Moreintelligentlife.com is the website of Intelligent Life magazine. Articles about Arts, Lifestyle, Travels, and Ideas

THE Q&A: FRED CORNOG, MUSICIAN

Fred ‘F.M’. Cornog’s story would make for a perfect TV movie: once an alcoholic and junkie sleeping rough in a train station New Jersey, his talents as a musician were discovered by a woman named Barbara Powers, who ended up equipping him with basic recording equipment and soon began managing his nascent career. Rolling Stone magazine has since anointed him as “one of our generation’s great eccentric songwriters”. He and Ms Powers are now married and have a daughter. 

Working with Merge Records since the mid-1990s, Mr Cornog has released several exquisitely intimate records under the name East River Pipe. Despite having never toured, made a video or set up a Facebook page, he has earned a small but devoted following that includes David Byrne and the bands Okkervil River, Lambchop and the Mountain Goats, all of whom have covered his songs.

Merge Records recently released his seventh album, "We Live In Rented Rooms". Like the others, this one hones in on the lives of people “trying to scratch out a living (and) survive with a little dignity”. Mr Cornog knows this life well: he continues to work 40 hours a week at the local Home Depot.  

As income from record sales continues to fall and most musicians are encouraged to tour, sell merchandise and communicate directly with fans in order to have any hope of earning a living, Mr Cornog is happy to remain an anomaly. He prefers to keep out of the spotlight, content to supplement his monthly income with the occasional royalty cheque.

How did you end up sleeping in a train station? 

I slept in the Hoboken train station during the winter of 1986 into 1987. I was a one-man self-destruction factory. Wake up, drink, pass out. Wake up, drink, drug, pass out. Etc, etc, over and over. I didn’t have time for music. I only had time for getting fucked up. It was freezing that winter. I had a little windbreaker jacket. Yeah, that was the final rung on the ladder. My little ‘Season in Hell’.  

How did your manager, and now wife, Barbara Powers find you?  

I met Barbara through a drummer friend of mine while I was skidding along on the edges of society and sanity. This drummer and I were trying to get a band together, but we both had very, very serious alcohol and drug problems, so nothing ever happened. Anyway, Barbara really liked my songs, and we got along very well, so we started to hang out more and more, and eventually I moved in with her. I’d always be fucked-up, but somehow she tolerated it. She was the one with the burning desire to get my music out there to people.  

Do you continue to work your day job at Home Depot because it gives you access to the kind of people who populate your records? 

I am one of those people. I’m basically a working class pawn, a cog in the wheel, who happens to write songs. Maybe I’m more artistically inclined than your average Home Depot employee but, beyond that, I don’t see much of a difference.  

Does making music still help you get by financially?  

Sure. It’s not my main income, but it certainly helps to goose up the bottom line. 

Has it ever provided you with enough income to consider making it your full-time living?  

On Merge, no. But that’s not Merge’s fault, it’s mine. The problem is, I’ve never given them very much to work with, just the albums themselves. I’ve never toured off any of my albums. I’ve never made a video. All the East River Pipe stuff on YouTube has been produced by fans, not me. I don’t even have an official Facebook page. I’m like the invisible man as far as self-promotion goes. It’s like I’m snuffing out my own career. It’s ridiculous.  

I did have a period, when I briefly left Merge and was signed to EMI America, when all I did was music. But EMI America was shut down about a month after I signed my contract. The EMI executives in England probably looked at my contract and said, “We’ve got to close EMI America down! Those idiots just signed a guy to a five album firm deal who never tours and records at home on a Tascam mini-studio! Shut them down... NOW!” So, EMI had to pay off my contract. During that period I did music full time.  

Could you ever imagine making a living off of your music?

Of course. But the thing that bothers me is that making a living solely from music nearly always involves a list of compromises that I’m unwilling to make. And, ultimately, the commerce side of things kills the artistic side. When you get semi-successful, you will be asked to tour and promote your music in various ways. Eventually, you’ll end up spending more and more time promoting your music and doing this peripheral bullshit stuff, and less and less time creating music. And, ironically, making music is what made you semi-successful in the first place. An artist must always be aware of this. Don’t fall into the traps. Otherwise, slowly, slowly, the power gets pulled away from you.  

You’ve hardly ever played live, and certainly not for well over a decade. Why is this?  

When I was a kid, my father used to yell at me constantly to stop playing the piano. He’d scream, “Stop playin’ that damn piano! God damn it, you had all day to play that damn thing! Can’t you see I’m watchin’ the television! I want some peace and quiet, God damn it!” When you’re a kid and you hear this over and over and over, it changes you, and it changes your brain chemistry. Another kid might have started a rock band down at a friend’s house. But me, my father’s wrath drove me inside my mind. It made me want to curl up and hide. So I quietly wrote songs in my room and became a Tascam mini-studio musician. But the catch is, in working alone like this for years and years, and never collaborating with other musicians, my methodology has somewhat crippled me. I’m not complaining and it’s not sad or anything. That’s just the way it is.  

Another reason is that I’ve never liked being the centre of attention. I have the absolute worst kind of personality for the rock world. When I go out, I like to quietly sit at the back of the bar. The last thing I want to do is stand at the centre of the stage in a fuckin’ spotlight with people staring at me waiting to be entertained.   

Kurt Cobain’s death made me step back and rethink things at a very pivotal time. His death helped me to see the difference between music and the music business. After that, the major labels just seemed like giant hamburger-making machines to me. 

Do you consider your refusal to ‘play the game’ to be in any way rock ‘n’ roll? 

I don’t think that the rebellious spirit of rock ‘n’ roll exists in roll ‘n’ roll anymore. [It] is inhabiting other artforms. The spirit is moving to where there are fewer rules. The spirit is moving to where there isn’t an expectation of money being made. It’s moving away from the marketplace. It always does.