At Work: Birdthrower
I’m guilty of not really making people aware of my music. I’m terrible at that,” Robert O. Leaver says. “You don’t want to continue doing anything in hopes that someone else will notice, but you also don’t want to avoid help.”
Leaver first turned heads when he was on his hands and knees, in his father’s blue suit, inching his way along a stretch of New York City concrete. His Crawling Home project— a six-month series of 20 exhaustive sidewalk slogs from Wall Street to Washington Heights—certainly generated an assortment of curious, indifferent and dismissive reactions. Yet, Leaver’s quest also stirred its share of empathetic onlookers, including Ben Harper.
Riveted by Leaver’s unflagging commitment, Harper introduced himself to the performance artist crawling up Broadway and discovered that he was also a singer-songwriter. At the time, Leaver wasn’t actively looking for patrons to fund for his experimental folk pursuits. In fact, his interest in social media, branding and self-promotion was virtually nonexistent. (Leaver still uses a flip-phone.)
Still, the pure and distinctive perspective of Leaver’s songs impressed Harper, who offered to help him find an audience. Leaver opted in and, as Birdthrower, became the first artist to sign with Harper’s newly formed label, Mad Bunny Records.
Harper produced the sessions for Birdthrower’s eponymous debut, bringing Leaver to the West Coast and pairing him with the top-drawer rhythm section of drummer Jimmy Paxson and bassist Jesse Ingalls. From a batch of 30 possible songs, they ultimately chose 11; Sheldon Gomberg, Harper’s longtime engineer, recorded the tracks at his Silver Lake studio in Los Angeles.
“I was so amazed that everyone was paying attention to my songs,” says Leaver, a self-taught guitarist. “I’d conditioned myself not to need attention—and not to need affirmation. I’ve always said to myself: ‘I make music and I don’t care who hears it.’ I did that routine for years. So, to hear them responding was astounding. You don’t realize how much you want something until it’s there and it’s happening.”
The trio recorded live in the studio, mostly in a few takes. Released in the fall of 2019, the resulting album and its accompanying videos reflect Birdthrower’s dark, dry sense of humor and eclectic life experiences. “I knew when I started the crawl, I’d get a song out of it—at least one,” Leaver says.
Though the coronavirus pandemic has severely limited any opportunities for live performances, Leaver’s exposure as Birdthrower has prompted a possible rerelease of three albums by his early-2000s trio, Raw Believer, as well as a follow[1]up collaboration with Harper. As always, Leaver remains vigilantly available to life’s cues. “I’m trying to keep myself engaged and open. I can’t go a day without writing something down, or picking up a guitar, or leaving myself a message of some hummed melody.”
