A couple of months ago I was browsing music on Amazon and came across a band and album I’d not heard before. The album was called ‘Rook’ and the band ‘Shearwater’. The avian connection was all too obvious, and being the obsessive birder I am I just had to check out what Reviews I could find.

It turns out there are plenty of reviews on the net (critics have heard of Shearwater even if I hadn’t). They were almost unanimous and could be summed up with, ‘buy this album now, it’s stunningly beautiful’ (which is my verdict too).

Village Voice, for example, called ‘Rook’ “one of the year’s most rewarding listens”. Metacritic gave the album a score of 85/100 (putting it 14th in its Best Albums of 2008). Pitchfork gave it 8/10 and its reviewer ended with the words, “As impressive and uniformly gorgeous a record as Rook is, the band’s best work is likely still to come” (which is potentially very good news as the band are in the studio recording their next album, The Golden Archipelago, at the moment).

I’m not normally easily persuaded to part with my hard-earned money on a ‘punt’, but I downloaded it immediately - and I’m just amazed now that I’d never heard of “Rook” (or of Shearwater) before. It is simply one of the most beautiful and original albums I’ve heard in years. Why did no-one tell me about this before (too much head down stuck in a laptop blogging I suspect)? It’s difficult to pin Shearwater’s musical style down - experimental/art-folk, indie-folk-rock, alternative rock? There are echoes of Talk Talk’s 1988 release “Spirit of Eden”, particularly in the tone of the vocals and the piano which is key throughout - but vocalist and band co-founder Jonathan Meiburg’s alternatively soft or soaring voice is an incredibly beautiful instrument in its own right and is the anchor for the layered, complex, but accessible music that makes every track interesting, memorable, and ‘hooky’ as heck.

I’ve been listening to ‘Rook’ for a couple of months now (my wife Jo plays it every day as well) and the more I listen to it the more I can’t get it out of my head. In fact so utterly besotted did I become as I played ‘Rook’ over and over again that I went and downloaded the band’s previous album, ‘Palo Santo‘, which is equally wonderful and is (according to Matador Records) “a suite of ethereal but oddly disquieting art-rock songs loosely centered around the life and death of singer Christa Paffgen (aka Nico)”. (Not something you’ll see written about, say, a Coldplay album anytime soon…)

And so a new musical love affair begins - all because Jonathan Meiburg, a highly-educated and skilled multi-instrumentalist, called his band ‘Shearwater’!

Of course the big question I wanted answering is ‘Why’? Why call your band after a group of birds that aren’t exactly known for their musicality (although that didn’t seem to bother Manchester rockers Doves at all) and are pretty much amongst the least-known group of birds on the planet?

Part of the answer it turns out is that Jonathan, who is based in Austin, Texas, is a birder! A proper birder as well, not one of those celebs who owned a parrot once or were given a year’s membership of the Young Ornithologists Club when they were twelve and have never picked up a pair of binoculars since. In fact he obtained a Master’s in geography from the University of Texas writing a thesis which focused on factors limiting the distribution of the Striated Caracara Phalcoboenus australis!

Yes, amazingly us birders have a blazing-hot, highly-respected musician we can call our own, a man who studied birds on the Falklands Islands and on the band’s website ‘News‘ page is quoted as saying that he would be “giving a talk called “The Caracaras: Distribution and Ecology of the ‘False’ Falcons” at a meeting of the Texas Ornithological Society in Austin on the 24th of April [2009]“. Wow, eh…

I decided on a whim that I’d mail the band and request an interview, never expecting them to reply to be honest - there’s not much crossover between musicians and bird blogs that I know of - and was amazed to get a response within the week from Jonathan himself saying ‘he’d love to’ talk to us! Amazed and thrown into a bit of a spin actually. I tend to think of myself as fairly grounded and not easily impressed, but I have to say that musicians impress and unsettle me. How much? I’ve been a massive fan of The Cure for as long as I can remember and what do I do when lead singer Robert Smith suddenly appears on a plane I’m working on last year? Freeze, that’s what. Freeze rather than stand in front of him as a stuttering, awestruck 48 year old idiot…

However, this was an opportunity I couldn’t miss, so I wrote some questions and Jonathan duly wrote some answers: Jonathan Meiburg, an extremely talented man, is in the studio putting together a new album and I feel like an intruding, starstruck fan throwing him questions at a time he’d probably much rather be concentrating hard on his music.

