#joe lengson

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Check out my About Me Page.

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Exiled Music Press Interview

Interview: The Woodsman's Babe

It was a mid-June night in Syracuse when I first met Joe Lengson. The occasion was a small metal show in a 100-capacity bar, his band Mychildren Mybride billed as an opener. After going on to see him twice more over the next year at different shows and festivals, I never would have thought the lanky, long-haired bass player would go on to become The Woodsman's Babe. Now, three and a half years later, here we are. 

Between being a writer and professional photographer, The Woodsman's Babe is Lengson's musical outlet. The music could be described as dream-folk, encompassed by the sounds of atmospheric guitars and bittersweet memories, met in perfect harmony with serene, distant vocals.

Below, Lengson talks about his inspirations, being an author, and much more. 

EMP: How and when did The Woodsman's Babe come to be?

The Woodsman's Babe came to be... when... well, I suppose when I was in Massachusetts recording the last Mychildren Mybride album. I was experiencing a difficult time, dealing with a lot of unfortunate emotions at the time, regarding the album, the band, life and I think at that point, I already knew I wanted to quit, but I didn't know what I was going to do if and when I quit, because the band really was full-time, it was my entire life and I knew more or less nothing else outside touring and playing music. I was on the phone with a buddy back in Los Angeles one day while in the studio there, and we were talking about starting a new project, because he was in a metal band that was essentially going nowhere, and I was in a metal band that I didn't want to be in anymore and we both wanted to go softer musically. I think I got off the phone that day and knew I was going to quit the band and start the new band once I finished the record and got back to L.A. I guess the real answer to your question is Winter 2011. 

When starting out, what artists informed and influenced your initial songwriting?

A lot of mainstream indie bands and a lot of folk from the 60's. I listened to a lot of weird stuff. I remember watching T.V. one day, and Little House On The Prairie was on, and I had this weird thought, if I could make music that sounds like how TLHOTP looks. I half wanted my music to sound like it came from the 60's or 70's in regards to influence and quality and half wanted it to be distant sounding.

  In the midst of playing in a metal band, was a passion for making your own music like this always there or was that a desire that you realized during that time? 

Not many people know, but I've been a solo artist long before I had any involvement in the metal band I was in. I started creating a lot of really soft music, that was first released when I was fifteen years old. I did three full-length records all before I joined McMb. When I joined McMb, I was incredibly into it and all and I gave it my all, but yeah, I did put everything else artistically in my life on hold. However, through extensive monotonous traveling and being so entangled in such a lifestyle that I didn't fit as comfortably as I once did, I finally felt that I needed to just follow my artistic passion even if it was very left field, or if people comprehended the idea of me doing folk or indie or whatever you want to call it as too contrasting and out of their notion of my creative lexicon. 

As an artist, what do you think the correlation is between one's music and aesthetic/image? 

I half feel that image is art. If it's something you worked hard on, in regards to branding or building up a particular persona of who you want to be recognized as. Perception does play a major role in a lot of art these days. I think back to my last band and why we always wore black all the time, it was an intentional marketing strategy to build up an image to brand ourselves to a higher value, but in reality, value is only designated by selling. So I feel if the reader subscribes to the idea that image of the artist makes the art, then I suppose that's the readers belief, but I don't necessarily assign my image value to my art. I think if someone listened to my new music, especially the music I have not released yet, they would never expect the creator of that content to look and dress like I do. I create music that's organic, and there is no rational reason why I make that particular music, and I don't feel there is any hidden reason behind why my image is what it is. I actually don't know if I have an image yet, because I'm still so fetal in this. As far as the correlation between art and image, in my perception, it's a relative term.

What do you feel your personal aesthetic is?

