Fin Greenall (aka the musician known as Fink) represents everything that is unfair about this world. He’s an amazingly talented singer/songwriter/guitar player who by his own admission can’t even read the tablature that his own songs are printed on. He’s amazingly like-able, he’ll charm the pants off your girlfriend but it’s impossible to find fault in his technique; you know you’d do the same thing if you could. He’s a skater and club DJ but he’s as informed about the crisis in Eastern Bloc countries as he is about the latest dub beats; and he’s set to take the American music scene by storm. Like when Justin Timberlake shook off NSYNC and went solo or John Legend stepped out from in back of the production booth, so too will Fink take center stage in American pop music culture. Weather you’re ready for him or not.
I came to know Fink through his appearance at the REM Tribute Concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City this past March. His talent was clearly on display. As I do often with people who have profiles on MySpace or Facebook, I sent him a note letting him know that I was impressed with his performance, thinking that would be the last of it. In a stunning move, he read the whole piece, commented on what I’d said, and wrote me back! I was quite impressed; but there he goes doing things his own way, which you’re in awe of.
When I found out he was playing in the
Los Angeles area earlier this month, I reached out to him and asked for an
interview. Thus began the journey towards our two-hour discussion on top of his
hotel in the bitter cold of Los Angeles in early December. Perhaps the most
remarkable thing about this conversation was that he was just so easy to talk
to. We segued between so many topics that the notes and questions I brought
along with me were all but useless.
“To get out of Cornwall’s quite an
achievement”-
Fin Greenall was born Cornwall in the
West Country: “The wild west, no motorways” and grew up Bristol. Asked about
his influence from London, Fink noted, “When my parents left Cornwall they were
trying to get to London; they got half way.” Fink did speak highly of Bristol. According to the musician, Bristol was
“…really much safer than London; an amazing place to be a kid.” While many of the outlying areas around big
cities often live in their shadow Fink says that Bristol was “far enough away
from London to be proud that it isn’t London.” He later compared the city from
his youth to the likes of; “Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle.”
Fans of British trip hop undoubtedly know
of all the many talents who came out of Bristol. Bristol even has it’s own
“sound.” Says Fink, Bristol is the “home to Massive Attack, Portished,
Tricky.” Bristol is also home to a lot of baggage from its past and according
to Fink remains sharply divided in less developed areas.
You may have known Fink not from his
acoustic guitar histrionics but from his work as a DJ. But he doesn’t want
that to be his mark left on the world: “With DJ’ing it wasn’t like I was a
house DJ; I was a Ninja Tune DJ which is a pretty broad church. You have to be
anything but normal.”
Ninja Tune is a record company that’s
been around since 1991. Founded by Matt Black and Jonathan Moore (Coldcut)
featuring artists like Bonobo, Kelis, and Kate Tempest among many others. Fink
certainly let the Ninja Tune church wash over him. Still the mediums
limitations were not lost on the boy from Bristol: “Back in the day when you’d
go on an international gig; before the digital revolution; you’d have a finite
number of records to play!”
He further reflected on the appeal of the
DJ culture in the beginning. “DJ’ing was pretty big in the 80’s in Europe. Acid
House; it was in the papers; really dangerous.” And of course the allure of the
dangerous is implicit. “The right wing press was like “kids are being fucked up
by listening to this robot.” Obviously
every 13 or 14 year old kid is like ‘right I’m into that now.’”
But the DJ life wasn’t forever. So Fin
went his own way, put down the wax and picked up an axe; an acoustic axe. He
seemed to take to this means of musical communication much better than his
heady Ninja Tune years. “In the early days of doing the Fink gigs it was such a
pleasure to know what you’re going to play.”
Counter that with the pressure he felt
from the emerging celebrity status DJs more regularly enjoyed, and there was no
question. “With Ninja the pressure’s pretty heavy,” he said, “so you’ve got to
be polished.”
Quizzically, the guitar didn’t seem like such a good
fit for Fink at first. It’s not like he had any trouble learning the tool; “I picked up the guitar at 16 and within 6 months I was better
than anyone else I knew.” So it wasn’t his ability to make music; he just
didn’t much see the point. Fink opined: “I don’t know what my kids are going to be into; but I’m
sure I won’t get it. If I do get it; if my kids form a band and become Led Zeppelin
I’ll be really chuffed but if they do whatever the music is in the future that
I don’t understand I’m going to have to remember this. The same with my parents
and the hippie counter culture. I seen my father play guitar in folk bands and
it just looked like really shit. I mean why would you do that? For me it was
all about skateboarding, fashion, and when you’re old enough to work: money.”
Even when the money’s coming in at a
pretty good clip, it’s not all fun and games. Record companies can be stifling
and the pressure is intense. “They’re paying you and there’s a queue of kids in
back of you who will do your job for free so you got no rights.”
More taxing than this is the fact that,
“There’s no such thing as a 9-5 day, every night is a ‘showcase’ or VIP gig, everybody
thinks you’re loaded.” The untruth of the situation could be a bit jarring.
Fink is a deep fellow with a grander
understanding and appreciation of the world which shines through in his music. He’s got opinions on a variety of subjects and
we touched on many. Still it was the last question I asked him as we were
departing from our chilly seats off of my sheet of largely unasked questions
that took me most aback.
“What is it that you would want your fans
to know about you?”
He stopped in his tracks, paused, and for
the first time all morning seemed to not have an answer at the ready. He chortled
and replied: “I’m genuine.” He paused again and noted: “all this,” he waved his
hand about, casually dismissing the rock star lifestyle we’d just spent the past
two hours ruminating on, “means nothing. It’s all about the music.”
And with that the interview was over. He
remarked to my photographer how much she was the spitting image of his sister.
He humbly slid off the elevator at the fifth floor and we spilled out into the
street. Sunday was well underway; Fink would soon be off to Chicago and I
wondered aloud if I’d ever run across this musical dynamo again. Who knows?
Right now Fink seems firmly in place; braced and ready for the next phase.
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