Artist: Pokey LaFarge
Hometown: Normal, Illinois
Latest album: Rock Bottom Rhapsody
What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?
When I heard Bill Monroeās voice and mandolin. No one around me was doing it and I knew that was a way of being different and getting noticed. It was the most ballsy and exotic thing Iād heard up in [my] first fourteen years on earth.
What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc — inform your music?
I love to dance with my buddies and with ladies, I am an avid reader of fiction, such as novels, and non-fiction, too — usually, WWI, WWII, Mafia, and artist biographies.
Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?
Well, any and allā¦ but my preferences are water or forests over mountains and desert. I like to go to local parks and run or hike. I like long walks anywhere I can. But I actually spend a lot of time in the gym, specifically the boxing gym. I have tons of energy and need to exert that physically or my mind gets overworked. An easy mind and a fit body makes Pokey a peaceful boy.
Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?
Steak and potatoes and wine with Tom Waits, a piano, a guitar, and an orchestra.
How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use āyouā when it’s actually āmeā?
I almost always write in first person, or so I think.
Photo credit: Larry Niehues