I don't know. I still half wear the same clothes as I did when I was in the metal band, and I half wear all these new clothes that I've picked up since I left the band. I'm not focusing on an entire new aesthetic for myself, I'm not wearing juggalo clothes or clothes that make me look like I was in Fleetwood Mac. It's interesting you brought it up, because I literally have no idea if I have an image. I don't necessarily think it's a very pressing matter for me at this point in my musical career, because even if I created this image of me as this completely new character, I'm aware all my followers are people that knew me and probably will always know me as a metal dude, which is fine. I guess that means I just need to make new fans somehow.

Lyrically, do you prefer writing from personal experiences? Is that an easy process for you? 

Yes... and no. It's not so much that I prefer to write about personal experience, it's more following the notion that it's what is coming out. I don't feel there is any singular emphasis on the creative act of writing lyrics. There is an old phrase, "write what you know," which is cliche, but it's a cliche because it's true, and that is what I do half the time. I have a lot of lyrics that are about previous women in my life, and, you know its not anything weird or immature or anything, but those experiences I had were very important to me, which is why I felt as if it was worthy for me to transcend those experiences into lyrics that I can share with everyone who cares to listen. Whenever I do happen to write with intention for story, I find myself writing lyrics that seems too distant for me to ever find myself in. I don't go out and do mushrooms or anything and write weird distant lyrics, but as a writer, I feel if I wanted to, or if I had to, I could write a pretty believable story that would be 100% fabrication.

A few years ago, when you published your book Sleeping in Parking Lots, what were your ambitions surrounding that? What kind of feedback have you gotten from readers?

There was no intention. I had no idea there was going to be anything to come about from the book. I didn't write it with deliberateness for the world to read it. I wrote it for myself in my journal. I never even journaled at that time, I just wrote because I felt like it. There was no rational explanation as to why I wrote a book. I just did. Then, one thing after another, things started falling in place for me, finding a publishing house, and finding a publicist and doing speaking engagements and all that stuff. It all just kind of fell into place. The feedback was 100% excellent.

Do you think you'd ever release another book?

Yes I do. As a matter of fact. I have not yet announced anything about it anywhere, but the least I can do here is confirm that there is another book that is done, edited, and creatively complete with a new publisher. No further details as of yet.

Lately, what have you been listening to? 

Nothing really new. I primarily listen to older music. Old as in 60's/70's. I listen to a lot of country music. When I drive or something, I listen to a lot of talk radio, like public radio or podcasts. That's the kind of stuff where I feel I grow as a person as well as artist. Those are the things that I listen to, that in all likelihood, contribute to my music. I suppose if I was forced to tell you music I enjoy that's contemporary, I'd say I'm pretty into Wild Nothing or Toro Y Moi. That's some pretty contrasting music as to what I am creating over here, but I have been able to get off on that kind of retro yet contemporary sound. Those artists probably have the same internal mandate as I do, that they want to make music that sounds like it's from a different time and place.

What is up next for The Woodsman's Babe? 

Well, for now, I'm in Los Angeles until further notice. I'm making music more or less everyday. I find myself trying not to alienate myself with my music, that's my latest mission. I've been making music that, don't get me wrong, is organic, but it's still this one particular sound that is so prevalent in my internal monologue which I'm fully aware is not catered to everyone. I do shows every now and again, which is fun. I enjoy performing. I go to the recording studio a couple times a week and I record at home every other day that I'm not at the studio. It's been a goal with my label (Autumn + Colour) and myself to release a single every month until the entire record is out, and then once it's all out, release the album entirely as one entity. That's the plan for now at least. 

[hubblive-blog]

ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: The Woodsman's Babe 

Joe Lengson, or also known as The Woodsman's Babe, has graciously agreed to do a small interview with us. We couldn't help falling in love with Joe's folk rock project and we HAD to share his story with you. We cover everything from his transition from metal to folk and we even talk a little about the book he published in 2010, titled Sleeping in Parking Lots. 

