David Costa: “We were able to fantasize in our time”

 

An in depth conversation with David Costa, founding member of the seminal British acid folk band Trees, on the occasion of the release of the beautifully packaged expanded re-issue of their two classic albums on November 13, 2020.

I’ve treasured both Trees’ LPs ever since I first discovered them some 25 years ago, and was immediately fascinated by the sound, the lyrics, the atmosphere. I was bewitched!

I find that really interesting. The music is not Mediterranean.

How do you then interpret the fascination it exerts in the South of Europe?

What connects with you?

There is something very mystical in it, in a sense. Excellent musicianship, too, in terms of guitar playing. Not to mention Celia Humphris’ vocals. Both LPs sound very fresh and contemporary, as if produced a few days ago.

We are so lucky to have people like you, because there’s been a long time coming. Our reputation has been building over the decades. And now, 50 years later, we can enjoy quite a substantial resurgence.

You quit Fine Arts during late 60s before completing your degree to contribute to the formation of Trees. Has this been one of your most inspired -and inspirational- choices in life?

Of course! It was a decision of immense significance. The period of revisiting and refurbishing what we did 50 years ago for the purpose of this release has been one of archaeology.

A spontaneous decision, nevertheless?

Spontaneous insofar I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do.

Sometimes you have something in your head, the circumstances arrive in your doorstep and you are ready to make a decision. It was a very easy decision for me to make at the time.

You already knew how to play the acoustic guitar. Were you professionally trained or an amateur?

It was totally amateur. I did train quite briefly with a classical guitar teacher, but I was predominantly self-taught in the folk clubs of London.

Did you consider yourself as a “folkie” at the time?

My head was listening to West Coast American music. My sympathies were with bands like Quicksilver Messenger Service, It’s a Beautiful Day, Jefferson Airplane, Steve Miller.

What I could play, though, was more suitable for folk clubs.

So, one ear was there, and the other 5,000 miles away!

Both Trees’ LPs are not typical folk or folk rock albums. Some call them “acid folk”, though I don’t really know what this term means exactly.

This wasn’t a term that was around then. In fact I’m very happy with it. Being saddled in the day with the terminology of folk rock put us head to head with the other folk rock bands, and this did us no good at all.

We were up to something far wider. We all had a lot of sympathy for what was happening in the West Coast at the time.

Was it restrictive being classified as “folk rock”?

The category that the music press of the era applied to us put a nail in our coffin!

Could you elaborate on the lively cultural, musical and social atmosphere of the late 60s within which both LPs were born?

Funnily enough, we were talking about this at home last night.

People usually view Altamont, the death of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix and the split-up of The Beatles as the untimely end of the 60s dream. It all fell apart.

But if you look at the real, heady 60s, for me is Rubber Soul and Revolver, when it became clear that something else was going on.

The world was opening up to very new influences and people very catholic in their taste, particularly in music.

I had been living in Notting Hill since 1965 and was very much immersed in what was going on in London at the time. It was one of the centers of 60s universe. That was the culture I was responding to, and I was bringing that to the “table”.

Why did the band have such a brief career? Did you simply deliver what you had in mind or were there disputes among members?

We had no terminal disputes!

What was frustrating for us was that we made an enormous leap from one album to the other.

During the recording of the first LP we didn’t really know what we were doing, we were really very young.

By the time we got to On the Shore, however, we had found were our strengths were. When we delivered it, we knew that we had delivered something of value, which was very different. We had worked very hard as a band and on the road that year.

We offered that to the general public with so much confidence and hope, but we didn’t get the response we wanted.

Were you frustrated because of that?

Hugely! We were very disappointed. There were other disappointments, too.

All young bands struggle on the road, with management and their record companies. Finally, with On the Shore CBS decided that we were worth taking notice of and they tried to help us and brought a heavyweight American manager.

That didn’t deliver either.

I have to admit that I was the first to leave, and all I did was to articulate what everybody else felt. I felt I had to move on, maybe the other four could find a different direction and do things differently.

Time has been on your side, nevertheless. 50 years on, you seem to have taken your “revenge”, and your work has been acknowledged by both critics and audiences around the world.

You’re right, sometimes it just takes longer than you’re prepared to give it. (Laugh).

Was your later engagement with art as a graphic designer more satisfactory, prolific or closer to what you had in mind while growing up and maturing as an artist?

Yannis, it was the 60s! When I left university, it was because I didn’t know what I was going to do in my life.

I don’t think, however, that my career as a graphic designer and an art director would have been as informed had I not spent two years with the band and been immersed in the sharp end of the music business.

I was pointing to the wrong direction first time round. By turning my head towards design I was more successful.

You were embraced by and collaborated with several big names, although you were young and not much known back then.

I was extremely lucky. It’s like the 60s mantra, to be in the right place, in the right time, with the right people. My first graphic design was with Elton John.

Eventually I found my confidence, and discovered that the people responded to what I was doing. I also discovered that I could develop good relationships with my clients, because I understood the language they spoke and also learnt to keep my distance.

Since you’ve been active as a musician and a designer for long, how much have these fields changed over the decades?

I know you ask this because we all look towards the 60s and the 70s.

We first began with vinyl, which was a huge, beautiful canvas to do wonderful work on. The packaging of the LPs of the late 60s/early 70s was very sophisticated and extravagant.

Having “cut your teeth” this way, then CDs came along and work on this tiny box had trampled over that. Constantly, the history of the format is to apply it with a different kind of aesthetics.

Now, we’re enjoying the luxury of having vinyl again. Format is everything. Does that make sense?

It does, and the format of the expanded re-issue of both LPs alongside the unreleased material is indeed astonishing.

The demands of contemporary music are perhaps very different from what they were in our time. It’s a much harder business now, and people are more visually aware these days.

We were able to fantasize in our time, to do elaborate set-pieces for fanciful ideas. No one’s got the time or the budget for that anymore. Now you have to be much more succinct in your thinking.

There’s also been five or six decades of music packaging. We didn’t have that back catalog of visual “baggage”.

Not to mention the current state of the pandemic, which redefines and transforms the experience of music, as well, that can be very communal.

We’re right in the middle of that at the moment.

Give it a year or two, we’ll be able to go back and say: “Ok, that’s a pandemic piece”. You’ll be able to recognize from the music or the visuals. It takes some hindsight to be able to condense this experience into something that we can understand.

You could have applied that to the Second World War, I suppose. You’d have recognized how social conditions influenced everything else.

Do you continue to be artistically creative on any level?

Yes, I do. I’ve been preparing a collection of new visuals that I want to use on our website and YouTube channel. I’m enjoying revisiting Trees’ digital aesthetics, something which has not been done before.

I stopped working commercially five-six years ago. The last thing I did was with Elton. My career was bookended by him!

Hopefully Trees’ legacy will be accessed by more people with the release of the expanded re-issue.

It took me a year to get a license from Sony, but I knew that we weren’t finished yet. This is a kind of our swan song and I wanted it to be done properly, with the right people.

It’s always a pleasure getting in touch with people that matter to me, and whose work matters.

It’s been great talking to you. It’s people like you who “carry the flag”, who help us go forward! And maybe we’re not done yet…

I would like to warmly thank Alice Gros of Fire Records for making this interview possible.

Trees (50^th anniversary edition) is released on November 13, 2020, by Earth Recordings.