Ellington

I've yet to see "In Good Company," but I have taken a listen to the soundtrack, and among the three tracks included by Iron & Wine, one stands out as a real show stopper. "The Trapeze Swinger" is a nine-minute plus saga that actually survives its running time, getting by as it does on the singer's sighing refrain, vivid reminisces and intimate (but not too intimate) voice. That this could grace multiplexes nationwide makes the film, without any viewing necessary, a good film.

That it might get folks to look into Iron & Wine is even better. The band is the musical stylings of one Samuel Beam, a former film/cinematography teacher at a local college in Miami. He debuted "The Creek Drank the Cradle" on Sub Pop Records in September 2002, a collection culled from two records' worth of material recorded in his basement with a four-track, a guitar, his beard, the gentle finger-tapping of rain and the past sighing through the slats of pine board—all true. That's how it sounds anyway. He followed up with "Our Endless Numbered Days" in March 2004, which deftly updated his sound to the studio era with 12 more matchless songs. He's dropped a couple of EPs, too: The "Sea & the Rhythm," and just recently "Woman King," a more multi-instrumental, direct affair featuring some much-talked-of barbs of electric guitar.

Speaking with him is a bit disarming: He sounds like other people, he talks like other people, though he is notably friendly and laid back. I have to call back because his daughters are washing up before bedtime. But he's a rock star!:

How has it been touring? Has it been difficult opening up the songs to a band so that they come across better live?

Sort of. Originally when we first started playing, we were trying to play them exactly like the record, and that was a pretty bad experience. It was pretty difficult. But since then, we've tried to use a variety of instruments.

Starting off as you did as a guy, his guitar and a four-track, you get filed under the singer/songwriter label, and people tend to look at your lyrics a good deal. Are you comfortable with that level of attention?

I mean yeah, I think I am. The lyrics are what I care most about. I mean the melodies, the harmonies, you fool around on a guitar enough, and they come. So yeah, I'm comfortable with it.

This last EP seemed pretty thematically tight. Do you just get on a train of thought, or is it more deliberate?

It's really all in hindsight. I came up with that "Woman King" title/song and then kind of realized that I had all these other songs laying around, you know, with woman characters, and I just sort of put them together. But that happens quite a bit actually. I don't really sit down to write records. It just comes out, and I see what I've got and find thematic through-lines, stuff like that, later on.

On "Woman King," there are a couple of biblical women in the songs, and you seem to tell their tale from another perspective than that of the Bible. Have you always approached the Bible in this literary way?

Well, not always. I mean I grew up in church, and I thought about it then as pretty much "the Bible."

Have you been to Mississippi before, touring or otherwise?

Yeah, we played in Jackson two years ago.

How was that?

It was OK; the people were really nice. But I don't really remember much about it. I remember having crawfish there. It was in a bar somewhere.

Can you detect a difference in audience reception depending on what part of the U.S. you're playing in, since your music has regional, or even Southern, influences to it?

I'd like to say yes, but it's not true. But regionally, I guess people were more interested in the Northwest. But I think a lot of that had to do with the label we're on (Sub Pop). So yes and no. In my songs I try to put in a geographical flavor but at the same time keep it universal.

When you started writing songs, were you surprised by the type you were writing, or did it always seem like you'd write Iron & Wine songs?

Oh, no. When I first got a guitar me and my friends were into rock'n'roll, skateboard music, you know. Anything with a power chord is what we learned to play. It was easy. But yeah, the writing part has been a pretty long process. I fiddled around with it for years without ever recording. It takes a lot of commitment to figure out what you like about writing and use it. The first stuff I wrote was pretty terrible, but at the same time it was a lot of fun.

I've always loved the imagery you seem to consistently come across. It's always startling to me. Do you draw any inspiration from writers or other lyricists?

Yeah, certainly, writers got to me early on. And lyricists, you know Leonard Cohen, it was like, "So that's what you can do with a song." But lately I've gotten away from that because you end up just trying to get their thoughts and not your thoughts. But I do like to read a lot.

Iron & Wine plays June 10 in Oxford at Proud Larry's.