antiMUSIC: Hi, Shannon. How are you doing?

Crawford: Good. How are you doing?

antiMUSIC: Excellent. Shannon this record is awesome. I love the heck out of it. "Helicopter", "One Way Trip" and "Burns Inside Me" are just monster cuts.

Crawford: Thank you very much. You know that's the reaction I wanted to get. I wanted to make an amazing record, not just one or two good songs and then a bunch of crap like you hear so often now you know? (laughs)

antiMUSIC: Yeah, exactly. No, literally, everything on there, you keep going cut after cut…every song has its own sound as well. It's not like it sounds radically different from everything else on there but, it's not something that you can get tired of quickly. So…if this project is essentially you, why go under a band name?

Crawford: Well, I don't, I don't know. It's …I didn't want…it seemed a little-- for me—it seemed a little self-indulgent almost. And you know, but at the same time I have such great respect for artists like Jeff Buckley and PJ Harvey and people like that. And they're not self-indulgent at all. It just felt right at the time. You know, it just felt right at the time.

antiMUSIC: Right. So for those who aren't familiar with you, what is your background, and what is your musical path that led you to this record here?

Crawford: Well, originally I released one record in my life before that, and that was with my old band Cellophane.

antiMUSIC: When was that?

Crawford: That was 1997, I was very young. And it was on Virgin Records. It just sort of fell through the cracks basically and I had a chance to just spend some time and develop, and you know get some life experience, and with that life experience, you know that's what it took to make a really good record now. You have something you can actually write about.

antiMUSIC: So when did you actually start forming the basis of this record here? How long were you working on the material?

Crawford: Actually, I did all these songs, literally, in a six months period. Then it took some time to get it to have it mixed, it took some time to release. That's when the real waiting began. But the actual creative process, I was just on a roll. It was like a pot of boiling water with a lid on it. And I had spent some time, so much time NOT making music that it finally just blew over. And the music came pouring out of me.

antiMUSIC: Was it important for you to be the producer as well, to have the final say on everything?

Crawford: Absolutely. I had some bad experiences with some previous producers and actually…scratch that. It's not so much that. A producer is good when you have a band and you have a lot of people arguing and not sure of what they want. But I knew exactly what I wanted. There's no need…I mean I did all this stuff basically at home…my home theater, I mean my home studio. And then of course, the mixing process was done at Henson Recording Studios (A&M) but yeah, I did all this myself so there's no need to have one.

antiMUSIC: Yeah, and obviously, like you say, you knew what you wanted. The production on "Helicopter" is just outstanding by the way.

Crawford: Thank you.

antiMUSIC: I love all the middle section with all the horn parts and everything. It's just really, really terrific.

Crawford: Oh, thank you. And you know, although someone did mix it with me, that was, everything that was mixed by the guy who mixed was exactly the way I had mixed it at home. We cleaned it up and stuff like that, but… I mean, when you see that's basically everything I did. At Henson, we just cleaned it up and gave it a good sonic feel.

antiMUSIC: Right. There's a real sort of retro feel that permeates some of the cuts. I'm getting sort of a Beatles feel of the "Helicopter": cut, like T-Rex in "Perfect", kinda bit of vintage Bowie sort of in "One Way Trip". Are you actually influenced from (by) artists of the '60s and '70s really, or is this kind of a happy coincidence?

Crawford: No I'm really influenced. In fact I wanted this to feel like a classic record. You know, I wanted this to stand the test of time like a classic record would. And of course David Bowie is one of my heroes and The Beatles. You know when people ask me to describe the record I do describe it as early Bowie, late Beatles with '80s overtones.

antiMUSIC: Yeah, well it's hard too because if you were to say something like that to people they'd think yeah, it's cool but it's a retro record. But it doesn't sound old though. It's got elements of that but it doesn't sound dated really. It's like a classic record from now.

Crawford: Yeah, and I didn't want…it's like Warhol said, everything's been done. It's just a matter of doing it in your own style. And what, you know, of course we're all influenced by our everyday lives, from television commercials we see, to high rise buildings and bridges , movies and music we listen to and art we see and that's, you know, we're like sponges, all of us. And what you hear is everything that's sort of been taken in, in my life, really.

antiMUSIC: Can you tell us about a couple of cuts? Either what they're about or something that happened while you were recording them. Maybe starting with "Fear of the Mind".

Crawford: Yeah, "Fear of the Mind", basically what holds people back from accomplishing and doing anything in this world that they want to do is their own fear, the fear in their own mind. The fear of the mind is the cause of all our ills today. Whether it be war, poverty or hunger or obesity or alcoholism or whatever it is, it's based around fear. And if we can just rise above and get out of our mind and lose that fear we can have euphoria on earth, you know, literally. I mean, when you let go of the fear of the mind, you can get around space and time. I mean, who knows if we had no fear, we could probably time travel for all we know.

antiMUSIC: Okay, how about "Helicopter"?

