Basically, think “Drunk Walk Home.”
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Basically, think “Drunk Walk Home.”
Hutchinson said Dessner wanted to keep Frightened Rabbit’s newest album from being “too frantic,” and took out everything that wasn’t absolutely needed from the songs.
The Sword’s Kyle Shutt says the band formed because of a very lucky Halloween cover band show.
“Roman, you ready to demo that jam?”
I <3 you Mountain Goats
Nine Badass Women I Interviewed in 2015
(There were way more than nine, but here’s some of my favorites. Click through the links to read full interviews.)
Sleater Kinney’s Janet Weiss on self care:
“If you want to be in this for the long haul, don’t just suppress what’s good for you for the good of the band. You need to take care of yourself, and have the band reflect who you are. When things start going well, you really get offered a lot of stuff. It’s overwhelming, when things are going well. You don’t want to turn down opportunities, but at the same time you need to keep in mind, “Is this too much for me? Am I going to hurt the show? Am I going to do too many interviews before the show to where I can’t sing right, or I’m too tired to play, or I get sick?” There’s self-preservation, especially as you get older that you need to take into consideration when you decide to do this difficult endeavor. Really, for us, the show is the most important. Whatever we can do to make the show better, whether that’s limiting interviews to 15 minutes so Corin’s voice doesn’t get trashed, whether that’s making sure we have a good hour before the show to be in the dressing room together connecting, just being goofy, warming up, making sure we’re all there and all on the same page, that’s important. We learned over the years what we need to do to make sure the show goes off. Taking care of ourselves is a big part of that.”
JoJo on her all-lady management team:
“I have a female management team, Gita and Katie, and I've known them since I was 12 years old. To see the way that men are a little taken aback by having to take orders or direction from a woman, it's really great to see the way that they use their femininity and their strength to get what they want – not in a weird way. They don't need to act like bull dogs all the time. It's very inspiring to see strong women and to have them on my team, and it empowers me as a woman as well.”
Rosanne Cash on telling women’s stories:
“You know, my mom and dad's divorce was almost equally as painful for my mom and Etta. There was this natural separation that had to happen. It had to happen. It was a terrible loss for both of them. I still talk to Etta; in fact, I'm going to call her tomorrow. And she always starts with stories of my mother. She wants to go over all the old stories, and it's always about my mother. I don't think that sadness ever left either one of them. And there was just no way to find their way back to each other. It lasted for a particular time, and then it was over. It was just tremendously sad. “The stories of the women, because I'm a woman, they interest me more, too. What did the women do when these men were gone? How did they handle the babies and the homes? Their relationships? The loneliness?”
Dianne Reeves on her mother:
“My mother was a pretty extraordinary person, as I guess we believe all our mothers are. She really touched a lot of lives. She had her faults like everybody, but she was able to take those faults as things that she learned about herself and change them and use them to help other people. She was a nurse, and she worked in the community. She worked with generations of people. She would work with one girl's child, and that child would bring her child, and that child would bring theirs. It was like that. It was really a pillar in the community. For me, even now, we just lost her like almost four years ago, you hold onto everything that you ever learned. Everything that you ever saw the shining example. For me, my mother really held the sky up for me in a lot of ways. She was a wise person. This song, a mother lives in her children, and in children in general. She always saw light, and she always saw the best in them. This song was really my journey with her, and some of the things that she would say, and her spirit.”
Esperanza Spalding on her alter ego, Emily:
“A lot of people used my middle name. I remember there was a point in my life where I was like, 'That's not me. That's not me.' … I went through this emergence in my teenage years, where I was like, 'No, Emily, no, that's too plain, that's too young and kiddy, no. I'm Esperanza and I want to be called Esperanza. So from then on everybody called me Esperanza. Actually what happened in my case, I would say with Emily is that [I realized] that it is me. That is me, too. Yes, I'm Esperanza, … but the truth is they're both me. In a way, I see Emily as the vessel with which I can bring up to date my total self, engaging with a lot of the things about performance and art that I was always curious about that just didn't really get cultivated in my quote-unquote Esperanza stage.”
