Tonic

20 QUESTIONS WITH EMERSON HART OF TONIC
By Troy Schmidt



1. You are a "high touch" band, with your use of the Internet and tons of touring. Is that what it takes today to be successful?
I think if you're going to have a work ethic as a band, it'd better be a good one. We work really hard. We do almost 300 shows a year. I think you have to in today's market. You have to give your fans as much as you can, because quite frankly things are expensive. We keep our ticket prices low. But the bottom line is the CD costs 18 bucks. I want to give them all the lyrics. I want to give them a website to go to find out what's going on with the band--pictures we update weekly. Answering e-mail as much as I can--I get a lot, so I can't answer all of it, of course. Without your fans, you've got nothing.
2. Where do you feel like a stranger?
In a record company. A lot of times, with the exception of a few people on this last album, Sugar, it's all about business…I feel comfortable in front of thousands of people. I feel comfortable on an airplane--in a foreign country. But when I'm with those people, I feel like a stranger. It is a business. I know that. I need to work on that. It's not one of my strong points. The other members of the band are a little bit better at that than I am.
3. On your song "Future Says Run," you're addressing your response to the future. What about the future makes you want to run?
After we had this huge explosion as a band and popularity and all that stuff started to happen, the more and more I started to get into it--writing Sugar--I was having writer's block. I had all the possibilities open to me, but I could barely function as a human being. I was disillusioned, confused, angry, hurt about what people said, about what people were doing. I could barely walk, that was the whole point.
4. "You Wanted More" is my favorite song. How do I get it out of my head? I keep playing it over and over! Help me!
That's great! I was skeptical at first (releasing that song), because it was very personal to me, being, "You wanted more, you wanted more." In the industry, people wanted more than I could give them….I reached a point where I put my hands up. How do you get it out of your head? I don't know. Stop playing it.
5. Which of your songs would you sing at a United Nations summit?
It would be a toss up. "Celtic Aggression" from the first album. "So we came across the water/From the shores of the isle of green/So we came across the water/Speaking separate tongues/In the death of culture." I think that would be one song. Probably the other, "Mean to Me."
6. Tonic is a cure for an ailment. What tonic would sell best in the world today? A tonic for what?
A cure for people sitting in their houses all day in front of the computer. I think a lot of kids are losing their social skills and their ability to relate person-to-person. Go outside. Get air. Interact. Shelby Foote said it best, "As soon as the air conditioner was invented, the porch died."
7. What did you learn from Romper Room? (Emerson's mother was Miss Sandy on the kiddie TV show Romper Room, filmed at KDKA in Pittsburgh.)
My mother really was a great mom. My dad was killed when I was young. I was 10. She really did a great job raising us. One of the great things I learned from Romper Room was great Tonka trucks. A lot of free, great toys. These are the old-school ones, with the ladder that goes up…the big truck that I used to sit on and ride down the hill--rubber wheels, not the plastic. But she brought a lot of that fun into the house.
8. What is the biggest temptation in rock?
You would think it's the drugs and the women, but I think the biggest temptation is to not be honest in your song writing. People want to mold you to be someone else. Rock 'n' roll is about expression, honesty. Always be honest in your writing. We all know who Bob Dylan is, for good reason. It's honest and it's real. Someone once told me, "how can you expect to sell millions of records when you're wearing a cowboy hat onstage," which is one of the most asinine things I ever heard. If you're comfortable onstage and you're writing great songs, that's all that matters. Look at John Popper. He's a big guy. Did that stop him from success? No. Because he's real and he writes real songs. I will not wear a jumpsuit and do pirouettes. I refuse.
9. If you could go back to any moment in rock history, where would you go?
I probably would have loved to have seen Lynyrd Skynyrd at the Fox Theater, where they did "One From the Road," "Freebird," "Tuesday's Gone," "Ballad of Curtis Love." I would have loved to see an Allman Brothers concert, or "Song Remains the Same."
10. Who is your favorite historical figure?
Abraham Lincoln, my hero since I was a child…a brilliant writer. My family has been in America ever since the Revolutionary War. I know my roots and I know that my family was involved with the Lincoln family during the war. When it came time for reconstruction, he was willing to forgive and to rebuild and bring us back together as a house undivided.
11. What talent or ability do you wish you had more of?
I wish I could paint. My mother and my sisters and my grandmother all can paint. I didn't get any of that. I can barely draw a stick figure. I got the music. I've seen some of Mellencamp's work and it's really great. I wish I had that ability.
12. What are you reading?
I just finished reading Ground Beneath Your Feet by Salman Rushdie. I read a lot of John Irving. I just started reading some Stephen King. I'm really not into that, because I can't sleep well and I need to sleep as much as I can. And a lot of history books. A LOT of history books! I have to be careful. If I get into the history books it gets dry. I have to keep my creative muscle strong.
13. What teacher had the most impact on you?
My grandfather was the biggest teacher in my life. He taught me more about love and discipline and ethics and work than any man I have ever known to this day. When he died, it crushed me. He was 92 when he died--an old man. As far as the guitar, he made me take a few lessons. Every day I would practice. He said if you want it, you have to work for it. He taught me to respect women. He taught me to open doors and to say "please" and "thank you." I could only hope to be half the man he was.
14. What is your most treasured possession? If your house were on fire, what would you run back in and get?
Family photos that have been passed down to me, my guitar--the one I wrote "If You Could Only See" on. But I'd grab my dogs first.
15. What is your most spiritual song?
"My Old Man." We never play it live. It's the last song on the record. That was a song that helped me exorcise many of the questions I had about my father. That's probably the most spiritual song for me. And "Mean to Me" is right up there too. That was a really hard song for me to write--to be honest with myself and let that stuff out. It was hard, because you write it down on a piece of paper and you look at it and you ask, "Do I really want to give this to everybody?"
16. What questions about your dad have gone unanswered?
He wasn't a very good father. He was a very sick man. He was a chronic schizophrenic--manic depressive--very violent at times. I just wish, maybe, if he would have been alive now…actually, yesterday's his birthday, so this is funny we're talking about it, because with the medical advances today, he would have been a totally different man. I wonder what conversations we could have had if he were healthy.
17. Where would you most like to play if you had a chance?
The White House. It would be a big honor for me. I'm a bit of a patriot.
18. What was your worst day gig during the lean years?
Pumping gas. That was pretty bad--always smelling like gas. Dirty fingernails.
19. What's with this swirly circle thing covering the eyes of some guy from the 1900's on the covers of your albums?
I like the consistency of old things. I'm drawn to older things. I have been ever since I was a kid. Maybe because I was raised around it. I love how they (the guys on the covers) are slightly disfigured. I like the bicycle eyes--the complete confusion we got thrown into on the second record--the constant spinning motion.
20. "Love All, Serve All" (Hard Rock's motto), what does that mean to you?
Respect. Respect in general has been lost. Self-respect. A simple "thank you." "I apologize." "I'm sorry I ran into you."