NewSong Contest Finalist Q&A: Boris McCutcheon
October 16th, 2013
This is a truly inspiring and insightful interview from NewSong Contest finalist
Boris McCutcheon. We are honored to have Boris as a part of the contest and look forward to all of the finalists performing on October 19th at
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in NYC.
1. From reading your bio, it is clear that you draw a significant amount of your songwriting inspiration from the landscape that surrounds your home in New Mexico, and from your experiences throughout the US. What is it about natural beauty that drives you to write music?
Deep connection to the woods is something that has always saved me when I was angry or felt like an outcast, which was a lot in my childhood. Sometimes I am more sensitive to the changes of the seasons and to the voice of the land. This latest album was inspired by a very intense fall in New Mexico from a rush of impending upheaval in my off-the-grid existence. There were underpinnings happening in my life and maybe I was also reacting to a force that was coming to me directly from the earth itself. It always runs the risk of sounding cheesy, but it is true and my music is written by it sometimes. It writes itself. I just try to capture it.
2. How would you describe your experience as a NewSong Contest Regional Finalist? What similarities and connections, if any, did you find between your music and the music of other artists in your region? To other finalists who will join you at the finals in New York in October?
I am touched and honored to have been selected. In New Mexico, I have been praised and shown support for this accomplishment. Folks have expressed their excitement and relief that my songs might possibly reach a greater audience in the States. Someone even went as far as to write a magazine article about my music going to New York as a mystical earth prophecy. To be honest I have been too busy to even check the other finalists out. I will try and make sure that I do.
3. You started out as a poet but then switched to songwriting – what was that transition like? It seem they would be very connected. What are the similarities you see? Differences?
I discovered in high school that I could express myself well with poetry. A woman came to the school and did a workshop and I was blown away by her. I wrote endlessly for that entire year and then became the poetry editor for our high school literary magazine. I was pretty cocky and thought myself a lot better than I actually was. However, this false sense of confidence got me into College in Vermont and then later into University of California at Santa Cruz. I could not keep up with the workload and found myself more and more creating songs from my poetry. It took me a long time to understand how to write a good song and how more disciplined the process can be than a stream of consciousness outpouring. I also discovered I could reach more people with song.
4. Lincoln Center is widely renowned as one of the world’s greatest venues for the performing arts. With the NewSong Contest live performance finals taking place on Oct 19th, what does the opportunity to perform at Lincoln Center mean to you?
Thank God I had the sense this time to invite Salt Lick member Susan Holmes on upright bass. I wanted to take her last time but I was too broke and was having a second baby with my wife Laura. (Hectic wonderful times.) Looking back I was so damn nervous to be playing first I did not play as well as I should have. Once again, I am pleased as can be and proud to perform some good songs with the bonus of bringing one of the finest bass players in the Southwest. What can I say? It’s about damn time we played there. I will enjoy it and tell my children about it. I am lucky and honored and feel like I have a mission of some kind not yet revealed altogether.
