The following is an interview conducted by Michael Capozzola for the SF Herald that never ran; he has generously shared it.

Freedy Johnston wants only spring rolls and a beer.

Asking in an earnest, Midwest fashion if there is a minimum. As the waitress appraises him and his guitar on the next seat. he is told: “30 minutes please.” She thinks he’s there to loiter in this divey, Vietnamese restaurant in San Franciscisco’s Tenderloin district. We are just blocks from the Great American Music Hall where he will take the stage in 3 hours. The waitress has no idea that the wiry man in the leather jacket is one of the most critically acclaimed songwriters working today. Freedy nods his head amiably, without setting her straight. He orders his spring rolls, and we order two beers and sit among the transients and the flies.

Freedy’s just flown in from shows in the Pacific Northwest and he’s already told me that he’s eager to finish working on a song. I shuffle my questions to selfishly get some answers to the things that, as a fan—I have pondered since being introduced to his music. I came across Freedy in the fall of 1994, just after the release of "This Perfect World,” the album that brought him radio play with the immediately familiar “Bad Reputation.” It’s a slick, catchy record that probably outsells every other one of his, but bears no similarity to his earlier or subsequent work. I eagerly sought out its predecessor, the brooding, confessional “Can You Fly.” Esquire Magazine pretty much nailed it in 1999 with the coy honor of putting it on the short list of “The Best CDs You've Never Heard, The greatest overlooked pop masterpieces of the decade.” Musician friends of mine who admire Freedy’s work suggested a few questions. In his song “Wheels”, from the 1992 CD he opens the songs by revealing: “There really is a town called ‘Hopeless’ on a faded map circled in blue…” And I just HAD to know. I’d actually nosed around on the web looking for it 2 years ago when plotting a road trip. “Freedy,” I begin, “Is there really a town called ‘Hopeless?” He laughs as I put the question to him. “No there’s not. There may be…I actually haven’t looked.”

It’s a good sign; some writers are rightfully guarded about the details.

Encouraged by this, I asked him about what is probably my favorite of his songs and one that is inevitably called for by fans, “The Mortician’s Daughter.” I’d hesitated to ask—it almost seems akin to asking a magician to reveal his tricks. It’s a vivid piece of work, a spare, mostly acoustic tale. “It’s fiction. All of my songs are fiction. There are certain elements maybe, from the real world, my real life, but I’ve never tried to communicate with someone through a song or tell my story in a truthful, heartfelt manner at all. I have as many stories, I suppose as anyone does, but I’m much more interested in getting out of that, making it seem like it’s a real story, getting more deeply into the character if it’s imagined than if it’s my own story. I knew a mortician’s daughter in Kinsley, Kansas, but that’s where any connection ended.”

Currently, Freedy is on tour of his newest release, “Right Between the Promises.” In around recording sessions for the album, he played in a cover band “The Know It all Boyfriends,” with his friends Butch Vig on Drums, Duke from Garbage (bass) Jay Moran on Drums. I know of his penchant for sprinkling covers songs into his live shows. I saw Freedy in New Jersey introduce ‘Rocket Man’ as a “pre-suck, Elton John song.” I asked him about his cover band. “It started at a Christmas Party a year ago…” As he starts to elaborate, two warm bottles of Sam Adams arrive with 2 glasses of ice. We are uncertain if this is customary or improvisation and we both let it pass. Freedy says that he’s up for trying it. “Hey, I’ll give it a try. It’s like my dad used to do. Might be a new thing. Iced Beer.”

He resumes our discussion, “We started this cover band on Butch’s recommendation, a year ago in Madison. I think that in that year we did four gigs or so.” The last show was so good; we were out to prove ourselves and played for like two and a half hours. All covers. Our suits were soaked and I was wearing a wig. It’s really important to do that. I wish that I could do more of that. All 70’s pop and 60’s stuff too. That’s the music that I grew up with” BTO, Paul McCartney, Bread and stuff like that. People love hearing songs that they know. Remember when Yo La Tengo put out ‘Fakebook?’ That was the first Yo la Tengo record that I bought and listened to. That’s what drew me in to the rest of their music.”

