Since his last album three years ago, US singer songwriter Josh Ritter's star has risen. On the eve of his new release, he returns to Ireland a bigger more confident artist, writes Jim Carroll
A FEW weeks ago, Josh Ritter ran his first marathon. It was the Rock'n'Roll Arizona marathon in Phoenix, with local bands playing at every mile marker. As he remembers it, he was getting better and better with every passing mile. He zipped past people as he moved up the field. "Man, I kicked ass."
One guy, however, did run past him. He was wearing a full suit of armour and Ritter could hear those 60 pounds of metal clanging all the way up the road.
Ritter finished the race in three and a half hours. He was exhilarated. Sure, he was wiped out, but the buzz was something else.
That high, Ritter says, reminded him of something else. "One reason why I love long-distance running is that sometimes in the middle of a run, you realise just how lucky you are. You're not trying to get to the end, you're just enjoying what you are doing. I feel the same way about my trade as a songwriter. It's not about getting onto VH1 or getting on this cover or that cover, it's about enjoying the whole experience."
Ritter is sitting in a hotel lobby in Boston. A lot has changed since he last met The Ticket. That was in Dublin in 2003, when he was awaiting the release of Hello Starling. He went on to spend over two years selling and talking up that record. It led to new audiences worldwide, new experiences and a new deal with V2 Records. (In Ireland, he remains with Independent, the label which first championed him.)
Last October in Australia, Ritter played the last dates in the Starling tour and ushered in The Animal Years. This new album is where Ritter's songwriting takes another great leap forward. The Animal Years is a grand, towering piece of work, an album awash with songs and a lexicon which merit both serious attention and widespread acclaim.
Ritter would probably claim that he found these songs beneath bundles of clothes in his Idaho home, but such modesty merely underlines the craft on display here. Ritter has become a songwriter you don't meet every day.
"I feel a lot more confident as a writer now," he says. "When people buy your record or come to your show, they give you the confidence to do more. There's a competitive side to me and I think that drove me during the making of this record."
But it's not just Ritter's songwriting which has benefited from his new outlook. He's now more confident himself, more assured and comfortable with who he is and the skin he's in. The shy kid who brought us Starling has lost more than just his hunched shoulders.
Ritter now knows what his calling is. "I saw John Prine last summer at the Edmonton Folk Festival and it was such a revelation. Why wouldn't I want to do this? Prine's stuck to his guns, he's a great writer and he has endured all these years. That's what I want, for people to hear my songs and not to get lost in the fray."
Ritter talks a lot about songwriters who've outlasted time and trends. "When I look at Dylan or Cash or Neil Young or Guy Clarke or John Prine, they're like planets and everyone else is a moon." He's beginning to realise that their pre-eminence is all about age. "The best songs come with growing old because you get wiser. That's why I don't believe in that whole thing about singers dying young. I mean, think of what Jimi Hendrix would be doing now. He wouldn't be going round on The Monkees reunion tour, that's for sure.
"I think Dylan's best record is Love & Theft just because of that wisdom. He's this older guy telling you not to worry, stuff which sorts itself out. Arctic Monkeys come and go, but it's the songs which go on and on and on."
On this record, Ritter lets the big themes roam. There are wolves at the door, boats rolling down the river and Peter arguing with Paul, all these metaphors and images connecting Ritter's bailiwick with the world.
It's a record he started on the road and ended back home in his quiet writer's den, which is apt when you consider how it's examining America both home and away. When he hit a rut, he took his songs for a run. "Yes, Thin Blue Flame got worked out when I was out running. That was a real marathon of a song."
He thinks of The Animal Years as his Mark Twain record. "Towards the end of Twain's life, he was so angry and he was writing these things about America and what he saw happening. It was an anger that came out of a love for the country and I love that. When I started writing, I had so many ambiguous feelings about my country and doubts about what I had to say. It's quite fashionable now both to extol American virtues and values and to demonise ourselves.
"What I love about Twain is that he was able to talk with righteousness and honesty about what he saw. He believed that America could have been more than what it was, that it could have been great, and that it's falling short that is the great shame."
Ritter knows that he could well be on tricky terrain. "I'm not Steve Earle or Michael Moore and I don't want to be like them. I'm not going to preach or lecture. Just because I have a microphone doesn't mean I should be hectoring. There's a lot of bashing which goes on, which I don't think really achieves anything.
"But I still have something to bring to the table, and this record helped me to work out how to become engaged and how to scrutinise my beliefs. If your job is describing beliefs and examining beliefs and standing up onstage giving everything you've got, you have to believe in it or people will see through it.
"I hate fakers. The reason why I love Johnny Cash and Bruce Springsteen is because you know they believe what they're saying."
Ritter has asked himself a lot of questions about what he's doing. He thinks he's now hearing the right answers. Finding his voice and defining his role certainly bodes well for future albums.
"It's been amazing to see how it has grown from 10 or 15 people in a room in Ireland to what it is now. I've reached a point where this is now my career, so I'm trying to work out the reasons why this makes me happy. Is it money? Women? Well, I love women and I really dig being able to look after myself, but it's not that.
"The thing which pushes you forward is the competition with yourself to do better than you've done before. It's about trying to write something new and better. It's sticking with it until, like with the running, the reassurance kicks in and you begin to enjoy it. As long as I don't get distracted from the writing and the performing, I'm doing OK."
The Animal Years is released on Independent Records on March 3rd. Josh Ritter begins an Irish tour at Galway's Black Box on March 5th
