ABOUT

I'm a guy who writes songs...

There's something about the form. The way words, imagery, emotions, sound, and rhythm work to create a little self-contained experience. I like to record my songs, but it takes me a long time. I like to play them live for people too, with my musician friends and co-conspirators. I've done some cool stuff over the years: worked with producers, engineers, and players who have worked with the best... played some good clubs, in different parts of the country... opened for important and inspiring performers... had my songs played on college radio and music sites.

Music is the way I express myself because that's the culture I came up in. Sometimes I think that if I'd been born at the end of the 19th century, I would've been a painter. That's what was happening then. Or, if it'd been the first half of 20th century, I'd try my hand at prose -- when the novel was king. But given that I'm from the latter half of the 20th century, popular music and film were the mediums that inspired me, and a lot of people around me.

The whole "three chords and the truth" thing. That's the language that artists in my life time have used to express themselves, and shake things up. So that's why when those ephemeral moments come, I reach for a guitar and open my mouth. If I'm lucky, the songs come out.

BIO GRAPH

What is art, what is craft? What's the relationship of the arts to commerce? Where does work end and self-expression begin?

As a creative professional and indie singer-songwriter, Hilary Cousins wrestles with these questions on a regular basis. Involved in film & video production, communications, multi-media installations, writing and design, Cousins has been using his creative skills for a long time. But it's producing and performing his music that remains the most fulfilling creative endeavor. “I work on the creation of so many different kinds of projects, pouring sweat and tears into all of them, but some are just so much more worth the agony.” Many artists of course wear multiple hats in life. But the challenge of moving specifically between the commercial arts and personal art is central to Cousins’ journey – stealing fleeting moments of beauty and inspiration as he navigates a bustling, competitive, fragmented world.

Cousins’ unconventional upbringing has informed his sensibilities and music. His father was an ex-Jesuit from New Orleans and a medieval theologian, and his mother was a professor of English literature. Their home in rural New England was a magnet for scholars, poets, nuns, carpenters, and gurus from around the globe. Traveling was an integral part of family-life including living briefly in Israel and traveling across Europe in a station wagon and tent. "My sisters and I were always being dragged to a site where some famous philosopher had lived, or where a saint had a vision and then spilled her blood in gratitude." Whether the heated discussions around the table concerned world religions, Shakespeare, or the Dallas Cowboys, Cousins grew up in an atmosphere where the every-day stuff of life and pondering the sublime easily mingled.

His father’s love of big bands and jazz led to Cousins' first musical experiences playing alto sax as a kid. When he discovered pop-rock as a teen, he moved on to the acoustic guitar, eventually strumming hymns in an alternative church his family belonged to briefly. He then dove more deeply back into the saxophone, playing in both traditional jazz bands and pop-rock bands.

After college, Cousins focused on his parallel interests in filmmaking and dramatic writing. Though active in the film/video production field for years, Cousins grew frustrated by the challenges of bringing his personal vision to life in the film medium. When he began to experiment with combining his musical sensibilities and his writing, he found the form he was looking for: Hilary Cousins the singer songwriter was born.

Sonically, Cousins' music combines elements of rock, folk, americana, and atmospheric soundscapes. His lyrics veer away from the story-teller approach and tend to have more evocative and expressionistic leanings. The songs offer cinematic-like reflections on encounters and journeys in which the boundaries between the self and the other – and between the beloved and the divine – become confused and intertwine. The drama in Cousins' songs reveals an acute awareness of love, grief, the yearning for connectedness, and the struggle to understand an unconquerable world.