Life During Lockdown: Jim Fairchild
Jim Fairchild and I were introduced by our friend Russ Pillar. We immediately connected around music, storytelling and a mutual curiosity about where the world is going. Jim is a member of some super important bands that I was a huge fan of before we ever met: Grandaddy and Modest Mouse. In fact, Grandaddy’s Sophtware Slump album was an essential part of my life in the early 2000s. Jim is a guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and he has great perspective on the creative process and how songs go from an idea to a finished product. I’ve learned a lot from him about that stuff. So I wanted to get his point of view on what it’s like to be a musician right now, during the lockdown.
1. Give me some highlights and lowlights from your first month in lockdown mode.
Our son starts preschool in the fall, assuming that such a thing still exists then. Though it has at times been challenging for Natasha and I to both be working full time from home, all the juggling, we are tremendously grateful to be able to continue to work while spending so much time with him. His life will have so many new facets once that chapter begins that won’t be as central to our home. This time is precious. I realize what a tremendous luxury it is to be able to remark on any of that. There haven’t been too many lowlights personally. Though there is a massive psychic toll exacted if I tune in to the news very often. I have to limit it to a check in the early evening. The presence of this virus is just so sad and daunting. John Prine’s passing hit really hard.
2. Do you have any new routines that help you get through each day?
Shortly before the shelter in place order was issued, I became Director of A&R for Dangerbird Records. It is a position I cherish. It utilizes basically every skill and lesson I have acquired across this insane journey of being a professional musician over the last 24 years. I can help people on their projects in a non-selfish way every day. I can present people with opportunities. Our president, Jenni Sperandeo, has been assiduous in making certain the staff stays connected on a daily basis and that we are defining our purpose as it changes. There is so much going on right now as we pivot to accommodate this shifted environment of making, releasing and promoting recorded music. I haven’t had a conventional job since I was 22, so this comes at a wonderful time. I’m sure I would not be as focused if not for Dangerbird right now. And then also, having just launched my new music project, Grace Meridian, there have been small, daily responsibilities and opportunities popping up around that which I have to marshal. That work combined with doing my part to get meals on the table, get the laundry done and keep our house clean has generated more structure than I’ve ever had in my adult life!
3. How have you grown personally and professionally during this disruption?
I have become a better list maker and have generally been more organized in the last month. There are a couple of other creative projects that I’ve been giving an hour or two before bed every night, and those are just beginning to demonstrate some exciting green shoots. Growth abounds, and it’s my goal for it to stick after this.
4. Has your relationship with music changed as a result of having no concert tours or studio sessions on the calendar?
Unless Modest Mouse is touring, so much of what I do has been solitary anyway. Temme Scott (my singing partner in Grace Meridian) and I were just starting to dig in to making A LOT more music when this all kicked off. It is better to be in a room together, things just flow better. I definitely miss that process, but I have been simply practicing, both guitar and singing, a little more than the prior two years.
5. Can professional musicians create positive change in the world during the pandemic? If so, how?
Music brings people together. Even without live shows. The livestream thing is saturated of course, but my friends who are doing them well are engaging their audiences in dynamic ways that serve the audience in ways that live shows can’t. The direct interaction is valuable for people right now. And then, positive change in general can come from the simple fact of a song shifting a person’s mood for the better. Even sad songs. There are sense memories in our favorite music. I know for certain that songs are taking people back to better times. And that sensation is also being applied to the future. Music can take us a lot of places, and right now some sort of fantastic optimism, or hope maybe, is valuable on an incalculable level. We will get through this. Music can serve as a bridge to that conclusion.
