Detroit R&B swings southside

Mayer Hawthorne and The County bring their sweet soul music to Proud Larry’s tonight with special guest Nikki Jean. A longtime DJ and producer, Hawthorne is new to singing ,but you’d never guess it after hearing his soaring Smokey Robinson-like falsetto.

The 31-year-old Ann Arbor, Mich. native wrote all but one song and played nearly all the instruments on his impressive debut album “A Strange Arrangement,” which features a mix of upbeat dance tunes and heartfelt ballads.

What do you like most about touring?

On the real, the thing I like most about touring is the food. I’m a food guy. For me the greatest part about touring is being able to try all different foods and the local specialty foods everywhere I go.

Describe your touring band The County.

I played most the instruments on the album myself but I learned really quickly that I couldn’t play them all on stage at the same time. I got a group of four musicians traveling with me, bass, drums, guitar, keyboard, piano. These guys, I grew up with most of them in Michigan, they are like my family. They’re not just like hired gun musicians. Most of them are cats that I grew up with in Detroit. They are not just like my friends. I just really unbelievably lucked up and they just happen to be the best musicians in the world. I don’t know what it is about Detroit but it breeds the greatest musicians out there. If I had a million billion dollars that I could go and have auditioned and hired anybody that I wanted in the world these would be the guys that I would want anyway.

Detroit has gone through tough times with auto plants closing and high unemployment. Do you have hope for music industry redeveloping there?

Well, I sure hope so. You gotta have hope. I’m hoping that that’s going to be one of the side effects of my music. That’s one of the main reasons that I’m in it is to help out the city of Detroit. That’s on my mind every time I sit down and record a song.

What instruments do you play on stage?

I’ve got a little mini keyboard and a tambourine. That’s pretty much it. I jump around and I play a little piano here and there. Singing is still a relatively new thing for me. I mainly focus on that and make sure that I nail it. I’m still very much learning my voice. I’ve only been singing professionally for a year.

When did you discover you had a talent for singing soul music?

I don’t know that I did. I never actually thought that anyone would ever hear the songs that I sang originally. That was part of the reason why I sang. Previously I don’t think I even sang in the shower. I was never in the choir in school or anything like that. And I never really sang much in any of the bands that I played in before so when I recorded the first demo songs I never thought that anybody would actually hear that. I sang on it only because I wasn’t thinking that it wouldn’t get out there. You never know how it’s gonna work out. (Stones Throw Records founder) Peanut Butter Wolf heard those demos that I did and he fell in love with it and asked me to record a whole album.

What was it like doing all the vocals on the album?

The backup vocals are my absolute favorite part of the whole process. I get in there and I really get into it and try to pretend like I’m the whole group. That’s the most fun part for me. The harmonies are everything. I think that’s what really separates what I’m doing from a lot of people.
Talk about the transition from DJ to lead singer.

It’s taken a lot of getting used to. It was a real kind of just dive in with the sharks situation. I just did my first live show about a year ago. I’ve come an extremely long way in that little amount of time. I’ve learned so much about my voice and how to use it and take care of it and what my strengths are and my limitations are. It’s been an incredible process. It’s been so much fun. It’s really allowed me to step outside of my comfort zone and grow tremendously as a person and as an artist.
You really show your singing range on the album. Sometimes you sing in a falsetto and sometimes you’ll take it down a few octaves. Why did you decide to change it up and was that a challenge?

A lot of the songs I recorded multiple versions. I recorded multiple takes of the song. I would do one falsetto and then one maybe in mid voice and I would listen back and see what sounded the best to me and I would go with that one. There’s other versions out there.

Talk about your song writing process.

I never really sit down and try to write a song ever. I’ve never been able to do that. It just doesn’t work for me. My songs just always come to me out of nowhere. I’ll usually be grocery shopping, a lot of times it comes at the most inconvenient time and I’ll have to stop everything I’m doing and go and sing the song into my phone into my voice mail and people look at me like I’m insane. I’ll be standing outside in a parking lot singing into my phone to myself. That’s how they come. They kind of come all at once. It feels like I don’t even write it. It’s hard to explain. It’s like it’s playing on the radio in my head. The challenge for me is trying to get it out of my head and get it on to the tape. All my songs are based on real situations in my life. It’s at least inspired by real relationships that I’ve been through.
Talk about the production of the album.

When I recorded the first couple songs, the two demos that got me signed, I didn’t think about it all. I just kind of threw something down. I wasn’t really making it to release. It was really just an internal thing for me just for fun. When I went back to record the whole album I tried to keep the same velocity of not trying to over think it. I’m a perfectionist in the studio. I’m a studio nerd. I’ll replay a bassline a hundred times to make sure that it’s exactly right. I tried to really not over think anything and just let whatever came out came out naturally. You get a lot of different sounds on the album. You got joints like “Easy Lovin” that are extremely Motown sounding, very Funk Brothers. Then there’s joints like “Green Eyed Love” that have a waling guitar solo in there that are more my Smashing Pumpkins influence. I listen to every kind of music under the sun. Before I was convinced to record this soul album I was making mostly hip-hop. Before I was making hip-hop I was making punk rock and listening to heavy metal. All those influences all come out on the album.

Were you surprised at how quickly your 2008 heart-shaped vinyl for the single “Just Ain’t Gonna Work Out” took off?

Everyone was shocked. No one knew what to think about that. We just thought it would be something fun to do on the side. Nobody had any idea that those records would sell like that. Originally we only pressed 1,000 copies of it because we didn’t even know if we’d be able to sell that many. Those first 1,000 copies sold out in three days.

Why did you name the album “A Strange Arrangement?”

I was at a party with a good friend from Detroit in L.A. It was kind of like a house party. They had a little makeshift bar set up in there. We went up to the bar and asked what they had and the guy said well we’ve got some whiskey, some vodka, we have beer. And he had this big bowl of punch there and he called it “this strange arrangement.” I looked at my friend right there and told him that was going to be the name of my album. It just kind of magically fit though because I’m big on the arrangements of my music. And I’m also a little strange. I like my music to be a little strange.

What would you say to people who may dismiss you as another classic R&B throwback?

Honestly, I wouldn’t even care. I don’t pay too much attention to it. If you can listen to my album and you can’t hear anything new about it then you’re not really listening.

Stones Throw Records seems like a good fit for you.

They’re so incredible. They’re so supportive of creativity and new sounds. I get an unbelievable amount of freedom over there. They’re very supportive of any direction that I want to go. They’ll stand behind it whether they even like it or not. It’s an amazing situation for a recording artist. It doesn’t get much better.

What do you think of Southern soul music?

Southern soul, to me, what makes it really unique is that sweat that’s in there. There’s like an element of grease and sweat in there that’s so unquantifiable and there’s no way to measure that or duplicate it or recreate it. It’s sweat and grease.

Talk about the hip-hop influence on the album.

I’m a hip-hop head. I grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s listening to rap music and I’ve been a hip-hop DJ/producer for the past 10-plus years so anything that I do is influenced by hip-hop whether I like it or not. That’s just how it is. I couldn’t fight it if I tried.

What are you goals for your music career?

I would just like to me making music for a living. As long as I can do that I’m a happy camper and as long as I get to tour around and eat good food.

Check for updates on twitter.com/mayerhawthorne.