A Dirty Dozen with FENCES – March 2021

According to a recent press release: “Seattle-based FENCES, the alter-ego of musician/songwriter Christopher Mansfield will be releasing the Deluxe version of his 3rd album Failure Sculptures on March 5th 2021 via ENCI Records, featuring two bonus tracks. Watch for a BRAND NEW EP to be released this spring. Perhaps most well-known for his collaborations with Tegan and Sara (who produced his 2010 self-titled debut album) and Macklemore (who he’s teamed up with on various tracks), Failure Sculptures is his first new LP since 2015’s Lesser Oceans. ” We get Christopher… err… FENCES to discuss new music, influences, and more…

1. Tell us a little about your latest release.  What might a fan or listener not grab the first or second time they listen through?  Are there any hidden nuggets you put in the material or that only diehard fans might find?

Inherently my music is void of hidden meaning. It’s earnestness and revealing nature is it’s cross and it’s crux. Hidden meanings are for cowards.

2. What got you into music, and can you tell us about the moment you realized you wanted to be a musician?

Christmas, early nineties (year unknown) family fight upstairs, guitar leaning in the basement downstairs where I was hiding. I held it like a weapon although I didn’t know how to play it.

3. Building on that, is there a specific song, album, performer, or live show that guided your musical taste?

The end of Purple Rain the movie.

4. Who would be your main five musical influences?

In bed?

5. If you could call in any one collaborator to do a song with, who would it be, and why?

Maxine.

6. How would you describe your music to someone who’d never listened to you before? What is the one comparison a reviewer or fan has made that made you cringe or you disagreed with?

This is two questions… Jack Kerouac called the beatnik generation sympathetic. How do you like being compared to your father?

7. When your band is hanging out together, who cooks, who gets the drinks in, and who is first to crack out the acoustic guitars for a singalong?

Considering I am the only member of the band, indulging in any of these things would be called schizophrenia.

8. When was the last time you were starstruck and who was it?

When I realized we were all God.

9. What is the best part of being a musician? If you could no longer be a musician for whatever reason, what would be your dream job?

Author.

10. What is one question you have always wanted an interviewer to ask – and what is the answer? Conversely, what question are you tired of answering?

This.

11. Looking back over your career, is there a single moment or situation you feel was a misstep or you would like to have a “do over,” even if it didn’t change your current situation?

If it was a misstep but it wasn’t a misstep then it isn’t a misstep.

12. If you could magically go back in time and be a part of the recording sessions for any one record in history, which would you choose – and what does that record mean to you?

I went back in time and made my own record.

BONUS QUESTION – Due to the current world situation with COVID-19 / quarantine / shelter in place, what have you discovered you miss the most from your life before the pandemic struck?

Can you catch Covid through an interview?

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Category: Interviews