The Nautilus Studio M31 Files interview singer-songwriter Mark Gibson

Studio owners Yves LF Giraud (Studio M31) and Mr Bill (Nautilus Studio) interview singer-songwriter Mark Gibson.

More on Mark here:
https://themarkgibson.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Alright, well, welcome to uh the Notada Studio M31 Files. And today in the studio, my guest is Mark Gibson. How are you doing, Mark? Doing great. Thanks for coming, man. Thanks for having me. Glad to be here. You're welcome. You're welcome. So, Mark, uh, can you tell us where you're from? I grew up in a little town called Stone Mountain, Georgia, right outside of Atlanta. Okay. Okay. And how did you end up in Colorado?

SPEAKER_01 0:54

I grew up in Stone Mountain. I was there until 1985 when I went off to college in Athens, Georgia. Okay. Was there from 85 to 89. Worked for a couple of years, ended up going to law school in Alabama.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

Um what made you go to law school? What was the um bad judgment?

SPEAKER_01 1:13

How long did uh did you uh stay in law school for? I was in law school for three years, then I worked for a year at the Supreme Court of Alabama clerking for a judge.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Uh then I went back and did a master's in tax law because I hadn't had enough um Mariah of the punishment yet. And um then ended up back in Alabama in Montgomery for about eight years practicing and then moved to Birmingham and practiced there until 2018 and then moved out to the Vale Valley up in the middle of Colorado. When made you move there? Did you know the area? Do you know somebody or found a good deal on a property to flip? Oh thought I was gonna stay up there, and then right before the pandemic I had started looking for another property and um ended up down here in Cortez, and the week that the pandemic started, I I moved into a a place in Cortez. And um wasn't really planning on staying for sure. Didn't know what was gonna happen. Didn't know the pandemic was gonna happen. I was actually driving to a gig and I was in on my way to Pawnee to play a gig and um the owners of the venue called and said, Hey, the governor just said we have to stop everything today. So I turned around in Montrose and came home.

SPEAKER_02 2:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

I've been here ever since. I met all the the musicians that were down here in the the community, and I'm not sure you could drag me out of here yet.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

What uh if any event or what made you uh interested in music? And at what age if you remember.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

I think I was always interested in music um from the time I was you know really young. Um loved country music radio when I was uh you know some of my earliest memories were riding around in the back of my parents' car with WPLO, the uh 590 uh on the AM dial in Atlanta. I still remember the uh the dial numbers and everything, you know all the you know the early Wayland and Willie, the um you know Myrtle Haggard, Crystal Gale, you know, all that stuff. And then and then when the Trucker songs came along, I think that's where my true love of uh storytelling was all the the CB and Trucker songs that came along in the 70s. Oh, okay. Um I didn't really realize that until later I looked back and it's like, you know, everybody always talks about I like to tell stories in my songs apparently more than I realize.

SPEAKER_02 3:47

Um you're a storyteller, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Yeah, and I never I just always just you know just trying to get the angst out. Um, you know, deal with myself. Um I started playing saxophone in I guess when I was in fourth grade in the the elementary school band.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Was it as Joe's or parents? Yeah, no, I was I chose that. Um was never a great horn player. I wish I had been a better horn player. Um played that and through you know, stayed in the band through like eighth or ninth grade.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

And then other activities took up, you know, time and kind of put the horn down, and then along about tenth or eleventh grade in high school, um had a youth minister at the church gave me a guitar and wanted me to help play guitar and lead the the you know, trying to get me involved, so taught me how to play the G, the C and the D and go with that. Go with that. And from there it was uh a Bob Dylan song, you know, the the first Bob Dylan greatest hit songbook and reading those chords and teaching myself from there and then it was on.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

Alright, alright. Did you uh anybody in your family, maybe uh your parents uh in into music uh or a musician themselves at all?

