Micah P Hinson
In a neatly-pressed dark suit, crisp white shirt and black tie, Micah P Hinson is every inch the modern Man in Black, talking passionately about his music in a distinctive, slow Texas drawl. Well, every inch aside from his trademark thick-rimmed glasses that are more Buddy Holly than Johnny Cash. But as you'll find out, Micah Paul Hinson doesn't really do pigeon holes …
Phil Muncaster
If you want to know all about his colourful past, just Google it – most interviews contain all the outrageous details of homelessness, ill-fated love and drug addiction, and it is a fascinating story. When he sang Here’s all that I have to give/ I’ll admit it’s not a lot but it’s all that I’ve got, to hang myself with, on the spine-tingling closing track to his critically acclaimed debut album The Gospel of Progress, you know Hinson meant it. But it’s a story that hasn’t been updated for a good many years.
“I know it's a story to tell but I find it all pretty obnoxious to a degree that it is talked about so much," he says. "It was just a bunch of bad decisions and I wouldn't wish them on anybody; doing those things may have given me songs and helped me write music but it hindered my life in some ways."
Hinson’s music – which is usually labelled alternative country, but could more accurately be described subversive country – is intensely personal; more reflective of his character and state of mind than most other musicians. So to follow his music over the years is to chart the progress of his life. After the almost apocalyptic zeal of Gospel of Progress and the lo-fi appeal of his second album, Micah P Hinson and the Opera Circuit, the new album's sound is richer and fuller and the message is one of hope.
Hinson looks to each new sunrise now with anticipation rather than dreadful yearning. Where he is afraid, it’s the imagined dread of Dying Alone, in which Hinson wonders what life would be like without the newly-found love of his life. But mostly it’s about eternal love; Red Empire is effectively the testament of a tortured soul who's finally found his soul mate - hometown sweetheart Ashley, who is an ever-present by his side and whose images adorn the album cover, and Hinson's guitar.
All change
"It's a lot different talking about love now because it seems to be the only true and real thing I've found in my life, so there's not as much yearning and self pity as on the other records," he says. "The way the record was made, my approach on stage – I'm in a suit for Christ's sake – the excruciatingly long rehearsals with the band; I felt it was time to take life by the horns because to a degree I've ridden a wave up until now."
If Hinson has ridden a wave his musicianship has barely taken a knock, despite chronic back troubles that have had him in a corset more times than Jane Austen. On stage he makes the solitary 6-string guitar sound as if there is a five-piece backing band. Yet despite the "huge inspiration" the musicians he's worked with over the years have given, Hinson's real talent is in taking the normal and making it unique.
"The words never come first, really it's just coming up with chords I think sound good together, which are probably the chords of 1000 other songs throughout history," he explains. "Then I'll take these and try to add on a different melody, and that's the way I try to make it my own. A lot of my songs are extremely simple and it's just a case of repeating some verses with a couple of changes, putting them in a different perspective as they go along."
But can a musician whose career has been built on songs written out of despair and longing be as good now that those feelings have largely been vanquished? When I came across him performing at this year’s Benicassim festival, he screamed out an incendiary version of Patience so loud the sound technicians looked worried the microphone might explode. Then came an achingly painful rendition of Beyond the Rose, sung with that trademark voice as raw as the wind that whips the Texas plains. The answer is yes. Hinson has already walked the line; we can allow him his happiness now as long as he continues to make music as good as this.
Red Empire Orchestra is out now.
Micah P Hinson plays Scala on Thursday 6 November
OTHER ARTICLES
