When done properly, the most uproarious of comedies are those based on dark and unhappy circumstances or bleakly ironic images. History is littered with proof that the human condition needs a downside in order to remember where up is; for example, a frowning clown painted monochromatically in blue can bring a bent little smile to the face of someone that sees it, author Daniel Handler has made a fortune from a series of unfortunate events and even Friedrich Nietzsche – without a doubt one of the more biting human critics and cynical philosophers – conceded that occasionally courage wants to laugh. Sometimes the happiest man on Earth will cry and a big smile is the only thing that betrays the mania of the one wearing it. Few people are so keenly aware of how to manipulate those sentiments and tug upon the heart strings of his listeners as Burning Hell singer, songwriter and ukulele player Mathias Kom. "I'm not actually a depressive person at all," says Kom as if to ward off any misconception, "But those songs were mostly written during a period last year when things were not going particularly well for me in my personal life and I think it bled into the songwriting a bit.
"In terms of lyrics and songwriting, lyrics have always been the most important things for me," continues the singer. "I don't think I'm a particularly good songwriter in terms of melody or chord structures and I need to learn a lot more about that. Who knows if I'll ever learn anything [chuckling]? The lyrics have always been my main focus and the music and films that I've loved has always been a mixture of sincerity and humour. I don't want to be goofy, but a little bit of goofiness is okay. I'm actually a really serious person, but I don't listen to or really even like any kind of music that doesn't have a bit of humour in it. The tongue has to be at least partially in the cheek, even if it's in a really subtle way. That's always been present in the music that I love and carries over into the music that I write. There's always a little bit of cynicism and a little bit of dark humor, and a lot of the time when I'm writing songs I'm so paranoid. I write a lot of songs that never see the light of day and there's a good reason for that: it's because they're terrible [chuckling]. But in terms of songs that I want to play with the band or anything that's going to get any public exposure, I'm so paranoid that I'm writing something really shitty and I obsess about whether it's going to sound like some heartfelt singer songwriter or end up being a total novelty song when each one is finished. Neither one of those extremes is something that I want to convey – I'm searching for that ideal mix of art and artifice."
On his sixth album, Happy Birthday, it'd be impossible to say that Kom hasn't nailed his goal perfectly. Much like the albums that Johnny Cash made toward the end of his life, Happy Birthday is the aural equivalent to the denouement that follows a calamitous party; the dust has settled, moods have tempered and Mathias Kom has sat down to offer up some music that'll smooth the last rough edges and raw nerves. Over spare instrumentation (acoustic guitar and ukulele are the constants, but mandolin, lap steel, drums, cello and keys occasionally poke through), Kom half-speaks his twisted, sardonic tales of love, woe and late nights with such a deadpan delivery as to be comical in its own way. As could be expected of a record that makes the most of such faux dour beginnings, Happy Birthday inevitably picks up steam as it goes – adding more instrumentation and slightly quicker tempos, but also getting funnier at the same time. Songs like "Grave Situation" parts one and two, "I Guess I'll Be Seeing You" and "The Second Cigarette" get progressively more absurd and Kom lets listeners see the little twinkle in his eye to reassure them that not everything is as heavy as it sounds – even while he continues to play it that way. That little lift in the edge of the singer's image is the most salubrious part of the lugubrious Happy Birthday; there isn't exactly a punch line anywhere to be found on the album, but it successfully straddles the line between comedy and tragedy – between the slip and the fall – and, as Kom says himself in "Remote Control", that dichotomy is precisely what he loves the most and wants to show his listeners before he goes. Of course the irony, in this case, is how easily the album came together and how charmed the recording of it felt. According to Kom, the band "just sort of frantically learned and rehearsed most of the songs on the record in the couple of weeks before recording so they were all very new to the band. We just kind of went nuts rehearsing – which we've never done before – and I think it happened because we were nervous that it wouldn't go as smoothly as it did. Fortune was smiling on us though, and we had Andy Magoffin on our side."
"Thanks to Andy, who's an absolute genius engineer, the whole process went really fast," continues Kom, beaming. "I think the whole band was there for about three days, and then we did another two days of extra mixing and things like that. I was worried that it wouldn't come so easily, but Andy worked really hard for us. It was a great experience."
At roughly the same time that work began on Happy Birthday, Kom took his love and devotion of the ukulele to all new levels by joining Ukuleles For Peace in an attempt to bring understanding and friendship to opposed cultures via the tiny instrument. "Ukuleles For Peace is a very small grassroots organization based in Tel Aviv that brings together Arab and Jewish kids in a sort of ukulele orchestra," explains the singer and ukulele enthusiast excitedly. "The kids get together once or twice a week to learn new songs and rehearse and it is about playing ukuleles for sure and they do perform, but it's mostly about using the instrument and music to get these two communities talking – kids most importantly. That's the goal and there are 70 or 80 kids involved in the project, and about 14 or 15 are in the orchestra."
"It has been going for about four years now and it's beginning to gain more momentum and I hooked up with the organizer for Ukuleles For Peace – his name's Paul Moore – and I went over to Israel both to help him teach as well as produce an album for the orchestra," Kom continues without a hair less enthusiasm. ‘I brought a little mini studio with me and we spent six weeks recording the songs they were doing. This week I've started mixing that album. The whole point of the record is to use it as a fundraising tool and also a great document of what the kids have been doing but what floored me about Israel were the kids. It was so inspiring; here's this huge collection of kids that are mostly between eight and ten years old, and they might not all be the best players in the world, but they're just so enthusiastic about ukulele and that really rubbed off on me. I was a big ukulele promoter before I left for Israel, but now I'm almost dangerously obsessed."
In a show of uke solidarity, when The Burning Hell comes through town to promote Happy Birthday, Kom says that one thing about his performance will be markedly different from shows in years passed. "In the Burning Hell, I used to occasionally play guitar, but have now switched to playing ukulele exclusively. I'm really excited about that and I think these shows are going to be the best we've ever done."
