Interview: David Bixby

Known predominantly for his 1969 record, Ode to Quetzalcoatl, David Bixby's music is that of a true original: deeply intimate, spiritually powerful psychedelic folk embedded with a powerful sense of both hope and crushing loneliness. The Mic's own Ria Serena sat down with Bixby to discuss religion, his experiences of having been shipwrecked whilst working as a sailor, and the absolute power of music to carry one through the void of depression.

I had always entertained the idea of interviewing David in my head, though I never knew if this was simply a pipedream that would stay within the confines of my journal. You see, David is considered a crate-digger’s dream. His music is something you merely stumble upon when the time calls for it. 

You do not find his music, but rather, his music finds you. 

Like many of Bixby’s listeners, I was met with his music at a time when I most needed to hear it. 

Ode to Quetzalcoatl, served as a vessel for me to explore my own moments of self-realisation and spiritual awakening. His songs taught me lessons of forgiveness, resilience and the idea that nothing is fixed within this lifetime. 

It is a very truthful album, one of hope. Bixby has this innate ability in encompassing the human experience in its raw and honest form, encouraging us to embrace the unknown. 

The charm about this album is most definitely its’ message. You see, these aren’t random streams of consciousness dotted along the page but rather, lived tales of the difficulties in which David has endured. 

Ode to Quetzalcoatl documents what it is to be truly alone in a world where you are the only answer to plunging yourself out of the darkness. We encounter a young David who was once at a similar crossroads, an individual exposed to the depths of humanity and coming to terms with disillusionment. This album is a landmark of hope and how holding onto just the right amount of faith, guides you unto a path of purpose and self-discovery. 

David is certainly no stranger amongst music-heads, however, to those unbeknownst of his discography, I implore you to treat this interview as a mere introduction to the life and legacy of David Bixby. 

Ria: How have you been David?

David: I’ve been really good. It’s nice and sunny here in Arizona, 

Ria: It’s nice and dark here in the UK. 

David: (smiles) Well, that’s the UK for you.

Ria: It is a pleasure to be interviewing you. It feels almost quite surreal (David smiles). You’ve probably heard this from a lot of people, but your music found me at a very difficult time and helped me sit with things that I didn’t quite have the words for or feel I could articulate. To be talking to the man behind such tracks, it really is wonderful I have the opportunity - it’s the David Bixby. 

David: (laughs) it’s just me! Your story you just told me is very common. I hear that a lot, and I get a lot of emails from people who are having troubles at that moment. They all say they were in a dark place. It’s kind of a common phrase, and they all claim that the album helped them through that. So I look back when I was that age, and my audience, when I perform, are all the age I was when I wrote this music. If you were to ask me what this music is and what it does, I would have to say it’s rites of passage, and it’s that place when you’re not quite a child and you’re not quite an adult. You are kind of finding your place, and you’re trying to figure out who you are, separated from what you are. It’s nice to hear your story. That’s very consistent with what other people have said about this album, makes me bigger than life. 

Ria: Drug Song sounds almost like a confession. When you were in the process of writing this, who were you addressing? Was it yourself, God, or someone else entirely?  

David: I went through a form of hell, and I call it ‘the void’. The ‘void’ is very uncomfortable. You lose who you are, and your ego doesn’t exist and that’s kind of scary because you think your ego is who you are. It’s a soul death. We don’t know that we have a soul. You hear about it, and you read about it, but you don’t know you have a soul until you lose it.  When I was ‘restored’ or ‘healed’, Drug Song was a way to capture that experience of going through that ‘void’ and that’s what people get out of it. They’re in the ‘void’ when they listen to it. It doesn’t take you out of the ‘void’ but it makes you not feel alone. It’s ‘this David Bixby guy’ that went through it and he came out of it, so you don’t know that there’s another side to the ‘void’ and you can’t get out of it, what you have to do is learn to go through it and that’s what Quetzalcoatl does. It takes you through it. 

