World traveler and US ex-pat Tod A. (Tod Ashley) of Firewater has recently arrived in United States to prepare for his band’s upcoming tour, supporting their sixth record, Golden Hour (Bloodshot). Although he has intermittently returned stateside, such as for a string of appearances last spring, since 2005 most of his time has been spent outside the country. Living abroad, he says, “Gives you a bit of perspective on Americans. Everything [here] is enormous without any particular reason except we can afford it… The rest of the world has to get along how they can.”
Now based in Indonesia, a “happenstance” after his girlfriend accepted a job there a year and a half ago, he muses, “Politically speaking, it is not an improvement over the states, but they are working on it. In terms of the people and the food and the culture…it’s not home yet, but it’s getting closer.”Living on a tropical island is a stark contrast to Tod’s former life as front man for New York experimental rock band Cop Shoot Cop from 1987 to 1996. When the group disbanded, he formed Firewater with the intent to combine his love of both Eastern European sounds and punk rock, a mixture that was practically unheard of in the years before Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello hired his first backup dancer. With Tod as chief songwriter and bass guitarist, early lineups of also included prominent musicians such as Duane Denison (Jesus Lizard, Tomahawk), Jennifer Charles (Elysian Fields), and Hahn Rowe (Foetus). Firewater released five records, beginning with 1998’s acclaimed Get Off The Cross, We Need the Wood for the Fire (Jetset) though 2004’s collection of covers, Songs We Should Have Written. Expanding on the original concept, the music drew from musical styles as varied as jazz, reggae, and regional genres from around the world. Cabaret-like showmanship and dark,intelligent lyrics garnered Firewater comparisons to Tom Waits and have inspired, among others, Gogol Bordello, Beirut, and Balkan Beat Box.
Tod’s latest adventures began in 2005. George W. Bush had just begun his second term in office, and Tod’s growing disgust with the president, combined with some recent changes in his personal life, prompted him to take some time off both from his band and his country. “Thailand looked very inviting,” he says of his decision to head to Southeast Asia, as opposed to anywhere else on the globe. “I was in Brooklyn and it was freezing cold. I was living in a room with no windows and paying too much in rent. I envisioned sitting under a palm tree. I followed my nose from there.” He took a job in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), India, editing English textbooks for schools and began keeping a blog detailing his travels, fittingly titled “Postcards From the Other Side of the World.”
He also began accumulating material for what would be his next album. “I had a lot of the songs written, or 75% of them. I basically wanted to write another record, but didn’t want to go back to the states to do it. So I began recording drummers and percussionists and putting it together.” He decided to make the trek from India to Turkey over land and record local musicians on stops along the way.
Tod’s travels afforded him a rare chance to observe differences in the way the cultures he visited view the importance of music as compared to the United States. “Here music is almost exclusively seen as entertainment. In a lot of the places I visited, it ranges from entertainment to spiritual to making an important moment in your life.” Although he acknowledges the tradition of religious and spiritual music in US culture, he explains, “There it is more of a crossover. The same guys would be hired to do a lot of different roles. You live in a village and there are maybe only six guys that play instruments. The guys I worked with were mostly farmers, not session musicians or anything.”
He often found himself surprised and inspired by musical discoveries he made throughout his journey. For instance, he says, “I didn’t really know much about Sufi music. [Ed. note: Sufism is the mysticism of Islam] As it turns out, what people consider Sufi music is drastically different in Turkey than in Pakistan, but the purpose is the same. It’s music to bring you to a different spiritual place, but they use different instrumentation and musical styles. I think it would be pretty interesting to do a documentary about the different styles in the countries I visited.”
Produced and mixed by drummer Tamir Muskat, who also performs on the album, Golden Hour continues Firewater’s tradition of fusing timeless music with modern styles, often utilizing recordings from two or more of the countries Tod visited at once. Songs like Bollywood-punk ballad “This Is My Life,” and “Electric City” play like an audio travelogue, or journal where memories and experiences can be relayed simultaneously rather than chronologically. Lyrically as well as musically, Golden Hour is a unique mix of past and present. “Some of the lyrics I wrote on the trip about my life in America, the life I left behind. Some I wrote before I even left New York.”
“I’m kind of cannibalizing my blog and turning it into a novel, combined with events from life.” The book is about halfway complete, due to time he spent laid up in 2007 following a motorcycle accident. “I was walking around with two broken vertebrae and didn’t even notice. It hurt but it wasn’t getting better. When I went to the doctor and found out what it was, I was surprised.” He laughs, “A broken back doesn’t hurt as much as you would think, although I wouldn’t recommend it.”
For the 2008 tour, Tod wanted to bring over some of the regional musicians that performed on the record, but unfortunately, he says the process turned out to be a “visa nightmare.” As it stands, though, the present lineup of Firewater contains an international cast of players, including French drummer Jean-Marc Butty (PJ Harvey, John Parish), British Indian percussionist Johnny Kalsi (Afro Celtic Sound System, Transglobal Underground [to whom Tod refers as a “one-man Southeast Asia rhythm section”]), New York-based Israeli trombonist Reut Regev, Israel-based Israeli guitarist Uri Kinrot, and New York bassist Erik Sanko. Having just completed a month of touring in Europe, Tod is enthusiastic to share his music in a live setting with American audiences.
But not all music is for sharing. Tod continues to enjoy some of his favorite field recordings he compiled that didn’t make it on to Golden Hour. “When I was making sure the microphone was working, I got some amazing stuff. I don’t think I would use it on anything in the future. It was a moment I was there to bear witness to.”
-Jamie Ludwig