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Photo by: Alli Hirschman |
Musicians vs. Performers
I think being termed a singer-songwriter for me is
a very positive thing. I definitely prefer it, first of all, to
folk artist, because I don't think that accurately represents
me. I don't feel like I am a folk artist -- I am partially
a folk artist in that I play in folk venues, because I'm on vocals
and guitar mostly, at least when I tour. But I also don't think
I am purely pop at all-I definitely identify with both genres.
I like "singer-songwriter" because it can apply to Elton John,
or it can apply to John Gorka -- it kind of spans a lot more areas
of music, I guess. And yeah, I think at times it can limit you,
because I don't feel like when I'm sitting down to write a song
that I'm trying to get to the chorus in 10 seconds -- that to
me is not what's important. If it that happens to work that way,
then that's great, and if people find it a catchy song and maybe
someday my song will be on the radio and a lot of people will
be hearing it, that's fine; I'm certainly not against that. What
I am against is working just to get that, because then all of
a sudden everything feels empty.
I've tried to write songs for record labels,
I've tried writing "the song," because I've been told "you have
a good voice and play guitar, but where's 'the song?'" When you're
22 years old, you're like, "Oh god, you're right - where's the
song? And then you try and write "the song" and you find it really
limits what you can do lyrically a lot, which is why a lot of
these songs on the radio don't say that much. Because there isn't
that much space, especially when you are trying to get to the
chorus in 10 seconds. There isn't much space. It is formulaic.
But I also understand that process and I respect it, I think it's
great. I love pop music; I sing along with every cheesy pop song…and
every non-cheesy pop song. That is just not the kind of songwriter
I am. If it happens to happen that way, or if it comes out that
way - I just wrote a new song that's kind of poppy and catchy,
and the chorus gets in your head, and it gets to the chorus really
fast -- but it wasn't my intent to write it that way. It just
came out that way and it was sort of the mood I was in. But I
also don't think there is anything wrong with being that kind
of writer, I think a lot of people make a great living doing that.
It's just I want to write a song that captures the feeling and
some grain of truth that started the song in the first place.
And wherever it ends up, sometimes it's going to be a five-minute,
more folky, really lyric-heavy song, and sometimes it's going
to be three minutes long and really poppy. But I don't want that
to be my focus, because then it doesn't feel real and it doesn't
feel right, and that kind of defeats the whole purpose.
Mad at Britney?
I go to my high school fairly often to play, and my
Dad is an English teacher and I went and spoke to his eighth-grade
English class. And I was just supposed to perform, but they ended
up having all these really great questions. And one girl raised
her hand and she said, "Does it make you mad that Britney Spears
is famous and you're not?" [laughs] And I was like, "Thanks for
pointing that out." [laughs] And it was so great - and I think
she was kind of nervous to ask that question because she didn't
want to point out how unfamous I was - and I was like, "That's
such a good question - not at all…it doesn't make me mad at all,
because when I was 12, Britney Spears would have been my life.
I loved Tiffany and Debbie Gibson -- they were the equivalent.
And I have to say that maybe they weren't
singing these really deep songs, but Debbie Gibson was writing
her own songs, which was pretty awesome, and started at age two
-- and to me that was always the most exciting little factoid.
I was like, "Oh god, I'm so behind." But they inspired me so much
because when I was little all I cared about was singing, it never
even occurred to me to think of the fact that they weren't writing
their songs, or if they were or they weren't - I just wanted to
be a singer, or a performer. So that seed was planted really early
on by singing performers like that… and Olivia Newton John, and
those people. I didn't care. If that works to get girls inspired
today about doing music, and eventually singing other people's
music, then there isn't anything wrong with that at all. I think
it's great. It's too bad that to make a decent living, or a good
living, you have to be 15 and blond and processed looking, that's
sort of sad. But at the same time that's America, and kind of
the way it is. And I don't feel resentful about it; I'm in a completely
different genre and I certainly don't feel like I should have
to compete with 15 year olds. They are doing their thing and I'm
doing mine. I think they're great - I don't think there's anything
wrong with it. Christina Aguilera, I think, has an incredible
voice - she can really sing. More power to her-inspire the girls,
whatever works that makes them do this stuff eventually on their
own.
Live from New
York
Live from New York really is a troupe.
