Levi Fuller

Levi Fuller started playing music in the 6th grade.  With the saxaphone.  Now he plays with The Library, and has his own audio quarterly, Ball of Wax.


Chief Magazine: Where'd you grow up?

Levi Fuller: I grew up in Somerville, MA, just next to Cambridge and Boston.

You went to school in Boston, right?

Yeah, I went to Massachusetts College of Art, and lived in the Boston area until moving out here in 2001 with my then girlfriend/now wife Meghan - a year after I finished school.

And did you take music or art there?

It's a visual arts school.  My incredibly useful degree is a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture.

Nice. I guess that really helps with... uh... well, I'm sure it helps...

...yeah.

So you were playing music before then?

Yes, I started playing music in sixth grade, when I took up the saxophone.  I played in the jazz ensemble in high school, and did think about going to music school, but I had the feeling it would ruin music for me.  After high school I started playing bass and guitar and playing in bands and stuff like that.

Wow. Sax, huh? Based on what I've heard I can't picture you belting out sax riffs. Do you still play?

I haven't picked it up since I recorded one line for my first album - that would've been some time in early 2003.

Your new CD is all songs about crows. Why did you decide on that concept and what is your writing process like?

The crows idea just sort of came to me as a cool idea to get me writing lyrics.  Rather than come up with topics and lyrics for nine songs, I had the topic part taken care of, and could go from there.  It can be hard for me to write lyrics some times, it took a while before I was pretty comfortable with it.  So I would give myself assignments to get the ol' juices flowing. This wasn't one of those assignments per se, but it probably came from the same place.

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Are you comfortable writing lyrics now?

I am more comfortable with it now, but I still usually have to make myself do it.  I've been slacking lately.  At first when I was writing lyrics I would just mash them into a pre-existing musical piece...  these days I more often write lyrics and music together, but not always.

You seem to be a pretty nontraditional writer, do you ever write about love?

Sure, some times.  More often I write about things outside of my direct experience, though; I find it more interesting.  But yeah, I've written a couple love songs. "As the Crow Flies" is one,  and "Tractor Beams of Love," on my first album. Actually "Seaplanes," on the new Ball of Wax - part of it is in the 2nd person to my wife Meghan. I would like to be able to write a good, interesting love song, though.

I find with a lot of songwriters a big fight is just being able to feel like they have something to say,  questioning why anybody would even want to listen. Do you consider that?

Oh, yes indeed.  But then I console myself with the fact that no one will hear it anyway. (rim shot).

Yeah, the classic "if you weren't you, would you listen to you?" question.

Oh, my God, that question haunts me.  I often think the answer is no, to be completely honest.  I'm too picky about voices to like my own.  If I weren't me I would probably listen to the instrumental stuff I do, though.

How many different bands have you been in?

Let's see . . . as far as bands that have actually played real shows and made some sort of effort to be a band, I would say probably eight or nine?  Counting my own band, of course.  And two or three of those were as a sax player.

Oh, shit. Wow. Okay, so eight or nine total. Do you prefer playing in a band or alone?

It's hard to compare the two.  I guess I could live without ever playing solo, but I would rather not live without being in some form of band.  I really enjoy both. Sometimes I like just being able to do my own thing and not worry about what's going on with other folks, but I do love the feeling of really locking in with a group of people, and also I love to ROCK...from time to time.

So I guess you're really into the live experience then... I know some people are more into just staying home and writing and recording alone. You really enjoy the interaction with other musicians?

Well, I really like the staying home and recording bit as well.  To tell you the truth, I would probably be fine with mostly staying home and recording, and maybe playing one show a year, but yes, I do enjoy the interaction, both with other musicians and with people at shows--every once in a while I play to people besides the other
musicians there.

Right. That always sucks. Having no one show up but you and the other bands... That's definitely happened to me before.

My first solo show ever was at a coffee shop near Tacoma, Washington and I played to the girl working there, a friend who had come down with me, and our girlfriends.  And the girl working there charged me for tea!

Nice. I've soooo been there before.

Yup.  I really wonder why we do it sometimes...

So tell me about your recent tour.

Well, with airfares being what they are, I've decided I'd much rather take several days, go down to upper-middle California, play a few shows, and go home, rather than drive for hours and hours and days and days and maybe play a couple more shows but want to kill myself in the end.

That's really a great way to do it. Where'd you hit?