American Idol finalist Jax on her love of Janis Joplin
“My dad introduced me to Janis Joplin because he saw the similarities [in our voices] when I was really, really young. I took that and ran with it. I was obsessed with Janis more than anybody. I have her on vinyl, all of her records. I'm a huge, huge Janis Joplin fan. I'm a big woman power person. I remember seeing Pat Benatar and BB King; my parents did everything they could to give me that musical culture. I think they did a pretty good job, because I'm kind of in love with it. It's kind of my therapy.”
Circuit des Yeux Haley Fohr on reinterpreting Bruce:
“I actually hadn't ever heard that 'I'm on Fire' song until I was tripping on some psychedelics, and I had that cassette. It was like a summery Bloomington weekend, and I think I was a sophomore or freshman in college. The tape was warped, so it was really slowed down. I like Bruce Springsteen — he's kind of hit or miss for me, but I think Nebraska is a fantastic album. He's a great performer and artist — that song in particular, though, it's kind of creepy. It's about a guy fetishizing a younger woman and trying to have his way with her. I thought It would be interesting to have a woman have a take on that, and deliver those lyrics, and really bring to the forefront what the content actually is. In that process, I released a live recording of that, that was recorded at Russian Recording on Portrait, which was a record that came out in 2011. It had a live band after that. It kind of evolved into this rockist, noise track. I feel like my emotions towards that recording, and that song kind of took the place of the delivery of the song. ... What is expected of a woman, that's the collage.”
Mitski on being undeniable
“Being at SXSW; you meet a lot of artists, and you're surrounded by “the industry.” Just yesterday, I was very aware of the fact that I wasn't dressing a certain way, or presenting myself in a certain way. I didn't have a lot of the things that are asked of me, or a lot of the things that would help me progress faster and further as a musician, being a woman. I've actually become even more aware of my … I don't want to say non-beauty, but non-adherence to these standards that would be very helpful for me to actually present myself as a musician, if that makes any sense. It really does motivate me or drive me in a sick way to make the music better, or to perform so well that people forget that I don't look a certain way, or that I'm not from a certain place.”
Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band’s Breezy Peyton on playing through the pain:
“I didn't have time to have surgery. So I've just been playing with a really hurt hand. Finally, right after our Thanksgiving show, that's when I had the hand surgery. I had to play New Year's Eve in a cast. I taped a whisk to my fingers that I could use. Now I have a small cast on. When we go back out on tour, it's really going to be the test.”
Going into Mississippi, that was just so heavy. To go to the places where all of the great blues musicians played, to feel how much I owed them. And also, it was very humbling to realize how much black musicians suffered in the South in the '20s, '30s, '40s and '50s. There was so much suffering. And I think that white people have to acknowledge our role in that, and to acknowledge the debt we owe them for the music. It has seeded all roots music and pop music, as well. I don't think the acknowledgment is given as much as it should be.
Rosanne Cash wants white people to acknowledge our role in the suffering of black musicians making music in the South. More here.
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Reverend Peyton is doing an advice column for my mag now! Question of life, love, touring 200 dates a year, etc. Submit anonymously!
Send us your questions!
With hundreds of thousands of miles traveled, dozens of countries toured via interstates, planes, vans and buses; from dining with royalty in the South of France in castles to living on the road with hobos and vagabonds, Rev. Peyton has seen and done a lot. As an internationally revered recording artist and performer, and a proud Hoosier, we asked Rev. Peyton to lend his unique perspective to our readers. Got a question about music, traveling, love, food, religion, politics, family, friends or enemies? Ask it here, or email it to [email protected], and Rev. Peyton will answer back in a regular column. Anonymity is assured.
Just don't expect Dear Abby, Miss Manners, Ann Landers: This is gonna be some big damn advice.
I think it’s important to create a safe space for discussion, and a safe space for opinions and for ideas, and to have that space provide a sense of equality. Eventually, when the young generation comes up, it won’t be unusual to see women and men treated as equals within the stage of music. I think that’s the goal – equality. And not having it be this strange ghetto that we exist in, where there’s “music” and “women in music” in a separate place. We’re asking for equality. We’re asking for a safe place for that to happen.
Janet Weiss from Sleater-Kinney answers the question I love to ask women: how can music journalists stand on the side of woman and music and be better advocates?
