John Depew -- OKC House Concert

Bluegrass-adjacent songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, fryer of chicken and eater of salad (his description on Bandcamp) John Depew plays a house concert in Oklahoma City on Wednesday, April 9.  We asked John a few questions, and he graciously responded.  Enjoy the chat below, and join us for the show. 
 
Curious Pair Presents:  What led to your interest in music? 
 
John Depew:  I don't really remember a time before music was a major part of my life. My dad is a musician and started me out young. My interest in music as more than a hobby in recent years really comes from wanting to ask questions with music in a way that connects with people who have the same questions and ideas, as well as the demonstrable positive impact that live music can have on the world in a time when I think society is very fragile. We deeply need shared in-person experiences that are unifying across ideologies and backgrounds, and music is one very powerful way to achieve that end. It's also really friggin' fun. 
 
CPP:  How many instruments do you play?  What are they? 
 
JD:  I can make noise on a lot of different things but my primary 4 instruments are mandolin, octave mandolin, guitar, and banjo (clawhammer, I don't do well with 3-finger banjo at this point), in that order of competency, I'd say.
 
CPP:  When did you begin to play the banjo?  How did you learn the instrument? 
 
JD:  I built a banjo out of a box of parts someone had given me about 15 years ago or so. Prior to that I hadn't played one much, but my brother had been learning some clawhammer tunes and he got me infected with a love for that sound, particularly melodic players like Adam Hurt among others. Having already played stringed instruments for years at that point certainly made it easier since the right-hand technique is the main thing I need to work on. Basically, I just left a banjo next to the couch for a few years and would pick it up for a few minutes whenever I had free time, and it kinda taught itself to me in a casual way. 
 
CPP:  Did / do you have any mentors who took you under their wing and showed you the ropes about music?  If so, who are they, and how did they help you grow? 
 
JD:  Yeah, definitely. Starting with my dad, who taught me a lot of foundational stuff when I was a kid. A couple guys, Kentucky White and Shelby Eicher, have been kind enough to show me some more advanced stuff in recent years, primarily music theory things that they can explain in 15 minutes but will take me years to really understand on a practical level. My current bandmate Peter Oviatt is a big motivator for me; he's a monster player but more importantly isn't shy about gracefully telling me the honest truth about places where I can improve. That's a hard relationship to find and I value it dearly. 
 
CPP:  Related question:  who are your influences?  And, how do they influence you? 
 
JD:  Musically, I'm influenced pretty obviously by Chris Thile and the sort of chamber-grass mandolin scene, but also in smaller ways by people across the spectrum from Dave Brubeck to Django Reinhardt to Debussy, Satie, Phillip Glass, Bela Fleck, and songwriters like Darrell Scott, Tim O'Brien, Norman Blake, folks like that. 
 
CPP:  Describe your daily music routine – what do you do to maintain your playing skills, write songs, and keep your ear open to discover new sounds?
 
JD:  Ideally, I try to spend a minimum of a couple of hours a day on an instrument. I tend to write best first thing in the morning, so whenever possible I try to get up early, make some coffee and get right to work before everyone else in the house is awake. Doesn't always happen that way but that's the ideal. Typically then once my kids are up I'm busy with other things until evening, which is when I generally put in real practice time, as opposed to creative time. Lately I've been doing a lot of work with a metronome, trying to break through some bluegrass speed barriers I have and hopefully improving my natural sense of timing (an area that matters less as a solo artist but creates challenges in a band setting if you're not really living in the pocket). 
As for keeping an open ear, a lot of my songwriting process revolves around hearing things that other people are doing that I don't understand and trying to understand them through songwriting. Easy example of this is odd meters. I've gotten interested in recent years in learning how to exist in meters like 5/4 and 7/8 for instance, or experimenting with layered rhythms in different meters, or harmony structures that aren't intuitive to me, but trying to 'intuitize' them by writing music using these tools that you barely understand. That's what really interests me as a musician these days.
 
