Allison Russell Q&A
Canadian songwriter, and Nashville resident, Allison Russell is coming to Tampa on May 11, 2024. Here's our Q&A, unedited mostly, as a reference for anyone who wanted to read beyond the story I did for Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.
I listened again to the record last night. I went for a midnight run for an hour and it was just hitting—it was wild. I live in Florida. One of my favorite things about the way you talk about activism is how often you always come back to just trying to change laws. Thinking about Nashville, the city that's given a lot to you, and obviously you've given so much back to Nashville in regards to your activism. And I was wondering how much do you have in your tank for other places? Can we get a "Florida Rise?" Because domestic legislative terrorism—it lives here, you know?
I know it's everywhere. I think I would love it if Florida artists adopted "Tennessee Rise" to "Florida Rise" and used it, I would be thrilled. We've been talking about the "Love Rising" benefit that we did here to push back against all of the horrific, unconstitutional laws targeting demonizing and criminalizing our LGBTQ+ community which I'm a part of—it's really our trans siblings who are just being assaulted left, right and center, you know, the most vulnerable among us—so we did this big benefit concert called Love Rising, that Hozier supported actually, and so did Hayley Williams and Brittany Howard and Sheryl Crow and Yola, and just all kinds of awesome people, Maren Morris. We raised, like, close to $600,000 for these wonderful organizations on the ground, sort of doing the work year round: Tennessee Equality Project, Inclusion Tennessee, Out Memphis, and the Tennessee Pride Chamber. What it really was, we did a ton of voter registration at that concert, that part of it was really successful as well.
The other part was that people saw each other—progressive and moderate folks who believe in equal human rights found each other in Tennessee. And once you see each other and realize—so much of it people despair, they think that there's no way to change anything. Everything feels sort of impossible or something, but the reality is that in Tennessee, it's just gotten this bad because only 32% of registered voters are showing up at the polls, so it's completely skewed. It's not a super-majority. It's a super-minority government. If 80% of the population had shown up and voted to say this is what the majority of people here want—but that's not the case. And I suspect it's very similar in Florida. I don't know if your voter turnout is dismal as ours.
Turnout is bad. I'm afraid that the registration numbers are getting harder, harder to overcome for the Democrats. I think they're almost at a million disadvantage as far as active registered voters—I looked this morning. We had Joe Biden in town to talk about Roe v. Wade and our six-week ban. Speaking to change the things I wanted to ask you kind of a silly question. Tokenism and this false narrative of scarcity and people being interchangeable—the divide and conquer kind of manipulation—all that's kind of quickly fading away. You mentioned all those people that came to love rising benefit. And it's cool that you don't even have to try to change the system so much anymore, because you're creating your own ecosystem that works for you. But then thinking about diversity and representation and those moments where you can look around and there's like this really uplifting makeup of people on stage, but I think you worked out of Henson recording studio. I was wondering about Kermit the Frog. I saw him play Newport with Jim James, when is it your turn to have a Kermit collaboration?
Oh my god. You don't know how much I want to collaborate with Kermit. Kermit is the reason I play banjo, before I knew anything about the banjo being America's African instrument, brought over by the diaspora. Let me tell you, if “Sesame Street” ever comes calling, me and Kermit have a date.
Someone needs to reach out to Chris Funk at Newport Folk Festival and make that happen.
Help me out. Bring Kermit back.
Let me ask you about Hozier. I love the videos of you singing "Work Song." Sometimes, reading about you and the way you talk about Fred Hampton and the Young Lords and how he brought them together with the Young Patriots—how powerful Fred Hampton was in his ability to create that coalition. You have the Rainbow Coalition, your band. You have a body of fans. I was wondering how close do you think you get to Fred Hampton's vision of collaboration across really, really diverse sets of people? When you look out at your crowd, and you look at your fans, like, do you see maybe what Fred Hampton was building...