“I have a female management team, Gita and Katie, and I've known them since I was 12 years old. To see the way that men are a little taken aback by having to take orders or direction from a woman, it's really great to see the way that they use their femininity and their strength to get what they want – not in a weird way. They don't need to act like bulldogs all the time. It's very inspiring to see strong women and to have them on my team, and it empowers me as a woman as well.
I interviewed JoJo and yes, it was the best.
My dad has (multiple sclerosis). So, I know what it's like to take care of someone and to see somebody ill. I felt like, Tig and I are great friends. When she told me she had cancer, she was already supposed to move and write for my show. Everything was up in the air for her but I had a very clear vision - we're going to live together, still do the show, and everything will be fine. I got a message from her and walked around thinking for a while, and Kyle (Dunnigan, another writer and Tig's co-host on Professor Blastoff) and I made a plan. I found the apartment, we'll move in together. I thought, who better than two comedians and two of your best friends to keep things light and be honest with you - which is very important. I mean, I've seen my dad shit himself multiple times, and the only thing you can do is laugh. And say, "This is the worst," and then make jokes about it. We were both mentally prepared. When we were looking for apartments, we found a four-story walkup and thought, "Oh god, Tig won't be able to do that." And I got this message from Kyle that said, "You know, I think if she goes up and down just twice a day, I think I can carry her upstairs." We thought Tig was going to be this useless, sickly - I remember saying on the podcast that I was going to make it "fun" and bedazzle her headscarfs. And she was healthier than Kyle and myself! It was such a fun time; we just lived together and nothing was wrong. We just hung out. You've seen The Royal Tenenbaums, right? There's this one scene where Margot finds out her siblings move home, and she's talking to her mom and saying, "Well, how come they get to do that?" I can't believe we got to live together. We were such assholes there. We had bunk beds!
Amy Schumer
Loudon Wainwright tells the story behind “The Swimming Song.”
To avoid the white heterosexual male pitfalls, what I think you're trying to say what I need to do is make anybody I write about as human as possible. By naming people off the top, it helps me to see them a little bit. In all of these cases, and I think it's similar in the Hold Steady songs, there's a woman there, and they're making choices for themselves. And the dude is making choices based on them. They're in the orbit. Maggie, for instance, we don't know much about her except that this guy finds her important enough to try and reach her at the end of his life as things are kind of fading out. He feels like she's the one he needs to reach and explain things to. In Sarah and Christine, the narrator is hoping to connect with the character in a way that they don't seem to be able to. And Sandra, I think that's almost like a mirror. The narrator is finding someone from his same age, things that might be with a lot of stuff in the past. I think that because love is such a big thing in our lives, the pursuit of love, the pursuit of romantic relationships, I think that with starting with two people, it's the best way to tell a story. Even if the story is about something else.
I asked The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn how he writes women so with so much humanity. The women he names above are characters on new album Faith In The Future.
“It’s obvious how it changed my life. I went into the business and became a successful singer. But it changes lives in the most amazing ways, in the ways that aren't always heralded. And so it gives kids a form of communication very early on that affects everything, from their grades in math and sciences, to their confidence levels, to their home life. It affects their relationships with their families.”
This question comes from Richard Edwards of Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s.
There's so many interesting characters in [the Wild West] because time and whatever other impulses we have have allowed them to become these legends, sort of half-fictional characters, which to me is really appealing. I've always loved the literary tradition of magical realism because it allows for so much of that. To me, that's really interesting because I find that a lot of the time you can get to the truth a little faster with fiction, in a weird way. You can paint a clear picture. ... There's a great book by [Michael Ondaatje] called The Collected Works of Billy The Kid that's kind of a portrait of that historical character but told in verse, partially, and also a few snippets of prose. It's really great because it paints this incomplete picture, and your mind just has to fill in the blanks. I think that's a really beautiful way to tell a story. I think a lot of the characters that come out of this part of the world are like that. We know certain things about them, and other things we don't know, and we've allowed the cultural subconscious to create the rest. Some people think that's damaging to the historical record, but to me the positive sides of the legends and lore outweigh the bad.
I interviewed Ben Schneider from Lord Huron about magical realism.