LP6 User Picks 2008

Simone: My mom was a folk singer, she stopped performing before I was born but I grew up with her always singing. I think I thought it was normal, that people sang all the time. But I didn’t start playing guitar until my early twenties in Seattle. I was writing songs a cappella. I picked up the guitar so I could write songs and be complete on my own. I’d found it hard to get the right musicians together to make a band. I didn’t get into properly playing shows till I moved to New York in 2000. I had other things I was doing, photography, writing, acting. I was creatively busy in other areas and it took me some time to figure out how to make music that I liked enough to want to share.

LP6: What were some of your musical influences?

Simone: When I was little we only listened to classical music, Mozart, Bach, Vivaldi. my first exposure to anything different was the Beatles and Joni Mitchell. As a teen I was really into The Cure, Siouxsie, Bauhaus etc… Then Sonic Youth, The Pixies, PJ Harvey and loads of jazz. I spent many years singing along to jazz songs, Chet Baker, Billy Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Betty Carter. And then Low was a huge influence, their breath work is so profound.

LP6: How did your affiliation with Damon Albarn’s Honest Jon label come about?

Simone: Summer of 2004, I was touring the west coast to promote my first record and I was listening to the same CD over and over, Bonnie Prince Billy’s Master and Everyone- I was crazy about it- and I met someone in LA who knew Marky Nevers, who had produced it. We spoke on the phone and he said come on down to Nashville and record. When we had finished most of the album he sent it to Mark Ainley at Honest Jons. They had signed two other artists Marky had recorded, Candi Staton and Lone Official.

LP6: It seems you have a new 7″ out now titled “Christmas Makes Me Blue.” What’s the story behind that single?

Simone: I ran into a friend in a Christmas tree lot, I was in my car with the Christmas tree tied on top. He said, “You have to come to our Christmas party next week. And bring a carol to sing, everybody has to sing.” He drove off and I sat there thinking, first I was thinking, oh no, what song should I bring, I don’t know any carols that I like. Then I’m thinking I actually hate carols. Then I started feeling depressed about various things about this party I was going to and about this other party that I wanted to go to but I hadn’t been invited, then I was thinking about my childhood and how horrible it was at Christmas, my parents were split and I had to choose who to spend Christmas with and it always made me feel guilty and bad. I was in the car for about forty minutes and by the end of it I had basically written the song. It was a cappella and I spent the next week perfecting it, singing it over and over while doing the dishes. I had it all ready but when I went to the party it was very casual and nobody ended up singing, or at least being forced to sing- see I thought it was going to be like the parties I used to have in New York where everybody sat in a circle and one by one you had to stand up and sing something, anything, even a children’s rhyme or a TV jingle. So the next year, Christmas comes around again, it never stops, and I asked the same friend, Jack Dolman, to write a guitar part for it. He’s a very good jazz guitarist and I thought it was too complicated a melody for my guitar skills. So he wrote this great guitar part and we recorded it. That was last year. This year, Christmas comes around again and I asked Mark at HJ if they’d release it and wonder of wonder he said yes! I just finished a video for it with my friend Dick Thompson directing.

LP6: “I Am The Man” is certainly one impressive album. What were some of your thoughts, hopes, and inspiration, while making the album?

Simone: Thank you! Originally I wanted to make a record with just guitar and voice, really simple. After the first session recording in Nashville I went back to NY and sat with it but it felt like it was unfinished, I wanted to add more. I went back as soon as I could several months later and worked with the musicians that Marky always uses, most of whom are in Lambchop. It just kept getting better so I went a third time to add strings and clarinet. This was all before Honest Jons was involved. Then when they signed me I went a final time to add horns and to redo a couple songs from my first record that they liked.

It took a couple years. There’s a lot of time beneath it but I think it feels like a whole piece. I was hoping to make a record that really sounded like me and I think I did. My voice is true in it. The songs were inspired by the usual things, love, family, war, injustice.

