SubCulture Take 5 / Anna Nalick
We can all remember a time when we were singing "Breathe (2AM)", whether on the radio or on Grey's Anatomy. Now the incredible Anna Nalick takes our stage with a sweeping number of touching originals tunes.
The charming Alexis Babini opens the night. With just a few tickets remaining, this is a performance not to be missed!
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SubCulture: Who inspired you to become a musician?
Anna Nalick: My grandparents and their siblings were Broadway and off-Broadway performers. I used to listen to my grandma's stories for hours, so I knew about touring and thought that that life sounded like a good fit for me. I studied ballet for eight years and was always making up songs about my pretty shoes or the shadow house on the lawn. However, writing felt the best. I have stories, poems and journals dated from the time I was six. My Dad played an old, badly refinished Taylor that I would pluck out bass notes on as a structure for melodies I made up and by 5th grade I realized I could put it all together and write a song. In high school making music was a way to make friends since I didn't feel I fit in anywhere…and kept getting kicked out of the Catholic all-girls school. My bands were my brothers and my allies. They still are. They are true musicians. They inspire me. My desire to feel safe in the connectivity of a universal spirit inspires me to be honest but not needy with respect to work. I like to feel like the parts of me that give me trouble are useful. Right brain stuff. I'm attracted to a lot of creative avenues but music is always present in all the rest. Or maybe the answer is that when I was a little child painting t-shirts with my Mom, I dragged my hand through the paint and was just about to cry when my Mom told me, "There are no mistakes in art" so I decided that's what I wanted to do.
SC: What was the first concert you ever went to?
AN: It was B.B. King in a big outdoor amphitheater in or near Sacramento. After the first song a stage hand brought out a huge chair and King said, "At my age I ought to be allowed to sit down." His playing was brilliant of course, and he was so gracious and passionate and engaging.
SC: Describe your first live performance.
AN: Oh, it's a bad one. I was in talent shows and ballet recitals from a young age. Solos here and there. But I know what you're asking. My first singing performance was on the 4th of July when I was twelve. I was meant to sing The Star Spangled Banner for my girlfriend's annual street parade. One line into the song my nerves got me and my throat just closed up and I choked. This bratty little suburban stereotype of a girl in a green t-shirt (on the Fourth of July…green) laughed at me. I powered through to the end of the song but continued choking here and there. People thought I had the hiccoughs but I was mortified with all the intensity of 12 year old mortification on top of the fact that that situation sucks no matter how old you are. I didn't sing in front of anyone for four years after that. If it hadn't been for the fact that I was so terribly in love with a boy who played drums and begged me to sing the songs I was writing in a band with him, I probably never would have sung again. That was my first band. I was 14. Josh is his name. I owe him one.
SC: What is one wacky thing about you that nobody knows (but they will now!)?
AN: One!! I like to drink orange juice when I eat hummus. I don't own a TV and I don't participate personally in online media because it makes me uneasy…which makes me out of every loop always. When I dance to pop-music my hands involuntarily take on the shape of fins and move like I'm a penguin dribbling a basket ball…Another good reason to not do online. I watch The Shining, Rosemary's Baby, and a bunch of the Hammer Classics every October (on my laptop). I can recite the entire script of Stepbrothers and I have the only actual samurai sword autographed by Randy Jackson. He was gracious enough to sign mine and he told me that the one in the movie wasn't really his signature. So…yeah.
SC: What did you want to be when you were little?
AN: I can clearly remember when I was four, telling my Mom that I wanted to be a Mom and a nun when I grew up. She said we'd talk about that when we got home from church but I don't think we ever did. So I guess I still want to be a Mom and a nun.
BONUS
SC: Do you have a pre-show ritual?
AN: Yes, but that's only for me and the band.
SC: If you could have a superpower, what would it be and why?
AN: I still believe that one of these days I'm going to wake up and realize I can move things with my mind. I think the thing about super powers is knowing how to manage them. We probably all have the "super power" of a sixth sense. That being intuition, and if we collectively knew better how to stop checking out and just listen for it and trust it, we probably wouldn't abuse and deplete each other or ourselves as much. Besides that, I'd choose to be able to time travel...but I can sort of do that with books. Or I'd like to know what will happen when I die…but I can sort of do that with DMT (not promoting or admitting). So I guess I'm good. And the inanimate object mind control…aaaaany day now.
SC: What’s/Who’s your favorite song/band/artist right now?
AN: Off the top…Recently listening to Alexander Borodin, Perfume Genius, Lorde, Zane Carney, Wild Belle, Eminem, John Isaac Watters, Bastille, Prokofiev, David Byrne & St. Vincent, Sleigh Bells, Paris Carney, Edith Piaf, Sufjan Stevens, Beck, Emiliana Torrini, Eels, Antony & The Johnsons, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers….so many more. Just last night I finally found a song I loved when I was about nine or ten. Ini Kamoze "Here Comes the Hotstepper". Contrary to my fourth grade understanding, the lyrics are not "Here come the odd stapler/ur-la-ra/I'm the Librican Councilor/Ur-la-ra/Dial Emergency number/Ur-la-ra/Still lovin' like that/ur-la-ra", but with the actual lyrics I still think it's an awesome song.
And to re-answer what I wanted to be when I grew up. It changed a lot and it's still changing. I want to be an honest maker of things. I want to be vital and live fully.
