Born in Jacksonsville, Florida, in 1965 and living in Georgia since he was four years of age, Vic Chesnutt is no ordinary singer/songwriter. Unpredictable enough to never allow the listener to become complacent, he's a strange one to pin down. Talking to him, you get the definite impression that he marches to a different drum. His balloonish mixture of self-loathing and sarcasm might be more readily pricked in a face-to-face setting, but down a phone line you can't see what his face is like - whether it's creased up in mirth or frozen in a tableau of misery. You can only hear his voice, which is nasal, crackling, walking a threadbare line between derision and solemnity.
Using a wheelchair from the age of 18, following a driving accident, Chesnutt's notoriety (as opposed to fame) pitched its tent in Athens, Georgia in the late 1980s. Playing occasional ragged and haggard gigs at the city's famed 40 Watt Club, Chesnutt was at this time better known for his boorish and drunken behaviour than for his song-writing. But Athens resident and REM mainstay Michael Stipe was impressed enough to take Chesnutt under his quirky creative care, recording more than 20 songs in one 10-hour $100 session. The results partially formed Chesnutt's debut album, Little. Stipe returned for the follow-up, West of Rome.
"It's been only helpful, the REM connection," says Vic. "I love 'em, they're great. They help me a great deal. People would never talk to me if it wasn't for REM. I'm too scary. Without them I'm too horrifying for people to talk to. They've gotten scarier themselves, though. In the early days they were rather brooding and mysterious. Now it's all about pop. A sloganeering, pure exercise in pop culture."
Describing himself as a curmudgeon, a hermit, a bit of an eccentric and a confirmed squirrel hater ("I'm painting a flattering picture of myself, aren't I?"), Vic says that if it weren't for Michael Stipe he wouldn't have made a record, and if it weren't for his love of the power of words there wouldn't be "a fire in my hearth". He was in a bunch of bands before and after his life-changing accident, from marching bands in high school to an outfit that he played trumpet for in redneck bars. "Playing covers, songs like Mustang Sally. It was great."
He took to writing songs, he says, with what sounds suspiciously like irony, "like a babe to a nipple. It was natural thing to me, I went right to it. The reason why is I was fascinated as a kid with the hypnotic aspect of words. Certain words, and the way they sounded always appealed to me. I'd lay in bed telling myself stories and believing them. I'm a daydreamer, basically. That's the kind of guy I am, always lost in daydreams. When I'm in daydream time I'm making up songs. I was off in a daydream there when I was talking to you!"
Inevitably, Chesnutt's worldview is encompassed through his music, a fuzzy, compelling composite of folk, country and the attitudinal stance of punk. His lyrics are particularly notable. Lined with doubt, guilt, black humour, despair and occasional bouts of hate, they have struck a chord with a large cult following and a number of famous people (aside from REM, his fans include Madonna, Smashing Pumpkins and Nanci Griffith, each of whom recorded Chesnutt songs for the 1996 tribute album, Sweet Relief II).
"I hate myself. I hate everything that I love, in a way," says Vic evenly. "I love where I grew up. But I sure do hate politics. I wish I could change the world so that everyone was happy. You look at people, and we're still cavemen with shiny tools. It's amazing to me that there isn't more destruction than there is. I'm surprised that we're not all beating each other with sticks all the time, how we are all just monkeys with suits on.
"I'm fascinated by mass hypnosis. Mobs are fascinating to me. American history is fascinating, as well. I love watching the beast that is Uncle Sam stomp through the world. I'm always stumped by that, watching him, the big lumbering fool that he is. So I have a despairing worldview - so what?
"Sometimes, it makes me chuckle. Most sensible people look at the absurdity of life, but they realise to do it all the time is scary. I spend my time trying to paint the moustache on the Mona Lisa, or the Queen, or pulling the pigtail from George Washington's head. And running!"
Chesnutt is bemused by the number of singer/songwriters around these days. "A couple of years ago you couldn't move for girl singer/songwriters. Now there's the whole Americana, alt.country thing, which is kind of rootsy, strummy-wummy, guy with a guitar. Bingo - big funny hat! They're everywhere.
"I'm friends with a lot of people in that area, but I was around before it started. People are inspired by the old and the new, and have an eccentric way of saying what they say. We're all quite verbal in our way, very much into lyrics. My talent comes from being able to arrange a few words and evoke some sort of scenario from that. I'm like an illusionist, or some kind of chemist."
Aside from writing songs, Vic has been working on a book ("It's not that great"), a new album, Roses for the Butt of All Our Merriment ("due out sometime later this year"), and several film scripts ("I don't know if I'll ever show them to anybody"). A part-time actor, he appeared alongside country music star Dwight Yoakam in Billy Bob Thornton's Oscar-winning Sling Blade. If there was a good script, he says (and despite being slightly self-conscious about his "body space"), he'd be willing to give the acting lark another go.
"I'm not sure how great of an actor I am. It's not like it's that glamorous of a job, although it seems like that to other people. Friends of mine say things like, God, you've got to do more movies, because it's great. Billy Bob Thornton said the camera loves me, but I don't know how much I love the camera."
Vic Chesnutt plays Dublin's Vicar Street on April 1st