As far as I can find out though this is just his second interview with a bird blog (thanks to Nick Lund for the link to http://birdist.blogspot.com/2008/08/interview-with-jonathan-meiburg-of.html), and I for one am very grateful he took time out to take part in it…

Jonathan, many thanks indeed for talking to 10,000 Birds.

I said in my intro that ‘us birders have a blazing-hot, highly-respected musician we can call our own’. Is that a scary thought (birders aren’t generally recognised as the most on-trend group of people and our dress-sense is nothing special after all) or would you welcome a new fan-base of binocular-carrying obsessives?

JM: I don’t know about ‘blazing-hot’, but it’s certainly warm in Texas…we’ve been working on the new record in El Paso and Austin, and the height of the summer heat is fearsome. I break a sweat just driving home from the studio. But I don’t think there’s anything scary about being a birder; we love being outside, getting away from video screens, taking in a natural world that’s still going about its business as best it can. Birding is a quick and easy way to reconnect with that, even in the most banal places, and I’ve always got my binoculars with me when we travel. El Paso was great, actually – I didn’t spend much time birding, but did pick up a Ladder-Backed Woodpecker and even an Aplomado Falcon near the studio. I was also pretty impressed by the Pepsis wasps that lurked in the bushes; I’d read about them but never seen them before.

As for dress-sense, I’ve been working on mine a little; it dawned on me that even if I wear torn jeans and t-shirts in everyday life, I probably needed an outfit of some kind for shows. I decided on what I think I’d call “field science dress blues”.

And very good it looks too! You seem to get tagged as a ‘birder’ or ‘ornithologist’ almost in passing in some of the interviews I’ve read (the obvious exception being 2008’s “Scientific American” interview which focussed a lot on Caracaras and your experience in Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands). Obviously you’re now a professional musician first and foremost but do you sometimes wish music journos would investigate that side of you more?

JM: It’s much easier for me to talk about birds than it is to talk about music; if you could really explain music in words there’d be no reason to make it. I’ll admit that I wrote some birds into the songs on our last record, Rook, partly so that I could point to some specific connection between my interests when I’m asked. The new album we’re working on right now, The Golden Archipelago, is more preoccupied with the human inhabitants of islands than with birds, though there are probably some birds along for the ride.

And, honestly, I never expect interviewers to be all that interested in birds, and I don’t spend much time trying to convert them. I think birds sort of come to you, in a way, and most of my birding friends can talk about a moment or experience that really lit them up. Mine was the Striated Caracara survey I worked on in the Falklands in 1997, but that’s kind of over the top; a friend who works at Parks and Wildlife told me that when he was a kid he’d shot an Anhinga in Mexico, and something about seeing that animal close up really changed him.

Do you get much feedback from fans about your birding incidentally?

JM: Sometimes. I’m always happy to talk about birds with anyone who asks.

I did say when I originally mailed you that “At least I won’t be asking you what a shearwater is”…but I do have to ask why you chose to name the band after a shearwater - the last ones I heard sounded like a colony of cats fighting underground - and did you have a specific species or ’shearwater trait’ in mind?

