Tim Barry interview on 20 years of train hopping, how his daughter changed his world and more! (New Noise Magazine Issue 01 - March 2013) - Damian Burford: Freelance Writer/Podcaster from Denver, CO & Napa, Ca

Tim Barry interview on 20 years of train hopping, how his daughter changed his world and more! (New Noise Magazine Issue 01 – March 2013)

Editor’s Note: This is the raw draft of the interview published by New Noise Magazine. This draft has not been seen by an editor. There will be errors.

In the year since TIM BARRY has released 40 Miler on Chunksaah Records, he has celebrated the 20th anniversary of his first train ride. He has also become a new father to his daughter Lela Jane Barry. We join Tim and talk about his early train ride memories, battling diabetes and how having a daughter may or may not change his song writing.

I’ve read that as of March, it has been 20 years since your first train ride.

That is correct! It was actually right about this time of the month, too. It was about mid March. I can’t remember the exact date, but my buddy Ronnie [Lee Graham] took me on this first trip. We debated the date a whole bunch. I kept saying it was 1994 and he kept saying 1993. I decided it would sound cooler if it was ’93. So that is the year I went west. He was probably right. So 20 years ago, right about this time of the month, I took my first freight train trip from Richmond, Virginia down to Rocky Mountain, North Carolina. We hitchhiked down to Raleigh and rode some more trains around North Carolina. I don’t even remember how we got back, but it was the first of those wanderings that I did.

What was that experience like?

The guy I was riding with, Ronnie Graham. He grew up in a trailer park in Salisbury, Maryland. He didn’t come from a family of wealth. He didn’t come from a family of wealth and like a lot of those families, they had chronic health problems. A lot of his family died young. Others were in prison. His dad was in prison for a long time. He had a transient uncle who rode trains and he sort of turned Ronnie onto it. Ronnie had ridden trains a bunch, just out of necessity. I was sort of obsessed with Woody Guthrie and a lot of the early folk singers, back then 20 years ago. I had instructions. I had a person with me who had experienced so much, so my nerves weren’t as shot as if I had done it on my own. He did most of the footwork. He went into the train yards and talked to the workers and found out which train we wanted. We found an open box car and just drank beer waiting for the train to leave. I was more fatigued by the time the train rolled out at six in the morning heading south out of the CSX ACCA Yard. I was more fatigued at that moment than anything else. It was a hell of an experience.

Do you think you would be the person you are today, if it had not been for that first ride?

I think I probably would have found another obsession. That’s just the kind of person I am. I just have an instinct to keep moving. I don’t want to sit down. I’m always making plans. I rarely think about things that I have done. I generally focus on things that I want to do. I do many things that are considered normal or abnormal: Music, gardening, camping, canoeing, and riding trains. It never ends. I guess you are where you come from. So yeah, I would be a different person if I didn’t start riding trains all those years ago. What I like about trains is not just the fulfillment of my wanderlust. It is that they are a parallel for life. When I think I have a specific train route in time and the crew change points down, they change. It starts all over again. It becomes another mystery that I feel the need to conquer. Is it track maintenance? Has there been a derailment? Was there a bridge collapse that forced a reroute? I just start ticking and ticking. Again, it’s a parallel for life. Once you think you feel pretty scheduled with routine and with things falling in place, it is thrown for a loop. You have to start all over again, and learn it all over again. I think that’s what quelled my interest. A lot of the people who are obsessed with trains, like myself, are also obsessed with illegal forms of art on the trains. They’re also obsessed with things like birding, tree identification, and hiking every trail in the state. It might even be a neurosis because I find myself interested in all those things as well. It’s very strange the way the brain functions. [Laughter]

Train Riding was such a large part of the cultural landscape of the depression era. Many of your songs have a depression era quality to them. Do you ever feel that maybe you were born in the wrong time?

Nah! [Laughs] Josh Small is my right hand man and plays music with me. The first time I met his father, Rev. Bobby Joe Small; he is from the first generation of a gypsy family that settled down. Mr Small said to me, after seeing Josh and I play music together for the very first time, “Tim, you old timey in a modern way!” I’ll take it. I don’t mind being old timey in 2013. I think we have a lot more conveniences than the dust bowl era.

In the year since TIM BARRY has released 40 Miler on Chunksaah Records, he has celebrated the

20th anniversary of his first train ride. He has also become a new father, to his daughter Lela Jane

Barry. We join Tim and talk about his early train ride memories, battling diabetes and how having

a daughter may or may not change his song writing.

