Gregory Alan Isakov's Small Indie Footprint (Interview)

The name, Gregory Alan Isakov, sounds more like the name of a classical composer than a folk singer, which is fitting since Mr. Isakov's music is arranged and articulated in chord with a delicate and focused ensemble of voices, strings, and other natural ingredients of sound. The textured fabric sewn envelopes and highlights the core ingredient: the song. And this has come to be Isakov's unique sonic print in the pages of an evolving catalog. While Isakov's musical imprint is growing, his environmental footprint is not.

Isakov is clearing his own path in the indie folk forest, but without harming the trees. He is breaking new ground without a sledgehammer. I could go on and on with the allegories, but let's just get to the interview, OK?

Planet Green: You seem to downplay your eco-ness, meaning that you don't market yourself or your music as green. Our greendar has identified you, nonetheless. Can you share some enviro-related highlights from your life (music related or not) with our readers? I know that this is a painful task for a humble guy.

Gregory Alan Isakov: Living close to the earth is not really a choice i've made because it's necessarily 'good' for the environment. It just feels good, feels right. Since I was a kid, I've always wanted to be a farmer. I sometimes think it chose me. I've always played songs, and not necessarily ever aimed to be a 'musician', but I guess playing music just feels good to me as well. I went to school for horticulture, and studied abroad, visiting many farming communities, a highlight being Findhorn, in Scotland. I spent 5 months there working in the main gardens, and studying permaculture. It was a time of feeling very intact with the world... with my life. So it's a space I sorta try to find in myself, whether I'm on the road or in a garden.

?PG: You're on tour now; what sort of measures do you take to minimize your footprint, or rather tire marks, while on the road? Any special type of vehicle you are using, tour routing methods, or ridesharing going on? Do you drive in the tailwind of 18 wheelers?

GAI: No, we like to keep our distance from the semis. Ha. As far as measuring a road footprint, wow, that's a great idea. We drive an old Eurovan that is pretty kind to us in a lot of ways... gas mileage being around 20 loaded down, which isn't bad, but probably could be better. I think the band and I sorta become more health minded the more we tour, and me being a vegetarian can be a challenge on the road. So we eat a lot fresh veggies we keep in a cooler, make our own coffee in thermoses, stuff like that.

PG: How about record production and distribution? Any specific eco-logical decisions taking place there? How would you prefer that your fans purchase your music? What percentage of your record sales would you estimate are in the digital form?

GAI: I've always opted for paper packaging. Aesthetically, it fits the music more. Unfortunately, it's always the least economical route, which has bummed me out. We do sell a lot digitally, but I have to say, when the record came out on vinyl it sounded so right to me... probably not the most environmental, but that's the way I hope people hear the album. I've always spent a lot of time making recordings that I feel are a complete work, so chopping them up into single song downloads makes me a bit uneasy. I think a lot of musicians feel that way, but I do love the ease of bringing an iPod on the road.

?PG: Being an independent artist, how does your footprint differ from a major label artist?

GAI: Hard to say, but I bet signed artists get to shower more. Then there's the tour bus thing. Those aren't exactly smart cars. We probably use a lot less electricity on stage and they probably have to print less money for us.

PG: When I first met you last year at the Kerrville Folk Festival, I felt that I found a long lost brother. Besides both of us being South African born folk singers, we also discovered that we have both been long time vegetarians and have also lived in a dome at some point in our lives. ?Can you tell us about living in a dome? What were the circumstances? What was it made of? Were you off grid??

?GAI: I was living on a community farm, what I called 'an unintentional community'... just a few of us that wanted to live a little closer to the land, and our food. I mostly worked on the horticultural end of things, but we had animals, goats for dairy, chickens for eggs. The owner and i found a used Pacific Dome that was 25' diameter and 15' high. the dome was a metal frame and canvas that we treated with a UVpaint. I built a wood floor for it and insulated it as well. It was a beautiful place to live. It stood in a cotton wood grove by a creek. I had a wood stove and burned mostly oak (recycled untreated railroad tie cut offs) which burned really efficiently. There were a few winter mornings I had some frost on my beard, so I ended up building a loft to sleep in where the hot air would hang out. All of my electricity came in from an extension cord, so I kept the voltage pretty low. I lived there for a year and a half, and then we all moved to a large property where I lived in a renovated barn.

PG: What was your initial reason for giving up meat? What is/are your reason(s) now? Is it hard to eat well on the road?

GAI: Yeah, vegetarian almost 13 years. I eat eggs and fish now. It wasn't a political or ecological choice at the time, but I was 16 and I came home for dinner one night, my mom had made some chicken, and my whole family was sitting around. My gran, mom and dad, my two brothers. It was one of those moments around the table where everybody gets really silent and is just eating, and I looked up and just heard the sound of, well, chicken being eaten I guess. The skin pulling off the bone, the smell, the subtle taste of flesh and blood. Something in me just snapped and I haven't eaten meat since. I had a hard time with eggs too, after having chickens for a couple of years, but I have gotten over that one. On tour sometimes we'll drive past this massive cattle ranch, cows that fill the entire horizon... all you can see. The part of the cattle industry that gets me is how much land it takes to feed a cow. A lot of times that feed is grown with a lot pesticide, and worse, on other country's lands where the people there have a hard time feeding themselves, or eat what they grow. It takes a lot of land to grow animal feed. I think it's like 3 acres for 1 cow. Crazy. That land could be feeding a lot more people.
Being on the road, I've found a few things that have become staples. Purple cabbage keeps rather well, veggie dogs, and snap peas too.

?PG: What is one of your long term environmental goals?

GAI: I'm really hoping to own some land someday, grow a bunch of heirlooms and build a cob house. That's been the goal for a long time. I remember you telling me about that amazing place you have there in Terlingua, and that sounded so inspiring. ?

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