It's now five members only, and we're all independent, really
busy singer-songwriters. We all kind of work the same amount -we're
all equally psycho in how much we tour, and how much we play and
book and do everything. But we were all just friends - we met
in the open-mike scene going on three, probably four years ago
now, kind of at [New York clubs] Down Time and the Baggot Inn
and the Bitter End . So we all were friends and we'd go to a lot
of these folk conferences and music conferences all over the country
and we wanted to do a showcase of songwriters from New York City.
So we put it together and just did it one night and it was sort
of spontaneous energy. I think from being friends and knowing
each other so well and knowing how to pick at each other, we just
had this immediate, amazing energy.
And we'd all done shows together - two of
us, or three of us, we toured together even as a duo, or something.
But then it just kind of came together. And we were like, that's
is kind of cool, maybe we'll do a show - a real show -- of Live
from New York And we did it at Club Passim up in Boston, and it
did really well - far better than we thought it would. And a lot
of us had just really started playing up in Boston, so it was
a great way of getting into a really good club when maybe we couldn't
fill it individually, and then we started touring with it. We
did a tour of the Northeast and it did really well - kind of through
Connecticut and New York and all over the Northeast circuit. And
then we did the West Coast, from San Diego up to Vancouver, Canada.
It's been amazing.
The West Coast is really tough - it's beautiful
and it's wonderful, but it's hard because venues are really spread
out, so it's not nearly as easy to travel. Also, people on the
West Coast just don't come out for music as much as people on
the East Coast do - they're not quite as rabid. They're really
wonderful fans when they do come, but it's not the same kind of
intense folk scene. I mean, you go to play in Boston and you're
guaranteed to see the same people every single time, and they
always buy records -- and they buy three records apiece, you've
never seen anything like it. And the West Coast isn't so much
that way… but it's just so fun to tour out there. It's so great;
people are so friendly and the venues are really nice, but it's
a very different kind of scene. But it worked great - Live from
New York did incredibly well, because we've all toured there solo.
And then, it's just something about the show; I think it's because
in real life we all hang out all the time… some of us are dating
each other. .. most people [in Live from New York] are actually
happily married to other "normal" people. But there's something
with this show that makes people come out for it, and they tend
to buy a ton of CDs. There's just something about it, like the
sum is greater than the parts, almost.
But it's great, too, because it doesn't really
interfere with our individual careers, because we all continue
to tour. Our plan is to do a Live from New York tour - either
East Coast or West Coast - every six months, probably. So it's
kind of like a Cry Cry Cry [a collaboration between Dar Williams,
Richard Shindell and Lucy Kaplansky] that just goes on. It's just
wonderful. We all have that storytelling, kind of funny banter
thing going on individually, and then together it's really fun
because we play off of each other. And musically it's just amazing
because we get to sing harmonies on each other's stuff. And Teddy
Goldstein will play harmonica, or we'll have six different things
happening all at once, it's just an amazing thing. And it also
helps us cross-pollinate as far as mailing lists and fans. [For
example,] I ran into somebody yesterday who saw me sing with Live
from New York who's a huge Sam Shaber fan, and I saw him on the
subway and he said, "I didn't know who you were and then I saw
you play in Live from New York." And I'm like, "That's so cool!"
And that kind of stuff happens a lot. People will know of Live
from New York and have no idea who's in it. [For the record, it's
Edie Carey, Sam Shaber, Teddy Goldstein, Anne Heaton and Andrew
Kerr - Ed.]But it's kind of nice because the name is getting out
there. It's just nice to have a community - we're alone so much
of the time that when you get to play with your friends for two
weeks straight, it's pretty awesome.
The
LFNY Cruise
We saw them advertising at the National Folk Alliance
up in Vancouver back in February. Teddy Goldstein and I were sort
of strolling along and we saw pictures of white sandy beaches
and a big boat, and I was like "Ohhh, that wouldn't that be nice?"
But then I was like, "What is that doing here at a folk conference?"
And we looked a little closer and saw the brochures, and saw that
some of our friends had done it - Ellis Paul, and Eddie from Ohio,
and a couple of other people did it and had a lot of success.
