Mark Hutchins

Ahh, yes, the old rock n’ roll tale of the frontman braving it solo. So much to say and so many ways to say it. 

Here’s the obvious opener: Vandolah frontman turned for-now solo artist Mark Hutchins is Fort Wayne’s own Man in Black. A sturdy, generous, hugely talented songwriter with a deep catalog of originals. That, and he usually wears black clothing (thus the cheap nickname).

Or how about a more interesting opener: Area indie-rock God Mark Hutchins doesn’t write songs, record albums or play shows for you or any of those other pretties in the crowd, he does it for Mark Hutchins, the Language Mangler. This music thing, it’s what he does. Sure, he’s a dad and a husband and a copywriter for Sweetwater Sound, but before he was any of those things, he was a songwriter. He is a songwriter.

But here’s the rub: though he is a prolific songwriter who has always been munificent with his work, we only really know a few facts about the man behind the work. We know that he’s a lefty who plays a righty guitar upside down; we know that he was some sort of BMX champ in his youth; we know that he and Orange Opera frontman Kevin Hambrick exchange Valentine’s Day cards; and we know that … umm.

That’s about it. Some of us, of course, know the songs he releases with both Vandolah and his other band, New Pale Swimmers. Some of us feel very much for those songs. But aside from the abovementioned facts - as well as a reputation for clever stage banter and a knack for self-recording - it’s hard to know what to expect when Hutchins climbs into a room.

Some of us do know, however, that Hutchins’ first solo record, the just released Sleepy Furnace (see review on page XX), is fantastic. Worth celebrating even. Easily one of the best albums I’ve heard come out of Indiana. Ever. But enough on that, we have some mysteries to solve.

To start I figured I’d try to solve the mystery of Hutchins’ forever puzzling lyrics. When asked if he explains his notoriously obscure lyrics to people who ask him to expound, Hutchins simply laughs. “Uhhh, not really. And a lot of people don’t even try anymore. Some people will say ‘I think this means this,’ and I don’t fight that because I think that’s just as valid. It’s just as valid on their end as it is on mine.

“There’s a line on the new disc that goes ‘home sweet home, the cage.’ I was trying to think of what the loneliest person in the world would say. Well, when my wife finally listened to the disc she e-mailed me asking if I really feel that way. Smiley icon with the inverted smile. The frown. I e-mailed her back right away. But it did get me to thinking about how you have these internal conversations with yourself while trying to create characters and stories, and how you might not think about how things might be interpreted.”

So far, it seems, all we’ve learned is that Hutchins also likes to keep his wife guessing. Ahh yes, the life of an artist.

Next I thought to ask about the recording process for Furnace. This not to solve any mysteries, but to attempt to understand how some guy in New Haven, Indiana came to make an indie rock masterpiece  after work in a bedroom.

“I started this record in 2008 with a small batch of songs. I nearly finished that batch right away, then there was a kind of quiet period before another batch came in 2009. Everything was finished up as the year came to a close,” Hutchins explained. “A lot of these songs, if not all of them, were initially figured out on an acoustic guitar. That’s how you know they work, when you can strip them down to the bare essentials.”

After Hutchins would work out a song he’d then quickly record all the different parts, often ignoring imperfections. “I’m impatient when it comes to recording,” he said, going on to explain how he spends most of his time at the computer, tweaking.

“I’ll get in a creative mode and the songs come at once. So I take advantage because, due to family and work, I have limited time. So when there is a creative impulse there, I have to tend to it. Once the songs are written it’s easier to figure out time to lay on all the ornamentation and do all the mixing. A small, small percentage of the time it took to make this album was actually spent writing the songs. I was tweaking mixes and making things sound okay for a large portion of the process. It’s all done at home aside from the parts that Kyle Stevenson played drums on. All up in this little spare bedroom in my house, everything plugged into the computer. So it takes a lot to squeeze the most I can out of that.”

Hutchins, who scored his first four-track after graduating high school, has been working as a true DIY/indie musician for some time now, facing the usual laundry list of challenges along the way. He’s better for it.

