AS SEEN IN THE NEW ISSUE!
As promised, here is the full interview with Lady Lamb the Beekeper.
RACHEL A. LISNER: With the re-release of ‘Bird Balloons’, how do you feel? Do you think the song has reached its full potential?
LADY LAMB: I feel relieved. That song was really difficult for me to imagine because I knew the solo version for years and years and used to performing it a particular way. So it was a huge challenge and a huge test for me to sort-of unlearn the song, open my mind up enough to hear it differently and sort of respect and give it what I feel it wanted to be which I have to say there were times within the year in the studio where I was forcing things onto it that weren’t right, and it’s very confusing and difficult to figure out what the hell the song wanted. And so I had to have to sort of take a step back and like gut it and try again. And the answer really was deciding to set boundaries for it and say okay no more trying to push weird instruments into it. I’m gonna set up a microphone and go in the other room and harmonize over the entire song and write melodies for it that way. That’s how I wrote the violin part, by just like by humming it you know and that sort of thing. And that really helped make it right.
RL: No, yeah, I totally agree. You definitely receive these positive reactions from fans about the symphonic, heavier version. Do you think they’ll feel that way about the album as a whole?
LL: I do, and my reason for that is that I have to say that I had a huge fear going into the studio with letting down my fans who really loved my material before any orchestration. And so I definitely had them in the back of my mind and it made me, originally I wanted to do right by the people who really appreciate what I’m doing and what I did solo. But when it came down to it, the answer to the proper, or, the answer to the final recordings is just that I really believe that they’re just very honest renditions and I learned to take my ego out of the material and treat the songs not only separately from each other and really nurture them on their own but really just try to understand and try to listen to the song and try to understand what it was telling me that it wanted. And so in that, I was really, I was relieved that people had a good, for the most part a really good feeling towards the defined Bird Balloons and then there was a part of me that knew that, that knew that it would be that way because I knew in my heart that I really respected the material. So I do really believe fans of my music, it might take them a second to get used to these recordings, they might be like “oh, this is different” but I really feel that they’re very earnest and that the energy of the solo experience is not lost.
RL: Right. And on your Facebook page, you wrote this whole lengthy sentiment about the song. Why do you feel the song is so representative of your musical career?
LL: That’s a good question. So I don’t know if you noticed but when I put Rooftop up, I was sort of just like “Okay, this is exciting! Here’s Rooftop, here’s a song off the record!” but as much as I do love that song and that was my answer to writing a- you know, that was me just me trying to write a short, poppy, catchy, positive, fun song. And I think I did that, I think I did what I was supposed to do with that song. But with a song like Bird Balloons, for me, it was like showing my baby for the first time. You know, it was like, this song I wrote when I was maybe nineteen? But maybe even eighteen, I can’t really remember. But years ago, you know, and so this song has, I’ve gone through a lot musically with this song and I’ve performed it to many many crowds and I really feel it’s representative of me because it came at a point when I was discovering who I was musically and not compromising and if I was in the basement writing a seven minute long song, like, I was just committing to it and not apologizing for it and not editing it. And so in that, the song to me is just like, you know, represents the confidence that I received from sort of just like, owning it, and being like “This is what I do and I don’t care who cares about it. I care about it.” And luckily, other people did care about it, you know? So it’s a very important part of my history and that’s why it felt that I have so much pride in sharing and was so emotional about it because it’s just a huge part of my history.
RL: Yeah, and it definitely translates. Every time you perform it live. Are your performances going to remain solo when you go back on tour or is it going to be a whole band setup?
LL: I don’t think it’s going to be full band for a while. And the three, what I consider my hometown release shows, which are Portland, Boston, Brooklyn- those are going to be full band, I just wanted to do something unique and for each city I’m going to essentially recreate the arrangements of the record, live for the most part. I am eager to just tour solo. I went on the one full tour with Kaki King and did that solo and I really don’t see that my time playing solo is up. I really feel like I can tour the country a couple more times by myself, and eventually, of course, in the long-term, the progression of Lady Lamb is gonna be that I will have my own band. When I’m able to play big rooms and I think then I want to be able to put on a really good and energetic live show. But for now, I’m perfectly content with still sharing this material solo. And I’m not afraid that people won’t receive it well. I think that the record and my live shows can be different entities. And that that’s going to be okay for a while.
RL: You have this huge repertoire of songs, songs like Between Two Trees and Sunday Shoes, what went into picking the songs for the album?
LL: It was difficult; I definitely spent a lot of nights making new and different lists. There were times before recording where I’d have thirty songs, and I’d be like, “I wanna put all thirty songs on the record. Like how the hell, how do I scratch these off? And it was really tricky, but basically the final, the way that it finally came to be, this track list, was that I just thought about the songs that I felt really urgent about, the ones that I’d always wanted to arrange. That had been sort of looming around for years that I was just like, really ready to, not in the negative sense, but for lack of a better phrase, close the book to. These were songs that were really nagging at me. I need to define these and then put them away. Obviously I’ll still be performing a ton still, but like put them away, and make them stop bothering me.