Basically, you invite your fan base to come along on a cruise
and you do a number of concerts over a three-day period. You do
two official concerts and you do a Q&A session. And then the rest
of the time you sit on this big, huge cruise boat. So we get a
vacation out of it, and then we perform while we're actually on
the boat. It should be very interesting - hopefully, people will
come and do it. We thought it would be perfect for Live from New
York, because Live from New York is sort of advertised as hanging
out with five of your coolest, most talented best friends - well,
I don't know if coolest is the really right word. Maybe nicest
and most fun and really nice and silly best friends. And so we
decided it would be appropriate, since we have that tone in our
group, sort of hanging out, having a good time. And we also get
a vacation out of it, which would be nice because we don't necessarily
have that. My guess is that we'll attract a lot of college students
right before they go back to school. That's the sort of responses
we've gotten so far: people who are ready to blow off a little
steam…and it's not that expensive, so it'll be cool, right, for
a cruise?
Getting
Music Licensed by MTV/VH1
I have a lot of random fans that work at
MTV and VH1, who just sort of became fans because they saw me
at some place by chance. [I have] a lot of people going to bat
for me in a lot of different areas. We have this street teams
organization kind of all over the country, where a lot of people
kind of go, "My cousin Francis and her friend Kerri work at…"
and kind of always put the word out. Half the time you don't even
know where [these things] come from, you're just grateful they
come at all.
Music
& the Internet
I can't imagine doing this at all without
the Internet. There's just no way, there really is no way. I mean
just email alone has made our lives so much better. It's funny
- I was bragging last night that I had cut my paper mailing list
down to something like 800, where it was a lot bigger than that.
You spend so long trying to build up the fan base for your paper
mailing list, and then you're "Oh my God, I can't afford this
anymore!" So now I'm trying to get rid of that and have everything
be email-based.
I don't know how people did it without that.
Plus just research - you hear about a venue you want to play,
you plug in the name on Google.com, and there it comes up and
you have made the call and sent a package the same day. Just the
amount of charges people must have incurred. I can't imagine pressing
411 just to find out about places you want to play. And not only
that, I think kind of the greatest thing has been networking with
other musicians and being able to check out their websites and
find out if your music would work with them, and doing co-bills,
and communicating with people. It makes it so much easier.
And it's incredible that some random person
in Zimbabwe can buy my record because they happened upon StarPolish,
they happened upon CD Baby…it's pretty extraordinary. And to go
to play a show in the middle of…I played a show in St. Louis a
couple of months ago and probably four or five people randomly
and separately came that night because they had bought my CD online
and found out I was playing in St. Louis. That's amazing. I mean
if weren't for that, those five people would never of been there,
or had any idea of who I was. So, it's been extraordinarily helpful.
And then Napster kind of brings it in the other direction , but
you sort of feel if that's the tradeoff, I feel like it's really
fine, if the music is getting out there.
Napster
I think Napster's a good thing - I mean,
people having been copying CDs onto tapes for years. People are
always breaking the copyright law, so it was inevitable --there
was no way it wasn't going to happen. I feel like there are enough
honest people in the world… I can't tell you how many emails [I
get] from people who say, "I downloaded your whole record, listened
to it, decided I liked and then I went and I bought it." At CD
Baby, on the reason code, I can't tell you how many times it says
Napster. And I think, "That's really cool. They download it for
free and they actually buy the record." It's pretty amazing. You
just hope that people are going to be relatively honest. I think
there should definitely be controls on it, but I think it's kind
of inevitable, and there's not much you can do about it. And the
alternative - not having the Internet - I wouldn't want to go
in that direction. I'm pretty happy with it being here. It's a
good trade.
Making A Living
I think being a musician and making a living at it,
to me is something I really never thought would happen for me.
So, the fact that it's happening at all is amazing, especially
in such a short period of time. And by no means is it easy - every
month is like a balancing act, and you hope you have enough gigs
to pay the bills, and you hope you sell enough CDs to pay the
bills and pay your manager, pay your label and all of that. It's
hard, but it's kind of fun. I learned how to be a business person,
and that's something I never thought I'd do. I knew I'd do something
creatively, but I didn't know what that would be. But I never
thought I'd have to be a business person as a result. You just
don't think about that until you start realizing how much work
goes into this -- and how little of it is actually about playing
music... it's sort of sad, but it's cool. It's such a slow process.
In 1997 I was playing two gigs a month; now I play as many as
27. So that's crazy - it happens slowly, and you just try and
get more and more, and everyday you hope for more pieces of good
news and one less piece of bad news, and kind of go forward. It's
very slow, though - slow and steady.