JM: I chose the name in part because I just liked the sound of it; I was a bit amazed that it wasn’t already taken. And I hope that some shearwater traits manage to transfer to our band – longevity, for one. We’ve already incorporated the ceaseless trans-oceanic wandering bit, more than I’d ever have imagined…

You gave a really great answer to a question in an interview back in 2005. When you were asked, “We’ve all heard variations on the phrase “there are two kinds of people in the world…Those who (do or think something) and those who (do or think something else)”. What are the two kinds of people in the world for you?” you replied, “People who hear birdsong as noise, and people who hear it as music”. I thought that was just perfect. I may well be building this up far too much, but did that answer just come to you on the fly? And do you personally need birdsong in your life?

JM: Everybody needs birdsong, I think, whether they know it or not. Don’t you find that the more species of birds you can hear, the happier you are?

Definitely - some of the most emotive sounds in the world IMHO. Given that birding, or perhaps just being outdoors in nature, obviously affects you and your work do you find it difficult being in a studio for weeks on end (or does Shearwater not work like that)?

JM: I wish I could be in a studio for weeks on end. That’s where you feel like you’re really making progress, artistically. It’s the touring van, though, where we spend most of our time, and that’s the hardest place to be; neither outside nor in. You can bird at rest areas if you’re quick, I guess…

Is your priority at the moment making sure that Shearwater are working, gigging, touring etc? Would you actually like to have more time to go birding/hiking?

JM: Yes, and yes. Right now I do everything from designing and ordering t-shirts to coordinating schedules and keeping the books, to say nothing of writing the songs etc. We’ve got a bit of a break coming up in October, and I’m hoping to get out a little bit then. Maybe even to Surinam, where a friend of mine is doing some field work on fishes.

I’d love to finally get to see a Red-Throated Caracara, which gets my vote for the most bizarre raptor on earth.

I reckon so - it’s a very odd bird indeed! In an interview a few years ago you spoke about perhaps going for a PhD. From what I’ve read about you - and what you’ve said here about Surinam and Red-throated Caracara - you love to travel, have a wide range of interests, and approach life as if it is a great adventure to be experienced to the full. In contrast running a band, writing songs, organising gigs etc looks incredibly time-consuming and ordered. Does it feel that way to you?

JM: It’s like a really interesting job that takes up all of your time and doesn’t pay very well. Even when it’s driving me crazy, though, I feel very lucky to be doing this.
[Kind of like blogging then!]

A very well-known birder/actor-comedian here in the UK, Bill Oddie, often says that he used to organise filming of his TV series “The Goodies” around migration - once filming in a quarry on the south coast specifically because it was near a birding hot-spot. Have you ever thought about organising a Shearwater Tour around migration - perhaps starting in Texas in March, working your way up to New Jersey (near Cape May) for late Spring, hitting Anchorage in summer, and ending up in California for shorebird migration in September?

JM: That’s a great idea. I don’t know if the other members would go for that, though. They like birds, but I think they’re pretty tired of me pointing out every raven I see.

I’m new to Shearwater - I feel like some evangelical convert actually - and I genuinely adore ‘Rook’, which I feel I should always preface with the words “the absolutely wonderful and critically-lauded”. I know you’ve ‘moved on’ from the album, but can I ask where did the idea for the startling cover image come from? I read it was inspired by the work of the photographers Kahn and Selesnick.

JM: It wasn’t just inspired by them, they made it! I stumbled across Kahn and Selesnick’s work in the back of an issue of Harper’s, and got in touch with them to see if they might be interested in doing an album cover, which they’d never done before. They made the image with our album in mind, but also to use as part of their Eisbergfreistadt exhibition, which is a wonderful collection of images and artifacts from an ill-fated state that was constructed on an iceberg that ran aground near Lubeck in the 1920s.
All of their work is beautiful and entertaining, and we’re working with them again for The Golden Archipelago.

And was there a specific reason for changing the photo on the cover of the ‘Extended’ version of Palo Santo to a cockatoo?

JM: I had almost zero budget for the earlier album’s cover art, so when Matador reissued it they gave us the chance to reimagine the album, and I thought it would be fun to completely redesign it. I loved that image because it was so beautiful and eerie, with those strange dark islands in the background.