“It’s freeing in a way to know that I wont be quitting my job and jumping in a van and playing 250 shows a year and seeing my record on a rack in Oklahoma. The cool part is that I can do this for myself. And when I do something like this I don’t have to think and wish and wait for something to happen. Success can happen on different levels,” Hutchins explained when asked about for his thoughts on the prospect of getting a record deal.

“For me, making something good that wasn’t there before is the success. I have a job, you know, but if a label called and wanted to be involved, I’d be tickled. I don’t look for that anymore. But I am still at the point where, if I do some music and someone asks me about it, I still cringe if they say ‘is this your hobby?’ I don’t identify myself that way. Being a musician has been my identity for a long time. In the self-contained little universe I’m in, this is my identity and has been for most of my life. I have a day job and I do this.”

Wait a second … did we just learn something about Fort Wayne’s language mangling Man in Black? Let’s roll with this. I know … let’s talk family! Private artistic types with obscure lyrics love talking to interviewers about their personal lives!

“This is definitely the most comprehensive push I’ve given an album as far as promotion goes. This is the pretend part, you know. The shows and the CD. I mean, I go home and I have a wife and I have kids and we have a real life. How can I, with a straight face, say ‘ Woof, woof, I have to work on my art. I have to do this for my fans’ to my family?”

Once I got the guy barking about the mixing of family and artistic work, he opened right up …

“My wife Becky has been so amazing. I can’t say enough about her. She’s an artist herself and she has so much more talented than I do. But she supports my navel gazing … I mean, she supports my work. And that makes me so happy. I know I probably wouldn’t be able to do this if I hadn’t found someone who could be supportive of me chasing these windmills.”

And by “do this,” Hutchins means braving it solo. Easier said than done, especially for a guy who has been in bands for most of his life.

“Doing interviews, putting my actual name on something … it’s a little weird. I’m used to having a band name to hide behind. But I just couldn’t put the Vandolah name on this record. Technically it’s just not a band record,” Hutchins explained when asked about his newfound soloism. “It’s a lot to think that people are going to keep track of this guy from this band. You know, Mark Mamamalah, from that one band. His name kind of sounds like Matt Mamamalah. [Laughs.] I don’t know how you’d spell that out.

“Sometimes I wonder if I’m shooting myself in the foot with the solo record, but I just felt it was the honest thing to do. And I have had some great help from people. Josh [Hall] with the mastering, Kevin [Hambrick] and John [Hubner] contributing to songs, Matt [Kelley] helping with the CD release show. Casey Neal, my editor at Sweetwater, put some banjo on some songs. Stopping and thinking ‘these people are helping me out’ feels really great.”

Great record. Great experience. Growth, even. But what about Vandolah?

“Vandolah hadn’t played in quite a while and I had this batch of new songs. We ran through the songs a couple of times and Kyle did end up playing on some of them. But from day one it’s always been difficult for Vandolah to be a truly collaborative thing. Partly because of geography [Vandolah multi-instrumentalist Dan Greunke lives in some place called “Ohia”] and also because of time constraints. We’ve never been a band that got together every week to practice.

“But I don’t want to downplay those guys [Greunke and drummer Kyle Stevenson]. Kyle understands the core of a song as well as anyone; he’s a very musical drummer. And Dan … between his enthusiasm and great musicianship, no one can touch him. But I did do this album my way, whereas before I’d have to think ‘I’d better save this part for Kyle.’ But no, having a solo album doesn’t rule out future Vandolah stuff. This is just what it is right now.”

So the record is out and we now know more than ever about the Pale Swimming Songwriter. What better now than some live show chatter?

“I’ll be playing the Brass Rail show on Saturday, February 13 with Josh from Thunderhawk and [New Pale Swimmers drummer] Joe Robles. And I hope to get Doug [Market] from Thunderhawk up there so we can run through a set of Guided by Voices songs.

“And Dan is setting up six or more shows in Ohio - at least three band/club shows and then some record store and acoustic shows. The plan is to get Joe and Josh over there for a couple - if not all - of those shows, and then Dan is going to play. So I’m really excited about all these shows.”

Sounds like the whole gang is on board. If you’ve heard the record, Sleepy Furnace, you understand why. If you’ve not yet heard the record yet … well then, I guess you now have weekend plans. Go to Brass Rail show; watch band; buy CD; live better.

Written by G. William Locke; Photo by Drew Allegre