Congratulations on your baby daughter!

She’s about fifteen pounds and in my left arm as we talk right now, while juggling her and the telephone at the same time. I feel like my arm is about to give out! She’s been a terrific addition to our family here in Richmond, Virginia. Our family of animals, good friends and family members. It has been wonderful. I finished touring in December. It’s mid March and I’m not leaving again until June. I’m currently a stay at home dad. It’s strange, I bumped into one of my old house mates earlier this morning, whom I lived with for twelve years. He said, “You’re home for six months?!? We’ve been friends for twenty-five years! I’ve never known that you’ve been home for that long, ever!” I’m home with my daughter. I’ve been working, setting up tours, writing songs and getting my head together here for a little bit. The weather is about to break and this wanderlust I have really kicked in. It’s a difficult thing to deal with but thankfully my partner Sarah is very supportive and very wonderful. I do still get the opportunity to get out there and ride trains and do my thing. It’s really fucking cool. Lela Jane Barry is her name and she is now a fifteen pound hammer, with big blue eyes!

How scary was it having this kid? Was there a chance that you might end your vagabond lifestyle?

Not scary at all. I’m the master at thinking things through. The woman that I love, Sarah, when we met I knew right off that this was something that she wanted. So I allowed myself to grow with her and make it something that I wanted as well. Lela here was totally planned. I’ve never been scared. She’s six months old today, so it’s a little premature for me to say, but I’m not sure what many of my parental peers are talking about when they say it is a really difficult thing to have a kid. It’s possible that the crap I have put myself through in my life has been more difficult than having a child. Also, I’m old and I don’t have the urge to go out to the bar till two in the morning anymore. I really do like to stick around at home. Most of the things that make me happy are around here. I don’t fight with the urges that some people have with their children limiting them from. Honestly, maybe I’m the only male out there who was not scared to death, but it has been wonderful. The only complaint that I have is that I hate driving. Now that I have a baby and she is so young, I just can’t strap her onto the back of the bike and do all of my errands. So I drive a little more than I would like to. Truthfully, you sleep less when you are on tour than when you have a child. There is no sleep on tour, and you follow other people’s schedules the entire time. Being at home, even if I don’t sleep as much as having a baby, it is far more than I sleep when on the road.

I’ve read you write songs with and they have a certain color to them. How has having a child influenced the color of the songwriting?

They are the same colors! There is a word for this, I was reading about a Richmond soul writer who has been recently rediscovered and was saying the same thing in an article for our weekly paper, called Style Weekly. I was excited to know that other people see these same things. There is a word for it, but I’m not sure that I know. Really, what happens when a song pops up, which is how many of us songwriters do it. Songs just show up. You feel the urge or you are compelled to start penning it or playing it. Only the songs that have very strong color imagery in my head, are songs that ever make it onto a record. The colors have not popped or changed too much. They are fairly consistent. I still drop all the songs that do not have a pronounced color. One of my favorite artists, Ed Trask, a Richmond artist here. His main colors for many years were black, white and gray. He does these terrific, terrific paintings. As soon as he had his first daughter, his paintings exploded with all of these bright colors! I’m talking from Black, Whites and grays to crazy pastels! As he had his son, they got even brighter and brighter! I was really eager, after following Ed Trask’s art for all of those years through him being a parent and thinking this was going to happen to me. The truth is I find that I am writing more sentimental lyrics, instead of the colors changing. The tone of the songs might be a little more hopeful, or maybe even more tragic. I don’t know.

Have you taken your daughter on any train rides yet?

No! Lela is not worthy of the train stuff. I was joking with Sarah the other day about the time she turns twelve she can start riding trains. Sarah just rolled her eyes. Lela will do what she wants. When we get off the phone today, I’ll put her in the stroller and grab Emma, my dog, and we’ll go down there and watch those big freight trains pull out at the river, right next to our house. She’s use to them. The engineers wave to her and all the guys on the ground know her. It’s pretty funny. We’ll see what she ends up doing. She can do whatever the hell she wants.

What do you have in the works right now?
I’m currently writing. I’ve decided I’m on side B of the new record. I have six pretty good songs, so I’m just going to put them away and start something new. It’s side B I’m working on. Then, June I go to the UK and do a follow up tour. I was just over there with Frank Turner and the tour went really well for me. So I’m going back to do a headlining tour with another player by the name of Sam Russo. We’re going to do a pretty extensive UK tour.

