Carrie Rodriguez
“Getting out of my major label deal and starting fresh was a good time for me to evaluate what kind of songs I had been writing and what kind of songs I wanted to write.”
Features • Friday May 21st, 2010 • 12:00 am
Carrie Rodriguez is an old soul. And she’s becoming increasingly at ease with that idea. After a major label run that went awry (as if we haven’t heard that story, eh?), Rodriguez is back to the standards of her uncommon youth — one filled with Leonard Cohen and Townes Van Zandt. Her father, folk singer David Rodriguez, helped provide a musical heritage that had Carrie playing in bars all over Austin by age 12 and on her first European tour at 15. “I think I’ve just been lucky enough to get started early,” she says about being so accomplished at age 31.
Love and Circumstance is the new album, a covers effort you’d think was put together by someone twice her age. Guests like Bill Frisell, Merle Haggard and Buddy Miller accompany the impressive project that features Carrie’s twist on songs from M. Ward to Richard Thompson. It’s a much needed break, she says, to turn to the work of others in order to heal enough to make her own. And in the process, she finds a level of depth and ownership she never expected.
SSv: When it comes to the collaborations, I’d love to ask about why you choose the players that you did. Not in a ‘I like her, but I don’t like him’ type of way, but how do you know who the song is telling you to let into the making and recording of it?
Carrie Rodriguez: Sure, that makes sense. With Buddy, Lee Townsend, the producer and I, talked about recording Buddy and Julie’s song “Wide River to Cross” from the very beginning. As soon as I laid it down, I knew it would sound awesome with harmony vocals and I knew there was no one better than Buddy. [Laughs] Not just because he wrote the song, but in his version, the thing I love the most is his harmony vocals. So that was an easy one to come up with.
Then thinking about that, we had Merle Haggard’s tune that I thought would be amazing as well. And he was so sweet to do it. He was on the road at the time with Robert Plant and he just happened to have a rig that he could record in his hotel room — some fancy, new, modern thing. So he recorded that in his room while touring with rock stars. [Laughs] Very sweet that he made the time to do that.
As far as Greg Leisz goes, I just think everything that he does is magical. It’s really hard for me to make a record and not ask him to be a part of it at this point. He’s recorded on everything I’ve ever done as far as solo projects. And he recorded on the last duet record I made as well. Aside from being a really sweet man and good friend, he’s just so insanely music. Everything he does is perfect. The way he plays pedal steel with a vocal to me is so unique. He plays the pedal steel like a singer and it’s almost as if he’s harmonizing with your vocal and making it sound better.
I think a lot of female singers love to use Greg for that reason. He wraps the sound around the vocal and makes it sound way better than if he wasn’t there. So I’m so grateful to have worked with him so many times and even to be able to call him a friend is wonderful. Not to mention he’s full of great stories; he’s worked with everyone from Joni Mitchell to Beck, and he loves to share crazy stories about that.
SSv: What about Bill Frisell?
Carrie: Well, I probably have more Bill Frisell records than any other artists. I have almost everything he’s ever recorded. I love his spirit, his creativity. I love that he takes a Hank Williams song and turns it into something completely unique. He has such great taste, so it’s fun that he’s so into roots music and country music, being such a consummate jazz player. It’s a very unique thing.Lee, the producer, is also Bill’s manager and has produced most of his records. That was the appeal to working with Lee, just because I’m such a fan of the records he’s made and I knew it would be a really good match. So going into it, I was hoping Lee would help facilitate some kind of musical situation with Bill for the record. And he did.
SSv: The nature of an album like this is so interesting. I would imagine it gives some fantastic opportunities to highlight or even pay tribute to songs that have moved you or allows for certain creative directions. Yet an album release comes with a cycle of recording, press and touring, which I would imagine pushes some original material back in its timeline. Did you wrestle with that at all?
Carrie: [Pause] I think it was a good time for me to take a break from recording some new songs. Getting out of my major label deal and starting fresh was a good time for me to evaluate what kind of songs I had been writing and what kind of songs I wanted to write. So in the process of choosing this group of songs, it’s helped me narrow down what is important to me. For my next project, I already have a clearer vision of what my next original album will be like. So if it takes a little longer to come out, that’s okay.
In a way, this record feels like my original material to me. I’m just so attached to these songs. [Laughs] So when I’m out playing them, I don’t really feel differently about them than when I’m playing my own songs, so in a way, it doesn’t feel that different than my other records.
SSv: That’s the first time I’ve heard that about a covers album before, in all the conversations I’ve had with artists over the years.
