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More EJ
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Speaking of which, E.J. Wells, an artist I recently had the pleasure of listening to, found the inspiration for his album, 'Rhyolite', among the rocks and ghost towns of this ancient land; the rough canvas upon which so much of American history is written. Rhyolite is the name of a mineral deposit, which contained much of the gold found in the area from 1904 onwards. It is also the name of a ghost town that E.J. Wells found particularly inspiring, and from what I have heard of his album, he has also struck gold with the music, which resulted from his four-year sojourn, exploring the Nevada Desert.
It was his fascination with the period of American history known typically as 'the Wild West', which led him into the desert. I always think there is another side to anything, which we are drawn toward, and that is, what we wish to leave behind. E.J. had the twin demons of drug and alcohol dependency, following in his footsteps, a relentless posse, pursuing him through the desert. As so often happens in such a pursuit, they caught up with him, and E.J. had to struggle for many years before he overcame them. He admits that, 'Nevada did equal amounts of good for my song writing, and bad for my liver'. I'm glad to say, when I asked him about that particular heroic organ, he said 'never better. Haven't had a drink, for the best part of a decade.' ' To me, that in itself shows the same kind of grit, and determination, that enabled people to live in the hostile desert.
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I get the feeling that E.J. would not hold with any kind of romanticism of his personal struggle. I asked him about his fascination with the 'Wild West', wondering how much of his perspective on this period of American history had been coloured by the distorting lens of Hollywood. Is his view of the Wild West, that of fact or fiction? His reply was, 'fact, and it's a lot more grizzly than the movies would lead you to believe. Read Cormac McCarthy's 'Blood Meridian'. Now, anybody who has read this book knows that is a pretty emphatic answer. And as to the fascination he has with the Wild West, E.J. says, 'It's the only truly American myth there is. It's what we are as Americans'. I have to say, none of my friends, or colleagues are American, but it seems to me, E.J. is about as American as you can get. In reply to my question about if he considered himself to be an American, or a citizen of the world, his reply was unambiguous, but tinged with a dry humour,' I'm an American through and through. 100% Mid-Western. Spaghetti Midwestern.' Being so 'American' I wondered if it bothered him that America was getting such a bad press at the moment, because of the situation in Iraq. The answer to this was a resounding 'no' and he also doesn't 'think much of those who slam us either'.
I have to agree with E.J. here. People who 'slam' the 'Americans' are as misinformed as the people who viewed all the Native Americans as savages. Such generalisations are an admission of the grossest stupidity. There is good and bad everywhere; even though it could be argued that, just as gold was one of the things that drew the prospectors to the desert, and the oil, the black gold, is one of the things that brought about the conflict in Iraq, that it was not the intent of the American people. I think there is no doubt, about the motives of the overwhelming majority of the American people for peace and security throughout the world. The motives of some politicians, and the nature of politics, is another thing altogether. Sometimes it's not as bad as we fear, but sometimes, the truth is a lot darker than we can imagine.
E.J. is no stranger to the dark underbelly of life. His life has the makings of a film with grit under its fingernails. Drugs, drink, desert and death are all major players, signed up as a supporting cast for his life story. There would even be a scene in it where Mickey Rourke, who would be playing the role, turns up, after a series of rehabs, making a living as a hearse driver, living above the funeral home. E.J. recalled,' part of my job was to pick up the dearly departed from the P.O.D . I'd come wheeling my gurney into these nursing homes. Folks would look at me with fear and disdain. I was the grim reaper.' When he says, 'this was a particularly compelling time of my life,' he isn't joking. You don't get more compelling than the grim reaper. He also drove limousines for a while as well as a hearse. (What is it about black cars?) He also, painted houses, (black probably), became a QC/QA technician for the road construction industry. I've got this image in my head of him saying, 'yes the road is fine, but the asphalt is the wrong shade of black.' He had other jobs, just so I don't give you the wrong idea. He sold hydraulic hoses, worked at a few television stations and even put his own experience into good practice as a rehab counsellor. He was, in his own words 'scattered, but busy, damnit.'
It's the road, however, that brings us back to the desert. There is a highway that snakes through Nevada. Route 50 is a thirty-foot black asphalt belt that ties the past and the future together. It is often called the loneliest road in America, this route through Nevada. I asked E.J. if he would be travelling down this lonely road into the desert again to imbibe the spirit of the West? Did he feel the need, like a prospector, to mine deep within himself, amongst the tombstone towns and buttes, to be able to write songs like 'Blood Moon' and 'Build My Gallows High' (the title track of the album). The reply E.J. gave, indicates the depth of the connection he has with this period of history. He does not need to return to this wandering, because 'it'll always be there. It's in my blood, in my DNA'. The one question I saved until last was this.
Did he find what he was looking for, when he went into the embrace of the desert? He replied, 'what I found in the desert was the monster inside myself. I keep him locked in a golden cage, and he grumbles every time I rattle the keys'. Now, it's true that there are a lot of things to fear in a hostile environment, like a desert, but the scariest things are not the things we fear, but the things we hide. Desolate, empty places draw something out of us, almost as if the mind needs to fill them. Most people avoid those open, empty spaces where the tumbleweed of memory drifts past, just as they avoid the empty spaces on the inside. I'm glad that E.J. holds the key to the cage that locked away his monster, and unlocked the thirty or so songs that formed the core of his album Rhyolite.
There were other songs, which were not chronicled. I wonder if, on a night, when the wind stirs, and picks up a few grains of sand, and blows them over the grooves in the rocks, does it also carry the memory of the songs that were lost, from E.J., from the settlers, from the Shoshoni, from the howl of the coyote and the hooves of horses...
TO BUY THE ALBUM 'RHYOLITE' OR CONTACT E.J. WELLS GO TO
http://www.ejwells.net
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