RL: Yeah, and they’ve definitely reached their full potential.
LL: Yeah I needed them to exist in their finality. You know, finally!
RL: When did you actually start playing guitar, were you self-taught?
LL: Yeah, I taught myself entirely. I really started playing guitar when I was eighteen, although there were a couple of times along the line where I tried to teach myself, but got too frustrated. My dad is a guitarist, and he bought me his tiny kid size Fender Strat when I was like six, but I didn’t want him to teach me anything so I’d just walk around with it and bang on it and stuff, and then when I was about fourteen I tried to teach myself again, and I learned a few chords but I just wasn’t committed enough and it just wasn’t really the right time. I would say the real time since I’ve been playing is since I was eighteen.
RL: If you weren’t doing music, where do you think your life would be at this point?
LL: That is something I think about but I have absolutely no idea. I know that it’s in my personality to be productive creatively and before music I was really into spoken word poetry, and I was competing in spoken-word slams, I also made movies and was really really into photography and really into doing big projects. I wrote a movie, and a couple short films, and was really invested in making art. So I’d like to think that I would have ended up doing that, but I probably would have ended up going to college. I mean, I was enrolled to go to the Art Institute of Chicago, had I not started making music in my gap year then I would have gone to college. But honestly, I don’t know if I would have stayed. It’s hard to say, you know? But yeah! It’s very hard to say. I really can’t imagine doing anything else, now that I’m doing this.
RL: Does the album as a whole have any theme?
LL: I think the way that I think about these songs, the way that I think about these twelve songs is that, is that I really see them as these little kindergarten kids. That they’re each very separate, they’re each very unique. And some of them are a little rambunctious, and some of them are quieter. But they each want to do their own thing and this is my attempt to let them be themselves. If they wanna like, paint a picture, then do it. But here’s paper- don’t do it on the walls. That kind of thing. Sort of like giving them some parameters but letting them be themselves. And so I think that they’re all really different but I do believe there’s a common thread. Like, in my mind I can picture the record as like twelve little kindergartener kids like all walking down the street with one of those rope things they have to hold them back. You ever seen that? Like daycare kids, they all have to be connected and they’re walking down the street with their teacher. That’s how it feels to me. So it feels like for sure, that I know all the songs are very personal, and very much Lady Lamb-esque. And so I do think that the record is a completed work, a completed piece. Even down to the track listing order, I put a ton and ton of thought into that, and some music listeners forget that the artists track the record on purpose in that way, that there’s a reason for it. And so I think it’s a whole piece of work so I treat it separate.
RL: What exactly does Ripley Pine mean? I know that’s a broad question, but what does it mean to you?
LL: Well, so it comes from a lyric in The Nothing Pt. II. And it’s kind of a made-up phrase, ‘Riplely’ being an adverb. So like, to ripely pine, meaning to long for something. When I think of someone with a really sad heart, that’s longing for something, it’s very, your heart is very healthy, it’s very ripe and full of feeling, like a piece of fruit. Like a really juicy piece of fruit. And that’s what I think of. But I also think of it as, someone pointed this out me, that it has sort of a double meaning. Someone from Maine actually was like, “Is this a reference to the pine tree state that you’re from?” But I actually really like that, I like that it’s also like people think of a pine tree. That wasn’t actually in my mind but I think that works and the choir that I have singing in The Nothing are called the Ripley Pine Tree State Choir.
RL: Last question before I hand you over to Greg- What’s in your future? Do you plan to tour nationwide and internationally, as opposed to just doing your headlining shows up and down the east coast?
LL: Yeah, for sure, I am definitely starting to set up shows all over the place. There’s some Europe stuff in the works. And I’m hoping to do some support tours all over the country, up in Canada, and really everywhere. I just, I want this year to be full of travelling and full of touring and that’s what I’m working on now.
GREG GOLDSTEIN: Like Rachel said, I’m really excited to see you perform in a couple weeks and for the album to release and everything, so thanks a lot! So I think that one of the really impressive things about this record is that you really manage to capture a level of intensity present in your live performances and bring it to the studio. And not many people can do that, and I want to know if it’s easy for you sort of, access that kind of emotion, or do you ever find yourself building up emotion over several takes, what’s that like?
LL: That’s a great question. Yeah, that definitely happens, in terms of like building up the emotion after a couple of takes. And the wonderful thing about my producer Nadim [Issa] I just, pushed myself, and really just like, hurt, if I had to. I would rip it up and get the right take, you know?
GG: And speaking of the studio, this was your first time really having a lot of time in the studio, because in the past, you’ve put out bedroom recordings, and live recordings, and sort of, one-take sort of things, and what is it like to have that freedom of fleshing things out and really taking time to perfect the songs?