Now, it’s a lonely album and that’s where people usually are - they’re in a lonely place, even when they’re around family, they still feel lonely. “Who am I and where do I belong?” Those are conditions of the ‘void’, and you’ll go through the ‘void’ from time to time throughout your life, but when you recognise what it is, you can manage it. It still overwhelms you. It’s like confrontation. You can still be cool. It’s a growth place and I attribute it, to say, if you’re in art class and you have a canvas and you start to paint a picture. It’s not coming out the way you want it to, and you keep putting paint on it and it gets worse the more you try to mess with it. So, you have to take that canvas, set it aside and put up a new canvas, and that’s what the ‘void’ is doing for you. It’s erasing the part of your life that maybe, won’t even serve you anymore. It might be thinking like a child. Maybe it’s time to upgrade a little bit. It’s temporary. Quetzalcoatl is about the ‘void’ and about healing - about coming through it. There’s another side to it, and it’s a part of life. Don’t do anything stupid because life is worth living and you’re going to discover that. You don’t want to miss out on that.

Now Harbinger, compared to Quetzalcoatl, I was in a Christian cult, called ‘the Group.’ I didn’t know it was a cult, you don’t know when you’re in a cult. You can be in a cult with one person. Quetzalcoatl is a soul journey and a solo journey. Being alone and dealing with losing your soul and being broken all by yourself. Harbinger, you have friends to talk to. You have people that’ll listen to you. I didn’t have that during Quetzalcoatl, and I wrote Drug Song to describe that loneliness and that ‘void.’ It turned out to be a real therapeutic song. I never thought of it as being that. I didn’t even think of it as helping other people. I just needed to get it out of me and to put into words, what it was like. “I can’t even think straight, nobody knows what I say,” that’s pretty lonely. “Even my guitar wonders why I can’t play,” I mean, I take an inanimate object and look at it like it’s a living thing. “Got down in my manhood before my time.” I mean, I really screwed myself over. I’m a loser, I got to face that. 

At the time I was losing, so while you’re losing, you are a loser, but when I get through it, you can be a winner if you just move through that and forgive yourself. It’s easy to forgive other people, and it’s easy to get forgiveness from other people, but it’s really hard to forgive yourself for some reason. I think we like to punish ourselves when we disappoint ourselves. “I should know better than that.” That is the component of adolescence: coming out of adolescence and getting to a point when you can move out of your nest and move away from mom and dad and do your own thinking. 

I remember my dad throwing up his hands and getting so discouraged with me. He says, “well you just do what you think is best.” I never considered that. It stopped me in my tracks. “Hm, do what’s best.” I never thought of what’s best, I just wanted to do this and did it without thinking there might be consequences. 

Ria: You’ve spoken about ‘the void’ - this depressive place and how it shaped Quetzalcoatl. When you look back at that version of yourself from that time, do you feel a sense of compassion, or are they someone still hard to face? Do you feel you can empathise with the journey you were on when you were younger?

David: I forgive myself for making the decisions that put me there. I’ve taken responsibility and maybe writing that song was the first step in owning that experience. Now, it’s a ministry if I can use religious words because when people email me and they’re having this thing, I relate to where they are, and they don’t feel lonely when they’re talking to me. I’m learning not to lecture anybody on anything or to point out mistakes. You know when you make a mistake, you don’t need anybody to tell you. If you stop for a minute and clear your mind, you go “Oh!”

When you say ‘him’ do you mean my old version? What I see is somebody who is lost. Now, when I travel around and play concerts all over the world, people say “would I have ever dreamt that this music is what I’d be playing 55 years later?” Of course not! I remember in my bedroom when I first got these boxes of albums, I didn’t know what to do with them. I realised, I had a revelation, that every album was a person. Now I’m talking to you, and you held up the album. I have an inanimate object that turns into relationships around the world.

The question is, how do I feel about the fact that I’m now travelling the world? I’m humbled. It’s a little bit spooky for me. You believe in what goes around comes around and you believe in karma, but you don’t know if it’s true until you see it working. Karma can be positive. You reap what you sow. Well, in that album I sowed some good seeds, and I acknowledged Christ. I’m not too keen about religion. You can find Christ as an experience, it’s an experience you have, it’s not a storybook. A lot of Christians they read the story and that’s all it’ll ever be to them. A story. You got to have interactions. You got to have prayers answered. When you have prayers answered, you go, “wow, this really works!” It’s like all of a sudden, you know what the fear of God is. “Oh, you’re really there and you’re close.” 

