1. Personal
1.1 Is Heath Houston your real name?
1.2 Who is Bowyn Carmichael?
1.3 Where were you born?
1.4 Cats or Dogs?
1.5 Are you single?
1.6 Does music run in your family?
1.7 What do you do besides music?
1.8 What are your hobbies?
1.9 Do you have any children?
2. Music
2.1 What is "Black Sunshine?"
2.2 Who plays what instruments?
2.3 What are you influences?
2.4 What is your favorite band to listen to?
2.5 How do you write your songs?
2.6 When did you start playing/writing music?
2.7 What was your first guitar?
2.8 What is the message of your music?
2.9 Do you rock out?
1.1 Is Heath Houston your real name?
Yes. I was named after Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. I am not, however, named Heathcliff. Just Heath. There is speculation that this gentleman from the Bronte novel was not quite masculine enough to satisfy my father, so I am also tentatively named after Heath Barkley from the show The Big Valley. Thank you.
1.2 Who is Bowyn Carmichael?
Bowyn Carmichael is a Pen Name I took up a long time ago. It was/is still used often in place of my own name when I choose not to divulge it. Bowyn is me, in a way that expresses a somewhat darker and more extroverted me. Be careful of imitators, though, as there are some out there.
1.3 Where were you born?
I was born in Utah, USA.
1.4 Cats or Dogs?
I love all animals, but if I had to make a preference, it would be for cats. I love Pugs, though, especially. Puggles, too. And rodents.
1.5 Are you single?
I am technically still married to a beautiful fae princess, so mind the ring for a bit longer
1.6 Does music run in your family?
Somewhat. My mother's family is from old Pentecostal country and singing came natural to them. My father taught me a C, G, and D chord and gave me my first acoustic guitar when I was 14. Prior to this he did a stint in Nashville pursuing a career as a singer/songwriter.
1.7 What do you do besides music?
I work, a lot. I am a trained optician. I am a skilled PC technician, System admin, and Network tech. I design and write webpages (wrote this one from scratch). I wite poetry and prose. I'm actually nearing finishing a novel which I will try to get published. Maybe if I can get that in the works and it is successful, I can put out a book of poetry, my first love.
1.8 What are your hobbies?
I love movies. I play World of Warcraft, though not religiously (I play Alliance, but my heart is with the Horde). I play around with Linux which is one of my more recent loves (currently Ubuntu 9.10). I sketch and draw. I enjoy building things and learning as I go. I love to cook and I'm fairly good at it. I like baking bread.. I find it soothing and relaxing. I'm also about to get involved in some short film projects headed up by a friend of mine, adapting some of my scenes to film. Should be fun!
1.9 Do you have any children?
Nay, I haven't managed any little boogers yet. I'm hoping it happens soon, though. I love kids.
2.1 What is "Black Sunshine?"
Black Sunshine is a concept. Possibly a band name (we'll see about that). It embodies the concept of dualities... bittersweet, sad/jaunty, and the fact that most heartbreaks can eventually be looked back on with a fond memory given enough time to let the balm set.
2.2 Who plays what instruments?
I play them all at this time. Guitar, Bass, Vocals, backing Vocals, Keyboards, and I program the drums in Reason 3.0. I'd prefer to have some mates if I can find some dutiful folk to share my vision.
2.3 What are you influences?
This is always the toughest question. Right this very moment, Frightened Rabbit is absolutely astounding me with their songs.
Early on it was influence from my parents with Neil Diamond, Styx, Queen, Elvis, and Rod Stewart. My uncle with the Beatles (major influence there)
Next was my older sister and older brother with The Rolling Stones, Peter Frampton, Rush, Elton John, Big Country, Led Zepplin, Grand Prix, Ozzy Osbourne, The Scorpions, and Loudness. Lots of guitar oriented stuff that I would never live up to, but the melody and song content stuck.
As I grew up I was listening to John Lennon, the Cure, The Pixies, Frank Black, Sinead O'Connor, Rush, Jeff Buckley, Algebra, The Sisters of Mercy, Rosetta Stone, Pink Floyd, Ned's Atomic Dustbin, Cake, The White Stripes, Joy Division, The Smiths, Colin Hay, Lloyd Cole, Matthew Sweet, Modest Mouse, The Violent Femmes, George Harrison, The Cloud Room, Smashing Pumpkins, Julian Lennon, Iron and Wine, Prince, The Rentals, and U2 among many many others I have neglected to mention here.