I’ll come home for about a week and head right out into the United States. Because it all has not been announced yet, I can’t really say where exactly we’ll be going or who we’ll be touring with. I’m really excited about it, and I’m really excited to get back on the road and fall back onto that pattern in my life. At the same time being at home for six months, holding this baby all this time, is going to make it very difficult. What I’ve done is I’ve gridded it out. I’ll go out for about ten days at a time. Then come home in between for a week or so to make sure that Sarah and the baby are doing well. Then I’ll get back out there. I’ve got shows on and off for the rest of the year. Festivals and one off dates.

I’d really like to get back into the studio. I’m going to spend my off time here, doing the best I can to get these songs all together without rushing them. I don’t believe in forcing creativity. I’d still love to get back into the studio and record another record soon. It’s coming out pretty mellow. I’m pretty sure I should name it Tim Barry: Adult Contemporary Folk-Punk. I hate Adult Contemporary and also I hate the term Folk-Punk. I figure that might be the title of the new record. It’s pretty laid back, but still abrasive as I am.

You create such rich characters, have you ever tried you hand at writing a book?
I feel pretty bad about this. I did commit to a publisher with a handshake/verbal agreement about two and a half years ago to begin drafting a book. They wanted more autobiographical type stuff, but I had some other ideas. We came up with some pretty cool ideas. They sort of had editors on standby for me. I have a problem where if I am writing songs, then that is all I want to do. I’ve found it difficult to interchange between songwriting and writing words for a book. I have not fulfilled my obligation. So it’s interesting that you bring that up. I think whenever I decide to put down the guitar I’ll know when that time comes because things will just naturally burn out. I think I will write a lot. Right now I’m having more fun playing music and writing songs than I ever have.

I read an interview with the writer John Irving the other day. He writes all his novels with a piece of paper and a pencil. With Typewriters and computers, he spends too much time trying to fiddle with them and not completing the art that he wants to create. I find myself trying to do that with technology. Instead of recording a song or writing it, I spend my time playing with the recording device. Sometimes technology is bad ass, but sometimes it gets in the way. [Laughter]

You’ve been battling with Type 1 Diabetes in recent years. How is your health?

I’m killing it! I’m just one of those people. It’s scary knowing you are going to die before a lot of my friends. It’s almost easier to think about it that way. I can’t give up on anything. I just keep getting healthier. This chronic disease that I have been given for whatever reason, is not going to beat the shit out of me. I’m going to beat the shit out of it. I get up at five in the morning and I go running. Then I go to the gym and lift weights. I eat really good food. I keep chickens and I have my own garden. I know where most of my food comes from. I’m stronger than I use to be. I’m more fit than I use to be. I think that other people can do the same thing. If they can find the discipline to do so. I still smoke weed. I still drink beer. I think there is a way to learn balance and moderation. Even when your health is “in decline.” Mine is not like that. Fuck that, I’m getting better! My health is good! It doesn’t mean I’m not going to die tomorrow, but I’m going to have a good day before I do.

I would eat pizza every night if I could. The discipline has to come in when you know that eating pizza every night is actually going to expedite your death. The real discipline is getting up at five in the morning and having a few hours of exercise before your daughter gets up, but I do it! I’m a happier person when she is awake.

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Dear Diary, Today I met Sona Movsesian. Today I met a friend.

July 22, 2022 No Comments

Conan O’Brien is one of my biggest comedy influences. He inspires me to keep it weird and goofy. His podcast, Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend is my favorite podcast, and was a huge influence on me bringing my dead horse back from the grave. Whether it be his Late Night shows, his classic episodes of The Simpsons or his podcast, I’ve listened or watched thousands of hours of entertainment Conan has provided. In the last few years, his trusty assistant Sona Movsesian has become one of my favorite parts of any of his shows or projects. Sona is one of the co-hosts of Conan’s podcast. Listening to her feels like listening to an old friend. She’s fast on her feet with the smart ass comments. She doesn’t take any shit from her infamous boss, but also takes it all. It’s a fine line and they’ve become one of the best comedy duo’s, ever. Sorry Andy! Sona did a signing tonight for her new memoir/humor book, WORLD’S WORST ASSISTANT, all about her life and times with Conan O’Brien. I twisted the chain on the old ball enough to agree to venture down to the city tonight to go see Sona do a reading/signing in an old grocery store turned Sporting Goods store/Event Space. The reading was great and at one point she asked the audience if any of us had seen the Showtime Original TV program, GIGOLOS. I enthusiastically raised my hand, because of course I have. An instant friendship with Conan’s assistant was born. I had been wracking my brain trying to figure out what to chat with Sona about in our few short minutes. I didn’t need to worry thanks to the venue/event assistant who remembered my hand jumping out of its socket during the reading. I could have asked about smoking weed (She’s a pothead), or ask her what it’s like to have the spotlight that’s been so near her, now on herself? Or who knows! Instead, Here I am standing in front of Sona, thinking about all these damned things to ask her about and we stand there and chat about GIGOLOS. God damned GIGOLOS, a terrible softcore porn disguised as a reality tv show! While I don’t recommend the show, I’m forever grateful for that night when I was scrolling through a Showtime free trial and asked, “what the hell is this?” Conan O’Brien might be on the hunt for a friend, but tonight I think I made a new best one. And the great thing? I bet there’s not a single person who didn’t encounter Sona on her tour this week that doesn’t feel the same way. I wish her great success with this book and beyond. I really hope I get to interview her one day.