We don’t always experience the Creator as being close. It’s so close its within you, but we don’t know that until you have these epiphanies, these revelations. Sometimes you have to have your life slapped round a little bit to jar you into that. It’s too bad. Why do we have to suffer in order to learn? Life doesn’t have to have these difficult transitions for you to grow. You will grow because of it but if you have wisdom you can avoid that difficulty and move on. You’ve got to know that you’re a fool. Once you admit that, that’s the first step to wisdom. Nobody wants to take that step, so nobody has any wisdom. They have worldly wisdom but the wisdom I’m talking about is the wisdom on high, to take you down the path so when you’re at the end of your life, you don’t feel like you missed out. A lot of people have that experience. They feel like life might pass them. Here’s a quote that I came up with which is so true: “religion is hanging on, Christ is letting go.” It takes faith to let go. Hanging on is comfort, you’re trying to be comfortable. Christ is not comfortable while you’re in transition, but once you get to that next place, there’s a joy that you would’ve never experienced otherwise. There’s a peace about it. I’ve cried for joy, and I never knew you could have that experience! 

"Drug Song was a way to capture that experience of going through that ‘void’ and that’s what people get out of it. They’re in the ‘void’ when they listen to it. It doesn’t take you out of the ‘void’ but it makes you not feel alone. It’s ‘this David Bixby guy’ that went through it and he came out of it, so you don’t know that there’s another side to the ‘void’ and you can’t get out of it, what you have to do is learn to go through it and that’s what Quetzalcoatl does. It takes you through it."

Ria: If someone told you they were going through what you went through would you hand them a Bible, a guitar, or a hug?

David: Aw, I’d give them a hug (smiles). Religion is the last resort. I wouldn’t recommend that as a place to start. Prayer is the place to start. You got to have the experience. If you don’t have the Christ experience, then you got religion. So, it’s not real until you have that. You can’t explain that to anybody and I recommend you don’t. If you have that experience, keep it to yourself. Even though the Bible says you need to share your testimony, don’t do it. I’m going against the Bible right now, because people will steal it from you or doubt it, and that’s just for you. It’s not for them, it’s for you. You gave me three choices, and I’d start with a hug. 

Ria: On a personal note, Ode to Quetzalcoatl became the album I listened to in times of hardship and distress. An album embedded with introspective themes of forgiveness and rebirth, did you ever feel people would misinterpret its meaning or miss its real purpose?

David: I was never worried that people would misinterpret it because they’ll interpret what they want to get out of it. People have told me, and I said, ‘You said it helped you, how did it help you?” And they have different experiences that were just for them, realisations which I didn’t recall having when I wrote it. I  go back and listen to the song they were telling me about and I say, “Oh!” 

I think the album doesn’t appeal to everybody. Some people listen to it and go, “ I don’t get it, this guy’s kind of whining” and “poor him,” and other people get it, and it hits the mark. The music is timeless, and I’ve been told that, but now I’m starting to really believe it is timeless. It will touch people after I’m done here. So, I don’t worry about it getting misinterpreted because I know it will, and those people aren’t ready for that kind of thing. It’s for a small group of people, and its getting bigger. To answer your question, it doesn’t bother me at all. I don’t worry about people misinterpreting it. 

Ria: You said that the Quetzalcoatl story of a ‘Christ like man walking the America’s’ captured your imagination, I was wondering what about this in particular peaked your interest, so much so that this became the name of the album? 

David: The name is so peculiar that it helped the album to become a mystique. The fact I was in a Christian cult, it added a little bit of interest and that’s why we’re talking. I went down to Mexico to the pyramid and the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, and the friend I was with asked the guard if I could go in after the tourists left. I wanted to pray and meditate, so I went into this temple, and I sat there, and my first question was, “what made me even think of this? Why would I select this?”  I gave you my reasons, but it might be more than that. I realised what Quetzalcoatl was doing with these people that built the pyramids and the Aztecs that came in afterwards. They were elevating their vibration to go into another place because they disappeared without warfare, without hunger. They just disappeared. They went. I saw that in a vision weeks and months after that. You could have a spiritual experience but sometimes, it takes a while for it to get into your consciousness and then you go, "Oh!", and you realise, “I've already known this, but I just haven't had the realisation of it.” So, I wrote a song about it called, ‘Temples of Stone’, and it's about Quetzalcoatl.

Ria: Your music feels deeply spiritual. Did it ever feel like the songs were being written through you, rather than by you?