On the inside of the CD package there’s an image of a Greater Akialoa [Hemignathus ellisianus], one of the extinct Hawaiian honeycreepers.

European Rooks have never been recorded in the US - am I right in assuming the title of the album is either referring to ‘Johnny Rook’ (an alternative name for a caracara) or you just chose one of the few bird names (that I can think of anyway) with multiple meanings?

JM: You’re right on both counts. You can see some little films I made of Striated Caracaras in the Falklands to promote the record here: www.matadorrecords.com/shearwater/quicktime.htm.

Your lyrics are often dark and always poetic, eg in the (near-)title track ‘Rooks’ you wrote “when the swallows fell from the eaves, and the gulls from the spires, and starlings in the millions will feed on the ground where they lie”, for example and you say on your own website that you’re “pretty much in the ’save the planet - kill yourself’ camp” (we’d probably get on famously if we ever met as I’d be in the very next tent!). Are you Austin’s answer to Morrissey, or would friends of yours laugh at the comparison?

JM: I’m probably not qualified to answer that question. I’m sure my friends would laugh, though.

Your lyrics are just opaque enough to be open to a variety of interpretations though: do you consider yourself a ‘message’ lyricist?

JM: I’m not sure what that means. The songs just come to me, and they take a long time; if I try to force them they invariably don’t work. I’m not usually striving for any “message”, though I like for the albums to have a common theme or thread running throughout.

I guess what I was trying to ask with the ‘message’ question was whether - and I really dislike bracketing people so apologies now - you’d consider yourself more as an environmentally-aware guy who also goes birding than a ‘birder’?

JM: That seems fair. I’m good with Falkland birds, though I don’t get to see them very often, and I’m not as good with Neotropical shorebirds or warblers as I ought to be (though my sparrow IDs have improved a lot in the past year). I don’t really keep a list, since I find that when I get too excited about a species count I stop noticing behavior as much, which I think should be the most rewarding part of birding. I enjoy watching the Great-Tailed Grackles in my front yard as much as I do the occasional warblers who stop in, though it was a thrill getting two male Painted Buntings in my mulberry tree this spring.

Would I take a trip just to see birds somewhere? Sure, but I wouldn’t be crestfallen if I didn’t notch up a bunch of lifers.

Any chance of you becoming a ‘Birding’ Bono, inspiring a legion of birders to rise up and ’save the world’?

JM: You’ll never catch me wearing rose-tinted glasses, I can tell you that.

Photo copyright Ashley Garmon and Paige Maguire

As I mentioned earlier, you’re in the studio at the moment. I almost hate to ask such a pat question, but how are things going?

JM: Quite well I think. I’m cautiously optimistic. The record’s at that point right now where almost all the ingredients are in, and it’s just a matter of cooking it properly. I’ll know how it turned out in few weeks.

I’m not a musician - and freely admit to being in awe of anyone who is - but I can imagine how intense the creative process of putting an album together is. I have to ask, do you find interviews with bird blogs a terrible distraction?

JM: Are you kidding? It’s an honor.

That’s a relief…Finally, you’ll be touring the new album in 2010, but in the meantime you’re in the UK for a few dates in September (http://www.shearwatermusic.com/shows). Any plans to get a few new birds on your life-list while you’re here, or is there not enough time (and if there was time which British species would be at the top of your ‘must-see’ list)?

JM: Bustard. And a Capercallie. Neither of which I’m likely to see in London or Leeds, I’m afraid…

Given my new contacts with the Great Bustard Group I may well just be able to help you with the former if you have the time!

In the meantime though, many thanks for adding us to your busy schedule, and best of luck with The Golden Archipelago - I’m looking forward to it immensely…

So, there you go - a first attempt by 10,000 Birds to interview a musician, and an evidently very busy one at that. My thanks again to Jonathan Meiburg, and if you’ve never heard anything by Shearwater try the links on the band’s MySpace page and get ready to add another ‘favourite’ to your playlist…