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Yeah, dad had played um had played the horn in high school and in the college band. Uh my grandmother was a great pianist um and singer. Um sang in the Baptist Church choir for I think it she died in 96, and I think they found church records that showed she had been in the Baptist Church choir there for over 78 years or something. Something just insane.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Um that's a life in itself, right there.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

You know, my my parents listened to it a ton of music. There was always a lot of music around. They took me to see a lot of music. Um they took all the kids in the neighborhood to to see Elton John on the Louder Than a Concord but not quite as pretty tour. I think that was 74, 75. Um loaded up all the kids in the neighborhood to take us to see the first Wayland and Willie tour in Atlanta. Um yeah, there was always a lot of music around there that certainly shaped it.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Yeah, I'm assuming it was.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

And then I had an uncle that was eighteen years younger than my mom, who was more like an older brother who you know anything that he was into, I clomped onto as fast as I could, and that's where I fell into the Allman brothers, and the Leonard Skannard and the Marshall Tucker and Southern Rock a little bit more. A lot of the Southern Rock stuff.

SPEAKER_02 6:20

What made you get to the the realization you wanted to be a songwriter?

SPEAKER_01 6:32

You know, I'm sitting here trying to think of it. I I think it was somewhere when I was probably my my freshman year in college, and um I was getting proficient enough at the three chords that I could make up my own little melodies, and then just all of a sudden I just remember writing songs from then on, you know, not very efficiently or proficiently, but occasionally they would pop out. Um did you already add that that that slight gravel on your no, not at all. Um that's you know, twenty-eight years of cigarette smoking drinking like a lawyer that uh that added that. Right, right, right. So yeah, which I think it had to happen. I don't think it would have, you know, I don't think my songs would be what they are without the gravel.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

No, no, you need that, man. That was one of the first things that grabbed me about you, but um we met through through mics and things like that. How how do you feel about this area? How do you What are your thoughts on on the people, the musicians? Both both sides, the the the audience as well as the I've been in a lot of places.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

I'm not sure I've ever seen a place that the the musical community is so open. Um you know such a great group of musicians and and people, you know, they're better people than they are musicians, and they're great musicians. But the audience here, I mean the the cra the community here is so supportive. Um you know, we've got great venues that support folks. And the audience that comes out. I mean it's uh you look at something like the the open mic you do over at Mankus, and you know, rarely do you see an open mic that has uh a dedicated audience of uh audience. You know, you you usually have a dedicated section of performers that show up to one.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

You know, they show up all the time, but uh there's a dedicated audience that's always there in the community that's around that is just fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 8:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

You don't get that in a lot of places.

SPEAKER_02 8:33

Um historic recording and albums and songs songwriting, you have several albums. I did. Can you tell me when and what your first one was?

SPEAKER_01 8:45

I think it was about 2009. I did an album um back in Birmingham called Monroe and the Broken Saucers. Um that's when I was still practicing law, um full time. And I just I was had started to write songs pretty uh pretty methodically and um just to try and stay sane if I could. Um didn't work, but uh you know, it got me started on you know really writing songs in earnest. Um it's not a bad collection of songs. There's there's a couple on there that I still still play out.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

I would say that the first the first time like this must have something special about it in a way, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:29

There was, and there were some great players that were on that record. I mean there were some great players in Birmingham that have gone on to do really fantastic things. And um it was I it was uh I look back on that as one of the greatest educational experiences I've ever had, because I didn't know how records were like to do that.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. So did you did you uh did you know somebody who had a studio? Yeah, I knew some folks who had a studio and um a good friend of mine was uh a a pretty good producer and so that was 2009, and how many albums have you done uh altogether?