David: Drug Song was by me because it was my experience, but there's other songs that point to the Creator. Those came right through me. They just came. I didn't craft it. Drug Song was crafted out of my experience. I had a spiritual experience before that, which put me in a place where I could actually do that. I didn't write any songs until after I came out of the ‘void’ and then I could not stop writing songs. I would say most of them were inspired and came through me. I've heard Neil Young and Gordon Lightfoot describe the same thing. If I didn't write the song, somebody else would have. It was already out there. It's like Bob Dylan said when they were asking him about inspiration, “where do you get these songs, Bob Dylan?” He said, “I guess I get it from the wellspring of creativity!” and I thought, “well, that's a good answer, I’ll go with that.” So he had that experience too. He said there’s certain songs he couldn't have written. If they didn't happen that way, they wouldn't have happened. 

To answer your question, most of them came through me and a few songs I have crafted. Probably about five or six I've crafted, and the rest of them have come. A lot of times I'll write music, and the music will come to me, but nothing'll happen. No words. Then all of a sudden, one day, I write it, and it all comes out and I marry it. I hope that if my music is soulful then the song is soulful. If music is happy, then the words are happy. 

If the music is lonely, then the experience is lonely. So, it's important to marry the music with the words. I don't know if I can do that on my own. That requires the inspiration. That spiritual nudge. 

Sometimes I'll correct the grammar a little bit and take out some passing words that don't need to be in there, so the words will land on the beat and just kind of clean it up a little bit, but the thought comes through my thinking. It's me that's writing down the words, and it's me that's editing. I close my eyes, and I think, “I'm too wordy here. Get rid of some words. What are you saying?” And I've gone back and listened to some of my songs on Quetzalcoatl because I needed to hear it. 

I was in a kind of a low spot. You go through that sign wave throughout your life where you get into this ‘void’. Men have a midlife crisis, that's where their ego dies, and they get real. They go through the ‘void’. You don't have to take drugs to go through it. The ‘void’ is a part of life. Life goes up and down. It's not a straight line. We want it to be all positive. Your faith can't grow until you have doubt. So you got to get hit up with some doubt in order to apply faith. Faith is something you do. A belief is something you have. You may never follow your beliefs. You just have them. But faith is action. Faith is moving. It's got power. Your beliefs, they have no power. In fact, if you're hanging onto your beliefs, you might have to get rid of what you believe in, in order to really use your faith. 

I was in a shipwreck, and I almost died. I had faith and I talked aloud to my Creator. “Is this going to be the end for me?" and the answer was no - but I was ready to take a lung full of water and get it over with. My belief system had to be in second place to the faith because I was in trouble and death was right there in my face.

"Most of [the songs] came through me and a few songs I have crafted. Probably about five or six I've crafted, and the rest of them have come. A lot of times I'll write music, and the music will come to me, but nothing'll happen. No words. Then all of a sudden, one day, I write it, and it all comes out and I marry it. I hope that if my music is soulful then the song is soulful. If music is happy, then the words are happy."

Ria: Ode to Quetzalcoatl is a very truthful album. When you recorded it, were you thinking of it as a form of healing, warning, or testimony? Did you imagine it would reach the ears and hearts of so many?

David: That's a good question, and I've got a good story. I was doing concerts in high schools and colleges, and I played all these songs, and as I played these concerts, some songs found their place. I started with Drug Song and Free Indeed, and they found their place and then everybody was saying, you need to do an album. When I went into the studio, I did what I did in the concert, and I developed that through doing 50 or 60 concerts, and that's what went on the album. Now, there was no audience, and it felt weird because I needed people. I needed their energy in order for me to have an experience of having it come out. It was lonely in the studio, but it's a lonely album. We came up with all this echo, and that's the first time that tape recorders had that ability to put echo on it, and that made it even more lonely. So, it all worked out to really serve the record and the mood of it and where it came from. I had that experience of being alone, and I did every take. I mean, I just went through and played it, and that was the album. I did maybe two takes on certain songs for one reason or another. 

I’ve changed a lot. I've gotten older. Life has made me kind of grumpy and I've had trouble with forgiving. When I listen to the album, I go back and see who I was because I was in tune. Now I'm using that as a model to rebuild myself and go, “oh! I forgot about these principles” and “I forgot to start forgiving people.” I'm holding on to resentment, and it's making me ill, and I don't know how to let go of it. This is because I have got so much logic and I've been treated poorly when I wasn't expecting. So, I need to listen to the album once in a while myself. 

