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An Interview with Brandi Carlile

by Kim Ruehl for NoDepression.com


Kim Ruehl: Tell me about your new record, the title, and where that all came from…


Brandi Carlile: Well, it’s called Give up the Ghost… and it’s our third record. Basically we’ve been told for as long as I can remember that it takes your whole life to write your first record and then you have to write your second record in a matter of months. Which is totally the truth. You don’t do anything from the time you put out your first record to the time you put out your second, except for tour. So it’s really impossible to incorporate any real-life, tangible experience into your songwriting except for the road. I think we have enough records about the highway and the mountains and missing someone in the crowd...I think we have enough of those records in the world for right now. We went into the songwriting process really conscious of that. I realized I need to do some deep-stretching to remove myself from the smallness of my unrelatable situation and write about bigger things outside myself, aside from what was happening on the tour bus.


KR: Where did you start?


BC: I started writing about a year and a half ago.


KR: I assume you’ve clocked more hours onstage than you have in the studio. Is it still a little weird in the studio? Are you comfortable yet, or are you still working that out?


BC: I’m not comfortable. I don’t appreciate being there. I feel like we can’t breathe in there, we feel like caged animals. Somebody’s always pushing their agenda. Somebody external from the band has always got something else to prove. We just don’t appreciate it. What we end up doing is bringing our live band-ness, our essence of live performance, into the studio and we do it that way because that’s who we really are.


KR: What’s the difference for you, as a performer and a music fan, between recorded music and live music? Do you look at it as two separate things or is it two sides of the same thing?


BC: It doesn’t have to be. The one thing that’s difficult to capture in a recording that’s so easy to understand in a live performance is dynamics. You might have a slamming drum solo live that drives the audience crazy every night. You try to do it in the studio and it ends up sounding limp. You may have to [add] another electric guitar to elevate it. There are little nuances you can add to elevate the experience of the song, but the differences don’t have to be that vast. People can still record live vocals and live performances, they just don’t.


KR: How do you think it changes the song? I was thinking about “Dying Day”…it’s a completely different vibe on the record than what you do live. When you record something like that, does it change the way you do it live, or is that something you leave behind in the studio?


BC: We don’t leave it behind, for the most part. It’s interesting you think that song has a different vibe [on the record] because my perspective is that it would be the exact same vibe. That’s what I love about the way people hear things differently, it’s the same way we taste things differently. That song was recorded with two arch-top guitars and a kick drum. Then we all grabbed percussion instruments and went into the room and recorded what’s known as a party track - where we all played percussion at the same time so it sounded like live people playing percussion - and then we opened up the bass. That’s how that song was recorded. To me that’s the same vibe, but I guess I’m not part of the audience. For me, a better example would be a song like “Pride and Joy” where, live, it’s a rock and roll song with electric guitars, bass, and drums. In the studio it’s two acoustic guitars and a string arrangement.


KR: That was an interesting tune...you got Paul Buckmaster for that song, who did an incredible job. Did you get him from the Elton John connection?


BC: Yeah, that’s been a dream of mine since I was a kid to have Paul Buckmaster do a string arrangement for one of my songs. I know that sounds a little bit advanced for a 14-year-old, but when Elton John put out those early records, he would include a picture of the producer and a picture of the arranger on the record packaging. So I had a picture of Paul Buckmaster on my wall and I was able to associate his face with all those wonderful string arrangements we were hearing in the early 70s. So when I started writing songs I thought it would be amazing to hear Paul Buckmaster to do strings.


KR: How did you get him?


BC: I asked him. I called him on the phone. It was amazing. We had some of the longest conversations. I went over to his house and listened to him work on it with this program he has. He cooked for me twice. It was amazing. The man’s gotta be in his 60s. He’s a total genius, an amazing Englishman.


KR: Where do you go for the next record? How do you top the dream of singing with Elton John and getting Paul Buckmaster to arrange for you?


BC: I don’t know. I think about it every time I get in an airplane. I’m sure it’s going to crash, you know. I’m positive this is it, I must be done. The only way I can top it is to keep living my life and be open to whatever happens to me.


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From Out.com

November 5, 2009

Need To Know: Brandi Carlile 


The singer-songwriter chats about working with Elton John, her obsession with Ellen DeGeneres, and performing for obnoxious drunkards. 


By Chris Azzopardi 


Until recently, Brandi Carlile hadn’t confirmed that she is, indeed, a lesbian. She didn’t have to. Since she dropped her eponymous debut in 2005, much of the attention surrounding the Seattle singer-songwriter has deservedly been focused on something far more riveting: a walloping, from-the-gut voice that shreds through songs like it’s some kind of singing chainsaw. 


The folk-rock musician’s reflective third album, Give Up the Ghost, featuring collaborations with Elton John and Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls, is her most honest yet. Just after she finished up the first leg of a tour (the second begins in January) and overcame swine flu, Carlile sat down with to chat with Out about the best part of meeting Elton, her arresting girlfriend, and how her gay role models have made it easier to be out. 


Out: There’s a lot of soul-searching on Give Up the Ghost. It’s a very candid album -- probably your most candid. What did you learn about yourself while you were writing it? 

Brandi Carlile: All kinds of things. Really dramatic things. I learned a lot about who I was in the past and who I want to be in the future, which was something that I’ve been trying not to do. For years now, I’ve been trying to live in the moment, and I had to leave that moment to make this record. I spent the last couple of years writing this record in a sort of discontented place. But I was able to really transcend the place I was in because it was inspiring; I was on a tour bus -- and that’s inspiring to me, but it might not be inspiring to everybody else in the world. And my favorite songwriters in life are able to write about bigger things than themselves and their moment. 


You’ve cited Freddie Mercury, k.d. lang, the Indigo Girls, and Elton John as some of your favorites -- and they’re all gay. How does it feel to know that someone might call you a role model because you’re gay? 

Well, when I was at the age that I found them, they were gay role models just like I hope that somewhere in the world a teenager is able to look to me and my records in the same way. I hope that they’re able to say the same thing about me from a place of success and from a place of acceptance as a part of society, instead of oppression. I hope that they’re able to look to me and say that I was a role model and helped them get somewhere that makes happy with themselves, because my role models helped me get to where I’m happy with myself. 


Before you confirmed you were a lesbian to the Los Angeles Times, your sexuality had been a mystery to some people. What does your sexuality being no big deal say about the progress that we’re making as a society? 

I was just talking with Amy Ray about this before the Times interview came out, because I had heard from my publicist that I was going to get to talk to Out. Anyway, she was talking about the leaps and bounds that we’ve made as a community -- not that we don’t have a long way to go -- and how much harder it was then when the Indigo Girls were coming out. And I could see by talking to her that they -- along with k.d. and Melissa, Ellen, Elton John, and Freddie Mercury -- really laid it out on the line and demanded nothing short of acceptance from people. I believe that if you asked them why they did it, they would tell you that they did it to be included, so for the generations to come there would be a real shot to walk through the world, including this industry. The truth is -- I’m living proof of that. Those people are the way-pavers, and the best way for me to thank them is to take my place in the world seriously and live honestly. 


So, no one ever asked you to keep it on the down-low? It just never came up? 

No, never. No one ever asked me to keep it on the down-low. I spent a few days in New York City with Amy around the release of her record, and I saw her doing all these interviews for gay publications. That’s the first time the light bulb went on in my head, and I was like, “Wait a minute, do these people want to talk to me?” [Laughs.] More

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