CPP:  What is your preference, working solo or collaboratively?  Why? 
 
JD:  I've done two fully solo albums and one (most recently) with a trio since getting really serious about music as a business back around 2020. I like the freedom of playing solo, on one hand, because there's infinite room to improvise and deviate from the script and have a lot of fun just poking around inside the music. On the other hand, I've got a trio going now that I feel like is really stepping into next level music from what I've been able to do solo. There's just something about the dynamic range that we can create with a mandolin-banjo-double bass trio that is really something wholly different. So right now, I've been investing a lot of time in the trio format, but I'm actually really looking forward to playing some solo shows again because of the coziness I've found playing as a solo artist. Both formats are really fun and challenging but in very different ways. 
 
CPP:  What is / are some tips to frying chicken well?  Follow-up:  how did you discover this insight? 
 
JD:  Haha, this is not a question I've ever had in an interview. Love it! Temperature of the chicken is important, particularly with white meat, breast meat that's not quite frozen but not quite thawed is my preference because you can get it crispy without it overcooking, if you watch it closely. My favorite fried chicken uses de-boned thighs cut into strips or nuggets. Buttermilk dip and then into a dry flour mixture with white pepper and salt and baking powder. If you like extra crispy chicken, throw it back in the buttermilk and then back in the flour and let it sit a while so that buttermilk really sticks up a thick layer of flour. Then into the fryer. It's not really difficult. Awesome on a good green salad or with sesame sauce over steamed vegetables and sticky rice, or a bunch of other ways. 
 
CPP:  What do you do for fun? 
 
JD:  Hmm. I've tuned both my main hobbies ostensibly into jobs in recent years (music and cattle) so I guess you could say I work for fun, haha. I like to hike and bike, and I enjoy cooking and listening to records. I like to read, particularly poetry, and also I'm a big fan of fire (we heat with wood in the winter, and many evenings will hang out around a campfire through the evenings in the warmer months). 
 
CPP:  You’re playing Oklahoma City on April 9.  Do you have any memorable Oklahoma or Oklahoma City experiences? 
 
JD:  I used to come down to Quartz Mtn and the Wichita Mountains regularly to rock climb, even though I never got to be a high-level climber. I learned how to lead "trad" routes (I think 5.9 was the hardest I ever did, nothing really impressive, but still intense and fun) and have a bunch of great memories climbing Elk Slabs, Echo Dome, and some others. One time, we went to Quartz in January and tent camped in like single digit weather. We were the only ones there. Went to the restaurant at the Lodge down there and were the only customers all night, had like a two-hour conversation with the waitress, and drank beers. Everyone we met was astounded that we were there camping and climbing, but it was one of the most fun trips I can remember. Would do it again in a heartbeat but now I have a van with a heater and a guilt-complex, haha.
 
CPP:  What’s next for you musically? 
 
JD:  I've got a really fun summer season of shows with John Depew Trio this summer from Michigan on the east end to Oregon on the west. I'm working out the fine points of most of the material for the next album (we just put out Bell of Hope which I'm really proud of and excited about, here: https://johndepew.bandcamp.com/album/bell-of-hope). I'm also experimenting a little bit with a more traditional bluegrass side project, which will be a fun outlet for me; I'm playing occasionally in a contra-dance band, that's fun, and doing some session recording and producing work here and there which is also a really fun area to explore (anybody who's interested in that feel free to reach out to me). 
 
CPP:  Anything else?  Anything we left out that you'd like to add?
 
JD:  I write semi-regularly about all kinds of stuff on SubStack for anyone who didn't think this was long-winded enough, haha! You can find that here: https://substack.com/@johndepewmusic
 
John Depew appears on Wednesday, April 9 at a house concert in Oklahoma City.  Happy hour at 7:00 p.m.; music starts at 8:00 p.m.; BYOB; donation of $15 to the artist is suggested.  For reservations or more information, please contact [email protected] or 205-616-5009.