Music

Sociable singer Bhi Bhiman full of fun stories, good songs

Bhi Bhiman
Bhi Bhiman

Here's how these things usually work.

A phone interview is arranged by a publicist and at some predetermined time, the reporter is given 15 minutes or so to chat with the musician and gather enough information to work up a story that will let you, good ol' reader, know that said musician is coming to town and, just maybe, convince you to stay up late, cough up the price of admission and check him out.

Bhi Bhiman

8 p.m. today, South on Main, 1304 Main St., Little Rock

Admission: $25, $32, $34

(800) 293-5949

southonmain.com

The conversation is usually cordial, quick and, at least for me, awkward. Chatting with strangers on the phone about their art can be weird, though there are times when it turns out to be quite fun.

Talking to Bhi Bhiman, the singer-songwriter who plays tonight at South on Main as part of the Oxford American's Archetypes & Troubadours Series, is a hoot.

During a chat late last month that happily went on for more than 40 minutes, he talked about traveling through Arkansas as a kid from St. Louis, his 2015 album Rhythm & Reason, the new record he has recorded but hasn't released, Donald Trump, his love of Soundgarden and friendship with Chris Cornell, the hilarious music video he made with Keegan Michael Key, meeting Booker T. Jones of Booker T. and the MGs, touring with Rhiannon Giddens, stealing the show with an acoustic version of "When Doves Cry" at a Prince tribute concert at Carnegie Hall and reading This Wheel's on Fire: Levon Helm and the Story of The Band.

Throughout the call, which he made from Los Angeles where he lives with his wife and their three-year-old daughter, Bhiman was funny, thoughtful and self-deprecating, often ending a story with, "But I'm rambling."

The 35-year-old Bhiman, whose parents are Sri Lankan, was born and raised in St. Louis and picked up the guitar at around 9 years old. After high school, he attended the University of California, Santa Cruz. He was in a band called Hippie Brigade that moved to San Francisco and eventually left to start his solo career. The Cookbook was his folky, solo debut, followed by Bhiman in 2012 and the soulful Rhythm & Reason, which deals with issues of immigration, identity and culture.

It's a brief discography that hints at Bhiman's ambitions to not get stuck in a sonic rut.

"My first album was acoustic-based," he says. "I've always liked the way Neil Young was able to do balladry as well as full-out rock songs. The next one was more of an electric thing, with a Booker T. and the M.G.'s feel."

The new album, which doesn't have a release date, is more rock with "modern touches," he says.

Lyrically, the thread that connects much of his work is being a minority in America and topical subjects.

"But I know people don't like to hear about that, so the way I do it is through storytelling and making the minority more relatable," he says. "It's not about politics, but the societal lens of politics through one person."

He's also wickedly funny in a sly, John Prine way. Just check the acoustic "Ballerina" from Bhiman, a wry spin on Johnny and June Carter Cash's "Jackson" that has our couple getting married not "in a fever/hotter than a pepper sprout," but "in a Walmart/down by the Wrangler jeans" before going on a Natural Born Killers-style crime spree.

The video for R&R's "Moving to Brussels" has Bhiman and comedian Key riffing on a parody of the film Whiplash, with Key playing the sadistic music instructor and Bhiman the somewhat baffled student. Bhiman's response when Key demands he play "something else from Chuck Berry" is priceless.

As a teenager, Bhiman was a full-on Soundgarden fan and, years later, met the band when he performed on the same 2012 episode of the British musical program Later ... with Jools Holland as his Seattle-based grunge heroes.

"Something about them just really captured me," he says. "And their guitar player, Kim Thayil, is an Indian-American. Kim was brown guy -- not a black or white guy -- playing rock 'n' roll music. I liked that and I've gotten to know him and I keep in touch with him still."

A friendship with Soundgarden lead singer Cornell also blossomed. Bhiman toured with Cornell, opening for and singing with him.

It was an eye-opening experience, he says of his time with the singer, who committed suicide on May 18: "He had to have a bodyguard and had to sneak around so people wouldn't claw at him. The way he had to move around was much different [from] the way other people have to move around."

Bhiman was in bed when a pair of friends texted about Cornell's death.

"It was one of those days where you remember exactly the moment and the details, he says. "It was shocking, for sure, and upsetting. I was upset that he was gone, but also upset for his kids."

Another musician with whom he has toured, and who left an indelible imprint, is Giddens.

"She is a great champion of mine," he says. "Doing what I do, writing socio-political songs, it doesn't resonate with a lot of people, but when it does resonate with certain people, [like Giddens], it's pretty meaningful."

Weekend on 03/15/2018

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