Cold January rain splattered against the windows of Mudhouse — a downtown Charlottesville hot-spot for a cup of coffee on a Friday night.
The air thrummed with chatter and laughter as Arts & Entertainment sat down with Michael Coleman before his band’s show at the Main Street Annex, a small venue decked out in black-and-white casino-themed decals and attached to the Main Street Arena ice rink.
After a performance by Charlottesville-based group The Working Effective and a performance by Lynchburg-based group The Maplewaves, Coleman took the stage.
Leaning against a small wooden table in the middle of the shop, listening to openers prepping in the background, Coleman spoke about his experience as a local musician, from touring to sleeping on couches.
Arts & Entertainment: Is tonight’s show part of a tour?
Michael Coleman: We haven’t played as a band in Charlottesville for a little while, since September. I’ve been missing playing here … [but] we’re not doing any kind of touring. I tour a lot solo but with the band it’s really only Charlottesville/Richmond gigs. The drummer [John Dimeo] has kids. Everybody has other jobs. To ask them to sacrifice for me is hard to do.
AE: How long are your tours, usually?
MC: No longer than a week or so, a week and a half. … I don’t want to play shows just for the sake of playing shows, … so I work really hard to bill shows where I know I’ll be playing for people. A lot of people adopt a philosophy of playing as much as possible — which is great — but when you’re playing to no one, when you travel 18 hours down to Florida, you might as well have stayed in your room.
AE: Do you like being on the road?
MC: Yeah. I love it. I love driving from city to city … and exploring. Finding the closest record store, finding something unique about the city, and enjoying that for what it is. … I love crashing on couches. I’ve slept in my car a few nights … and I love it. It’s hard to describe, but it makes me feel like I’m really doing something. The moment you go out of your comfort zone and play — for example, in Birmingham, Alabama — to a bunch of people that you don’t know, or to a few people you don’t know, it’s really humbling. And it’s nerve-wracking, because there’s no guaranteed positive response. Because people who know you and are friends with you — they’re going to cheer for you regardless. People who don’t know you aren’t. Sometimes they’re brutally honest. I think having that experience grows you as an artist and as a person, taking that criticism and running with it.
AE: Where are your favorite venues, in Charlottesville or otherwise?
MC: The Basement in Nashville … and also this place called Rockwood Music Hall in Lower Manhattan, New York. It’s almost a piano bar, and everyone crams in there to hear the music. In Charlottesville, [my favorite place] is The Southern. I’ve played there maybe seven or eight times over the past four years. … It’s like a little basement. Low ceilings, grungy, and it’s awesome. It always sounds good in there, and there’s always a lot of good energy.
AE: When you write, what comes first? Do you come up with music and then think of lyrics? Do they come out together?
MC: When I first started playing guitar, whatever the progression or style I was playing inspired lyrics or inspired a melody that then inspired a song. I remember having moments where I’d be at work and a melody would come into my head. I would hum it quietly and then I’d run outside or run to the bathroom and record it on my phone. … Nowadays, I’ve started doing writing exercises where I’ll take 20 minutes and write every word that comes to mind. Then beside every word, write a sentence with that word. Then I’ll pick up my guitar and look at that line and sing the first thing that comes to mind. It’s something fun to do, constantly creating, constantly thinking of words. I remember one of the words I wrote was “devil,” and I was going down and writing sentences … and I got to devil and [wrote], “There’s a devil inside of me too.” I was like, “Whoa.” I wrote a song in five minutes.
AE: Who are your main musical influences?
MC: Motown, Dave Matthews. Somebody said that if John Legend and Dave Matthews had a child, it would be me — which was flattering, but weird. I was a huge fan of Dave when I was playing drums all the time. I learned how to play drums listening to their music and watching [his drummer’s] instructional videos. While that was happening, little did I know that I was subconsciously influenced by the rest of their music.
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