Phosphorescent’s show at the Georgia Theatre Thursday is something of a homecoming for one-time Athens resident Matthew Houck. Having started the band here nearly a decade ago, the frontman is eager to return to the theater, a venue he hasn’t seen since it was rebuilt after a fire gutted it in 2009. “I gather that a lot has changed in the downtown area, so I am excited to see it,” Houck says.
When the conversation turns to the venue’s popular fifth floor, Houck is even more incredulous. “Wait a second: There are bands that play on a rooftop bar now?” he asks. “That’s… fucking awesome.”
Houck’s last phrase also accurately captures how most critics and listeners regarded Phosphorescent’s latest record, Muchacho. Released in March 2013, the album’s lush, chilled-out sonics garnered wide appeal, appealing to both country and indie rock crowds. Given the speed at which music falls in and out of the public’s interest, Muchacho‘s staying power—Houck continues to tour behind the album—and ability to garner praise across stylistic aisles is something to behold.
“I don’t understand why country music seems to fry people’s wires or something,” says Houck, who released a Willie Nelson covers album, For Willie, under the Phosphorescent moniker in 2009. “To me, it’s all just songs. I don’t see that much difference between a country song and, say, any other lyric-based song, no matter the genre.”
Regardless of where Muchacho winds up getting filed in the record store, its success remains fascinating for a number of other reasons, not the least of which is the fact that it has received little support from traditional radio.
“Commercial radio was never in the cards for Phosphorescent. I don’t really know what goes on with mainstream radio,” says Houck. Nevertheless, plays from satellite, college and public radio formats have helped propel Phosphorescent’s songs to wider audiences. “From my limited vantage point, it seems like all of those formats are alive and well,” says Houck of the channels that have helped support his record.
Houck says bringing a seven-piece band on the road has been crucial in replicating Muchacho for a live setting. Although he admits there has been a decent amount of turnover in the band’s lineup over the past few years, Houck seems content with its current iteration and its ability to play the new record with precision.
“We actually rehearsed,” Houck says with a laugh. “We rehearsed to capture the sound on the record… This was the first time I put together the band after the record was done in order to try to recreate the feel of the record, as opposed to letting whoever was there at the time to take it up and play. This is the band that was put together to make this record come to life in a live setting.”
The upheavals in Houck’s life that led to the writing and recording of Muchacho have been well publicized: drugs, too much booze, a painful break-up. Still, Houck says he doesn’t feel like he’s exposing his entire personal life on stage.
“Especially with the distance of a year [since Muchacho was released], I can look at these songs more objectively and just kind of appreciate them for what they are,” he says. “But a little bit of that kind of happens immediately. With the process of writing, by the time you record or perform them live, I don’t feel the vulnerability… I’m already past that point. Hopefully, if I’ve done my job right as an artist, the craft is the thing that is happening, as opposed to my personal stake in it.”
Even with upcoming dates supporting The National and Neil Young planned for later in the summer, Houck talks about his recent successes with humility, preferring instead to focus on what’s in store for Phosphorescent’s future.
“I’m looking forward to getting off the road later this year and just writing. I miss writing,” he says. “Well, I don’t even know if I miss it. You can just turn it off. But it’s just something you can’t do for a while [on the road], and it makes you hunger for it.”
Still, at the moment, Houck has Georgia—and more specifically, Athens—on his mind. “It’s been too long,” he says.
WHO: Phosphorescent, Courtney Barnett
WHERE: Georgia Theatre
WHEN: Thursday, June 12, 7 p.m.
HOW MUCH: $21
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