super human powers yet he has to keep this secret and has these moments of vulnerability by being CLARK KENT. Sure he saves the world time and time again but at the end of the day there is no shoulder to cry on. The other song that comes to mind LOST IN AMERICA is one of my favorite artistic achievements. BEN and I wrote it a couple of weeks before the BUSH vs. KERRY election. It’s a song about growing up under the evangelical guard.

You assembled quite a band for live purposes. How was it put together?
Hard work. It was lot of hard work. I had been looking for this band for the past couple of years. When I moved to Denver, I wanted to be in a band again but I wasn’t having any luck finding the right people. Rather than give up, I decided to develop this solo project and then audition people. We started out as a trio with me on bass, a drummer and a keyboard player (laughs). I’m no bass player so I had no idea what I was ding playing bass. Gradually it turned into a 5 piece band with the occasional violin sweet tooth. Some of the players are from the church circuit and some are from other rock bands and it’s good to be working with them.

Playing RED ROCKS has got to be the ultimate glory gig. You played there without any other artist on the bill. How did that happen?
The Marketing Director for RED ROCKS (ERIC DICE) does this thing called MOVIES ON THE ROCKS and this is the only way that a non-national act can play RED ROCKS. This MOVIES ON THE ROCKS was billed as A BAND AND A MOVIE. We were the band and the movie was THE LORD OF THE RINGS.  It ended up being a very spirited show. 6600 people showed up and we ended up selling a lot of CD’s and T-shirts.

Who are you listening to these days?
That’s great question. This is something that I get teased about. There are two things. One is the best radio station ever in my opinion. It’s called RADIOPARADISE.COM and the guy plays the best of what he calls “eclectic intelligent rock.” He’ll play BOB DYLAN with AUDIOSLAVE, JIMMY BUFFETT, PAUL SIMON and U2. And after I’ve listened to that I go over to this 80's station and that’s what I get teased for. The eighties were an interesting decade. There was a lot of great songwriting and the production was all about sterile precision. The time period had some great arrangements.

Do you think that’s less-so now?
Absolutely. In the nineties, the brilliance of NIRVANA showed us that it was spirit over perfection. Now I’m finding that there is something of a balance between the precision of the eighties and the spirit of the nineties. You hear it in a lot of the new modern rock. There’s that precision that’s reminiscent of the eighties specifically people like NO DOUBT and GWEN STEFANI’s solo stuff.

Personally I think songwriting is a dying art. I remember the year DESTINY’s CHILD won the award for song of the year. I remember noticing that the song had about twenty words totaled and had ten songwriters.
(Laughs) That’s two words a person.

What do you want the audience or the listener to walk away with after hearing your music or seeing you perform?
I want them to be moved in some way. I’d rather a person get upset than think that the music is tapioca.

The production that you hear on THERAPY FOR HEROES sounds similar to the work of DANIEL LANOIS or BRIAN ENO.
Thanks. That’s exactly what BEN and I were trying to accomplish with the E.P. We kind of wondered where those two (LANOIS & ENO) could’ve taken the production.  But back to how we want he audience to walk away with, we had posted versions of the songs from THERAPY FOR HEROES on this thing called VOLUNTEER PRODUCER NETWORK and people would post their responses to the initial post production cuts. It’s all about making some kind of connection and that’s what everyone loves about music. That’s what I love about music.

What’s your touring schedule like these days.
At the moment we’re not touring. There are about thirty things that an independently managed artist has to do, all the way down for licensing, producing, and radio play and touring is the one thing we’ve been deficient in. We probably go out about once or twice a month.  We’re certainly not deficient in other areas. We’ve got song licensing with VH-1 and MTV. Not videos or anything. Just songs.

Well it’s not like MTV or VH-1 play videos anymore anyway except at 5 AM. I think they want to keep it a secret.
Yeah. I’ve only seen videos played from 2 – 6 in the morning. There’s FUSE, but they’re more into nu-metal. But they are coming out with a new FUSE network that’ll be more alternative videos. My manager CADDY is working with them on it. I don’t know if I’m supposed to keep that secret or not.

Denver is your home. Think you’ll stay there forever.
That’s not necessarily true. I live here and aspects of my career are going very well here but I’d absolutely be ready to relocate. If someone called and said that this and this is going to happen in L.A., I’d up and pack. So basically it’s wherever I have to live, that’s where I’m gonna go. Maybe not Detroit.

I don’t know. You said earlier that others from Detroit had made it.
Yeah. The WHITE STRIPES.

Thank God I went to school with losers.
(Laughs)

You’ve got licensing and lawyers. If people in the fifties knew that rock n roll was going to take on all these business aspects they probably wouldn’t have tried to ban it. What do you think?
I think the industry has been messed up for a long time. I get royalty checks for 30 songs played and some these payments are only a dollar. You’re constantly building your resume but you never make money. I’ve got this impressive resume that doesn’t make much money.

 
I know what you mean. One more thing; there are artists out there that tend to get too serious for their own good (e.g. STING and ANNIE LENNOX) Do you ever think you’ll get too serious for your own good?
I doubt it or at least I hope not.  There’s a lot of fun in this life to be had still. I remember reading this one horrible article on a plane with OWEN WILSON and VINCE VAUGHN: those guys from THE WEDDING CRASHERS. These guys are the biggest clowns  but you know what? These guys love their lives and that’s pretty fucking cool.

 

TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT XIREN
VISIT HIS OFFICIAL WEBSITE
AT
WWW.XIREN.NET