Doubtful Sound is the solo project of Michael Thigpen. He plays acoustic folk rock/pop and last night he kicked off his UK tour with a show at a small local venue called The Speedtrap. The place was packed with family, friends, and even some people just passing by who happened to like the music. With just his voice and his mandolin, or ‘Mandy Lynn’ as he called her, Michael captivated the entire audience with his energetic performance. At one point he even unplugged and went to sit on a table right in the middle of the audience. I was given the opportunity to interview him about his music, performances and his upcoming tour of the UK.
How did you first get into playing music?
Oh my goodness, I don’t even remember. I think I was eleven or twelve years old and my dad wanted to play guitar. He was like ‘I wanna play guitar’ so we got him one for fathers day. We got him like a $100 pawn shop one and we had this computer program, and he and I both just kind of picked it up at the same time and about six months later he quit and I just kept going with it. I still have that guitar, the nice red pawn shop guitar and I was playing that at shows for the longest time but then people were like ‘Dude, get something better’ so I did and it just kept evolving from there. I started playing in churches and things like that because that was an opportunity where I could just go play in front of people, which is really what you need to do. I played with little worship and church bands and things like that. It’s not initially what I wanted, but it was just a way to work in. I started working on electric guitar and taking guitar lessons and getting really into the metal stuff. It just kind of grew and evolved. I wanted more than anything to have a band and be able to do that. It just never happened and I was just getting so frustrated waiting, so I started writing music based more on the style that I could either do entirely by myself, and it’s a little limited to how much you can do, you can go the electronica route which I found out I wasn’t very good at, or you can go backwards, back in time and look in the folk direction, like where people come from. There’s that standard acoustic style that everyone thinks, like Ben Lee or whatever and I’m just not into that at all so I was just really looking for something I was into. When I started this, it was basically an Idea to try to find out what folk music is, because I really had no idea, and I still don’t really. I know a little bit where it comes from. But the more I look at it, I think it’s even more broad of a genre than pop or rock and roll because it had all the different stuff from all over the world. There’s a lot of history behind it too. You can always take something from somewhere and that’s the fun part about it.
So, you started on guitar, but what made you start playing on all of these other instruments?
Boredom. [laughs] I have a really short attention span, I always have, but I think that’s really helped me to do all of these different things. Kinda like ADD or whatever, my old boss when I was working at a bike shop was like ‘Dude, your mind’s not here, you’re going on all these different tangents.’ But I was just curious on how these different things work and how you approach things from different angles and things like that. I just kept playing guitar on just a normal acoustic. Eventually I got the resonator guitar, which has that steel body, just because I wanted something a little bit of a different. I was getting more and more bored and uninspired and I was just looking for a different direction to take. When you just pick up these instruments and just try and figure out how they play, you find so much more inspiration and you can have songs just come out because it’s a new and fresh approach. Really it’s like going to another country and starting over
What artists would you say have inspired you the most?
When I first got started playing music at like fourteen, it was all of the Christian rock and metal bands and things like that. P.O.D. was my favorite band all the way through middle school and high school. But when I started going more in this direction, I was really into Death Cab for Cutie and Coldplay and Explosions in the Sky at the time. I was watching an interview of Ben Gibbard where people were asking him what he listens to and he said ‘I’ve been listening to this Scottish band called Frightened Rabbit’ and I thought if this guy is listening to it, I mean it’s freakin’ Ben Gibbard, these guys must be good, so I checked them out and sure enough they completely blew my mind. My mind was completely changed at that point. They had that perfect meshing of that Scottish folk and pop sound at the same time that they were an indie rock band in every essence but they have so much Scottish background. Not quite like Flogging Molly, like you might think of that, but it’s just this really intense Scottish voice with this thick, heavy accent. It’s just a beautiful thing and from there I just discovered so many bands because of it like Bon Iver, and Mumford and Sons of course, Johnny Flame, Paleo, and it’s just been a blast. That’s part of the fun and what inspires me, just discovering new music, finding new influences. Things that you can take in that will at some point or another come out in your songs.
With all of the different elements of your music pulled from so many genres, how would you categorize your music?
I’ve been trying to figure that out for the longest time. And I’ve known that from the beginning, like I said, I’ve been trying to figure out what folk music is and things even if that doesn’t necessarily mean doing folk music myself. I mean, I describe it as folk pop just because that’s probably as broad and vague as you can get. You can play pretty much anything and it could still maybe sort of fit in there. I ask so many other bands that. Like, I saw Mimicking Birds at the Black Sheep and asked them ‘Well, what genre are you guys?’ and they were stoned out of their mind or something they were just like ‘I don’t know. Just whateverrrr...’ [laughs] It’s about writing whatever the heck you want to write, you know what I mean?