Chumped – Anika Pyle Interview on Teenage Retirement (New Noise Magazine Issue #13 – Nov 2014)

July 20, 2022 No Comments

Editor’s Note: This is the raw draft of the interview published by New Noise Magazine. This draft has not been seen by an editor. There may be errors. Chumped have created the soundtrack to your future up all night singalong drink-a-thons with your best friends. The band have crafted simple, elegant and most importantly catchy pop-punk songs about the ideals that we hold dear in our youth and yet will resonate with those of all ages: friendship, growing and loss. The band’s first two EP’s have garnered them extraordinary praise and an already intense following. Their full length debut, Teenage Retirement, is one of the most anticipated records of the year. We talk to vocalist Anika Pyle about relocating to New York City from small town Colorado, dealing with the praise, gigantic festivals and returning to The Fest 13. Teenage Retirement comes out this fall. How does it feel to have come from small town Colorado, all the way to one of the largest cities in the world and to have found success, and more importantly do you view your current praise as success? Wow. Success. How do you measure that? I’m really proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish as a musical unit. If you had asked me 5 years ago or 2 years ago if I would be making a record and doing what I love with my best friends and sharing a bill with bands that literally changed my life I would have laughed in your face. I think I measure these small but amazing things we do as success. You guys came out of the gate and garnered a ton of praise for yourself titled debut. How does that early success effect the work you put into Teenage Retirement? Teenage Retirement was a succession of beer drinking and Cheetos eating that began with the Chumped EP…a natural progression if you will. No, I think we put out that EP, with full intention of pressing it ourselves and giving it to our moms and when people other than us even paid attention to it, it floored us and really inspired us to keep making more music. I think we were all truly shocked that anyone other than us gave a shit. We wrote a full length record because we weren’t done writing songs, we had more things to say and more music to make, but it felt good to have one under our belt. Plus, there are way more Cheetos to be eaten. It’s 2014 and we need to shed the idea of Male or Female songwriters and focus on just being songwriters, how do you work to continue to work to blend those lines? Do you have any interest in being a “role model?” and does that title frighten you? I’m a woman in a band. There are many others. Get over it. I’ve never really thought of myself as being important enough to be a role model and thinking that someone might look up to me is a little terrifying. However, I had a lot of people in my life who shaped who I am as a musician and a person. So I guess if I was that person for someone else I’d be humbled by it. You guys are a band that is right at home in my basement, yet you opened up Riot Fest Chicago. How was your experience being part of that gigantic machines?Riot Fest was maybe one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. I think we definitely felt like a tiny blip in a giant universe but getting to see so many of my favorite bands while getting turnt with my best friends? Anytime. We were totally honored and would do it again in a heartbeat. With so many of your contemporaries playing more and more of these larger festivals, how much is playing Riot Fest Chicago a kind of “Ghost of Festivals to come” experience for you, and what do you learn playing these giant festivals?We were totally blown away when we got asked to play Riot Fest. There were zero expectations. It was definitely the biggest stage we’ve ever played to a big crowd of people we’ve never met before and I think we learned a lot about our comfort levels. It was a really different experience but honestly super inspiring. The biggest lessons we learned were “don’t be scared” “bring beer.” Our set time was so early that even the bars weren’t open. This October you are returning to your proving grounds of the Fest, but with a lot more time, experience and fans under your belt. When returning, I imagine the band being like a bunch of kids going back to school after summer vacation. What are you going to be most proud of to show or tell all your friends?We are incredibly proud of Teenage Retirement and we’re stoked to be able to play some new songs in Gainesville. Fest is a really magical weekend and I can’t wait to tell all my friends that despite the fact that they’re all idiots, we love them.