Yes, absolutely. Particularly, Hozier's audience. It’s so diverse. It's so gender diverse. Last night I think there were more queer young Black women in the audience than I've ever played to in my life. And it was so joyful. When we sang "Eve Was Black," there was a group of women right at the front, holding up these signs saying "Eve was Black, and so are we." I was crying because it was so beautiful. There really is. I feel like Gen Z gives me a lot of hope. They just seem to not have a lot of the same biases that have plagued previous generations, and they seem to have deep wells of empathy and compassion and care. And it just gives me a lot of hope. These shows have been—I mean, we were only two in—they've just been so joyful. Such diverse, big crowds, and very young—his audience is very young. It's been really, really putting a lot of fuel back in the tank, really giving me a lot of hope. I do see that rainbow coalition out. Really the Rainbow Coalition is everybody that believes in the basic principle of human equality of our one human family and the fact that like, we have a shared destiny on this one life bearing planet that we know of in the universe. We gotta show up for each other in better ways.
I was watching your Instagram story and I did notice that there were a lot of young POC folks. "Eve Was Black" is one of those songs. I'm a Filipino guy. I listened to "Eve Was Black" and in a lot of ways I can't relate in any way—but it's still so powerful. As somebody who's not in that demographic or category. I can't imagine how...
But except you kind of are because—first of all mitochondrial Eve, look it up—we're one human species. We originated on the continent of Africa and then we migrated and we adapted to different environmental stressors. When we try and put some kind of supremacy on pale skin because some people went north where there wasn't a lot of sun and they had to maximize their vitamin D, it's absolutely nuts when you think of it that way. That anyone was ever like, "This means we're superior. It's so absurd. [Elenna Canlas] in our band is Filipinx as well. She's been teaching us a little Tagalog and she's been just talking about the revolutionary movements within the Philippines as well, and how it inspired Black revolutionaries—this was all sort of concurrently happening. I think any people that has ever been oppressed can relate to any other people that have been oppressed. You know what I mean? Because it's the same toxic hierarchies trying to divide and conquer in order to extract and hoard resources, basically. It's just the same story over and over and over again. People you know, we just have to stop falling for the divide and conquer.
You are so good at making people feel seen and welcome. So thank you for saying that because last night when it was really hitting I was like, "I can't, you know, like the imagery of swinging from the tree and all that stuff." It was so tough. Then like the critic mind me, it was like "It's like 'Strange Fruit,'" And I was like, "God, how stupid does that sound?" You know, like to try and say that from my standpoint—like what do I know about it. Yeah, I guess you just flipped that on its head a little bit. So thanks.
I think you make art for survival. And you've talked about that a lot. But I think like refuge is a theme that's kind of baked into your music in a way. I don't know if we talk about it enough, but you grew up in Montreal. And you've talked about the things that helped you kind of escape even in the cold months, those student lounges, the chess matches, Persophone’s home and I think you had an apartment that you paid like $150 for and did telemarketing.
You've done a deep dive. How do you know all this?
I want to ask you stuff that you've been asked before.
You've done your research. Yes, that's all true. You know what's wild. One of my dear childhood friends now works in Taylor Swift's camp. He worked on the "Fortnight" video with them doing art direction and stuff. Whenever I see these huge things he's doing I think about all of us little raggle, taggle misfits hanging out at that apartment, dreaming of being working artists one day. We're all doing it. It's so wild.
That is awesome. And none of it's like guaranteed but at least you guys had each other.
That's the thing—chosen family is everything to me.
So the pandemic, horrifying as it was on a global level, allowed you to pause like the substantive touring habit that you were in. You were on the edge of burnout. The pause let you find a great home for your record. And I know this run just started, but how do you take refuge these days in your own life?
It's really through community. I feel a sense of refuge in surrounding myself with a loving community and surrounding my daughter with that. And honestly playing and playing shows with my friends—I always think about Willie Nelson, "On the road again / The life I love is makin' music with my friends”—basically it's what I've always loved the most. We're able to do that, and my daughter is going to come out on parts of this run and that is just so joyful to me. And building these kinds of growing, loving circles bit by bit, thereby reducing harm in this world—that's what makes me feel happy and good and safe. I take comfort in growing circles of safety and understanding and connection. That makes me feel like I'm doing my small part to reduce harm in the world and leave it slightly better than I found it, and that gives me a lot of comfort.
