Ex-Soul Coughing member goes solo

By John Benson | March 13, 2008 at 12:00a.m.

Mike Doughty wanted his new effort to feel live, and he kept it short.

Less is more for singer-songwriter Mike Doughty.

One of the first things you notice when calling his New York City home is the echo.

“Yeah, I don’t have a lot of furniture in here,” Doughty laughed. “I’m somewhat of a minimalist.”

That minimalism also carries over to the ex-Soul Coughing member’s solo career, which includes his recently released album “Golden Delicious.” Defined by the acoustic “Put It Down,” the groove-oriented “I Just Want the Girl in the Blue Dress to Keep Dancing,” the Iraq-war commentary “Fort Hood” and the hip-hop lite “More Bacon Than the Pan Can Handle,” the 11-track effort stands out for its compactness.

“I wanted it to feel like my band was playing live, and I wanted it to be short,” Doughty said. “It’s like 38 minutes, which is a bit on the long side for me. For one thing, my listening habits, I really like 20-minute experiences.

“The other thing is I think in the iPod era — gosh, that sounds pretentious — if you want to make something that is longer, you can’t do a 70-minute piece. Remember, ‘Led Zeppelin IV’ was eight songs. [Smashing Pumpkin’s] ‘Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness’ is like two 60-minute discs. That’s a hell of a commitment when you really expect people to sit down and take it as a longer piece.”

Long piece or not, life in 2008 is good for Doughty, who has comfortably settled down into an indie solo artist career. When he’s not dabbling in his latest hobby as a mostly electronic dance music DJ, the 37-year-old artist tours and records at his leisure.

His cultlike fan base dates back to his tenure in Soul Coughing, which spent the ’90s blending jazz grooves and hip-hop influences into a modern sound. As influential or groundbreaking as Soul Coughing may be revered by the critics, Doughty offers a more pointed opinion.

“It’s overrated as far as I’m concerned,” Doughty said. “The first record [1994’s ‘Ruby Vroom’] had a certain kind of chaos that wasn’t available anywhere else, but I think my performance on the record is dreadful. When I listen to it I’m like, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe I was involved in this.’

“I think we’re more admired than listened to, and it was largely a missed opportunity. With a little bit more thought and care put into the records, we could have been like a significant band, rather than like a footnote.”

A mere footnote in music history is something Doughty hopes to avoid with his solo career. In fact, he described in great detail how he thinks in terms of 20 years down the road, when material may have gone through many stages — groundbreaking, commonplace, hackneyed, nostalgic and (hopefully) iconic.¬†

Whatever his place in the annals of early 21st-century music may be, Doughty is now touring “Golden Delicious” with a March 18 show at the Beachland Ballroom. He promises a retrospective tour with fans using their purchasing power to determine a good chunk of the set list.

“It’s very interesting because I’ve been looking at my iTunes to see what my most popular [purchased] songs are,” Doughty said. “It’s updated every three minutes, so it’s kind of surprising what people are downloading. I pay attention to that.”

So does that mean diehards can work in collusion to greatly affect the set list by downloading obscure songs from his catalog?

“I don’t generally work from focus groups like that,” Doughty laughed. “But if you and all of your friends each spend 99 cents buying any track, I will not be angry at you for manipulating the data.”