Brandi Carlile: Homemade jams in Aspen

Brandi Carlile: Homemade jams in Aspen


Sunday, April 12, 2009

ASPEN — Brandi Carlile’s last album, “The Story,” was released two years ago this month — not a notably long stretch to go without fresh material. But most of the songs on that album were not new when they were recorded; several date back to 2000, when the singer-songwriter was 19.

Carlile says the cause of this delay is patience: “I have a tendency, when a song isn’t recorded properly, if the recording wasn’t magical or just right, I’ll hold it tight to my chest and wait till it is just right,” she said. But the result seems to be a sort of impatience, maybe better described as a pent-up energy. Carlile has finished her next album — “Give Up the Ghost,” due for release late this coming summer — and the way she describes it, it will be a thing apart from “The Story,” which borders on female soft-rock.

“It’s limitless. It’s not safe. If I had to take a look at it, it’s a step in a more extreme direction,” said Carlile from a tour stop in Indianapolis. “I think the record is really explosive at times, and at times it is incredibly intimate. Those extremes are what set this record apart. There are a few more barn-burners than on ‘The Story.’ More raucous.”

The songwriting process that created the latest batch of tunes wasn’t so different from her past methods. Carlile said half the songs on “Give Up the Ghost” were written since the release of “The Story,” but the rest are older creations that were just waiting for the right recording moment. As she has done for virtually all of her career, she collaborated on many of the songs with twin brothers Phil and Tim Hanseroth, whom she met while playing the Seattle club scene in her mid-teens.

But the method of recording those songs was a new one for Carlile. While “The Story” was about capturing nearly live performances, the new album used live tracks as building blocks for something bigger. Carlile says she was listening to Cat Stevens, and to Johnny Cash’s “American Recordings” while making “Give Up the Ghost.” But that music, Cash’s especially, is severely stripped-down. A more direct influence, and a more curious one, is Queen’s “Night at the Opera,” which was also in her ears during February’s sessions.

“’The Story’ was really warm and dark,” said Carlile. “This one too, but then we built on it. We used all the tracks available to us.”

While Carlile uses the “not safe” description for the overall result of “Give Up the Ghost,” she repeats the phrase in discussing the instrumentation. The new album employs ukulele (played by Phil Hanseroth, usually the bassist), slide guitar (played by guitarist Tim), and piano and banjo, played by Carlile herself, who would never call herself a pianist or a banjoist.

“I’m a totally bad piano player. But I love it so much,” she said. “And banjo — that’s something I cannot play. But on one spot on one song, I did add a banjo part.”

One thing the two albums have in common is the participation of high-profile producers. “The Story” was produced by T-Bone Burnett, whose work includes the hit soundtrack for “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” and the recent multi-Grammy winner “Raising Sand,” by Alison Krauss & Robert Plant. One of the producers on “Give Up the Ghost” is Rick Rubin, who has famously rehabilitated the careers of Neil Diamond and the late Johnny Cash, and has also done significant work with Red Hot Chili Peppers, Slayer and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. (Also doing production work on “Give Up the Ghost” was Jason Lader, who co-produced Elvis Costello’s 2008 album, “Momofuku.”)

Carlile, who has two albums to her credit, and had just a minor hit with the title track of “The Story,” doesn’t know who to thank for her good fortune with producers. “How does that happen?” she asked with genuine wonder. The Burnett link she traces to geographical coincidence: The two happened to be in New York City at the same time, and had a drink together.

“We started talking about recording live to tape, classic country & western music, why we had to break tradition,” she Carlile, who also had Indigo Girls, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers contribute to “The Story.” “We just hit it off and then he offered to produce the album. It was exciting and undeserved on my part.”

The relationship with Rubin came about through their mutual association with Columbia Records.

Carlile was raised in small-town Washington state, in Ravensdale, 50 miles southeast of Seattle. Her start in music reflected that rural setting: “My family was really immersed in Grand Ole Opry stuff,” she said. “My grandfather and his brother were great yodelers. We had family jam nights.”

Carlile’s upcoming Aspen gig — Tuesday, April 14 at the Wheeler Opera House — will have some of the feel of those homemade jams. The show will feature Carlile and the Hanseroth brothers. Instead of a drummer, the fourth member of the quartet is a cellist, Josh Neumann, who played on “The Story.”

“There will be lamps and candles, a real living-room jam,” she said.

For a while, Carlile’s music got a touch harder. In her mid-teens, Carlile picked up a guitar, left home and headed for Seattle. Along the way she developed a taste for rock ‘n’ roll, thanks to Elton John’s classic ‘70s albums. In her first band with the Hanseroths, the sounds were relatively aggressive. But eventually Carlile’s sensibility became the centerpiece of the group, and the group turned toward acoustic instruments. It seems to have been the right move; Carlile was named a Rolling Stone “Artist to Watch” in 2005, and has had songs featured on “Grey’s Anatomy.”

With the upcoming release of “Give Up the Ghost,” Carlile and her mates are once again in an expansion stage with their sound. But Carlile still speaks with a slight drawl, and it’s doubtful that adding piano and layers of production are going to fundamentally alter her musical essence. Patsy Cline is likely to remain a stronger influence than Queen.

“It’s more about what you actually are than what you want,” said Carlile.


http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20090412/ASPENWEEKLY/904109969/1060