Lately I've been gorging on Indie music and I've had my ear twisted 'round, realizing just what a phenomenal glut of Independant music is out there. I'd mention Frightened Rabbit and Bon Iver, in particular at this time. If you don't know them, you should. Trust me.
2.4 What is your favorite band to listen to?
Rush, always. But currently close to that is the aforementioned Frightened Rabbit and Bon Iver. In additon, I've been enjoying The Kooks, The Thermals, The Asteroids Galaxy Tour, Your Vegas, Teddybears, Switches, Eels, Envelopes, Apartment, The Honeytrees, Franz Ferdinand, Rogue Wave, and Pop Levi, among many many others.
2.5 How do you write your songs?
Two different ways.
1. Often I write poetry, and this is where some of my lyrically best songs come from, and slowly massage them into a tune that I come up with. This is the more difficult method because when I write poetry I don't subscribe to any rules or reason except what sounds right to me. Then I monkey around on my guitar or keyboard and just sort of listen for something to catch my ear. If it's something that fits the words, I introduce the two and make things fit. If they don't work, I record the bit of music so I don't forget it and I'll probably take a listen to it later. This leads to-
2. I play around with a tune and sometimes the tone or mood of the tune evokes certain emotions and I'll let that sort of take me to that emotional landscape where I'll write about the things I see and hear and witness. This can be memories of mine, an old story, or an imagined situation.
2.6 When did you start playing/writing music?
I started making music when I was pretty young, maybe 6 years old. My sister got piano lessons, but I did not. I wanted them. I would sit there while she did her lessons and watch and try to learn later when she was done. I never did learn to play the piano, much to my regret, but I learned notes and chords and started making tunes on that piano. I also started making up words to the little tunes I created. I wrote the first song I ever put to music around the age of 17 "Nothing yet," a terrible piece of crap.
2.7 What was your first guitar?
I was about 14 when I got my first guitar. It was a Lazer acoustic. A real piece of junk. The bridge was not even attached to the body. It was held down by the strings so the lightest bump would detune everything. Still, I managed to start learning chords and strumming and the sick dream of one day being a real musician.
A few years later my dad got me a pearl whiteHondo electric guitar. It was very cheap, but it was light years ahead of the Lazer acoustic. I decorated it with green reflective stripes (a la Eddie Van Halen) and a large RUSH logo. There was a short in the pickup closest to the bridge that would cause it to be distorted. I would combine that with the pitiful gain on my pitiful practice amp and get small approximation of a distortion petal.
Next I managed to snag a beautiful lavender Yamaha RGX. That was my first real guitar and I would never have been able to afford it except someone had dinged a notch in the back of it so I got it cheap. I lost that in a pawn shop paying for a plane ticket home from Los Angeles.
2.8 What is the message of your music?
I don't know if there's ever been a planned message in my music. I've always felt painfully shy and disconnected from the world. The world can be an exceedingly cruel place to some people. Counter to that, I have managed to be extremely connected to some people, having had to chance to share an understanding, one on one.
I'm a cool surface and a molten inside and have led a life of difficulty in passing what is inside to the outside. I have a roiling volcano of emotions inside and often feel very isolated and alone. The songs I wrote are, hopefully, expressions of this- where my soul peeks out into the cool fresh air... and in this way I am able to connect to all the other people sharing the pain of suffering alone.
Another theme I find myself fascinated with is the human reaction to extreme emotional pain. I've been there and, while I don't reccommend it as something to inflict on yourself, when you've seen the bottom and been stripped of pretense and prevarication... when you've had someone cut away every shred of protection and safety you ever felt... when the one thing in your life you felt held any meaning, accomplishment, pride, and faith in betrays you utterly... there is beauty in that destruction. It might sound perverse, but there is a humaness to that suffering that transcends race, sex, creed, physical appearance, and shows, for maybe just once in your life, what a real person is, deep down inside, and it is a beauty that echoes in the deepest parts of all of us. A universal language.
...and if you can just hang on, you can bounce back and do it all over again.
2.9 Do you rock out?
With my socks out.