Opening
Gigs
I'm opening this month for Patty Larkin,
who was sort of my first folk hero besides Shawn Colvin; someone
who was actually sort of touchable - well, not really - but I
saw her play a lot my freshman year in college with the Bitchin'
Babes. I just loved her - I was so blown away by her guitar playing,
and her humor, and everything, she's just incredible. So that's
really exciting. And Lucy Kaplansky is someone I have opened for
before and just really bonded with right away; she was really
wonderful and has been really supportive ever since. And so that's
going to be really cool. And then this Sunday at [NY club] Makor
I'll be opening for Karla Bonoff. And the coolest part about it
is that I heard her name -- and I hadn't heard her name for so
long -- and all of a sudden I had this image of a beautiful woman
with long hair and a big gold earring, and I was, "What is that
image?" And I realized it was her album cover from when I was
younger - My dad had this album and I listened to it constantly
as a kid, but when you're listening as a kid it's your parent's
music, so you're kind of, "whatever." And I just loved it. I sang
along with it, because I sang along with everything. All of a
sudden I thought, "My God, finally it's someone my parents will
be excited I'm opening for!" I tell people and they're, "Sure,
sure." I tell my Dad and he's like, "Karla Bonoff!" And I'm like,
"Exactly!" So that's kind of cool-it's nice to get some parental
validation.
But it's amazing - openers are kind of your
favorite things to do and the least favorite thing to do. They're
your favorite thing to do because you get to meet these people
who often you have some sort of emotional or spiritual connection
with, even if they have no idea who you are, which most of the
times is the case. And it's horrible, too, because you go to play
in front of people who really just want to see them. And
you go, "OK, I have my 25 minutes, let's hope in the next 25 minutes
I can make them like me enough to want to take me home in the
form of a CD, or to at least sign the mailing list and want to
come see me again." They've been really wonderful in the past,
and I've opened for some great people - Leo Kottke being probably
my favorite one, he was such a great guy. He's very dry, and just
so smart, and he's very cute - he's really handsome. He was just
awesome - he was very cool, and he told some great stories onstage
and I really learned a lot. And that's the other thing -- it's
so educational when I open for other people because you watch
them and think. "This is why they're doing as well as they are."
They really know how to be on stage, and they really know how
to construct a show, and make it work from beginning to end, and
they're kind of on from the minute they're on to the minute they're
off. And so that's really cool. Aside from being excited about
it, you also think, "OK, how can I learn from this experience?"
Connecting with the Audience
My talking onstage is a subject
of much discussion. Some people think it's way too much, some
people think it's not enough. You can't please everybody. It started
as a way to keep myself calm onstage when I was really nervous.
At the beginning, I would tell a funny story - my family is full
of funny stories, they're a rather amusing group of people. And
everybody in my family is an English teacher, an actor, a writer,
so stories are really big in my house, on both sides of my family,
and so it was always a way to kind of relate to people, a way
that I grew up hearing stories and telling stories. So it kind
of evolved from that, but it was mostly just to keep myself calm.
But then people really responded to it, and then it became a little
more a part of the show. And now if I don't do it, I feel like…
there are nights you just feel terrible and you don't feel like
saying anything. But sometimes those are the nights the best stories
come out. People ask me if I plan what I say - I don't. Maybe
if something really funny happens that day I'll think, "Maybe
I'll tell people about that tonight." But if you plan it, it's
like trying to be funny-you always fall flat on your face, it
never works. So you just try and get into it with people.
I find that it really helps me connect with
people - I find that if I don't at least make some kind of connection
that way, the audience doesn't really respond as well. Especially
when you're touring - you're always playing for new people. Sometimes
you're playing for five people in a crappy little joint, and you've
got to do everything you can to connect with them in those 45
minutes. And songs alone…will work, but I think there's something
else you have to grab people with…I think I learned that from
seeing… I think Lisa Loeb, actually, taught me that because she
really interacted with people. I think that was 1992, 1993, when
I was really seeing her a lot, and she would play down at the
Cottonwood Cafe once a week. And she would bring Barbie dolls,
and then she'd sort of pass them around, and we'd all be like,
"Oh my god, we're holding Lisa Loeb's Barbie doll [laughs]. It
was so exciting! But making some kind of connection with the audience,
and telling personal stories makes people feel like they're listening
to a real person. Sometimes there's that disconnect when you're
on the stage, and people are like, "Oh, you're the person playing
music, and I don't know want to know anything about you" and it's
one-dimensional. But bringing people into your everyday life,
I think, makes them either like you more or dislike you more because
they know stuff about you that might be personal. I think it kind
of fills in the background of the songs a little bit more, so
each detail means a little bit more, or each line or lyric…and
I just think it's more fun that way - which is why we're going
to do a live record.
