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| Trevor Hall Chillaxin Photo: Emory Hall |
MS: Hey Trevor how are you?
TH: I'm good, thanks.
MS: I was listening to your latest album Chapter of the Forest right before you called, I liked that listening to it was like taking a journey, you start one place and end up another.
TH: Thank you, thanks so much.
MS: Your music is very spiritual and a mixture of rock, folk, pop and world music.
TH: Right, right. I had to disguise the world music with more popular forms of music so that people would understand the message better.
MS: You took off on a pilgrimage to India right after a successful run in music, what made you want to do that?
TH: Well I've been traveling to India for, seven years. I got burnt out and needed to get my strength back and India is that place, I just took a long time off and went there for about three and a half months or so. It was out of a need to connect again and get my spiritual strength back and physical strength, so I went on a retreat, no phones, no E-mails, nothing like that.
My healing started to happen and when I came back I really started writing a lot of the songs for Chapter of the Forest.
TH: I met her in India the year before. Then when we went back in 2013 I proposed to her then in the same place where we met.
MS: How cool! Being a spiritual person are you into yoga by any chance?
TH: Not really a lot of Hatha Yoga, what people call yoga today in the West. There are actually many, many limbs of yoga, so I practice kind of different things. I probably should be doing yoga more because my back is tight after being on the tour bus. (laughs) The tour is actually really amazing that were on right now, Michael Franti is super into yoga so before every show during the day they have a huge yoga class for all of the musicians. So if I wanted to get healthy this is the tour to do it! (laughs)
MS: So how is the tour going?
TH: It's going great, last night we were at San Diego State University it was such a nice time because there were so many wonderful bands on the bill. Also I am traveling with a super fun group of guys, it's just a really nice time. Sometimes tours, ya know, you don't know who you are traveling with, they play a different style music and they clash or something, but on this one everyone is like a big ole family it's been really enjoyable.
MS: Tell me a little bit about the inspiration for Chapter of the Forest, something other than your pilgrimage to India.
TH: Chapter of the Forest is the meditation I did and it's about going back inside. The forest for me is a mystical place for solitude and silence. Obviously I believe in the external forest, but I also believe that all these sacred landscapes are also inside our own body. Chapter of the Forest in our hearts or in our mind is that place of stillness, meditation , reflection and rejuvenation type of thing. I'm really influenced by the Indian Saints, one of the Saints says that you can't live in the world continuously or else you'll drown. From time to time you have to retreat in solitude. Whether that be the corner of a room for an hour, or a forest for a month or a year.
I took that really literally and said: "Stop I'm burnt out" and went up into the forests of Vermont and Maine with my wife and just really tried to slow down. As that happened after a while I started picking up my guitar, not because I had to but because I wanted to, I love music and that was the feeling I was trying to get again after being so burnt out, it became just a job for me at some point. That's when Chapter of the Forest really started to come to life and as that was happening all the experiences I had, had in other forests all over the world, like India and Nepal, these memories started to resurface and give me inspiration and that's where a little of the Indian element came from on the album.
But I really wanted to do something rootsy and raw, and not be chasing that number one single. Something that was really pure and from my heart, that's what this album is all about.
MS: I completely get it, it can become disheartening when you are creating for the sole purpose of making money.
TH: Yeah.
MS: Make yourself happy first, that's the most important thing I think.
TH: Right, right, I agree.
MS: Here's something random, when I did a Google search of your name a meme came up with Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka saying: "You test drove Trevor Hall, tell me about his triangle"
do you know what that means? (laughs)
TH: Tell me about his triangle? I have no idea what that means (laughs) Yeah I have no idea what that could mean.
MS: Thanks Trevor, have fun on the rest of your tour.
TH: Thanks man.
Join Trevor in the forest at: http://www.trevorhallmusic.com/
