Doughty Likes It Warm and Fuzzy

He likes it warm and fuzzy. And so do you.

“My contention is that everybody does, you just may not know it,” says Mike Doughty, former guitarist and lead singer of Soul Coughing. Doughty’s deep rhythmic voice and lyrical creativity helped carry Soul Coughing’s alternative-meets-sugarfree-jazz sound through an eight-year run, best known for tracks such as “Super Bon Bon” and “Circles.” I had a chance to speak with the newly turned soloist recently about his upcoming tour, his thoughts on music, and a critique of the music industry.

In April of 2000, fresh from the dissolution of Soul Coughing, Doughty wrote an article in the New York press under the title “I Like It Warm And Fuzzy.” The article, a witty critique of “danger” as it is packaged and sold to music fans everywhere, seems to be part of Doughty’s attempt to redefine himself and his music in the wake of his newfound independence. In Doughty’s opinion, the music industry mass-markets an image of danger that is problematic not so much because it is truly dangerous, but because it is in fact absolutely tame. When he calls “wanting to break stuff...a dumb way to interpret an emotional response to music,” he by no means intends this as a condemnation of bands like Nirvana, AC/DC or the Ramones. Instead, he argues convincingly that fans’ so-called “danger response” is an illusion, “another noun on the list of baby-boomer indulgence-nouns, which includes other punk rock standards like sellout and hippie notions like progressive.” He also took the word “cool” as an insult when I attempted to ascribe it to him. Doughty compares violent interpretations of music to people who look at drug use as an adventure. He mocks, “I sure [looked at drugs that way] when I was a kid in the suburbs and had no access to drugs. But when I did get them, guess what I found? A warm and fuzzy feeling.”

Doughty explained to me that it is not so much “danger” that sells, but the “idea of danger”—“I guess people that try to espouse the danger program are trying to defend themselves...they want to put up a front.” Record labels sell us danger because danger, ironically, makes us feel safe. Ultimately, behind all of the diverse emotional responses good music can evoke, Doughty contends that we like what we like because, somehow, it makes us feel good.

Doughty began a tour this week which will hit the Somerville Theater on Monday, Feb. 18. Unlike the plugged-in sounds of Soul Coughing, Doughty’s solo gig will be acoustic, though it should include some stripped-down versions of songs Soul Coughing fans will recognize. He’ll also be playing off of his unreleased solo album Skittish, and if we’re lucky, he might surprise us with some new material. “It’s very difficult for me to break out a song for the first time, it’s very stressful,” he confesses. “I had a really prolific period in the past two or three months, I had like 18 new songs, and I’m wondering if I’m gonna bring any of that stuff out.”

Doughty says of his previous work, “When I was putting together Soul Coughing, what was happening was grunge, and it just seemed like...so dire. It seemed like the most radical thing to do at the time, and it was a time when I tended to do things just because they were the most radical thing to do, was to...sort of have this almost Vaudevillian sort of happiness.”

Soul Coughing wasn’t exactly the Backstreet Boys either. While the phrase “warm and fuzzy” might evoke images of big purple dinosaurs, Doughty’s work with his former band is evidence that music need not be totally lame to be non-threatening. Doughty has nothing but praise for both “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “I Want It That Way,” but he has managed since Soul Coughing’s debut album, Ruby Vroom (1994) to create an incredibly satisfying sound that really resembles neither. Despite the album’s cool bluesy blue that resounds against an almost mathematical precision, what emerges from this darkness is not danger but a deeply sexy rhythm that deftly balances tension and comfort. By their second album, Irresistible Bliss (1996), Soul Coughing had settled on a more summery sound, letting up the tension a bit in favor of a sly, upbeat smile, and even sampling a swinging Vaudeville melody for “Disseminated.” And on their third and final album, El Oso (1998), radio-friendly “Circles” got lots of airplay and was even used as background for a Cartoon Network commercial, a tribute to its child-safe fuzziness. Though the rest of the album turned to a heavier electronic sound, Soul Coughing still showed us they could manage driving rhythms without danger, melancholy without losing luxury.

Since the break-up of Soul Coughing, Doughty has been undergoing some noticeable changes. Musically, he has taken the opportunity to collaborate with a variety of artists, including They Might Be Giants and Brian “BT” Transeau (trance DJ and producer for ’NSYNC). Doughty acknowledges that these experiences have expanded his versatility as an artist “The track with BT was the first time I ever co-wrote a song with somebody,” he says. “I came in with a melody, and he sort of chopped it at the end and put it in a different place than I had envisioned it, and that was a real revelation for me.”

But the changes have been personal as well. He’s off of drugs, which he suggests had become a crutch to his creativity. “There was a sense of connection with the world, and with my creative self,” he explains, “that I would get when I got high ... [but] by the time I was really in the gutter of my drug career, I was barely writing at all; rather, getting high and wondering when the songs would come.” He has also picked up a first name, in place of the M. “I just wanted to have a first name like all the other kids,” he says. Doughty laughs about the significance of these changes. “Stopped shooting dope, have a first name,” he jokes, “your basic rites of passage.” In his mind, he says he’s still the same guy, but his music appears to be changing.

As a soloist, Doughty has moved away from the Soul Coughing sound he calls “a very baroque arrangement, so big, so much density to the songs.” In his words, “When you just strip it down to the basic chord and the melodies, there’s kind of a haunting quality that I really like.” He has gone acoustic for his upcoming tour, as he did on Skittish. “It’s how I started out,” he reminds us, “it’s what I’ve been doing longer than I’ve been doing anything else. Once I wasn’t in a band any more, it was just sort of the natural place to go.” Doughty suggests that his sound has become simpler, and finds himself “definitely try[ing] to pack less information into a word than [he] used to.” All this simply leads him to a sound that’s “more explicitly warm and fuzzy.”

He also identifies himself with some new influences. “As I’m getting older I’m getting closer to folk music and blues, and really simple forms of pop music...I keep listening to Hank Williams Records and some Mary J. Blige Records, R&B Records and they’re so simple and straightforward, and I keep wondering why can’t I write a song that’s just like, “Hi, I dig you, do you dig me? Let’s go get drunk, I’m really sad.” Doughty covered Blige’s 1992 hit “Real Love” on Skittish, and it’s a likely choice for his tour.

Nonetheless, liking it warm and fuzzy has always urged Doughty towards “big fat superlow frequencies that cause a palpable physical tingle, and which make people want to fuck.” And so when I asked him how Monday’s concert would get me laid, he was quick to reply, “All I can say is thoroughly.” But consistent with his new-found “lovey-dovey vibe,” he promises “more of a smoochy thing, less of a full-on boot knocking thing.” Drawing on the breadth of Soul Coughing material and the depths of his own talent, Doughty’s tour should live up to the promise of warmth and fuzz. Expect not only a solid, satisfying performance, but also a few surprises. “I don’t have any planned,” he concludes, “but you can expected them—I approve of you expecting them.”