Carrie: Maybe most people don’t feel that way. But I think I spent so much time with those songs by myself playing them and making them into something that felt like my own that I almost feel like I wrote them. When I sing “Steal Your Love,” the Lucinda Williams song, it feels like it’s my song. I’ve just tricked myself into thinking I’ve written this fabulous song. [Laughs] I’m thinking, ‘Damn, I’m good.’
No, it’s really just how connected I feel to the songs. I feel that connected to each and every song, so it’s been fun touring. I love playing them live with the band on the road.
SSv: How many of the original artists have heard your take on the song?
Carrie: Lucinda finally just sent me an e-mail saying how much she loved it, and that was a relief. I was really glad. [Laughs] Buddy has heard it, obviously. My father has heard it. Richard Thompson liked his, which was nice to hear.
SSv: Really?
Carrie: Yeah, he sent a really nice message to my manager about it, saying something like he never expected to hear that song as a country song and that he thought it was really heartfelt. As far as the others, I have no idea if M. Ward has heard his. I don’t know him personally. So the people I know personally have definitely heard their tunes. And of course, some of the folks are no longer with us. But I wonder if Merle has heard his. It’d be fun to see what he thinks about that tune.
SSv: I want to go back to what you said about the covers elaborating on your own original material. Can you elaborate?
Carrie: When I made my last record, She Ain’t Me, I learned a lot by doing it. I got to write with some great writers like Dan Wilson, Mary Gauthier and Gary Louris. I learned a lot from doing that, but because it was also on a major label, I had this thing looming over my head that said, ‘Okay, these songs have to get played on the radio.’ I had all these people who were giving me so much to work with.
I hate to say that it influenced the music at all, but it probably did. The music was a big stress on me and made me kind of stay away from writing certain types of songs that might be more intimate or folky in nature — more like something I grew up hearing like a Townes Van Zandt song. I was scared to get too far into things like that. I was trying to keep it more up.
Now with this, I’m no longer on a major label and I’m just making this record because I love these songs. This is the kind of music I want to play and these songs mean just as much or more to me than a lot of my own material. So in the process of choosing those songs, it’s told me that my heart is still very connected to the kind of music I grew up on and rootsier things. Moving forward, I don’t want to shy away from that. I don’t really mind if people want to call me ‘folky’ or ‘country’ or whatever. That’s fine. I’m not too concerned about categories.
Up until now, people are always saying, ‘Watch out with the fiddle. Then it will be considered Americana and it won’t get played on the radio station and then you won’t have people coming out to see you because they won’t hear you.’ It’s all this fear stuff that they try to instill in singer/songwriters. [Laughs] I’m done with that. You gotta make music that you believe in. You’re gonna die at any minute, so you gotta do stuff that you love. And that’s what I did with this covers record. I’m really proud of it and I think I will as proud 20 years from now as I am today.
SSv: Is that something you said about your last album in the moment that you made it?
Carrie: Honestly, I did not feel that. I felt proud about certain elements of it and there are certain songs that I will feel that way about 20 years from now. But as a whole, I don’t have the same emotional connection to it that I have with this new one, or that I even had with my first one. So it’s important to keep that in mind moving forward. I don’t want to belittle it, because I grew a lot making that last record. Working with those other songwriters, I learned a lot and I will take that with me. You learn from everything that you do and hopefully that process will continue forever.
SSv: That intersection of art and fear seems impossible to avoid, because even the best of us continue to wrestle in that familiar bed. So what do you learn about that battle to free yourself up in some ways?
Carrie: [Pause] Well, it’s tricky. On one hand, you want to make music that speaks to people and not just yourself. You want other people to feel something from what you’re doing. That’s a way of giving if you are a musician. But there’s a fine line between writing a song that people can relate to and respond to and feel something from and catering and making something you think people will like and that’s why you’re doing it. [Laughs] There’s a fine line to walk between those two things.
But I think the most important thing is that when you first hear a song that immediately gives you the goosebumps when you start to sing it — when you have a real physical reaction to it — that means it’s genuine, at least for me. That’s the way that it works for me. I know that is meaningful to me and so I hope it translates to other people. That’s how I judge things that I’m doing.
SSv: I usually like to end with some tangible plans, so what’s the upcoming schedule look like for you?
Carrie: Well, this month I’m about to start a Midwestern tour in a couple days in Minneapolis. After that, I have a run out in the Southeast and a California run with a festival in June. In July, a lot of outdoor dates where you play outside and the sun is going down. A lot of things out West in beautiful places in Montana and Colorado and Idaho. So it’s a lot of traveling and time spent in the mini-van with my boys. [Laughs] Not super-glamorous, but we sure get to go to some gorgeous places.
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