Q: Who are you?  A: I'm Joe Lengson. Also known as The Woodsman's Babe, by more or less no one... I spent the last six years touring with a metal band called Mychildren Mybride. I recently quit that band, because I felt it was time for me to do the solo project. Touring was pretty much all I knew, and my band mates were my only friends, and music was all I had ever done as a real job. I left home to tour when I was seventeen, and felt like I was going to be doing it forever because it literally had taken me all over the world and let me accomplish a lot. So when I started to develop notions about leaving the band, I was experiencing an incredibly unclear mental phase when I fell into remarkably deep depression when I was in the studio recording the last album. So after a mortifying long time debating on leaving, it felt like when I actually did quit, I killed something very sacred and dynamic. So to do music, I decided to come back here to my home town, Los Angeles, to begin focusing on making music that comes directly from my heart. 

Q: What are your plans for the future?  A: I don't have many plans, I just want to be able to do what I love, whatever that means... I still don't know what I want to do forever. I want to do everything. I plan on doing something creative I guess, and not have to do something monotonous. After being back in Los Angeles, I see people that are really trying to follow their dreams of becoming an actor or something, but are having a hard time making money, and are forced to wait tables or something that they hate. Luckily, I'm still doing what I love. I plan on making songs, or making literature, or making photography, and thats what I do these days, or at least I think about making songs, literature and photography.

Q: How was your transition from one genre to another? A: Simple... and difficult. It's easy to make the kind of music I make now, I have at least a hundred songs fully composed and recorded. Because it's music that's organic to my core and it's what I love. When I was in my last band, on drives to or from each venue, I'd only play softer music. Metal was fun because it was rebellious and I was young, but I knew I found solace in softer music as an artist. My creative mandate is to simply create constantly, anything that comes out in any format. I have a document on my computer that's about 6 years old, and it's full of poetry/lyrics that I've been contributing to probably every few days. This is my primary source of any art that is published. On the other hand, I'm known for being a metal musician. That became pretty clear to me when I announced my solo project. It's just weird starting from the bottom in a completely new genre in the sense that I have no presence in yet.  

Q: Could you tell us a little about the book you wrote? A: I had kept a diary since I joined the band and wrote it in a lot. One day, I was re-reading my diary and it felt like I was reading a fictional story. I half became intrigued by my own diary. That was when I decided to format my diary into a book. The book followed me as a seventeen year old boy leaving my town due to a high-school heart break, all the way up to me touring the world in the band. I wrote a lot about love and my relationships with women I had met all over the country, and also included a series of tour stories that kids found interesting as it was a way for fans to get an inside look on our personal lives on tour. Right when I moved back to Los Angeles, I took the book off-shelves. It reflected way too much of myself being a metal musician and showed nothing of me being an artist with diversity. 

Be sure to follow Joe on Twitter & 'like' his Facebook page! 

[reflektionofareflection]

I want to meet a girl at a coffee shop who has no idea who I am. I want to look up from reading a book and see a girl across the shop doing the same thing back at me.

Joe Lengson - Sleeping in Parking Lots

[joelengson]

[joelengson]

chapter twenty-seven

chapter twenty-seven

We Broke Down

ON THAT WINTER tour, we pretty much covered the entire U.S. in about a month and it was time for the tour to end. I got to be real close with all the guys in those other bands. I was having so much fun with the people on that tour; I was starting to forget how cold that tour was. Us four bands drove from California and made a big backwards “C” across America and finally came to a stop in Farmington New Mexico. Every tour is like this. You start off as a group of strangers and it’s really awkward to create friendship, then throughout the tour, through the long drives, through the tiring times, the bad shows, the technical difficulties and boring times, you end up becoming closer with everyone.