I flew into Sacramento, played on a radio station in Davis, then at a venue in Sacramento, then got a ride to San Francisco, played at the Hotel Utah there, hung out in San Francisco for a few days then headed down to Stanford to play on the radio there. I played at a really cool cafe in Santa Cruz then flew home from there.

So it was a mini-tour. Did you get a good response from those shows?

Well, I got a nice response from the people I talked to, but I have to be honest... I don't know how to get people to buy CDs!  I sold a handful of my audio quarterly, Ball of Wax, but not a single copy of my album. Granted, a handful of folks in San Francisco already had it, but still . . . it was a little dispiriting. And I keep forgetting to push my t-shirts.

Yeah, I can't think of anything more disheartening than bringing a crap load of CDs and t-shirts and not getting rid of them. Mostly because then you have to lug them home again.

Yup. But what're you gonna do?  I keep hoping one of these days I'm going to check my CD Baby account and find 1000 people have bought my CD on emusic or whatever, but... I'm not holding my breath.

I'm finding that it's an epidemic lately. People just don't buy CDs anymore. Even I've become so "now, now, now" that I just download everything when i want it. It's nuts. Music, movies, TV shows, it's all instantly there for us without having to pay for it. And yet, where do we go from here? how does an artist get their stuff out there AND make a living in the process?

If an artist I love puts out a new album, I'll totally buy it.  I'm into objects, you know?  I just bought the new Califone, and it's gorgeous.

Let's talk about your audio quarterly, Ball of Wax. You're working on volume #7 now, so obviously you have artists submitting work, but how do you put it together? Is it like assembling a mix tape where you go for a certain theme or do you listen to everything submitted and wait for the theme to hit you?

Except for Vol. 4, the covers volume, and the upcoming instrumental volume, there's never a preexisting theme.  I take what I really dig from the submissions I've gotten and then try and get the best sequential flow possible.

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Do you have a mission statement?

I don't believe in mission statements.

Well, don't you think the CDs and their subsequent release party's have ignited a definite sense of community in the Seattle music scene?

I think it's too soon to say one way or another, but I'm glad you think so.

What i'm saying is, you didn't plan to have such an effect on the music scene, you just wanted--like all other selfish artists--to get your music heard, but you ended up creating a link between artists that I'm not sure was there previously.

I think you're giving me more credit than is due, but thanks!

Well, there are definitely some amazing songwriters and bands I never would never have had the chance to hear or meet if Ball of Wax did not exist.

Well, there you go.  No mission statement necessary.

Great. I guess I'm your damn mission statement...

"Hi, I'd like to introduce you to Michael; he's my mission statement."

Thanks...

By the way, I went to look at the Chief Magazine website when I was at work, and that shit is NSFW!  I had to "Control W" real fast.

What's NSFW?

Not Safe For Work.

Oh, shit. Hell no, it's not safe for work. Depending on where you work... So the next Ball of Wax installment will be a DVD featuring videos instead of music. What spurned that?

Funny you should ask... My friend Louis from The Graze is coming over shortly to work with me on it and it was actually his idea, I think partly from him having seen the lovely video my friend Charlie Potter made for my song "As the Crow Flies."

So do you make videos or you just saw the potential and wanted to highlight area filmmakers?

No, I don't really do video now.  I have, in the past - in school I took a short film class, and did Final Cut Pro, and what not, but I just don't have the time or money or will these days. What inspired DVD of Wax was sort of the same thing that inspired the original Ball of Wax only as applied to video: There are so many cool videos floating around on youtube or whatever, people have gotten used to watching them on the Internet, but a lot of them aren't getting out there in any format that people can watch on a bigger screen and get into them. We just thought it would be cool to put together a Ball of Wax video compilation and get together in the winter and have a screening.  So that's what we're doing, and it's going to be pretty fucking sweet.

Have you gotten a lot of submissions?

A pretty good number... at least a dozen or so, and there are still a few late entries coming in--ahem!

Not to be morbid but if you died tomorrow what would you have people think about you? Or your music?

That's probably another question that haunts me...  Obviously I would want to be thought well of, both as a person and as a musician.  I think the former is more important, though...  I can't deny it wouldn't be cool to have a huge posthumous resurgence of interest in my music, a la Nick Drake. But hey, I'd be dead, and I wouldn't know about it anyway.

After you die, because of your recordings and other endeavors, probably more people will know of Levi Fuller: the Musician than of Levi Fuller: the Person.

Well, here's hopin'.

Downloads

06 Mouse on Fire.mp3

Website

www.ballofwax.org
www.denimclature.com

Video

"As The Crow Files"

Photos

Hayley Young

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