Tobin Voggesser

J.J. Grey of Mofro

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A talk about songwriting with John "JJ" Grey may start simply, but it quickly veers into the philosophical. Grey leads the band Mofro and writes songs that reflect his upbringing in a rural area of Jacksonville, Fla., and an outlook on life that's sort of an urban Zen.

"That's where I was born and raised, so that's probably always going to be a part of it," says Grey, who has just pulled into Virginia Beach, Va., for a show. "It's part of the foundation of where I came from. I still live there and I don't plan to move. I love it and I know where I'm at when I'm there. I'm inspired there as much or more than I am anywhere. But when it comes to songwriting it just happens. And that's the way it always was. The last thing I'd try to do is force it and become a caricature. I don't say, 'I haven't done enough about the natural landscape of Florida for this album. Let me write a song about the Ocklawaha River!' I've never done that and never will. All that stuff will just continue to find its way in there. It always has."

Grey and Mofro guitarist Daryl Hance knew each other from high school, but didn't team up musically until they were both working for the same company installing air-conditioning systems. In the late 1990s, the two formed Mofro. In 2001, the group recorded the album "Blackwater," which featured not only music, but Grey telling stories.

"Dan (producer Dan Prothero) was recording without me knowing it," says Grey.

The album was critically acclaimed and followed up by "Lochloosa," which met an equally enthusiastic reception. Grey signed with Alligator Records in 2007 and released "Country Ghetto" and 2008's "Orange Blossoms."

Grey has a 21-year-old son and a 7-month-old daughter.

"They have the same mom," says Grey. "Everybody always thinks I must have remarried or something, but that's just the way it happened."

If anyone believed in fate, it's Grey. He says planning has never worked for him.

"The only mental anguish I've ever experienced is when something didn't turn out the way I thought it should," says Grey.

One of the things that didn't turn out the way he initially wanted was his life in Florida.

"Like any kid I was desperate to be anything but who I was and where I was from," says Grey. "I had some preconceived idea of everybody around me and who they were and I didn't like it. We always aspire to be something else because we fall in love with these abstractions of what somebody else's life is like or what life is like somewhere else. It's a fantasy. My father-in-law says, 'It's easier to wash dishes at somebody else's house.' I was that way about people I grew up around and this culture."

Grey's mother insisted he read a book called "A Land Remembered" by Patrick D. Smith, a work of historical fiction spanning 100 years of a family in Florida.

"It brought back all these memories of stories my grandfather had told me," says Grey.

Grey says the older he gets the more he realizes that he's "preaching" to himself in his lyrics.

"Ninety percent of the time, the songs that stick with me come out of thin air. Sometimes I have no idea what they mean until later. You've gotta live it before you know what it means. Even the songs I thought I knew what they meant. You come up with lyrics and think they're about a subject or an event, but beyond that the real meaning is a lesson for ME to learn. I'm preaching to myself to remember the important things.

"Feelings cannot be explained. They can only be experienced. That's what all the lyrics I've wrote are trying to tell me - to wake up and try to experience wherever I'm at and come back to the real world again.

"Sometimes I feel like I'm a salmon swimming out to sea. He doesn't know where he's going. He just goes where he's supposed to go!"

© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel
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