‘GHOST' STORIES: Singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile digs deeper for third-album inspiration

‘GHOST' STORIES: Singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile digs deeper for third-album inspiration

By Steve Wildsmith
stevew@thedailytimes.com
Originally published: February 04. 2010 1:47PM
Last modified: February 04. 2010 2:15PM

It's a given, almost, that singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile is a fan of the TV show “Grey's Anatomy.”

After all, the medical drama and ratings hit for the ABC network helped put Carlile on the map, using her songs during emotional scenes where the images combine with music to pack a powerful punch.

Big reveals, long embraces, torrid moments of passion — they're staples of primetime drama, and Carlile's music has been used to choreograph many such scenes. And in loaning her songs out to the show, Carlile found herself won over by the ongoing story set at Seattle Grace Hospital.

“That was such a big push for us in the beginning,” Carlile told The Daily Times this week. “Not every band gets to have their first record have that kind of mainstream support, and I'm an absolute fan of the show. I've got it TiVo'ed at home. They used one of my songs in a recent episode (“Oh Dear,” featured on the Jan. 21 installment), and someone sent me a link to the three-and-a-half minutes where my song was used. I won't even watch it, because I don't want to ruin the show!”

In the early days — when her self-titled debut album was released in 2005 — Carlile was too busy touring the country to devote herself to anything on TV. But as songs like “What Can I Say,” “Tragedy” and “Throw It All Away,” all off of that album, were selected for use in the show, she began to pay closer attention, she said.

“What really got me into the show was the really unique use of music,” she said. “It wasn't just me — all of my friends were getting spots; all of these indie artists, and all of this avant garde rock ‘n' roll stuff. I had to check out this show because they were using all of this crazy music, and that caused me to become quite a fan.”

And would she be willing to use some of her musical currency to turn that fandom into a possible guest appearance? Not likely. Although many musicians might fancy themselves actors as well, don't count Carlile among them.

“I don't think any of those characters do guilt as well as I do,” she said with a laugh. “If I was on that show, I'd be Catholic. I'd be the guilt girl. The characters on that show live way too shamelessly for me. I couldn't handle it.”

A native of Washington State, Carlile grew up singing Patsy Cline covers and, at one point, working as a teen backup singer for an Elvis impersonator. She teamed up with two brothers with whom she still works today, Tim and Phil Hanseroth, after high school and tackled the Seattle club scene, selling home recordings at those gigs. She caught a break when Dave Matthews heard her perform at a festival, and in 2004, she was signed to Columbia Records. Two years of constant touring surrounded the release of her self-titled debut, during which time she racked up a number of accolades — she was featured on Rolling Stone's “10 Artists to Watch in 2005” list, and by the end of 2006, she had opened shows for Ray LaMontagne, Indigo Girls, The Fray, Chris Isaak, Tori Amos and Shawn Colvin, among others.

(Incidentally, next week's show will feature Amy Ray, one half of the Indigo Girls and an artist Carlile describes as both a role model and a friend. “They know how to bring out the party in people, so we're going to have to try extra hard with Amy on the bill,” she said.)

In 2007, she released “The Story,” which brought her additional “Grey's Anatomy” exposure (a special video of the title track, interspersed with scenes from the show, was debuted during primetime) and overseas acclaim; on the strength of it, she released “Give Up the Ghost” last year, an album that debuted at No. 26 on the Billboard 200 chart. To the casual listener, it may sound like more of the same — unobtrusive instrumentation layered around Carlile's vocals, which range from plaintive and desperate to heartbreakingly lovely and bone-crushingly weary — but to devoted fans, as well as to Carlile herself, it's something of a rebirth.

“It's easy to write those first records about living life, about first love and loss and coming of age, because all of those things happen to everybody,” she said. “They happen, and you have this fodder for an amazing first or second record. But once that's gone, you just have the tour bus and the road, and the immediacy in response to your career is to write something really small and maybe not as honest as what's really going on.

“That's why you end up with singer-songwriter records that are all road songs and forlorn traveling tunes. I just think that's self-indulgent and a little petty when something more is going on.”

With Carlile, there's always something more going on. She may not vocalize it — not in conversation, anyway — but that sense of guilt is omnipresent. It's a character flaw, she said — one that she recognizes and attempts to address through songwriting, which — along with performing — she calls her main form of expression. She may internalize much of that aforementioned guilt, but she also has an outlet into which she can channel it.

“It's not as heavy as it seems, because I can put it out there,” she said. “When you allow yourself to drift off and slow your mind down, it takes you somewhere that you really are — somewhere really important. You can confront things in your past that you haven't made peace with, or thing in your future. It's not all about, ‘Oh, what am I feeling right now?' ‘Give Up the Ghost' is about transcending your environment and writing about those things.”

That introspection rings genuine for Carlile's fans, who cling to her songs as the catharsis they seek in their own lives but are unable to express. Through her music, they find comfort and courage — both in facing their own issues and handling the reactions of others when those issues are made public. Carlile knows a thing or two about that; she came out as a lesbian in 2002 and considers herself part of a rich musical heritage of gay and lesbian artists who make music that transcends sexual boundaries.

“I don't feel hindered by it,” she said. “People like Freddie Mercury and Elton John and the Indigo Girls — I feel really lucky to have those predecessors, because I don't feel restricted by gender barriers. I feel like I can sing loud or move in a way that I want to on stage or play guitar really hard. I don't have to bend to rules of femininity, because I've never put those boundaries around me playing music.”

That, at least, is one issue that doesn't rear its head in her art. The rest — guilt, transition and so many others — are there, but she doesn't fight them, deny them or struggle with them. She accepts, examines and finds a way to shine a little light on them all through music. And in so doing, she's struck by her own childlike wonder in how she copes and lives and perceives.

“The main theme that comes up, the one that still shocks me to this day, is the transition from being a child to an adult, and how it happens without any warning,” she said. “Even now, I'm surprised by it all the time. I'm surprised I'm an adult — it's like I forget. I'm my parents' daughter, but I still have a job and responsibilities, and I always end up referring to that because it's such a shock that I'm not 12 any more. Which means, I think, that I had either an inflated sense of superiority when I was 12, or some immaturity issue now.”

http://www.thedailytimes.com/article/20100204/ENT/302049977