Facebook Archives: I can’t sleep. Who can these days, amiright?

June 23, 2024 No Comments

This is a Facebook post from June 4th, 2020. This was written during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. I wrote a lot on Facebook during that time, I like a lot of what was written here and wanted to save it here for posterity as Facebook slowly smothers the life out of it’s platform. -Damian June 2024 I can’t sleep. Who can these days, amiright? I told the lady I was going to stay up and read, and sure…I did a little of that, but mostly I sat in the chair and thought about the future. I felt good about those thoughts, but then I sat down here and started reading Facebook and instantly regretted feeling good. Because, let’s face it. We’re all doomed aren’t we? I just finished the book Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins. It was a gift from the lady, her favorite book. She was irritated that I didn’t read it right after Christmas, when she gave it to me. But books have a life and a mind of their own. They come to you when you least expect them, and when they open up to you…. When they truly open up to you… it’s magic. This book came to me and opened up at the right place and time. Jitterbug Perfume is about an ancient king who finds his first white hair in his beard. It’s decreed by the law of his land that he is to die of “old age.” Old Alobar isn’t ready to die and decides to run from death. He continues to run from death and somehow discovers the secrets to an everlasting life. The secrets are wonderful, but lonely. Towards the end of the book, I don’t think I’m spoiling this for anyone, but a random black character is murdered by police in New Orleans and there are violent protests and vigils for this character. But it’s a book about living forever and does this character really die? They don’t talk about him too much in the book. It’s a white book and made for liberal white people, but it has been on my mind for the last few days. Reading the chapters about this character’s death, while simultaneously watching the news was…. I don’t have the words for those feelings. Incredible is not a large enough word. His character was just a token. Created by a white man to die after a few humble sentences or paragraphs. I’m not a smart man. I’ve never been good at looking at the metaphors in novels. Maybe his death was represented in that way on purpose, and it’s the times we are living in that makes me evaluate what that character means. ya know? But that’s not what sticks with me about the book. The book is about how Alobar decides to change his world. He does so by breaking the chains of his oppressors, which are DEATH and the rules. It’s an interesting and fun book and I can’t wait to read more of Tom Robbins. But I keep thinking about how the book says Alobar learns to become immortal because he shirks his role in the greater scheme of life and rebirth. He decides not to be a part of the SYSTEM, but to be an individual. AN INDIVIDUAL. That’s his first step to immortality. Becoming an individual. But isn’t that the problem we have in AMERICA right now? Isn’t’ that the virus we are spreading to the whole world? ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME.instead of….WE WE WE WE WE WE WE WE WE WE. They’re the same letters. Just upside down. No longer do we live in the country of “We the People…” We live in a country of “ME!!!!!! The People!!!!”We’re a country of people who want what’s best for US, but when we say us… we mean… “Me. ME! MEEEEEE!!!!!!!” Me the people. Me the People. Me the People. Me the People. Look, I know I’m telling almost all of you reading everything you already know. But we’ve been living “Me the people” our entire lives and it’s not really working is it? The rich get richer, and the poor keep dying when they don’t have too. Who cares who can live forever, if the masses are dying in our streets. I see the “All lives Matter” posts and comments, and hell, I thought the same thing at first. All lives do matter, but WHY IS MY LIFE WORTH MORE THAN OTHERS? WHY?!?! I struggled with these ideas when my sister died some ten/eleven years ago. Why her and not me? Why George Floyd and not me? Why? Why? Why? Why? What is a life worth? How much? How many tears? I wonder how many people have seen a dead body. I wonder how many people have watched a person die in-front of their own eyes. How would that change their world? When I think of the “ALL LIVES MATTER!!!!” People I’ve been thinking of Jitterbug Perfume and the individualism it either taught or warned against. These are ignorant people, not bad people. Just fucking ignorant. They are just as much a product of the system as the dead black men laying in our streets. It’s been hammered into our collective heads since birth that we should be looking out for number one. You know why? Because communism is EVIL. Caring for other people is EVIL. I just know that we can not keep looking at the world and think that we belong as individuals. We have to start looking at the world from a place of WE. Or, I dunno…. Here’s another half brained metaphor: The earth is a symbiotic organism. We have to work together, or cancer seeps into those cells and destroys it. Each of us carry that cancer inside us. So when we do not work to form a more cohesive unit, we die and we destroy others. And WE! AMERICANS! are doing it every day. Dying.