E-Mail This Article to a Friend Mann power (continued)

Q: It must bring more joy to the process.

A: Oh, it makes it fun. It doesn’t become a chore. There was always an aspect of other records that I was making on major labels where, as you’re making it, you’re afraid to really enjoy it, because you don’t know if it’s going to be thrown out, or [if you’ll have to] go through that depressing conversation of "It’s not good enough because there’s no singles on it." It’s very discouraging, you know, right out of the box to have the first people that hear the record be like, "Mm, I’m unimpressed."

Q: And these are the people who are supposed to be selling you to the world.

A: Yeah. These are the people who are supposedly on your side. And they’re not on your side. It’s not like, as an artist, I feel like I need a lot of coddling, but I’m not made of stone, either. So if you keep telling me that I’m not good enough, eventually I’m not going to want to keep playing you my songs.

Q: I read an interview where you used a car-accident analogy to describe how you feel about your former labels, that they’re the drunk drivers who smashed your car, and you don’t care about them as long as you’re okay. To continue that theme, do you think you still bear the scars from those accidents? Do you carry them with you?

A: No, I don’t think so. I’m having a good time, and I’m totally happy, so I just don’t think about it. I’m also very aware that to carry around any anger or bitterness, first of all, is not very appealing for anyone else to hear about, but second of all, it’s pointless, because then you’re still living in their world, even when you don’t have to. It’s like, why go back into the cage and then close the door behind you?

Q: Does it frustrate you that you’re still always asked to talk about those experiences?

A: No. It would frustrate me if I was in them, still having them. I can see why it would be kind of interesting for people. It is sort of intriguing.

Q: What’s your take on the current state of the music business? Do you think there’s anything to be optimistic about?

A: I don’t know. It’s hard to tell, and I’m not really following it, but I do get a general impression, I mean, I do believe that there’s been a couple of big mergers since I got out, so now we’re down to two labels, or three. But I also get the impression that smaller labels are getting a little more muscular, and becoming more adept at selling records, and that the underground is getting bigger, and that there’s really a large group of people out there who are very excited about music. I went to South by Southwest for the first time, and I was shocked at the hordes of people who were there, first of all. But [also] people were packing each event, and the day after it was over, there were a couple of shows in town, and those events were packed, even when everybody was out of town. It sort of showed me that when good music is around, and when music is part of your life and part of your culture in a big way, then you seek it out more. It’s not like there’s a finite amount. You seek it out more.

Q: And maybe all the mergers have been galvanizing.

A: Well, I think it separates the wheat from the chaff, almost. We sort of need the big acts to get bigger, and totally become these dinosaurs, so we can have our own culture at knee-height that everybody at the top ignores, and we can just get down to the business of having fun.

Q: I know you took up boxing recently. Tell me about that. I read that you said there’s nothing else you like to talk about anymore.

A: Well, probably it’s just more fun for me to talk about a newish hobby than Geffen Records. I took it up about a year and a half ago. It was always something I was kind of interested in, and then I had a friend, he’s actually a guy that I’ve based some of the character of John — the drug addict on my record — on, because he’s a drug addict, and this really interesting character. A very fascinating, charismatic guy, but just a terrible drug addict. But he was a boxer for a while, until one of his doctors told him he couldn’t take any more blows to the head. We were kidding around one day, and he was showing me some boxing moves, and I was thinking, you know what? I should really take some lessons. That would be fun. He would show me these crazy moves, and he always had names for them, and one of the moves, his name for it was "the forgotten arm," and so I used that for the title, because I thought that was such a cool-sounding name, especially for the boxing move, which is basically a move where you’re kind of distracting the guy with punches from one side, so he forgets about your other hand. I thought that was a perfect metaphor for the record, too.

Q: Have you watched The Contender?

A: I do. I tape it. I think it’s just terrible, but I watch it anyway. I’m always hoping there’s more boxing in it. I don’t watch many reality shows. It’s like they try so hard to have the dramatic highlights of each person, like these people interacting together, but the effect is that you don’t really get to know anybody. And then I’m always like, wait a minute, is that the guy that fought the other guy before? It’s very hard for me to keep them straight.