So, you mentioned that you were only taking your mandolin on your next tour for traveling purposes. How did you go about simplifying all of your songs down to the point that it was just you and your mandolin?
Well, a lot of it was just having to think about it this past semester, because I started just playing this and toying with the idea of trying to book shows in England and around January, I was just like ‘Well, what if I only brought my mandolin? That would be so much easier to carry around.’ And, you know, you’ve been to Europe and things like that, you always wish you had brought less and packed less. I was already planning around January so I just really started to strip down my sets and work on them from a total basic level. I play solo and I have for a while. I’ve played with other musicians and bands and things like that, but I’d always tend to bring more, and I’ve actually just started getting lazy, like, before I would have this big mix station, and two other guitars in addition to my resonator and my mandolin, and my big Marshall amp and everything like that and occasionally you just get lazy, like ‘I don’t want to bring all that.’ So I wanted to do something a little basic so I started doing all my sets from January until now, I do about one show a month is what I usually do, just trying to strip them down and think from a ground level, which has been very liberating actually. It’s a lot less of a hassle to get all the instruments to gigs and things like that. It was just forcing me to think what can I do, what should I do with just these very basic two instruments right here. Now it’s even more basic than that. I normally had a guitar with me too and what you heard last night was even more basic than that. It just really forced me to get to know an instrument, like a particular person, you know, like one girl instead of a bunch of different girls more shallow. Once I get back from the UK though I plan on bringing all of the other stuff back. I think it will be a little more fresh because I decided to work for a base for a while.
After hearing your song Somebody Else about wishing you were born in another country I bet you’re pretty excited about this tour you’re going on.
Oh my gosh, I’m so excited about it. This was my last semester of college, I just graduated from UCCS, which I’m glad to be done with. The entire time I was like ‘I don’t want to be doing bio-chem right now, I want to be in England!’ It was good motivation too though like ‘Dude, it’s almost over, just one more semester, study really hard, and you’re about to leave the country. It’s all gonna work out.’ That song, It was actually written from sarcasm more than anything else but it was sort of taken from the idea, I don’t know if you’re familiar with C.S. Lewis, but he was saying that ‘If I can’t find a place for myself in this world, It’s because I was meant for another world.’ And that’s basically where the idea of wanting to be born in another country came from, but it’s about wanting to get out and travel really, because I do tend to feel like that sometimes, like ‘Why couldn’t I have been born here, it’s so much cooler than us’
So, I take it you have done a lot of traveling then?
I have.
Do you think all of the diversity of the music and cultures affected your sound or the way you write music?
I’d like to think so. It’s an eye opener all in all, no matter how you look at it. My parents took my brother and I to Italy when I was eight years old and that was really the first time we did an out of country thing. It was much more expensive than the way we go about it now, but ever since then we, I don’t know, I guess we’ve just gotten really hooked on it. I definitely think I try to get in the habit of writing songs when I’m in other countries because it’s just a totally different environment, so it will have a totally different personality to it. The very first song on the set [the night before], I wrote that on a little bit of down time in Costa Rica. It just kinda came out. I try to make it happen. I would love to model a little bit after Beirut and his style because that’s exactly what he did. He moved I think to France, but he just got all of his influence and it just came to him and his music sounds so worldly but so indie at the same time. So, I’d say I like to think so. That’s what I try for. Maybe it’s just that inspiration you get from traveling, just that feel of being away from home and everything like that. It’s an experience you never want to forget, so you can at least try to write about it, you know what I mean? I definitely think it’s been a big inspiration.
Now that you’ve graduated from college, do you think that you are going to try to do a lot more of this kind of a thing?
Absolutely. I was always planning on doing this until I died, you know what I mean? I figure I will always have time for it. Now that I’m done with college and everything I’m just trying to figure out what’s gonna happen next. Right now I’m filling out thousands it feels like of applications for jobs and for grad schools and things like that. I’m planning on going on professionally but I’ve never had trouble doing music and, like, school at the same time. I’m good at multi-tasking like that so nothing got stopped. But I plan on traveling and making music both until I die so I don’t see how that’s ever going to stop or ever going to change. Probably because I’m doing it right now and if I was to get out, like some people I know keep saying ‘Yeah, I’m gonna start booking more shows. I’ll get to it.’ and they keep saying they’ll get to it but they never do it. If you’re actually doing it, it gives you that idea that you’re going to do it more, and if you don’t drop the ball you will just keep momentum going and keep doing it. Once you have a little momentum it gets easier. I plan on doing many more tours after this. I really want to do Europe next because they are a lot easier on letting touring bands in without a work visa or anything.