LL: I really feel like, if the situation with recording had been any different than the way it was, the record would have suffered. I got so, so, lucky with the studio and with Nadim because he- what essentially made this record possible was that he sacrificed the entire year. He, you know, gave me countless, countless, hours of his time. We were in the studio sometimes until three or four in the morning. Sometimes where I spent the night on the couch and then, we woke up and worked some more. And I really owe a lot of the sort-of the thoughtfulness that you can hear in the record, I feel, the nurturing of these songs, I owe a lot to Nadim for him giving me the time and space to do it. So I didn’t feel rushed, I didn’t feel like I was on the clock and had to get it right. Because we had the time. And that’s why the record is what it is. I really can’t even imagine what it would sound like having not spending this year on it. I’m very, very, lucky.
GG: You spoke in past interviews about you used to pretty much write in your sleep, that you kept a notebook by your side when you went to bed, and you would just kind of write, and then look at it in the morning. Do you ever still write that way, or has your process of writing changed at all?
LL: It’s changed a bit, there are times still where I’ll be lying in bed at night and I can’t sleep, and I’ll write a poem or something, sometimes it turns into lyrics for a song. But that time period when that happened, when I was keeping the notebook was so specific, that was when I first started recording, when I was eighteen and I was so, so inspired that I was painting and making collages and watching a ton of movies and just couldn’t stop making things and was so, so excited and that’s what was keeping me from sleeping. And that was a very special time that hasn’t happened to me since in quite that capacity. So I owe that time to the moniker and that being written in my notebook and all that. But I can’t say that that time has ever been replicated and it was such a specific time in my life to be productive.
GG: And speaking of that time, well, I’m about nineteen now, and so is Rachel, and I think that though you music definitely speaks for itself, one thing that is really impressive is that you are so young and that you’ve been writing for a while now, and you made this great music, and you’ve already come so far, and you present a level of confidence. What advice would you give for younger musicians and songwriters that are trying to find their voice?
LL: Good question. The biggest thing for me is just, and I know it sounds cliché, but it’s so very true, is just to be yourself. I think that you can absolutely, like, there were absolutely influences that I had early on. I think you can hear them, if I told you I was listening a ton to Joanna Newsom, alongside Of Montreal, alongside The Firey Furnaces, you can kind of understand how I wrote a seven minute long song with four tempo changes. Certainly, within influence by music, those bands made me feel like it was acceptable to write the way I wrote. But the common thread is just like, being true to yourself and it’s my experience that the most honest and earnest art comes from a place of experience. That was for me, personally. I have trouble writing things that I haven’t gone through myself, and I think that’s what really speaks to other people, that universal relation of that “I know what that is” even if there’s metaphors under it, “I’ve felt that before and I know where you’re coming from.” And just honestly, it might be a little cliché coming, but like, practice. You know, I could have not have become a musician by any stretch if I hadn’t dedicated the time to playing; and remembering that it’s gonna take a while that you feel like you’re in a place where you’re even decent. No one starts out sounding amazing; I started off sounding like complete shit for a very long time. And it was that I was so determined to sound good, that I just kept playing and playing and playing. Those are my main pieces of advice.
GG: Thanks, that’s very comforting knowing that at one point, you also weren’t totally confident in your music, you know?
LL: Of course, yeah, of course.
GG: You’ve been living in Brooklyn for a while now, and there a lot of bands in the area that you’ve sort of championed, like Cuddle Magic and Xenia Rubinos, that are opening your upcoming shows. What does it feel like to be in this vibrant music scene and in this community of all these great bands and musicians?
LL: It’s so awesome. It’s really nice to live in a place that’s so big, and feel like you’re part of a smaller community. That’s really important to me, I think. And coming from Portland, Maine, where the same situation happened, where I was meeting bands that I really loved, and had a little musical community that was very tight-knit, and that same thing can happen in Brooklyn, where I have a handful of band-friends that I just think are so talented and such wonderful people and that really inspire me, like Xenia [Rubinos] and Cuddle Magic and Pearl and the Beard, these bands that are really doing great things here. And same with Portland, bands like Wesley Hartley and Jacob Augustine, Milkman’s Union, are just doing such great things that make me feel really comforted, and not like I’m in such a giant place.
GG: And over the last few years you’ve done a lot of small shows with some of those bands that you mentioned, you’ve supported a lot of other acts, and these upcoming shows are some of your first really big headlining shows. And I want to know what can people expect at these shows that they’ve never seen at a Lady Lamb show before?
LL: These shows are special because I’m recreating a lot of the record arrangements. I have a core band, actually Xenia is playing keys, and Marco, who’s her drummer, is playing drums for me. And I have a friend from Brooklyn playing all three shows, and then each city is going to have different string and horn players, so each of these shows is going to be unique from the last, new people on the stage. My dad is even coming from Texas and playing lead guitar.
GG: Yeah, I saw that on Facebook!
LL: Yeah, that’s exciting for me, I just wanted to make these shows really unique and I wanted to make them really fun and intimate, in a way, by playing these smaller rooms, but also make them exciting and a little bit spontaneous. I can’t say what’s gonna happen. And I know that all three shows are going to be different.
GG: Well, thank you so much for talking to us.
LL: Yeah of course! Like I said, it was such a pleasure. Both of you had really good questions, and I’m happy to answer them.
Rachel Lisner is a contributor for the Rutgers Review.