I was talking to my friend John the other day in Dallas about touring and everything. John is a really cool guy from Georgia, he came to Europe with us once, I got to be close with that guy. Well, in Dallas, I was asking him how he got his start touring and whom he had worked for and everything. When we both gave each other our stories, he explained to me his perception on touring now that he has so much touring experience. I think he gave me the most beautiful description,

“Touring is a struggle, however, the struggle, incidentally, is what makes it incredible.” We were in the greenroom backstage, there were people from all of the bands on the tour hanging out back there; some were napping on the couch, others were cleaning off their guitars, some were drinking beer, some were stretching to go on stage and some were using their computers to video chat with their girlfriends back home. As he went on to expound his comprehension of touring, I surveyed the room and studied everyone’s face in the room.

“It’s us, this brotherhood of people that go through this struggle together, that no one else in the world understands.” 

As he said that, he points to where the main floor was. That particular night, 1,100 kids showed up to watch the concert. 

“All those kids out there, our girlfriends, our friends, our parents, they have no idea what goes on out here on the road.” He was starting to paint a whole new picture for me to gaze upon. I sat there quietly digesting his every word.

“Those kids out there have no idea that we shower once a week, or that we sleep in parking lots. However, we (he acknowledges the other band guys hanging out in the greenroom) completely understand, which creates this brotherhood.”

By the last days of that winter tour, people were sick, people were tired and just wanted to go home, but we still never wanted that tour to end. Just like my first tour, and every other tour, I never want it to end. Some tours we get closer to bands than others, but regardless it’s always a sad day to say goodbye. Goodnight is easier than goodbye.

“It’s the second to last night of tour. My favorite tour I’ve ever done. I’m spending the night with another band. I’m sleeping on the front lounge couch. I just watched “Boogie Nights.” Good flick. But it’s getting really late and everyone’s drunk or high and falling asleep. Tonight I realized I have social skills I never knew I had. People can be fun. No matter where they are from or who they are. I enjoy good company. 

Especially this band, they know how to have fun and they are very hospitable. I believe that’s a trait people are genetically born with, a natural care for others.”

That’s and entry in that beat up old journal I kept.

That next morning, I woke up ungodly early due to a sudden disturbance. There was a loud ruckus and we came to an abrupt stop. As I lay on that couch in my sleeping bag, I felt like a turtle, I poked my head out every now and then but it was too cold so I hid inside my shell. I heard the bus driver on the phone talking to his bus company. That’s when I knew something was wrong. I sat up with one eye open with curiosity. It was so cold, but I was interested in his conversation. I heard him say the words, “We broke down!”

That’s when I got concerned. A hundred thought’s raced through my mind. I’m going to miss the last night of tour. My band is going to play without me. They are going to be mad at me for spending the night with someone else. I need to brush my teeth. How am I going to get home?

Turns out, the bus had been working too hard for too long in too cold of weather and finally gave out. The engine shut down. We all made phone calls, I had my band turn around and the tour manager had the other band turn around to pick all the people on the bus up to take all of us to the last show in Farmington New Mexico. Everything was white when I got out of the bus. Snow covered absolutely everything in sight. It was beautifully blank. 

The ride to the venue was very crowded which made that trip very long; our van had illegally way more people than the manufacturer allowed, but we did make it to the last show. I was surprised there was so much snow in New Mexico. I didn’t know the desert got that much snow.

That last night of tour was so much fun, I remember laughing the entire night. The show was sold out and the kids were going absolutely wild. I remember the entire tour had to share a very small greenroom, which wasn’t really a greenroom at all, it was more of a large utility closet full of tools, mops, and cases of empty whiskey bottles from the bar. It was extremely cramped but we made it fun. There were dice games going, people playing their guitars and singing songs, people trying to nap sitting up on the floor and people drinking cheap beer the venue provided. I remember that evening so clearly because it was as if I saw everyone’s joy in slow motion and there was more significance in the band guys than ever before. That was the best tour ever because we all struggled together.

[joelengsonphotography]

Haste The Day Farewell Show - 2011

Indianapolis, IN.

Haste The Day's last show ever at the Egyptian Theatre in Indianapolis, IN. 

There was no photography or videography allowed, but I somehow managed to snap a few shots before security told me to stop.