Monday, 12 October 2009

• John Ringhofer: Making a Joyful Noise

  You may not know his name, but you might have heard him play an instrument or two.  A member of Sufjan Stevens' Illinoisemaker band and a contributing musician to the eclectic Christian indie band Danielson, John Ringhofer has been around the music block a time or two.  Though you may have heard him, or even seen him, you may not know that he has also released four albums in the last ten years as the veritable one-man band Half-Handed Cloud, and is set to release a fifth album next month. I recently had the pleasure of conducting an interview with him, and we talked about this new album, his musical past, and what sort of projects he has lined up for the future.

  “I think I first got involved as a music fan,” Ringhofer says. Born in Hawaii and raised in a military family, the scenery changed quite often during his formative years, yet two things remained consistent: love of God and love of music. “When I was a very young child, my parents would play The Beatles’ Sgt. Peppers album over and over. I found a cassette that has my sister and me singing songs from that album in the bathtub. Also on the cassette there are songs my mother taught me from Sunday School or holiday songs. They’re pretty funny.”

  This early exposure to music inspired Ringhofer to pursue music at an early age.  In fourth grade, he picked up the trombone, a skill which he still uses to this day.  While in high school, he switched to guitar and started a band:

  Three or four of us had a band called The Print. We got our friend Ako, the student soundman for the gymnastics team, to record us on a cassette. That guy was awesome, but the songs on the tape are awful. Really embarrassing. I was probably pretty into The Smiths at the time because my voice sounds a little like a fake teenage Morrissey. We mostly played covers, but my first songs were written for that band, and I made-up lyrics while I was sewing cushions during my job at a lawn furniture factory.

  In 1999, after many other bands and collaborations, Ringhofer released his first Half-handed Cloud album, called Learning About Your Scale.

  Perhaps due to “the nomadic, drill sergeant lifestyle of those early years,” as his website describes, the songs of Half-Handed Cloud are “dazzingly sweet and dizzyingly short,” ranging anywhere from a few seconds to just above a couple minutes.  Ringhofer has a way of making his point rather quickly; that having been said, his songs in no way lack depth of meaning. 

  He takes inspiration from a number of sources, including lectures, sermons, and of course scripture, but even life has a way of inspiring him.  “I can get the most inspiration from just hanging-out with my friends or walking around the block.  And for some reason, occasionally mishearing a thing can be as inspirational as hearing it the way it was intended to be heard.”

  Lyrically speaking, his songs are heartfelt and often spiritually-themed.  “I'll set nothing vile before my eyes,” he sings in the song “Place Your Wind Against My Sails,” from his most recent album, Halos + Lassos, released in 2006.  “And while You're faithful/Oh that faithless deeds/Wouldn't static-cling/Then I'd be grateful.”

  Today, Ringhofer lives in Berkeley, California, where, when he's not making music, he works as a custodian at a church that houses five congregations.  In return for his diligence, he lives for free, as is characteristic of his minimalist lifestyle.  According to his website, he “prefers the subway over a taxicab, is a recycler of plastic, a compulsive note-taker, and a habitual optimist. He doodles in the margins of paperbacks, carries a couple different colored pens, and continues to use an antiquated CD walkman.”

  On November 3rd, Ringhofer will release the fifth installment in the Half-handed Cloud series, an anthology of bite-sized songs entitled Cut Me Down & Count My Rings. “It’s a collection of 46 songs that weren’t on the four albums,” he explains, “but most were released as either EP’s, 7-inch vinyl records, cassingles, compilation songs, tracks that were included with zines, that sort of thing.... It’s not intended to be a Greatest Hits album—it’s more like what Past Masters is to the Beatles catalog.”

  He also has plans to put together, as he puts it, “a proper fifth Half-handed Cloud album,” as well as a collaboration with England's Henningham Family Press.  “They’re printmakers,” Ringhofer says, “and we held an event in London in the summer of last year that involved a performance of live screen-printing upon a gigantic 12-foot record, and singing songs created specifically for the event upon the massive record as it was spinning.  The eventual plan is to record these songs and release them as a one-sided LP on Burnt Toast Vinyl.”

  While having been involved with such well-respected musicians as Sufjan Stevens and Danielson could give one a big head, Ringhofer remains humble.  “There have been times when people at shows, or members of bands, or emails will wonder about some of the things I sing about in the Half-handed Cloud songs,” he remarks. “I’ve tried to consider those thoughtfully, and reply appropriately, but a lot of the time I can be sort of sloppy in my conversations.”

  Maybe sloppy in speech, Ringhofer is precise in his musical writing.  Whimsical and brisk, the songs of Half-handed Cloud are both eclectic and ecumenical, inspired and inspirational.

  For more information on John Ringhofer, his project Half-Handed Cloud, and his new album, Cut Me Down & Count My Rings, out November 3rd, check out his website, his label, and his myspace.

  
  

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