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Last May, Sage Francis was headed to Portland in support of his then-new album, Li[f]e—an excellent collection that examines death from every conceivable angle—when life kicked him in the gut. A few days before his Portland show, Francis' father died and he cancelled the tail end of his tour. Now returning for a make-up tour in support of the same excellent album, WW recently talked to the 34-year-old MC-songwriter via telephone about the pros and cons of being a hip-hop homebody.
Sage Francis: I shut out the public. I live alone, I have public interactions about twice a week, maybe.... You really have to cut out a major portion of your social life and cut out a lot of friends and family stuff and just work on your craft. That's not easy to do, especially if you're the kind of person who wants to be doing things and having fun. None of this has been fun for me, man. Really. Like, honestly, wholeheartedly, this shit is not fun.
WW: There has to be some fun in it somewhere!
Sage Francis: There are flashes of fun. When you go on tour, and you're onstage and the crowd is going wild—at that moment, you're like, "Yeah, this is the shit." But the 23 hours around that hour are really shitty. The list is pretty long as to what is bothersome about the whole [touring] experience. But, for me, it's better than working for somebody else. It's a lot more work, but it's worth it.
SEE IT: Sage Francis plays the Roseland Theater on Wednesday, Sept. 21, with the Metermaids and Sadistik. 8 pm. $18. All ages.
WWeek 2015