It's a testimony with a feeling behind it. When I went into the studio, I didn't know that I had all that feeling, but it seems to be on the record. When I'm in front of people, the emotion is there. I'm connected with them. I have that drawing out of me. It takes the best out of me. In the studio, I pretended the microphone was an audience and that made it real. Just like a camera. You pretend it's your audience and you talk to the cameras. I’m not talking to a camera. I'm talking to you. But I'm talking to the camera. So it's a way of tricking yourself into being real.

Ria: What’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen that no one else was around to witness?

David: When I was out on the ocean by myself, feeling the earth turn, and watching the sun go down. You're watching the different colours, and then going through the emotion of “it's getting dark” and a little bit of fear and apprehension of the nighttime. But I experienced every sailor who lost themselves in the ocean before me from the beginning of the time. I felt all those souls in that ocean. 

Ria: Was this during the shipwreck? 

David: Yes, this was when I was out at sea, and I had troubles and was in a shipwreck. First of all, there was no radio, television, or other people. I was truly by myself, and I quit thinking. Lineal thinking. I didn't do lineal thinking. I was more being, and I felt like part of Earth. I belonged. Up until then, I felt like a pilgrim, like, my home is somewhere else. I don't know where my home is. 

I was out at sea, that's not a home but I felt at home within myself. I was blessed throughout my life in possible car accidents, and I didn't know that, and that was brought to my attention. The voice came to me, my little voice that talks to me from a child, said, "I've taken care of you before, and what makes you think I won't take care of you now?" And my fear went away. I got energy. I rose above. it. So to me, that was beautiful. It incorporated every aspect. It might be my physical body, my soul, my spirit. I was in touch with other souls and spirits that went down into the sun before me. 

Going into land, I woke up  early one morning, and I had problems with my rigging and that's what made me go into Eureka, California to fix it. On the way in, I hit into a bank, and I went to sleep down below, and dreamed that there were canoes. Full of people, full of Polynesians. They came to bring me comfort and fellowship. I woke up and it was just the waves lapping on the boat - they made an audible sound of paddles going through the water. So I would consider that a spiritual dream. 

I had an out-of-body experience while I was in the ocean. I remember that more clearly than certain things that physically happened. Like, “how did I get from here to there, physically?” I don't have a memory of that, but I do have a memory of being out of my body, watching myself thrashing around my body in the water. It's like the other side opened up, and I got to see what it was like. There's no leaders there. Nobody's telling anybody what to do. You're there because you deserve to be there. It's a higher place. The entities there have goals, and they can fall short of their goals. It look like perfection to me, but obviously, there was room for these souls to grow, and another dimension beyond that that they go to. 

I realised that before I was born, I existed. and after I die, I will exist. I was so aware of how it didn't matter if my body drowned or not - where I was, was okay. I was in a good place. I was moving on. I was moving on without my body. I let go of life. I didn't know if I was feeling myself to see if it was a dream, because I thought I was dead. I was in a physical body, and I made it. I lived. I'd been saved. I got baptised also, in that whole experience. So your question was, “what was the most beautiful?” That was the most outstanding, and I guess I could call it beautiful, in that it just opened me up, and from that day forward, I felt like I was around my body. I was not trapped inside it. It was around me so I could experience other people. 

Ria: Was this before Quetzalcoatl? 

David: No, this was years, years later. 

Ria: It was kind of a spiritual rebirth?

David: Yeah, it was kind of like a reboot - deleting your software and putting new software. The hardware is the same, but I got new software in the way I perceive life. I treated people like I'd never see them again. I had a passion in the centre of me. It wasn't in my head. It was in the centre of me. It was like an excitement, but it was a passion for life. Now, after 30 days of being around people and going back to work, that went away. So I think you got to get away from it in order to experience it. Jesus did. Jesus went into the desert and fasted. When he was done, he threw himself right in the middle of people. I think he had to get away from the crap that he carried. You get contaminated by being around people, and so all the beautiful experiences in my life, the greatest highlights of my life, I was alone. 

End of Interview

David has proved to be one of the most enigmatic and haunting figures within musical obscurity, offering vulnerable insight into the toils of inner transformation and what it means to be flawed. Bixby’s music is a gem  that is still being unearthed today, and for that, I can only say I am envious to those able to experience his music for the first time.

At a time when uncertainty and a lack of direction feels immanent, many of us should look to David’s music as a way of holding out light and keeping the faith.

I would now call David a friend, and look forward to speaking to him again in the not-so-distant future! 

Ria Serena

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Edited by Liz Clarke

Images provided courtesy of David Bixby