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Dan Auerbach's 63 Year-Old Protégé Robert Finley Shares Soulful Video 'Medicine Woman': Interview
Robert Finley and Dan Auerbach
Louisiana-based singer Robert Finley is a prime example that talent only improves with age. The 63 year-old has teamed up with Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys for his sophomore album Goin’ Platinum!,
along with a studio full of seasoned musicians who have recorded with
the likes of Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin, among others -- a fitting
lineup, since many of the same artists were featured on Finley’s
favorite albums from his childhood.
Finley’s work with Auerbach
sounds like the ideal juxtaposition of the textbook Black-Keys-groove
with larger-than-life blues vocals. It seems only fateful that a video
of Finley performing to a street crowd in Arkansas made its way to
Auerbach, and started Finley’s long-awaited career in music.
Auerbach
has nothing but praise for Finley, who he quickly signed to his label
Easy Eye Sound. “I realized very quickly Robert’s capable of doing so
much more than old blues songs. He’s a blues guitar player, but when he
puts his guitar down, you could set him in front of an orchestra and he
would sing just as good as Ray Charles on the first take," he says. "He
has that magnetic hugeness about his voice and just knows where to put
it in the pocket, always.”
Finley tells Billboard that, while the new sound he worked
on with Auerbach was completely foreign to him, that he’s giving this
once-in-a-lifetime chance all he has. “This dream is going to come true
or it's going to wake up a nightmare, but shoot the best shot,”
says Finley. His album title, Goin’ Platinum!, is exactly what
he plans to do with this chance at his childhood dream of being a
singer. While in the studio, he explained, “I looked over on the shelf
and I see seven or eight Grammy's on the shelf and I'm like, 'Okay man, I
gotta get me some of these. How do I go about getting them?’ So I said
it as a joke. I said ‘We goin' platinum,’ and Dan thought it was a great
name for the album.”
Today, Finley shares the visuals for Goin’ Platinum!’s lead single “Medicine Woman.” Watch the video, and read the full Q&A below.
How did you get connected with Dan, and how did your working relationship get started?
I
met Dan through music, and we didn't have any problems working together
at all -- it was great. He's an excellent songwriter. You know, my
vision is kind of messed up, he would have to tell me in my ear the
words and that was kind of an experience 'til I got it memorized. But
other than that I thought it was a great experience 'cause, but people
call it work, but this was a musical fun time. Creative time, I would
say. Kind of was outside the box for me 'cause it was totally different
from what I'd been doing but I enjoyed doing it.
What
does your process for writing and recording usually look like, and how
did that sort of change when Dan came into the picture?
Well,
I guess it's just like being an actor or whatever, you gotta pretty
much get yourself in the tradition of the artist and try to capture the
feeling that they had, and try to be convincing telling somebody else's
stories. That's another thing. I mean, telling it is okay, but you gotta
tell it to where you know it's convincing. In other words, you gotta
feel it in order for the audience to feel it. Gotta put yourself in that
situation or that position. I'm trying to go from there. But I'd say it
was a fun experience.
It was new and kind of surprising, 'cause
we did it a lot faster than we anticipated. I would say once we passed
the first song or whatever we kind of got used to one another. I guess
that was the biggest thing was trying to put myself in a position that
he was in and try and deliver the song with a convincing attitude which I
felt went over pretty well. And I think I become the character so it
was a great, great experience.
The music was outside my comfort
zone and I was definitely having to break new bounds so it was a
challenge, but a great challenge. It was something that you don't know
you can do until you're put into a situation with the opportunity to do
it.
I think that was the greatest part with me, was trying to
capture the moment, capture the character and then be able to play it, I
guess. 'Cause a great song should be like reading a short novel, the
song should tell a story. All the songs that Dan wrote had great meaning
to them, so it wasn't hard. It comes natural when it's something you
always wanted to do anyway -- when you're living your childhood dream.
How do you think entering the music industry so much later in
life affected your approach/attitude going into it? You definitely have
an extended approach to getting into the industry.
Well
to be honest, things are happening so rapidly in the success, I think
now at this age I'm more mentally prepared and so it was easy to
deliver, where at a young age I don't know if I would have taken it as
sincere. Because when you're young, you think you've got forever to do
things. But at my age now, I feel like every shot I shoot needs to be my
best shot 'cause it could possibly be my last shot.
I feel like
I'm more sincere and take things more serious at this age than I would
have at a young age. And I don't know if I would have been mentally even
prepared to have a success at such a fast level, fast rate. Because all
of this is kind of like happening overnight. It's like, two years ago,
we're coming out with the second album, and two years ago this was still
part of the dream. Watching the dream unfold to reality is a rewarding
experience.
It's hard to find the right words to describe. It’s an
experience you pretty much just have to live to get the 100 percent
understanding of. 'Cause I think out of all the people in the world,
this was an opportunity that was given to me at this age in my life.
It's just overwhelming to even be considered. Because you go from
kicking it on the sidewalk and singing in the church choir and the next
thing you know, two years later you're hanging out with rock stars and
it's a whole different atmosphere. But the greatest thing is these guys
kind of just opened up and took me in, and I'm just so grateful they
took the time to hear what I was saying.
I guess it's all about
being in the right place at the right time. Out of all the places in the
world I could have been and things I could have been doing, here we
were on the sidewalk having fun. It was really just something to do to
relax your mind. I never though it would have reached to this capacity,
to where we are now. I'm really convinced that dreams come true.
What were some of your formative albums and artists you listened to growing up that really shaped your music taste?
I
listened to everybody from James Brown to B.B. King, Bobby Bland, The
Temptations. I guess I heard more Tyrone Davis and Joe Simon, basically
what was playing on the jukeboxes at the little club down the street --
but I wasn't allowed to play it at home. But the neighborhood we lived
in, you couldn't help but hear it because of the jukeboxes in the juke
joint down the street. But you know, you'd learn it, you'd imitate it. I
listened to everything from The Beatles to… as a matter of fact, some
of the guys that played with me now, Elvis Presley, some of the guys on
one of my albums actually were in Elvis Presley's band.
With these
guys, every song you name, it was like somebody had recorded on it or
somebody pretty much had something to do with all the great hits. And
here I am at this age, it's almost too good to be true. I'm sitting
across the table from all these guys at my age, at 63 I was the youngest
in the band -- you know, other than Dan. So he brought in the best of
the best and it really made it, it was just a great opportunity because
he had some of the greatest musicians in the world right there in the
room. With an opportunity like that you give it your best shot and I
was, like I said, honored to be chosen so I knew that it was a situation
now or never.
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