Nick and Helen Forster, Bring Music and Activism Together on National Airwaves (Interview)

Nineteen years ago—on Earth Day 1991—renowned bluegrass musician Nick Forster and singer/actress Helen Forster debuted Etown, a radio show that at the time was experimenting not only with a new format (the show features live performances by two musical guests intertwined with live dialogue both with the guests as well as with the "Echievement" award winner of the week), but venturing into topics that were not yet really part of the public consciousness: global warming, air pollution, the plight of the homeless, and more.

Now broadcast on more than 275 stations nationwide, the show has featured musicians you've been dying to see—from Cake to Moby to Tori Amos (and that's just this past year)—ones you've never heard of, and all sorts in between, and every week celebrates a listener-nominated individual for some contribution to their community. The founder of Solar One and Build It Green! NYC, for example, was honored at the show recorded in New York City recently. I had a chance to talk to Nick and Helen while they were in New York—they were kind enough to wake up after a late night out with their city friends, and it may have been early, but they had a lot to say about the environment and about the relationship between music and activism.

Planet Green: It seems like the majority of your guests have some kind of activist side to them. Is that intentional?
Nick Forster: It's a happy coincidence when that works out. The reality is that our goal is to use the music and musicians and the media to try to attract a broad audience that is not necessarily informed or educated around these issues. In some ways, music is the Trojan horse that enables us to get into people's homes and cars, and hearts and minds—to reach a broader audience. 

Helen Forster: When we first started this, it was not in fashion to talk about these issues. There was also confusion from people: what are you, are you a talk show or a music show? 19 years later, we are mainstream.

A lot of the artists who want to come onto our show are passionate about their own particular causes and recognize what we're trying to do, and we give them an avenue to discuss those things. As far as listeners go, we hear all the time from listeners who are moved by the message as well as the music. Our show gives people hope—in a playful way, it doesn't hit you over the head. The point gets across in hopefully an entertaining hour.

NF: Artists in general have had a real key role in consciousness-changing, and information-dissemination at critical times throughout history. And musicians, at least contemporary musicians, have a higher likelihood of being aware of the kinds of issues that we're concerned about, because they travel, they communicate, they interact, they are worldly, they tend to be informed.  

HF: Travel is essential to understanding the world at large, and realizing that we are all connected, we are all the same, we just express ourselves in different ways. The only way we're going to preserve this earth of ours is to recognize that, and work together on it.

PG: Have any issues that you've brought to the stage seemed particularly daring or controversial?
NF: It's all relative, and it's exciting now to think that more and more people are waking up and addressing this issue. We've had for years—we had early conversations with Amory Lovins and the Rocky Mountain Institute. Boulder is also the National Center for Atmospheric Research, so we were able to get scientists very early on talking about climate change and what the research was showing.

We've tried to couch this information in such a way that it is not only digestible to the audience, but also to include things we can do that would be impactful. One of our criticisms of An Inconvenient Truth, while it was absolutely critical in raising the profile of the issue of climate change, there wasn't really much at the end about—what are we doing to do about it. We've always been very interested in the "What are we going to do about it?" part.

I think one of the challenges in all of these issues is how you get people to become informed, but then actually become engaged enough rather than become scared or apathetic, so they can make a difference themselves. That's one of the secrets of success, if you will, that has enabled Etown to accomplish what it's accomplished so far.

PG: After focusing on these issues for all these years, have you noticed or been frustrated by simplifications of the issues, or by the trend where people think that recycling or changing light bulbs, for example, is all the change we need?
NF: I think we're very good as a society at producing guilt, and then burdening people with managing their guilt. Helen's a recovering Catholic, who had a pretty healthy dose of guilt as a kid. And there's all kinds of ways for people to appease their guilt.

