White Here, White Now

It's a struggle of sorts talking to Matthew E White. It's not that he's rude, abrasive or difficult – far from it, in fact. The problem is that he does not stop coughing. Ever. Long, complex diatribes are interrupted by gregarious bouts of throat clearing, which sound more akin to choking. The poor love.

White has phoned in ahead of his first Australian tour and his work at Vivid that will see him and his band, Fight The Big Bull, team up with his Megafaun buddies (Brad and Phil Cook and Joe Westerlund) as well as Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon. “I kind of always had a push for some sort of collaboration between Fight The Big Bull and Megafaun,” growls White, before launching into a coughing fit. “I met Phil at a small show that our bands were kind of playing at a long, long time ago and it was immediately apparent that we were just on the same wave in terms of music,” he adds.

White is something of a modern day folk lord wrapped in a beard. Frustrated with a lack of distinctive record labels in the fashion of Motown – that proved just as important to an artist's sound as the artist themselves – White decided to do what anyone in his position would and start his own label. Spacebomb Records was born in 2011, giving White the creative freedom to release his vision into the world untouched and unchanged by outside forces – exactly as White envisioned it.

It's important to remember, of course, that White isn't just some other folksy dude with some folksy/jazzy sounding band. White is the creative mastermind behind Fight The Big Bull, writing, composing and arranging every iota of music they play and, in a world fraught with overproduction, White is something of an organic oddity. He is unashamedly proud of his Christian faith (his parents were missionaries) using his debut album, Big Inner, to explore his religious beliefs. But it's not all about Hail Marys and Hallelujahs.

In the single Big Love, White sings of angry heartbreak, telling his girl to “drop that shit”. It's about as far from the idyllic little house on the prairie existence he grew up with. The evangelical sound creeps back on in Brazos with White joining forces with a choir to chant, “Jesus Christ is our lord/Jesus Christ he is your friend”. That said, fear not, as the album as a whole is no distilled Hillsong reinvention.

If Phil Spector had The Wall Of Sound, then White has a Soundscape. His production studio, aptly also titled Spacebomb, is a ramshackle outfit set up in White's attic, complete with makeshift shelves, rugs, guitars and soundboards. “I like making records,” is White's matter-of-fact response to why he'd go through all the transformative trouble to create this musical oasis.

“For me, it's about finding where you fit and finding where your strengths are and then making the most of that. Over the past year, I've been in a place where that's happening more and more. I've been asked to record with more people and I'm very grateful for that. I think for me it's important not to waste opportunities and to some degree I think that attitude is down to the fact that success has come a little later for me. I'm not 22 or 23, you know – I'm in my 30s,” White growls.

It is this kind of attitude that saw White jump at the opportunity to record with his 'old buddies' Megafaun for the Sounds Of The South concert series. “The groups just melded so easily,” says White. “We're all coming from the same place. Basically, we melded songs with words and then Fight The Big Bull formed it into long-form jazz compositions. So basically,” White stops to cough, “basically, it's long-form jazz with singing in between. It's very natural – everyone is playing their own style and everyone is singing their own style. It has been an incredibly easy thing to do so far.”

White will split his time between his “buddies” and his own ethereal showcase which he will be touring across Australia for the first time. “I'm just really excited about being able to bring the music down there,” he says.

As to whether or not Australians will 'get' his ironically American sound (Uncut magazine deemed Big Love as “one of the great albums of modern Americana”) White is confident that his sound is far more universal than the critics give him credit for. “The thing is,” he begins clearing his throat, “I think we all meet at this place where so much of our music springs from – you know, I think most American pop music comes from this world. It all comes from Black southern folk music – that kind of music is just a wellspring of so much, you know?” White stresses. “So, being able to go back and try and re-imagine it and uh… well, it's not quite as hard as it seems, 'cause it's been re-imagined over the last one hundred years and it will keep being re-imagined.”

White seems unfazed by changing fashions in music, saying that yes, he believes the folk sound he so loves will eventually peter out. “Gone. Just like Baroque music is gone. If it doesn't go, then nothing new can happen. If it had all stayed the same since 1000 AD, we wouldn't be listening to the stuff we can hear now,” White says unapologetically.

The next five years at least, however, appear safe for the folk artist and his muse, with White revealing he has no specific plans for a second album, admitting that he's happy to act as a third wheel of sorts. “Sure, I'd like to make a coupla more records of my own, but I also want to get involved in making a few more of other people's records, because for me, that's what's happened over the past year. I've been asked to record with more people and to join more people in the studio and I'm very grateful for that.

“For me,” White begins before clearing his throat one last time, “it's about taking every single one of those opportunities thrown at me and making them into something special. You know, I don't ever want to look back and think I wasted my time.”