Music Mp3s And An Interview With Neil Robins of Dirt Poor Robins, by Scott Slucher

Anyone familar with our latest two CD’s, Advent Songs and Before the Throne, has witnessed the stylings and virtuosity of Astonish Entertainment recording artist Dirt Poor Robins (check out their website from our Helpful Links section).  The band consists of the husband and wife team of Neil and Kate Robins (they bring in other musicians on the road), who also are a part of Sojourn’s worship team.

They contributed “Evergreen” to Before the Throne, writing, performing and mixing it in their studio.  They also wrote “Amen, Amen” for Advent Songs, and performed their version of “What Child Is This?” on the disc.  In addition, Neil acted as co-producer and multi-instrumentalist on Advent Songs, as well as playing a number of instruments  and handling the mixing on Before the Throne.

Hear Neil and Kate Robins’ “Evergreenâ€? from Before The Throne

Scott Slucher recently sat down with Neil to talk about the band, on the eve of the worldwide release of their new CD, The Cage (including digital download through iTunes).  Here is the first of three installments of this interview.  We will publish the rest, complete with more mp3 music samples, this week here at sojournmusic.com (subscribe to our RSS feed to receive an email notification as soon as these and other new articles appear on this site).  And now, we join Scott and Neil:

Sojourn Music:  I’ve listened to The Cage a couple of times all the way through, and though it’s rich with spiritual themes, it doesn’t seem like an overtly “Christian” album.  Would you agree with that statement?

Neil Robins:  A person’s art is going to reflect their beliefs, otherwise, what’s driving you to do it outside of maybe winning friends and fans?  If we’re going to write from our heart, it’s going to involve our core ideals and morals and ethics.  So, it’s not a typical Christian album in the sense that I don’t think someone’s going to accuse us of proselytizing or taking advantage of the emotion of the music to win someone over to what we’re thinking.  It’s just in the song. 

SM:  Who do you envision as the audience for The Cage?

NR:  Good question.  I think that someone who is a fan of music, who likes to go a lot of different places with their music.  We’re not really nailing a genre down, necessarily, or a target audience.  It’s more of a personality type, I think, who would like our music.  Kate and I both love the theatrical and cinematic side of music - where it goes big and it goes small, it can get very emotional and can pull back and go sarcastic.  So, it’s someone who can appreciate that thing.  It’s someone who is not a casual listener, but likes to dig into the music and dig into the lyrics and explore why we put what we did where.  I think our fan is that kind of person.  It’s a personality type, more than it is 18-25 year old males or something.

SM:  What is it about theatrical music that attracts and influences you and Kate?

NR:  It probably has a lot to do with our background.  We both grew up doing theatrical productions, and that’s how we met.  We both were cast as the leads in a musical.  I think that’s been a big part of it.  We have a distaste for music where it doesn’t sound like someone’s connecting with the words they’re singing.  I want to know what that person’s feeling when they’re singing it.  As far as I’m concerned, that’s also theatrical.  I like to hear people moved by the music they’re playing.

SM:  Where did you record The Cage?

NR:  Mostly at our home, and a little bit in Portland, Oregon, and a little bit in Oklahoma City.  It’s been well moved around.  Some of the songs were written on the East Coast, so it’s a multi-coast album.

SM:  Walk me through the structure of the album. 

NR:  I personally wrote a lot of songs from my duality, in the sense that there’s a voice in me that’s second guessing or trying to push (me) away from what (I’m) supposed to be doing.  I really am drawn to writing songs from that conversation point that happens inside, from the side that’s pushing you the wrong way or trying to get you to judge or trying to get you to be weak and cave, to the part of me that really wants to be the best person I can be and do the right thing.  We were writing a lot of songs like this and realized they sort of fit into a format.  And the format we thought of right away was a side show - a carnival side show.  The head show is called a ten-in-one-show.  Those were ten freaks or geeks, someone who could do something crazy with their body.  They would take those people and put them on display because of their oddities.  And we thought, what a great idea it would be, because we’ve written all these songs about the oddities inside of us - like our defense mechanisms we’ve built up to protect ourselves from fear, or from being lonely.  And from that concept we’d have a side show where basically, the Devil was putting these people on display so that you could judge them and (you) think you’re better and be stuck in the same box yourself. 

There’s a character who deals with addictions, a character who deals with vanity, a character who deals with inauthenticity and a character who deals with the desires of fame. And all these different things that are being put on display, we see all the time on television and in our own lives.  We thought that was a fun way to frame an album because these songs fit together like that. 

The album opens up with a character called the Grind Pitcher, and the Grind Pitcher is someone who would sit out and bark in front of the tent and try to get people to come in.  And we used this Beatles song for that because…

SM:  “Eleanor Rigby?”

NR:  Yeah.  We thought a fun way to frame this would be to take something familiar yet also descriptive of what was happening behind the tent.  So, it’s these lonely people who are, in their defense mechanisms, being put on display as if they’re freaks.  And meanwhile, in the subtext of the story, the Grind Pitcher doesn’t want people to be free of this.  He doesn’t have a show if people aren’t experiencing these defense mechanisms.  He doesn’t have something he can draw from.  And there’s one of the characters who eventually comes along in the story who’s been there and been on the other side of it and is trying to pull the characters from that.  And so that’s basically the plot and conflict of the album. 

Hear the Dirt Poor Robins cover of “Eleanor Rigbyâ€? from The Cage

SM:  Is there an emotional or spiritual arc to the story - going from dark to light, lost to found?  It seems that the songs at the back end are more hopeful.

STAY TUNED FOR THE CONTINUATION OF THIS INTERVIEW AND MORE FREE MP3 SAMPLES