Mark Bates and His Solo Stuff

Every era needs a singer-songwriter to capture the spirit of the age. In this unsettled moment, in which news is noise, truth is relative, and romance all but reduced to a cell phone app—this may be the time that discerning listeners are drawn to Mark Bates.
The Los Angeles-based Bates, a native of West Virginia, is self-releasing his second album, Night Songs. The only constant in these 12 classically crafted, emotionally charged pop-rock tunes is the inevitability of change and a yearning for connection in a world in which sanctuary is hard to find.
"Most of the songs on this record are about holding on to something, even if it means being left behind," Bates says. "I've felt that way a lot in my life. Stubbornly grasping onto those memories and dreams can fill you with hope or fill you with madness. I think this album has equal parts of both and I think most of us fight that battle at one point or another in our lives." Bates, a preternaturally mature 24-year-old, was raised in Hurricane, West Virginia, a small city between Charleston and Huntington. His upbringing reflects both the modern and the traditional in that isolated state. Though his father is a physician and inventor of medical devices, his grandfather was the preacher of a small Pentecostal church.
"It was a very small church, but the music was fantastic, all these Southern hymns that are 100, 120 years old," Bates says. "When I was 12 or 13, my granddad said, 'it's time for you to get up and sing.'"
Bates' first instrument was trumpet, which he played from middle school through high school and during a stint at nearby Marshall University. He spent a season on a fellowship with the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra.
He was a late starter on guitar and piano. He taught himself the chords on his mother's guitar when he was 18. "As soon as I started learning chords, I was writing songs, and I never stopped," he says. When he was 19, he says, he knew one song on the keyboards when he auditioned for a weekend gig at a piano bar that was opening in Charleston. He had five days to learn about 40 uptempo blues songs. "I was awful, but somehow kept the gig," Bates says. "That's how I learned to play piano. It gave me some chops."
Bates moved on to Nashville for a little over a year, but his songs didn't fit in the cookie cutter of the entrenched music industry. "I wasn't gaining any traction," he says. "I went back home to West Virginia because I was failing," he says with a touch of mordant self-deprecation.
Career opportunities being what they are in West Virginia, Bates decided to become a police officer, and went through the training to become a state trooper. The experience helped Bates regain his confidence. California beckoned, and after doing some showcases and finding session work for films, he started to feel comfortable.
Bates co-wrote a song for the forthcoming film The Philly Kid, and has done work for prolific movie composer Klaus Bedelt.
Night Songs was produced by the multitalented Eric Liljestrand, who first heard Bates' demos in the summer of 2011. "I was immediately struck by two things: his honesty and his economy," says Liljestrand, who has won a Grammy Award as engineer/ mixer, and was co-producer of the Lucinda Williams albums Blessed and Little Honey. About Bates, he says: "He can convey an enormous amount with very few words." Liljestrand cites as an example the opening line from Bates' song "Rosie": "Charlene became afraid, so she left, and I just stayed." Liljestrand says, "I'm immediately hooked: What's the story? What happened?"
There is a lot more mystery in Night Songs. One of the most compelling tunes is called "Ghost Tonight," though phantasms and apparitions can be vividly felt in the haunting ballad "No One There" and in the jaunty rocker "Simple Love," on which Bates channels the spirit of one of his favorite artists and albums, "Wildflowers"-era Tom Petty.
The point of view shifts from song to song; even within the same song, the singer is sometimes participant, sometimes observer. He can be direct and sarcastic, calling out a former lover's "accidental 6 a.m. phone call" on "Fool;" smitten on "How Good You Look Tonight;" homesick on "West Virginia and You."
The combination of unforgettable melodies and rich emotions makes Liljestrand marvel. "Some of the songs sound like they've been coming out of your car radio forever, and others reveal themselves in repeated listening," he says.
"I try to write 'true' songs," Bates says of his approach. "People are affected more, if a song is genuine. On the flip side, you don't want to be an autobiographer, writing about yourself all the time, so I give myself the freedom to work off of a feeling, and follow that wherever it goes. Every song I write, I want people to believe it. There's a sense of reality in everything I do."
— Wayne Robins
Wayne Robins is a longtime music journalist who lives in New York.