His self-released, acoustic CD, “Live at 33 1/3" contains a few choice covers, that illustrate the styles that inform his music. Jimmy Webb’s “Wichita Lineman” has been a crowd favorite and staple in his live set for years, but had appeared only on a rare EP of studio outtakes. Also on the live CD are “Bus Stop” by the Hollies and “Cole Porter’s hauntingly gorgeous standard, ‘Night and Day” I saw Freedy do that song at the intimate Noe Valley Ministry in San Francisco on the night that he received word of Sinatra’s death. The intensity of that song alone was worth the price of admission. It was nothing short of mesmerizing. As I write this, I’m reminded that I saw U2 in Oakland on the night that Jeff Buckley’s body was recovered from the Mississippi, confirming his death. They played “Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ for him. I hadn’t meant to collect these memories, but it started when I saw the Kinks at Jones Beach dedicate ‘Celluloid Heroes’ celeb casualty of the week, Jackie Gleason. Undeniably, the congruence of tragedy and musical tribute does add an historic fingerprint to the ticket stub.

The beers are half done and only three of the spring rolls still remain as we become aware of something going on outside on Leavenworth St. It’s the Olympic torch procession and it’s apparently coming our way. Freedy grabs his camera and we both head to the door. It’s the dark side of the Olympics: a long line of vehicles owned by the corporate sponsors on the games. It’s like a parody of the Presidential motorcade: Coca-Cola chase cars and vans, a small self-contained mini-flatbed with someone lazily lip-syncing a Motown song. And the actual torch we are informed is still a half-hour away. It has the same bad taste of Christmas decorations in late September. More cars pass—anonymous drivers, logos on wheels really. We shake our heads and return to the table.

“What are you listening to on the road these days?” I ask Freedy.

“I just listen to the radio…I’m kind of a curmudgeon when it comes to listening to records. And also, all my CD’s are still in the Midwest, so I really don’t have a lot of stuff with me. So I listen to the radio a lot, A.M. radio a lot. I’ll listen to talk radio. I won’t even hear it actually, it’ll just be going on in the background. For some reason listening to idiots doesn’t really bother me so much. It has a calming effect sometimes.”

I ask about a favorite route for A.M. radio and offer up Rt. 70 as an example of Jesus FM. “It’s pretty depressing in some spots, like in Wichita, where there’s three or four FM Christian stations, not counting AM.” Freedy has his back to the door and cannot see what is now passing behind him as if to underscore the talk of disparate, dislocated messages that sift along the airwaves. Out on the street in the still-flowing corporate parade, is a BIG screen TV on wheels. It shows a man in a cowboy hat leaping from his horse and tackling a running calf in the lower right side of the screen. I’m told later that some sort of steer-roping event is being added to the Olympics. This must be tantamount to a "preview." I cannot bring myself to interrupt Freedy to point this out.

I mention to Freedy how much I liked “Coffee, Coffee, Coffee,” his contribution to the Tom T. Hall tribute CD. He told me that he really likes that particular song and plans to remake it and include it on his next studio release, which will be an album of covers. I was about to ask him how he chose to cover that specific song, when a wired and overzealous bystander bangs on every window of the restaurant and shouts incoherently about the impending arrival of the Olympic Torch. I decide not to press the subject of ‘Coffee, Coffee, Coffee.’

In closing, I selfishly ask a question that I needed to satisfy my own curiosity. “Any mix ups with the Freddy Jones Band?” I ask. “Any paternity suits or problems checking into a Marriott?” Freedy laughs at this.

“There was one mix up during a radio interview in Norfolk, when the interviewer said. ‘I’ve got your three Chrysalis records and I really like them.’ And I was confused because I wasn’t on Chrysalis and I said, ‘Don’t you mean Elektra or Bar None?’ And we went on with the interview. And as we were leaving Cameron [Greider--backing vocalist and guitarist] said ‘Freedy, he thinks you’re Freddy Jones.’ The guy was a real idiot. He was truly, sadly, an idiot. You see people like that with access to the public airwaves and you just wonder what the hell goes on.”

Note: This interview was conducted in early 2002. The covers project has since gone the way of the dodo. Or, if you're an optimist about its revival, the way of Walt Disney.

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