To family and friends, he goes by Clarence Greenwood. To everyone else, he is the one and only Citizen Cope—the songwriter, producer and performer known for his emulsion of blues, rock, soul and folk heard in his most popular singles “Sideways,” “Son’s Gonna Rise” and “Bullet and a Target.”Taking a break from his fall tour, which will make a stop on Saturday at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center, the 47-year-old musician caught up with The Press to talk about his new California digs, his latest inspiration and a new record on the horizon.
The Press: How is the West Coast treating you?
Greenwood: It’s going nice—just trying to settle in. It’s a big difference from New York, from Brooklyn, where I lived for 15 years. I’m splitting my time half and half.
The Press: But you grew up in the South, moving around a bunch, and started songwriting while living in Washington, D.C.?
Greenwood: It started with poetry and it started evolving into production, and I learned drum machines and kind of understanding song structure through sampling. And then I got into producing my own music and writing my own stuff, slowly, with a guitar and drum machine. Started getting more melodic and singing a lot. I was in my early 20s. I played guitar when I was younger and writing poetry in my teens. But music wasn’t something I felt I was going to do with my life.
The Press: What changed?
Greenwood: I just started feeling some stuff, having some life experiences and feeling a kind of a release when I was doing it. It was something that drew me to it. I guess I felt like my words were pretty good and I kept evolving into being an artist. I tend to be more of a writer and a producer.
The Press: Do you enjoy performing?
Greenwood: I do now. I used to be frightened of it. I still have levels of it. I was never one of people who was, like, “I’ll go on stage and be a star,” or something. I remember kind of just feeing, like, “Why did I get myself into this?” [laughs].
The Press: Do you still get nervous?
Greenwood: A little bit, not as bad as I used to. It used to be pretty debilitating. Some people I hear are just, like, “I get on stage and I feel this charge.” That changed over time for me, I guess.
The Press: What is the origin of your stage name?
Greenwood: Cope is my nickname. My middle name is Copeland. When I was making demos, I didn’t want to put Clarence Greenwood, because who the f--- is Clarence Greenwood? [laughs] Neil Young is Neil Young because he was in a band before that. And David Bowie and everybody else. So I was just making demos and messing around with different names, and I did a play on the movie “Citizen Kane,” which I’d never seen before. But I just thought of the name of the movie, and there it was.
The Press: What’s in the works for you?
Greenwood: I’m working on a record right now, and I should be getting into it pretty deeply after these shows. I’m in the studio right now in Venice [Beach]. And I might go away for a little bit and do some writing. If I can get to Cuba, I’d love to go there. I usually go to Jamaica or Hawaii. Jamaica has always been a great spot for me, because I can be real, get on the beach, take a run on the beach, come write some music, have some coffee. I can be pretty autonomous there.
The Press: What are you inspired by these days?
Greenwood: My daughter, so that’s pretty inspirational. Just the state of the world, always. The condition of the human condition. Getting better at what I do, still searching for that uplift, you know, just trying to find some answers [laughs], to age-old questions the philosophers a lot smarter than me couldn’t figure out.
The Press: What current events are on your mind?
Greenwood: I just think we’re in the age of where the dollar is king right now, so it’s kind of an interesting time where community is kind of being lost to, you know, big business—and we’re working harder and we’re not making these human connections. I think we all kind of lose sight of it. We’re born into this structure that we call America, and it’s just something we all deal with on all levels, and I think that’s pretty interesting.
I think, obviously, all the violence is still happening. As much as we evolved technologically, we still haven’t figured one of the biggest things out. And we don’t have much more time to figure that out. I don’t think. I do feel like there could be a change in people’s collective consciousness. I hope it happens within myself, as well.
The Press: Are these themes you hope come across in your music, or they’re jumping-off points?
Greenwood: I pick things up in music—I don’t think my songs are pulling it in any kind of direction. I don’t know I’m going to do a song about this and do a song about it. I think it comes from, hopefully, a more poetic place that has something that I really can’t explain myself.
The Press: Your music is everywhere, but you’ve managed to stay out of that intense, mainstream limelight. Do you prefer it that way?
Greenwood: It’s kind of an interesting thing. When you first start out, you think you have to go mainstream to continue doing what you do. When you don’t get the success, you have to kind of figure out how to be able to do what you love and continue doing it. Luckily, I’ve continued playing and doing records with people. It wasn’t, like, a studied thing to not go mainstream. But really, at the time when I was putting my records out, even though I still do, I can realize after all that stuff that happened in 9/11, I have a more protest kind of vibe. They were saying something more conscious and I think a lot of music, at that time that was promoted, was more innocuous. I think everything is timing.
But the records stand for themselves, and they’ve continued to live. But you never know what can happen. I don’t know it will ever be mainstream, I just know that there’s room for growth, and I feel really, really fortunate to have been able to make a career out of making music and making records and playing shows. And not having to depend on corporations, or sponsors, or advertisers, or any of that kind of stuff to do it. To have that beautiful growth.
Citizen Cope will play a concert on Saturday, November 21, at 8 p.m. at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center. Tickets range from $81 to $111. For more information, call (631) 288-1500, or visit whbpac.org.
Michelle Trauring on Nov 17, 2015