Touring
Touring is really a mixed bag. For a long
time I was like, "God this is just great; I don't know what people
are saying this is really not that hard, I'm having a great time,
I don't feel lonely at all, I'm so excited. And that's when the
gigs are going really well. But I just had one tour that was really
grueling -- it was 10 days alone throughout the Southeast by myself
in a car, and I had to drive an average of six hours a day and
I had no CD player, which was probably good -- I probably would
have been listening only to very depressing music. That was a
very hard tour, especially when you're touring in a new region
where no one knows you and you're playing to almost no one. And
its weird cause you play at a big festival to 400 people and you
play to no one the next night, and they have no idea who you are
and you're lucky if they listen. So it depends. Touring is wonderful
when the gigs are really wonderful and you meet wonderful people,
and there are a couple of days that are terrible. I'm someone
who really likes adventure a lot, and I have always loved traveling,
so that part is exciting -- I love being in new places. And the
best part is you get to a beautiful city like San Francisco and
you don't have to play until the night and you just go explore,
and that's your job and its pretty cool. But you know it's hard.
It's hard on personal relationships. I haven't seen my best friend
in four months, and that's really difficult… although at the same
time I see my family all the time 'cause I'm in Boston, so it
kind of balances out. You have to go into this knowing that there's
going to be a lot time you spend by yourself, and you've got to
be relatively at peace with your own head to be alone that much.
Relationships
I actually am dating another singer-songwriter, so that makes
it easy… and really hard! Easy in that oftentimes we'll tour together,
but difficult in that there are days when he's having a terrible
time and feeling like everything sucks musically and I'm feeling
really good, or days that I'm feeling horrible and he's having
a great day. That's hard, you know? We're at the same level and
often going for the same things, and that's difficult. I think
it's also a female compared to male thing, too. It's still not
totally OK for women to be doing better than men all the time.
And he's the best, most emancipated, wonderful guy, but still,
that stuff is difficult. And just like any relationship you try
to find as much time as you can spend together. But the work that
we do is never done. We could sit and work constantly and never,
ever be caught up because you always have to be planning for next
month. And sometimes you just have to say "This is a priority,
if I'm going to be with this person I have to let this go and
go spend time with them." So we make it work, but it's not easy.
You'd have the same problems if you were married to a normal person.
I like to call people who don't do this "normal" people, have
you noticed that? Then they have the same problem. If you're away
and they're home, they wonder where you are and why you're not
home with them. I know plenty of my married singer-songwriter
friends have a lot of trouble in that area, too, so I think there
are pros and cons in both situations.
Expectations
I think my general sort of MO for this business is
to have really low expectations [laughs], because then you are
never disappointed. And I know that's a terrible way of looking
at life, but I have to say its worked really well. I feel like
everyday for me is a gift just by the fact that I don't have to
get up everyday and go to an office. I just get up and do work
surrounding my career is a gift, so anything on top of that is
icing on the cake. So if something great happens, I'm just really
excited and happy that it happens. We got the news that several
of the songs from Call Me Home were licensed for Road
Rules, which is really funny cause I just have this image
of them playing one of my songs during something really illegal
and dirty. I'm hoping that they will! I'm hoping a), that they'll
play the songs at all, and b), that there will be dirty and illegal
things happening at that time, 'cause then I can show that to
my parents and they'll be really pleased. Like, "Finally you've
reached your goal." [laughs] So, yeah, that's exciting. It's a
nice validation that people are liking what you're doing, and
they're not just in the folk scene. So it's cool. You kind of
throw a lot of stuff against the wall and see what sticks.
Advice to Musicians
I get a lot of email messages from people who are
just wanting to at least move in the direction of starting to
do this, whatever this is, being a performing songwriter. And
I would say if you really can't live without it - 'cause you kind
of know when you can't live without it - then it's absolutely
worth doing if you're willing to make your life a little crazy
for a few years…that it's really worth doing, and I there are
so many messages about not doing it, that it's too hard…I feel
like god, if I could do it…for years I had no idea how to manage
money, I had no idea how to do this, and how to work this part
of the computer…You learn to be so good at so many different things,
and to run your own business and to really build something out
of nothing. It's pretty satisfying, even if it is really hard.
I think the best things in life are pretty hard, but ultimately
the most gratifying. I just would really encourage people who
really want to do this to do it.
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