Thom Chacon is one of 24 artists featured on the compilation “Buy This Fracking Album,” released June 30 by Movement Music Records. The others include the late Pete Seeger, Bonnie Raitt, Michael Franti, John Butler Trio, Steve Earle, Indigo Girls and Natalie Merchant.
A California native, Chacon lives in Durango, working as a part-time fishing guide when not touring or playing. Many of his performances take place elsewhere, however. He has opened for Los Lonely Boys and Jason Mraz and has played shows across Europe, Thailand and India, and, in 2004, at the famed Folsom Prison.
Chacon, who is planning to record a new album this fall, spoke about his life as a singer/songwriter.
On some of the weird gigs he’s played over the years
There’s been many. I played a laundromat in San Francisco a long time ago. That was pretty sweet. I was in a band called Hollow Man in the early ’90s. We were an alternative-rock band. A buddy of mine from college, he was at his frat meeting, and they were talking about throwing a country/western-themed party in a barn. This guy went, ‘I know a band,’ probably wasn’t listening, and somehow they were like, OK, Bob, you book the band,’ and he called us, and we were like, ‘Sure…’ He didn’t tell us they were looking for a country/western band. And we were like Soundgarden at the time. So we show up in a barn, and all these college kids are dressed in cowboy shirts and boots, and there’s hay, and it’s a hoedown. We played, like, three songs or something like that, and the head frat guy was like, ‘Get ’em outta here.’ So they gave us 400 bucks to play three songs. That was pretty strange.
On the gigs he plays now
Twenty years ago, I would play any gig, any time. Now, I’m working so hard to write this three-minute story that unless people are listening, it’s not even worth it. It’s my fault if I get into a situation where no one’s listening. Either I haven’t captured the crowd, or I booked a gig or agreed to do a gig that was the wrong thing, like a noisy bar. And I don’t do those anymore because it’s not worth it to me. So, I try and do the house concerts. I try and do the tours like when I was touring with Los Lonely Boys as their opening act, we’d get to a 1,000-seat venue and I knew as soon as I walked in the back door of the theater, if it was seated down to the front row, I was like, “OK, I’ve got ’em if I do my job.” If there’s a big dance floor, a bar and then some seats in the balcony, it can be a nightmare for a songwriter who’s just showing up with an acoustic guitar. When (a theater is) seated, people walk in, they get a drink, they take their seat, someone comes out and introduces the opener, the lights go down, it’s almost like it’s theater at that point. You can hear a pin drop.
On opening/touring/bus-driving for the all-girl Led Zeppelin tribute band Lez Zeppelin
Talk about getting thrown to the wolves. I remember showing up in Detroit. People are there to hear “Black Dog.” They’re there to party. They want to live out all their Led Zeppelin dreams because they never got to see them. They were selling out 500-seat venues, and a guy with an acoustic guitar walks out?
On being a fishing guide and a working musician
It’s a total conflict. It’s awful, I’m telling you. Musicians want to tour in the summer. People want to go see shows in the summer. Not exclusively, but everyone I know in the business is out on the road right now. If I take a week off of guiding, it’s like someone with a regular job taking a month or two months because I make all my money between June 1st and October 31st. We’ll do a nine-day stretch, two days off, 15-day stretch, one day off, another three, one day off, 15 in a row. It’s like ranching: You gotta make hay while the sun shines. I still pick up my guitar every day and play a song or two. I might not be writing anything right now. But it might be Aug. 20th and I have a day off and bark a song out, just because it’s right here, ready to come out. I call it my gathering period. That might be months. But then I’ve got pages and pages and pages and pages. I’m not saying any of it’s going to be worth a damn, but there it is.
On writing songs from someone else’s perspective
Write what you know – that’s one of the first rules of songwriting. That evolved for me to write not only what you know, but what keeps you up at night and what you care about. I just wrote a song about the drought in California. I’ve talked to ranchers. I know some of them. I grew up in Sacramento. I’ve seen the signs on the side of the road when you’re driving up I-5: “No food, no water, no jobs.” To me, I pay attention to those things, and I got bored writing about myself. It wasn’t interesting. Everyone else was so interesting. It didn’t have to be an astronaut; it could be a guy working at the 7-11 in Pennsylvania. It didn’t matter to me.
On whom he doesn’t want to meet in the music business
I’m of the mind that I don’t want to meet any of my heroes, just in case I have a bad experience, (like) if they’re in a bad mood or get up on the wrong side of the bed. So I never want to meet Kris Kristofferson or Bob Dylan or Smokey Robinson. I don’t ever want to meet them.
David Holub
Editor’s note: This interview was condensed and edited for clarity.
