Tell Us about:
Your latest single you have released:
It’s called “Soul Lovers (Quartet)”, and I’m releasing the version with a rock band plus quartet first! I wrote “Soul Lovers” about a guy. When we split apart, it left a huge emptiness, like souls splitting. But over the years the song kept meaning more to me than he did.
The longing in it felt much bigger than one breakup with one person, and I wanted to understand where it came from. Then I read about Aristophanes’ story in Plato’s Symposium, a story I’d been told, but only kind of a quick shallow version — but when you pay attention to its depth is goes really far: each of us was once whole, once “home,” until we were split in two, and ever since we’ve been searching for our other half. In Greek, love has many meanings, not only romantic, so the “lover” isn’t only a person.
It’s the unnamed longing that pushes all of us forward every day. Time moves on, places change, people change, and you can’t go back. But we all want to. The song doesn’t find the missing half. It lives in the searching.
Your favourite lyric in this song:
“Soul lovers / Parting ways / So far along / In hardened hearts and faithless sorrows.”
Your favourite song that you have created that is an album track:
This one is my favourite! “Soul Lovers” with the quartet is my favourite because it’s bluesy, a little Zeppeliny, and it has edge, which I seem to need in music. It’s also deeply soulful, and the chord progressions still give me goosebumps. It’s an irreverent song.
It set its own structure, and nobody told it how many verses or choruses it was supposed to have. I feel like the song chose me, and my job was to be open enough to let it be what it wanted. It let me sing the way my mother and grandfather sang, with love and feeling, and I’m honored that something wanted their voices carried through me.
Then you put a rock band with distorted guitars next to a full string quartet, and to me it feels spiritual. My respect for the musicians who played on it is beyond measure.
Your favourite song to play live:
I have a really fun song called “Powers of Ten” that is not out yet, and it’s been described as funk punk [laughs]. After I played it as a duo once with Danny B, the drummer I often play with, an audience member came up to us and said we were “relentlessly funky”. Well alright. What else do I need in this life?
The song that was the longest to write and why?
“Signs,” which is also not yet released. I rewrote it after I lost my mom to cancer, and I added a verse specifically about missing her so much. The rest of the song had been around for a few years, and when I originally wrote it it was about different feelings I had. My whole world changed of course when I lost her and so did the song and its meaning.
One of your previous tracks you would recommend for first time listeners of your music and why?
“Soul Lovers (Quartet)” is the first and only one listeners can hear right now! I feel like you have to live with this one a bit before it speaks to you, and you have to feel kind of open to let it grab you and have it feel like it’s speaking to you.
Dream collaboration:
I have met my dream musicians here in Boston. Let me list them! Patrick Hanlin, Wyn Doran, Kate White, Justin Nash Fisher, Riley Stockwell, Fabio Pirozzolo, Michelle Otis, Mike Rivard, Tony Vaughn, Jacqui Armbruster, Onur Dilişen, Rohan Gregory, Daniel Chouinard, Danny Brown, Sam Bouvé, Kyle Harris, Ben Levin, Raleigh Green…
Describe the feeling you get when you walk on stage to do a show:
I worry if I will be able to hear myself in my ear monitors, if any strange noises will appear in them, if my complicated foot rig is connected right, will I hit my foot rig at the right time during the song, if I have my picks in my pocket… and then I have a GREAT TIME!!!!! The stage is for my heart and soul to be poured out over, audience be damned, and I hope I will find people that want to share that with me!
Essential items you always take on tour with you?
CHECKLIST!!!!!! Healthy food is a must and floss!!!!!!!!! Floss is essential because you never know when you’ll be eating something right before a performance! Oh and mints!
Describe your fans in three words:
Open-minded, experimental, curious!
A song released in the last few years by an artist or band you wish you had written:
That’s gotta be Mitski’s “My Love Mine All Mine.”
What we can look forward to from your band this year:
Recordings and videos of performances in which I play with enormously gifted string players as well as percussion, drums and electric instrument players! And live shows! Lots of live shows!
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