Doug Allen, a songwriter, guitarist and singer who's lived in Bellingham since 2004, plays with his band, The Union Wage, from 8 to 11 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 19, at Honey Moon Tasting Bar (in the alley behind Pepper Sisters on North State Street).
They are celebrating the release of their new CD, "Big Timber," which includes songs that range from local history to personal crises and general feel-good tunes. For more on his band, visit dougallen.bandcamp.com.
Question: What was your first motivation to start performing music?
Answer: I started college at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale Illinois in 1973. Living in the dorm that first year was a course in music appreciation and history for me. Before long I wanted to play some of the music I was hearing on LP albums. I started with harmonica then got bit by the guitar bug.
A year later I heard the first two John Prine records and was blown away by his lyrics and simple, powerful melodies. I was also excited that I could learn his guitar parts, and with the same chords could make my own songs; I've been writing songs ever since. I wrote and played through 1989, but didn't perform much. In early 1989 I sold most of my gear to start graduate school at Montana State University. After I graduated and had worked for a while I realized how much I missed music. I took guitar lessons, started writing again, and finally started performing.
Q: When did you start recording?
A: In 2003 I realized that if I didn't record the songs I had written up to that point they would be lost. By then Maggie (my wife of 20 years) and I had a year-old son, and I wanted him to have my songs as a window into my soul. I finished my first CD, "Tales of Love and Weather," in July 2004, just as we packed up to move to Bellingham.
Q: What is your day job?
A: I've worked in natural resources for 30 years, mostly in water management. I work now for the Department of Ecology, which brought me here in 2004. Tom Buroker joined us in 2005. Tom has played guitar for several Bellingham bands, and at that time was learning to record with Pro-Tools. I started playing my new songs to him as a sounding board, and at some point he suggested that we record some of them, and it went from there.
Q: Who's in the Union Wage?
A: The Union Wage is comprised of Tom and Tom's musician friends - David Campbell from the Lost Creek Wanderers and Reid Kerr; and my son, Lucas. Reid does most of the harmonies, and he and I have played together now for about four years. Matt Curtis did the CD art for "Big Timber" and it just turned out great.
Q: What influences your songs?
A: My songs have a strong folk influence with infusions of blues and country, but my approach is really that of a singer-songwriter. Artists I admire include Steve Earle, Townes Van Zandt, Ryan Adams, Tom Russell and Ry Cooder. Songs come to me in various ways and it usually takes a while to get them right. "Purple Cape" fell into my lap on day walking down Holly Street. I ducked into Stuart's Coffeehouse and jotted most of it down in 10 minutes, but it doesn't happen like that very often. I've moved away from falling-in-love and break-up songs as the realities of having a family have sunk in. I still do them for fun, like "Three Lonely Nights," and I still have plenty to say about relationships (such as "Used to Me").
I've always been drawn to songs that reveal something about the writer and how they view their world. "Just About Had It" and "Beautiful World" are examples from "Big Timber." I'm also drawn to irony and shades of gray in a world that likes things to be black and white. Two of my songs, "Drive This County Down" and "1884" tell stories about historical events, which was new for me. For those the art was in finding an interesting perspective, and the craft was in the telling. Both are about infamous events that are hard to find gray in, but I tried to walk in the shoes of the white mill-worker in "Drive This County Down." I don't think I could have finished it otherwise.