At your show last night, you seemed to have a lot of fun in that really small venue with a bunch of family and friends around. Do you prefer that to a larger venue?
Absolutely. I don’t have much experience playing larger shows. The largest I’ve played at was the Black Sheep, and I played a decently packed show there, but something about it just feels more fun and intimate. I feel like since they know me a little better I can get away with a little more and just try to have fun. Which I try do do even when I don’t know anyone else, but at least with them I know I can get away with it instead of just guessing. I do still try to have as much fun even if I don’t know anyone else. But a venue like that is just the perfect size. Just the kind of people they bring in, being among friends who love you and care about you. It’s an interesting time of life so it’s good to have them there. Of course, my grad party was yesterday right before that so a lot of them just went over to The Speedtrap. It was just a great time. That is my favorite kind of show right there.
Is that the type of venue you are doing in the UK?
I’ll find out when I get there. I know the names of these places and I’ve seen pictures but that’s really all I know. Mainly just a lot of bars and things like that. A lot of these bars will have music club nights, like jam nights or whatever. One night I’m a featured guest at an open mic called Take the Stage at this place called The Basement in York which is kind of like a theatre but it’s a specific open mic. But they have me as a guest at a thing like that, and some other places that just have music like seven nights a week you don’t have to worry about drawing a crowd because there’s crowds there and things like that. I think The Basement’s going to be a little bit bigger and I think some will be about the same size. I honestly have no idea and that’s also what I’m excited about. That’s half the fun right there of not knowing what to expect when you go in like ‘Oh, well that was fun.’ Even if it goes totally, totally crappy, you can still brag about it.
Well that’s about everything. Do you have any closing comments you want to make? Like messages for fans or advice from your experience for aspiring musicians?
I’ll tell you the advice I’ve been told by musicians that I keep talking to because I try to ask that at every single show. In one way or another they’re just like ‘Dude, just keep pushing and practicing.” and all of that persistence will pay off eventually. This good friend of mine, his name’s Joe Ziegler, he plays in a band called Leftmore, and it’s exactly like this, just totally acoustic. He’s basically a wandering minstrel or nomad. That’s what he does for a career which is the coolest thing ever. He will be here for like a week or two and he’ll just be like ‘Hey, man, we should catch up.’ so I’ll go to his show at The Black Sheep or whatever and ask him where he’s going and it’s just ‘Oh, I’m going on tour again.’ That’s his full time job which I think is so cool. The thing he told me though was to rock out to the max at every single show because you never know who’s going to be in the audience and I just think that’s an incredible attitude to have. You don’t even have to rock out or go crazy or whatever, just every single show you have should be the most important show of your life. And just take it completely seriously. A couple of years ago I saw this band Paper Route, and they’ve done tours with Paramore since, so they’re doing pretty well, but at the time at The Black Sheep, there were like twenty people there and a local band opened for them who were just super awkward and shy, and I didn’t enjoy it because they weren’t enjoying themselves and you usually have to do that first. Then Paper Route came out and they played this show for four-hundred people for that twenty person crowd. It was actually incredible. That’s the part I take seriously. Play a four-hundred person show at every single show and make the most out of everything that you do because, like I said, you never know who’s going to be in that crowd. And I’ve talked to guys who are just like ‘Yeah, I don’t let the size of the crowd affect me anymore.’ I know people who have played shows for, like, one person, and you just have to give that one person a really special show, and that’s important to me. Just take it seriously like that and make the most of everything. Try not to get discouraged because people do. My bandmates did at the time. It was just a little too much for them. But this stuff pays off, and it’s all about living life, having fun, and making other people have fun.
Doubtful Sound will be writing new material and playing many more shows after the UK tour. Be sure to check out Doubtful Sound’s website at doubtfulsoundtunes.com. You can find tour dates, music, and even follow Michael’s tour in the UK on the ‘Tour Adventure’ page which he will be updating regularly.
~Duncan Mandeville
The Enemy
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