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Let's see, so I did that and then in um seems like it was around 2001 or 16 did an EP uh called Almost Live at the Psychedelic Shack. Um that was when we had had a studio at at the house at that point that we were working for some other folks, and uh the guy who had had the first studio had moved it into I had a house in Birmingham that had a lot of extra space in it. So I moved it in. Yeah. So he was using the back half of that house as a studio and um kind of to to test run the studio, we made it just an EP. It was was a lot of fun. Um and I think I still do everything off of that record. Oh except for the one novelty Christmas song that was on there. It doesn't get done. But um You said it was almost live at The Psychedelic Shack, which was the name of the studio that was the name of the Well, it was actually just a big old fiberglass sign we had found that um had been a gift from some people who had found it. Um that used to be the the head shop in one of the little suburbs of Birmingham back in the 70s. Okay, yeah. And they had ended up with this big sign that just says psychedelic shack, and it hung over the the fireplace in the studio. In the studio, yeah. Very cool. It still hangs in my house today here. Yeah, it wasn't like that. Yeah, it's um so what was after that? So then you were still in Alabama. I was still in Alabama, and then I moved in twenty eighteen out to to Eagle um and didn't do it. In twenty twenty one I did uh the Hosea's hand record.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

That um that's the one that has the bus on the cover of it. That's the one I'm used to listening to.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Cool. And so um now let me ask you about the future. Uh any anything, any project, anything you you're looking at doing right now, or we just released this project that Sarah Clanton and I also recorded it um up in Animal Lane and Wells uh the Junk Party Record.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Okay, which was a collection of women's rights songs that we did with guitar and cello. Yeah. Which is you know a whole new budding category of guitar and cello folk music. Exactly. It's uh it's gonna be the big thing. I'm convinced. This is gonna be it. This is it, folks. You heard it here first. Um don't have any any firm plans to record anything right now. I've got a bunch of material that's probably getting close to ready to be done.

SPEAKER_02 12:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Um maybe in the winter. Maybe a good winter.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

I I Hey, we can always start too. We have two studios here. Uh Mark, you brought a guitar and I would love for you to do a song for us um by yourself right here.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

So uh be glad to.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Awesome. And do you know what you'd like to play?

SPEAKER_01 13:03

No, but while I get the guitar, I'm gonna think about it. Okay, and then and then you all tell us. That sounds perfect. Sounds good. This is one I wrote up at Wounded Knee a few years back. It's called Saint Desmas. I saw Jesus on a sail rack down in Walmart today. Was on a flag-covered t-shirt, he was kneeled down to pray. It's 895, I guess. To be sure when they die, if the soul would be saved, and my cousin Johnny and we played high school ball. And when the towers came down, he signed up for the cause. He was fighting for his freedom with your ball to both of his legs and his buddy named one. So Johnny came home in the back of the plane with a flag of the box two pills for the pay. She was down at the wall greens. Commerce in Trinity Street. Ratside on the wall, Johnny's free painted in red. I guess Jesus can be saved when there's profits at risk. So Johnny died in the alley, back behind the A. Against a crumbling wall with a hole in his face. Fight with those demons we all employ. It belongs to the Lord. Won't you come down, won't you say the same as? You're the only one that is for certain. Make it up to paradise. So many times it saves. Like the truth is still to die. So won't you come down and save the same business? Seems like the old roost has done die. Yeah, I saw Jesus on a sail rack down at the Walmart. Today Awesome, man.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

That was beautiful. Well, thanks. Um so another question for you. Um, in terms of finding you, uh, do you have do you have a website? I do, themarkgipson.com. The T-H-E. Sorry, Mark Gibson. This is the real one.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Except no substitute.

SPEAKER_02 17:23

Yeah. So themarkgibbson.com. Very easy to remember, that's perfect. So, Mark, thank you so much for being here, man. I've got to watch you and we'll have you back for sure. I'll look forward to it. Uh thank you. Awesome. Well, Mark Gibson, everyone, and please follow him. Uh, and and one quick question, uh, I just realized you are on uh different platforms on the internet, Mr. I think I'm on it.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Mark Monroe Gibson is on all those platforms wherever you find that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 17:54

Yeah, yeah, Apple Music, all that stuff, just Spotify, whatever, yeah, all those things. Um look him up. Oh man. Appreciate you, brother. Appreciate you. We'll see you again.