It's a very grey area. You've got people living in 6,000 square foot houses with four-car garages, and then saying, oh I'm so glad I started recycling. I think that's not bad—we look at those as sort of stepping stones. It's like a primer, it's like learning the alphabet before you learn to read or write. It isn't so much that the recycling will make any difference at all, but if it will begin the conversation about where things come from and where things go...

You know, as China becomes the biggest greenhouse gas producing nation, taking over from the U.S., that doesn't mean that we're doing better, it just means that they're doing worse.

The opportunity for people to use less energy, build smarter buildings, build smarter communities, those things are really significant.

HF: I'm excited that more and more people are jumping on the bandwagon these days. I also know that things can swing back. They certainly did after Earth Day in 1970—a lot of people thought, oh my gosh, we're really shifting. Well, it swung right back. It's very easy for public sentiment to go the opposite way, particularly if basic fears are played upon by politicians or whatever. The way I look at it is, as one of the senior voices in the choir, Etown has a role right now of making sure we keep reminding people.

We don't think that the tiny things we do in our life are the only things that need to happen. I agree with Nick—I think that one action leads to another. If it's going to open up somebody's mind to hear the greater issues and be part of a group solution, if you will, it's helpful.

PG: How did the show come to be based in Boulder?
NF: Helen and I have adapted our lifestyle in Boulder to be reflective of our values. We live in an old house that we fixed up and made more efficient. We put in solar thermal panels for our hot water, and added insulation and improved windows. We live in a community where we can walk or ride our bicycles literally everyday to almost everywhere we need to go. With Etown, we are trying to do something that is national and international in reach, but that has a comparatively low carbon footprint. Musical touring is not particularly environmentally friendly in general.

HF: But in the business right now, it's a necessity. It's funny, it's gone back almost full circle to where artists are having to tour now. Technology is such that people don't have to buy their own CDs. So I don't fault, and I know Nick doesn't fault, any musician who tours—but I will say that it's really inspiring when you come across a group like Guster, for example, and their effort to minimize their carbon footprint. I think a lot of artists are embracing that. (Guster and his wife were honored with an Echievement award for starting Reverb.)

PG: How has the show evolved over the years?
NF: This is really a comfort level around the content that we embrace and promote, whereas almost 20 years ago, we got some criticisms—like it was just more hippie-Boulder-Birkenstock-global warming nonsense wrapped in a shroud of live music.

For us, it's a very holistic approach to not just environmental awareness, but awareness of how we can live in sustainable communities.

HF: I think the thing that sets Etown apart from a lot of media programs is that we're a nonprofit organization with a mission. We started Etown at a time when there was a tremendous amount of apathy. We didn't feel that people are apathetic because they are selfish or evil—most people become apathetic when they're overwhelmed by the situation around them and feeling disempowered to do anything about it. We thought, we'll use the power of music to bring people in—a really diverse group of people, and give them food for thought in a way that was not being done in mainstream media at the time.

NF: We've got our work cut out for us. I think ultimately, it's a daunting challenge, and it's one that requires a combination of individual efforts, government regulation, NGO activity, and international cooperation. Hopefully, with all of those things working as well as possible, we can make a dent. But it's going to be tough. So meanwhile, we try to have as much fun as we can while raising those issues as universally as possible—because if it's just about suffering and it's just about gloom and doom, and guilt, and sacrifice, people will turn elsewhere.

HF: We get a lot of letters and emails from listeners who say, I can't even put my finger on how it's changed me, but I'm looking at my impact in a different way. And that's what it's all about.

Any decision that one makes has an impact, including deciding to do nothing. And we're sort of quietly chipping away at that decision to do nothing, and to become proactive.

We figure that Rush Limbaugh has one end of the bow covered pretty well, and we're headed obviously in the other end, and that's ok.

Related Posts:
Tori Amos and Loudon Wainwright Take the Stage as Etown Honors Solar One and Community Environmental Center Founder Richard Cherry
Moby on Stage: Wanna Talk About Climate Change But Ignore Meat? It's Like Talking About Lung Cancer But Ignoring Cigarettes