Crawford: "Helicopter" is just sort of, you know when you listen to a Beatles song and you think it's really deep and heavy and then they say, well, it just sort of rhymed and we just put a few together. That's kind of the way it turned out. it was just one of those things. It's almost dangerous to reveal that. I'd like to have people hear it and then come up with their own story. Its just one of those things that came together, one of those word soup that Beck is so great about putting together in a song. It's poetry, you know.

antiMUSIC: "One Way Trip"?:

Crawford: Yeah. "One Way Trip". It's about love, you know? I heard somewhere that all the greatest songs were about found love or lost love. So this is about lost love.

antiMUSIC: "Burns Inside Me"? Man I was so surprised to hear that, with that disco-y bass line too?

Crawford: Yeah, I love that song.

antiMUSIC: Yeah, me too.

Crawford: That song is about, having my opportunity 10 years ago and losing it. And that's what the lyrics are about. "I swear to you this time I'll never let you go" and that's you know, and I'm here to stay and I don't intend on letting it go. I'm burning…you know, I didn't sleep last night, so you'll have to excuse me if I'm not making any sense. I drove all the way from LA to Monterey and was dozing off. But you know, "I'll take you through the fire inside that burns me….Guides me" just having those feeling of doing what I love and then leaving it, and then having like just this enormous energy, this higher power if you will, that just sort of guides me into writing new songs.

antiMUSIC: So how did you end up being signed to Munkey's label?

Crawford: Munkey and I are really good friends, basically and it's so funny, even with an album, you know, that I love and that I think is great and that a lot of people who've heard it think is great as well, we still have to have a best friend to start a record label to get a deal anymore. (laughs) Isn't that crazy?

antiMUSIC: Yeah, really.

Crawford: So, he's just my best friend. He's been on the fence for a long time. He'd been wanting to start a label for a long time. And I started playing him the demos I did, and he loved them so much that he finally decided yeah, I'll do it, I want to start a label now, this will be it. And he finally found something that would make it worthwhile for him to actually to take the time and money, the enormous money, I mean he spent so much, already, in it, so… he really believes in it otherwise he wouldn't of done it. So I'm really grateful.

antiMUSIC: What's the significance of the title?

Crawford: Butterfly Pinned? It has a double meaning. One meaning is sort of like what a major label does to its artist. They'll just sign people to sign them and pin them up for display and put them on their shelf until they're ready to display them really. And that's how I felt. And also, it symbolizes, death for vanity. You know, that's sort of what's killing us all right now. That's why we have wars. Because of our vanity. Everyone who drives, all the cars we drive are totally vanity based. We drive them…it's no longer a form of transportation, otherwise people would drive electric cars. And we're killing so much just to drive these things. And the pinned butterfly sort of represents death for vanity. And it's a perfect example because it's overlooked. It's…you know you can call it an insect, but really you're catching a beautiful thing just to pin it up for its beautiful wings and that's it. Like mounting a deer head on the wall or something.

antiMUSIC: You're doing shows right now, how is the stuff going down in a live setting?

Crawford: Oh, it's going great. In this day and age that's the only thing that's going to get us to the next level. I love it. I love playing live. It's not just promoting an album. It's an experience for me as well. I get to experience timelessness on stage every night.. So I don't age for half an hour to an hour a night. I get to be timeless. And I feel that I move people, maybe not everybody, but you know if I move one or maybe change on person's perception that night, that maybe have a different outlook on wars or something, then that's amazing. I remember when I saw Jeff Buckley back in '94, thanksgiving, it was the night before thanksgiving '94, I'd just broken up with this girl, and I was so heartbroken and I saw him play at The Roxy in Hollywood. And I thought "This is what I'm here to do. I want to do that. I want to be like him". And then I realized this girl is so miniature in my universe. And my perception at that moment was changed by watching him play. So maybe if I can do that for somebody…that's the reason. I don't care if I don't sell records, you know, I can always record albums. Someone will want to release them, if it doesn't make sense for James to continue. I don't care. There will always be someone out there who loves me.

antiMUSIC: So what are you doing right now? Just doing select shows….

Crawford: We have three months of dates lined up. We're going out with an Israeli indie band and then we're maybe going out with the Deftones and I think we might have some Blondie dates.

antiMUSIC: Wow, that's cool.

Crawford: Yeah, isn't that cool?

antiMUSIC: You're hitting a few different audiences there too.

Crawford: And we just finished playing a few dates with Riders of The Storm, which is The Doors with a different singer obviously.

antiMUSIC: So looking ahead can you…you're working this record, and I'm sure it was a monstrous effort getting it out there but can you look ahead to your next record? Can you see it being similar to this one or will you be going in a different direction?

Crawford: I would like it to be…whatever comes out of me has a common thread. I want it to be extraordinary, I'm thinking of the next step forward. I don't know how exactly it's going to sound, but I know it's going to be amazing. I feel it. The next record…I just have a feeling it's going to be amazing.

antiMUSIC: Is there anything else I didn't ask you that you wanted to mention?

Crawford: Not that I can think of. Like I said, I'm sleep deprived because I had to do a morning TV show and I drove all night and sort of it out. So I can't think…but I really liked the interview and I thank you.

antiMUSIC: Well I thank you for taking the time. I wish you all the best with the record.

Crawford: Oh thank you. Spread the word. You know people need to hear it.

antiMUSIC: Will do.

Crawford: Well alright. Have a good day? Take it easy

antiMUSIC: You too. Bye