LP6: I watched a live clip of you performing “I am the Man.” You mentioned that the song was about “there’s no other.” Could you elaborate on that thought?

Simone: There’s this spiritual idea, “I am that”. I think it’s based in Buddhism, this idea that there is no “other”, I am that thing that I’m looking at over there, I am it too. We’re all one. You know, you point your finger and it’s yourself you’re pointing at. The things we hate in others we hate mostly because we know they’re in us too, that’s why they rile us. I was fed up with all the lefties blaming everything on the righties. It’s just as bad, that kind of extremism. I wanted to say, yes, actually, I am part of it, I am The Man, I am George Bush. And that is very hard for me because he really creeps me out, he makes me very mad and he seems totally insane. But I am saying I am him too. -It’s actually easier for me to say I am Osama Bin Laden- I had a little pin that had that written on it. Anyway, for me to accept George Bush as my brother, that’s a huge accomplishment, actually I’m still working on it… But do you see, you can’t make peace by declaring war on war, the kind of feelings I have about the government and everything that they’re doing that is so awful, that doesn’t help, it makes me depressed and paralyzed and that energy doesn’t bring peace to the world. You have to take responsibility, your every day actions are incredibly powerful, how you interact with people, how you treat yourself, the earth, what kind of soap you buy, if you bring your own bag for your groceries.. it sounds tiny but everything makes a difference. You’re affecting the whole planetary vibration, we’re all here on this planet, we’re a whole organism but we constantly separate ourselves from others, it’s like two cells in your body hating each other, saying, that one over there doesn’t have anything to do with me!

LP6: Your song “The Beep Beep Song” was featured in an Audi ad in the UK and Italy. Did you have any mixed emotions about placing your song in the ad?

Simone: Before the Audi ad came up there was a different ad interested and I knew they were bad and I didn’t like it, I guess the product itself wasn’t so rotten, but I thought the company was. I felt weird and wrong. I had to call all my musician friends to see what they thought. They said, ‘do it, that’s how musicians make money these days, it’s the only way. And record labels don’t advertise you, that’s how you get out to people, how they’ll find out about your record’. So despite my feelings I said yes to the agency.

Then they passed on it and when the Audi came along I didn’t feel so hypocritical because I live in LA, I drive a car, I’m not going to stand on some high horse. The car is handmade. The song was inspired by two cars honking their horns at each other, so it’s fitting.

But I did just turn down an ad for a cereal. It was a crappy, denatured ingredients sugar filled cereal pretending to be healthy and I couldn’t do it, that would have made me the biggest hypocrite ever, I’m always telling people to eat better, read ingredient labels, eat organic, don’t support industrial farming. I don’t know it all ends up on TV and I hate TV! I’d rather have my songs in films. But listen, this is really important- Two years ago I made a promise to myself that I would start making money from my art. This was a huge shift for me, all my life I’ve done my artistic thing on the one hand over here and then over here worked in restaurants or catering or whatever for money. I decided I had to bring money to my art, to not think it was above it, to honor it, value it as something I could sustain myself with. Then I did actually start to make money that way, I got a record deal, I got an ad. You really do get what you ask for and I’m happy I have such problems, deciding whether or not to do an ad. I feel incredibly lucky to be making money from my music.

And I’m happy I got this particular ad, it’s artistically done and it’s subtle. People email me and say how much they love the beep beep song and how it brightens their day, how they heard it on TV and went and bought the record.

LP6: Which contemporary bands do you find the most exciting?

