Ireland has long been clued in to the magic of Josh Ritter, but now the singer and his band are playing sold-out gigs across the US. Jim Carrollcaught up with them as the tour bus rolled into Ritter's home state of Idaho, and asked about their forthcoming Irish tour
Leo Falk had a problem: His department store in downtown Boise was in the doldrums. It was the mid-1920s and potential customers were put off by the surrounding bawdy bars and brothels. Then Falk had a brainwave. He would change the vibe of the neighbourhood by building a theatre. People would come to see shows and do their shopping. He was a retail visionary, that Leo Falk.
The fad at the time was for all things Egyptian, so Falk chose that theme for his new venture. Boise's nay-sayers thought it would never work, but the merchant set out to prove them wrong.
Eighty years later, the downtown bars are still rowdy, the brothels are long gone and Falk's store closed its doors in 1986. But the Egyptian Theatre still stands on the same corner, a block or two from the State Capitol. Inside, Falk's gilded gold chariots, horses, pharaohs, harpists and hieroglyphics are still on the walls, and an impressive proscenium arch still shadows the stage.
Josh Ritter can remember the first time he was in this hall. "I saw Outbreak, that film about the monkeys." Rene Russo and Dustin Hoffman's performances obviously had an impact on the youngster from Moscow, Idaho. Tonight Ritter himself is the main attraction. His tour bus is parked around the corner, and the crowds are swelling around the venue.
Even though it's a busy Saturday night in Boise - local ice-hockey heroes the Idaho Steelheads are playing the Victoria Salmon Kings, there are sold-out signs on the marquee above the door of the Egyptian Theatre.
Boise is as close as Ritter will come to a hometown show on this tour. Moscow is six-hour drive yonder, in the big sky country of northern Idaho. You'd have to drive through the breathtaking twists and turns of Hell's Canyon and the Nez Perce Indian reservation to get from there to here, but it would be worth the spin.
This sold-out show, though, is more than just Idahoans coming out to herald a homeboy. All the venues that Ritter and his band are playing on this lengthy coast-to-coast jaunt are full and most are sold-out. These 1,000-plus rooms are the largest gigs Ritter has played in the US.
The word is out. An excellent new album, The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter, and support from various National Public Radio shows help, but it's word of mouth which these punters cite again and again for their conversion to the cause. Someone sees a show and tells a friend who tells another friend and the audience starts to grow. The momentum that has taken Ritter far in Ireland is now taking root Stateside.
"I noticed it first when I did a load of solo shows after I finished recording the new album," he says. "I really don't know how it happened or what it was, but it was really noticeable, that step up in interest."
It was a different story earlier this year. On January 12th, Ritter performed Girl in the War to a couple of million people watching David Letterman's TV show. When he stepped off the stage, he felt awesome. Then he found that his label V2 America had folded.
"That was it - bang, record label gone."
Others would have sulked; Ritter just got on with things. "I lost money and all that, but at least we can go out and play music and we're still here." He quickly decided to record another album. "It was a total reaction. After four records and all that V2 fuss, I knew what I wanted and didn't want. I didn't want too many cooks in the kitchen. I wanted to do something about those spur-of-the-moments ideas you get in a studio, and I didn't want to end up making Animal Years again by mistake."
He headed to the snowy woods of Maine, to the studio of Sam Kassirer, his keyboard player. "Sam and I know each other really well, we know how to read each other. He knows I won't be afraid if something initially sounds weird." In a house full of music ("horns in the attic, strings in the barn"), the songs came fast and furious. "It has always seemed before as if the band have had to play catch-up with new material. This record was really all about making sure that everybody had their say."
After the political span and pitch of The Animal Years, Ritter stepped outside that particular pulpit for this album. "You choose what you want to say and say it. It's tiresome to keep going back over the same thing again and again. It's hard enough to write a political song and make it interesting without repeating yourself on every album.
"What that record did was helped me figure out what I think about America, and that's to believe Thomas Jefferson when he said it was an experiment. He didn't think it would last longer than 150 years.
Delve deeper and you'll still find iron in Ritter's lyrics. There's a religious bent too.
