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April 10, 2007

Artist Interview

Can You Cope?

After Citizen Cope’s concert he talked frankly with The Shorthorn

Story by: Lee Escobedo

Contributor to The Shorthorn

Courtesy art

Citizen Cope poses in a photo promoting his new album Every Waking Moment. Cope performed in Dallas Friday.

Citizen Cope is one of those musicians who is really chilled and relaxed — the antithesis of today’s self-absorbed pretentious rockers. The Shorthorn interviewed the man, who blends almost every genre of music, after his Dallas concert Friday, in a break room in the back of The Palladium.

Q: How do you feel coming back to Dallas?

Cope: I love Dallas. I’ve always thought it was one of those places that really knows music. The people of the city have a really good musical ear, they’re always ahead of the curb. When I came out here early in my career, it was evident they were listening to the east coast and the west coast. They didn’t care about the feud.

Q: Well how was this stop in Dallas? Did you feel like you had a good show?

Cope: Yeah man, I enjoyed it — it was crazy.

Q: Good, well what can we expect from you in the next year?

Cope: Well, I’m going to be touring, of course, and I’m probably going to cut an acoustic album. To tell you the truth, I might not be on a label anymore. I wanto to change the game around. I want to start my own record company, because I’m tired of the crap that goes along with it. I don’t need the record company for me to exist. It’s just luck that I get to make the music that I want to make.

Q: I noticed you only played one cover song, Radiohead’s “Karma Police.” Is there a reason you don’t play more covers?

Cope: Yeah, I usually just stick to my original material. It’s always been where the really good players can play other people’s stuff. I don’t want to play other people’s work, I don’t feel worthy of playing their material. I couldn’t play “Stairway To Heaven” when I was a kid, so why should I feel like I have the right to play other people’s stuff now, just because I’m sort of famous? I’m just in this to have fun. I don’t care about any of the other stuff. All I want to do is play music and enjoy the organic aspect of writing and performing. I don’t really like performing. In fact I get stage fright.



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Q: Sometimes the lyrics in your songs can be a little ambiguous and don’t really have any connection to the song. Your song “Bullet and a Target” has some examples of this. How does this happen in your songs?

Cope: I just get inspired to write lyrics. Sometimes it’s off of life experiences sometimes it’s just my subconscious trying to show me something. I write my lyrics separate from when I write the guitar part for a song so they come to me at different times. It’s kind of hard to explain.

Q: It sounds like it’s just a bunch of random things in your head that have a significant meaning but are in no particular order.

Cope: That’s perfect, that’s exactly what I was trying to say, random things in my head. They’re all random thoughts, but they all hold truth and meaning. The most important thing you can do is write. If you can write you can always defend yourself. That’s an eternal truth.