Simone: I love this band Bedroom Walls, they’re from LA. When I moved out here I met them and saw them play live and I was so inspired, I thought, wow! I still like to see live music! It had sort of faded for me, I don’t know why. I guess I don’t like much that I hear. And I don’t listen to music at home much anymore, probably cos my stereo is shabby but I do listen in my car. There I go again about my car. It’s cos I live in LA. You have to drive. I didn’t have a car for all the years I lived in Seattle, London and New York. No way! But actually, I mostly ride my bike around Venice, it’s rare that I have to drive anywhere, so you see, therefore I hardly ever listen to music. Um, I don’t know what music is out there right now. I just got turned onto this folk singer Mary Hampton from England. Just today, on Myspace. I loved it, very old folk sound. I mostly listen to old time music, the blues. What cds are on the floor of my car will tell you the most. Let’s see, David Bowie, Elliot Smith, Bert Jansch, Joni Mitchell, Iron and Wine, Bonnie Prince Billy. I saw Jose Gonzalez play live at the Henry Fonda theater a couple weeks ago, it was incredible, absolutely amazing the sound that was being created by just him on guitar and two other people softly singing and playing simple percussion.

LP6: You mention “dissonance” often when describing your music and playing style. Why is dissonance important to you?

Simone: Ah, I think I was talking about the way I used to sing, very atonal and dissonant, kind of shrieky. I think for a while I was afraid to sing sweetly, I thought it was uninteresting. Or I thought I sounded too much like my mom!

I like the sometimes slight dissonance in harmonies, when it feels like they’re pulling you apart. I love that about Low. And harmonies of the Mama’s and the Papa’s. It’s like a crazy magnetic pulling and pushing and the same time. And one of the themes I return to a lot is recognizing the dissonance in yourself.

LP6: This may be a tad bit cliche, but have you ever thought about collaborating with electronic artists?

Simone: Yes, I haven’t met any I really liked yet.

LP6: When do you plan on releasing your next album and do you have any ideas on how your next album will sound?

Simone: I haven’t thought too much about that yet. This year I’ve been totally focused on touring. Wait, I did record a couple songs since the album, Christmas Makes Me Blue which is quite jazzy, Blueprint which is sort of beaty, but with live beats. I’d like to do an album of traditional folk music to honor my mother. She sang songs in twelve different languages.

LP6: When performing live have you ever encountered hecklers and if so how did you deal with it?

Simone: Not hecklers, but I’ve played loads of shows with people talking. They either all shut up completely or there’s a group listening up front and a group at the bar chatting. The thing is not to focus on the chatters which is hard cos they’re making sound and are usually in brighter light so your eye is drawn there. You have to reward the one’s who are listening! I’ve tried saying something but it always turns out horrible and I feel like a brat. Especially when you’ve traveled half way round the world for a show, and your thinking, you know I didn’t just walk in here off the street. But you have to just get on with it. And then when you have a really great audience you appreciate it so much more! Because of what you’ve had to deal with. I come off stage and I want to hug EVERYONE!

LP6: When your not making music, what do you enjoy doing in your free time?

Simone: Today I rode my bike along the beach. that’s my favorite thing to do. Breathe the sea air, look at the people. I go to the farmer’s market. I cook food, hang out with my man, read, tend the garden. stare into space. In India they call it “counting stars by daylight”. I’m writing some, script bits, song scraps. Eventually they’ll form. Lately I’ve just been processing all the touring I did this year. I’m going inward.

LP6: It seems you have traveled a lot. What’s the most impressive place you have been too?

Simone: I spent four months in India traveling on my own when I was 21 and it was very impressive. I felt fundamentally changed.

LP6: Obviously you’re a very attractive woman. Do you ever feel that your looks may hinder your musical career? Or on the flipside, have you ever been tempted to go the mainstream sexy pop singer route?

Simone: What?! No, I’ve never ever thought of that. Are you serious? I don’t make that sort of music, it’s not my thing. And I don’t think I look anything like that at all. You know, normal. I think I’m a real odd looking sort of freaky character.

LP6: Last questions. Have you made any New Year’s resolutions and where do you see yourself in 2008?

Simone: I’d like to get some people together and tour in Europe, play the festivals. Record another album.

LP6: Thank you very much Simone…