"Not touching on religion when you're a writer looking at the world around you is a disservice to your listeners," he argues. "Religion is the language we all speak. It's everywhere. To deny its existence is to try to deny you're influenced by something or that I ever heard Bob Dylan."
Religion was part of Ritter's rearing. "It was a religious household. My great-uncle was a fundamentalist minister, my grandmother is very religious, and my parents, even though they're neuroscientists, are strong Lutherans. I have trouble with lots of this, but denying that this stuff exists, stuff which has so much to do with our culture, is wrong. If we're making all these foreign policy ideas nowadays based on supposed religious ideas, why don't we hear about it more in songs?"
Later, inside the Egyptian Theatre, there's a spiritual experience of a different kind. Following Mind's Eye, seats are abandoned, arms are raised and the room begins to rock. Ritter's band rise to the occasion, bringing an emphasis to the sound which was never there before, and there's a local brass section adding polish and sparkle to the new numbers.
He encores with Bruce Springsteen's The River, hushing the audience by singing off the microphone. The ice-hockey crowd picked the wrong gig tonight.
Kassirer and bassist Zach Hickman are longtime fixtures in Ritter's band, and there are two new players onboard: guitarist Austin Nevins and drummer-cum-puppeteer Liam Hurley.
"They've never been on the road like this before, so it's really exciting for them and in turn for us too," says Ritter. "I remember Will Oldham saying he loved to bring people on the road who'd never been on the road before. Now, I really see what he means. They bring a great vibe because they're both looking outwards all the time. There's no isolation with them. And they play like they don't care."
The road has dominated Ritter's life for the past few months. As the tour bus journeys overnight to Seattle (on-board viewing: The Big Lebowski), he muses about life on the road.
"When you're on the road like this and you do it over and over again, you have to work out if you're running towards something or if you're running from something. I think I'm running towards something, but I know a lot of people who are running away.
"It's not a normal job. You can never forget that. If you're doing this for the wrong reasons, it's going to suck down the way and I don't want that to happen. I don't want to be that 60-year-old who's still touring because he's running away from other parts of his life."
Every day is focused on that moment when the stage-lights go down and the crowd begin to roar. "It's what all that concentration and waiting and travelling is about. It's quite a feeling. When you're out there in front of people, it's easy. It's exciting because you're on and the audience are there and the lights are flashing."
The rest of the time? "It's the other stuff during the day that you have to think about which make things difficult. And yes, sometimes I might prefer to be at home. I run almost every day because it keeps me from going too crazy in the bus and focuses my mind."
In Seattle's Showbox, another full house witness another epic performance. Tonight's despatches will mention the sinister growl at the heart of Rumours, the manner in which Empty Hearts is growing into a monster ballad, and the sheer hookability of Real Long Distance. The crowd pay their respects lustily and, later, storm the merchandise stall.
After the US, the Ritter show moves to Europe. There's a Later with Jools Holland appearance confirmed and sell-out shows galore. Something's really happening, and the forthcoming Irish jaunt may be Ritter's last long engagement here for some time (see panel).
The man from Moscow, Idaho isn't finished yet by any stretch. This tour, he says, has opened his eyes and ears to more possibilities. The next notes will also be loud.
"I want to get louder before I get quieter again. I'm feeling, finally, at home on stage and I want to know how much further I can push this. I want to see can I get bigger without getting dumber.
"I don't want to feel like I have to put a cap on what I want to say. I can always get quieter in the future."
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Ireland's call
Josh Ritter first fetched up in Ireland in 2000, opening for The Frames as a guest of Glen Hansard. Local label Independent picked up on his second album, Golden Age of Radio, and the rest is a fascinating history lesson in how an act can grow and develop in tandem with his audience.
"Once I had experienced my first night playing in Ireland, I knew it was my one chance. I grabbed on and didn't let go. To be honest, I had no other options. It wasn't happening in the States or anywhere else then.
"I feel I've grown up playing there and being part of this community. It's amazing to see the paths different singers have taken, and that's been good for me. It showed me that I can't plan what I do - it's completely random."
Ritter's thoughts from abroad about Ireland are still warm ones. He keeps them with those happy memories of playing Joan Baez's version of Wings to his father ("I felt like a man") and singing shoulder to shoulder with Bruce Springsteen.