Let me ask you about Ida since you brought her up. My wife and I were together for 16 years and also did not plan to have a child. You talked about your very joyful pregnancy, birth and the joyful, accidental nature of it all. And I know you've talked about your fears of motherhood. I mean, it's kind of baked into "Tennessee Rise," and breaking cycles, but I'm curious what has Ida taught you about life that you didn't already know?
Oh, my gosh, I feel like so much. Ida is remarkably fearless—not fearless, I shouldn't say that—a brave person. She's very aware of when she's afraid of something, and she'll do it anyway if it's something she really feels she needs to do. She'll joyfully try new things. She doesn't tell herself she can't do them. She is so loving with her friends and also doesn't take rejection badly. She handles rejection incredibly well—and actually, like, she tries again.
Like being told she can't have a cookie? That kind of rejection?
No, no. So Ida spent the first kind of five years of her life on the road with her dad and I. We were in a band called Birds of Chicago, so we were just in the van constantly, and on the road constantly, and so every day there would be a new park in her life. A new group of kids. She would just joyfully go up to news circles of strangers and she would sometimes get rebuffed and rejected, and he wouldn't be daunted for very long—and often she would try again. She's made so many friends like where other people might just see or feel like they couldn't try again or take it to heart that they've been rejected. She has an endless curiosity about other people. She feels things really deeply. She can't understand why there's anyone that doesn't have a home in this world. She's like, "What is wrong? Why aren't we all doing something about this right now?" She just really motivates me to be more proactive in trying to change the things we can no longer stand.
Yeah, I do appreciate your stance on neutrality and options that we have, and things like that. Real quick. I want to ask you, how is dual citizenship going? Will you be able to vote here soon?
I hope so. I'm in the process of getting my American citizenship. Everything is so backed up, so we'll see. I don't know if I'll be able to vote this election cycle, but I'm certainly going to be able to by the next one. And I'm going to continue using my sphere of influence to encourage and plead with others to show up at the polls and remember that it's for the many. When people that have the privilege to vote, it's for every person who's underage. It's for every new immigrant for me who has a green card, but doesn't have citizenship yet. You're voting for your whole community.
There's this notion of being abused by ideology as a kid. You've talked a lot about ideological abuse and how it affects people, and the chain of abuse, but how far have you come in your understanding of true forgiveness?
I feel like I'm still working on it. And I think it's the most important thing we can learn how to do as human beings. It's in short shrift these days. There's a kind of an unfortunate kind of addiction to outrage that's that I see happening online. Definitely. I think it is really damaging and really harmful to our culture‚ the lack of forgiveness. Excommunicating anybody is really dangerous. To have a lack of forgiveness condemns us to an endless cycle of vengeance and violence and discord. I think that for me, one of the things that I have been working up my courage to do is to go see my abuser who is now an elderly ailing man. I'm gonna be in Toronto in June to open for Sarah McLachlan. And I'm going to try and go see him and just say, "I forgive you, go in peace," kind of thing. We'll see if I'm able to do it. I've been thinking about it so much. Especially in the context of—as we look at what's happening in the Middle East, what's happening in Sudan or Congo, or East Timor—I think about these cycles of unbelievable harm. People that have endured and meted out harm far greater than anything I've ever had to endure. And we're asking them as a global community to stop the violence, and we're asking them as a global community to change, to break the cycles. If I can't practice forgiveness in my own life, how can I be asking anybody else to do it right?
As a parting question, do you have anything you want Florida to understand as you make your way down here to the land where woke goes to die?
I want Florida to understand that we can't erase history by banning books. We can't break cycles of harm by pretending harm never happened. And that the only way out is through. And the only way through is together. We have to stop treating each other as enemies and the other—we are one human family on this precious beleaguered, under full-on assault by our worst practices, planet. We can change things together. We can grow circles of goodness together. We're so looking forward to playing and finding the Rainbow Coalition and finding each other.