(February
5, 2008) Intern Scott talked to singer Sara Melson about
her album release and much more; check it out below! She's
such a sweetheart!
S: So, are you excited about your Album release party?
SM: It's not really my record release party, it's just
a show, and I'm one of like 5 different bands playing so
I didn't want it to be like "Oh, record release!"
It's more just like "Come see me play," and then
my record comes out six days later, you know? So, I didn't
really bill it as my record release but that seems to be
what people are treating it as such so I'm like "hey,
have at it, come on down!" (laughing) I'm excited
to play because my band sounds amazing. At rehearsal last
nights the sounds were just incredible.
S: How long have you been together?
SM: I have a new member who kind of alternates between
cello and piano, and he's incredible. We've only been playing
for like 5 months or 6 months.
S: Oh, wow.
SM: The bass player and the guitar player and the drummer
have played with me for like a year and a half and they
recorded all those songs with me too.
S: That sounds good. Now, I heard you were both self-trained
and a classically taught musician, is that right?
SM: Yes I am. I'm classically trained on the piano and
for guitar I taught myself completely. In fact I only recently
have had a few guitar lessons. (laughing) Yeah.
S: So, being that you're both classically trained and
self taught how has that affected your ideas of the creation
of music?
SM: Say that again?
S: Being that you're classically trained and self taught
has that affected the way in which you go about your craft,
composing music and coming up with lyrics?
SM: Oh! Oh yeah! That's an excellent question, and actually
it's amazing how complex of an answer that is and I want
to try to explain it. Basically, it's like you grow up being
sort of forced to practice something, I loved the piano
and after a while my parents didn't have to force me to
practice but it was definitely a very disciplined way of
learning an instrument. It was definitely out of the book
reading music, reading the notes, it was never improvisational,
it was never very creative other than how you interpret
the pieces.
S: Yeah.
SM: And so when I went to learn guitar was when I really
started to write because for the first time I felt like
I could pick up an instrument - even though I could barely
play it - and accompany my own ideas. Which is funny because
you think "well duh, you're incredible at piano and
your technique is such that you could totally write your
own song" but for some reason I was kind of handicapped,
mentally; I had a mental block, literally about writing
on the piano. It was when I started to write on guitar,
ironically, that I went back to the piano and realized "Wait
a second, I'm so much better at the piano than I am with
the guitar." (Both laughing) "Why aren't I writing
on the piano?" And I had to teach myself, like a child
how to just play simple chords to accompany with my songs.
It was fascinating, even to me, you know?
S: Yeah!
SM: It was like "Wow, this is a trip! I mean, I'm
really having to retool my brain," you know?
S: You know, sometimes I think your own person can be
the best teacher.
SM: Oh, yeah, definitely. Definitely.
S: Let's see. So, let me see, so just for our viewers,
who are you listening to now?
SM: I love Wilco(?), I'm pretty much crazy about them.
You know, Shelby Lynn's(?) got a great new record out, Half
Power(?)'s a great new record out. I love the Shins(?).
I'm trying to think. I mean, I love The White Stripes. I
still listen to all my favorite old standbys. I was just
listening to T-Rex, Old Day(?), Dillon(?), and you know,
that never changes.
S: Speaking of that, I was reading online that you met
up with one of your idols, Joni Mitchell in a public bathroom
in LA?
SM: (laughing) I did!
S: How was that?
SM: That was really great! We ended up staying in there
for a while, and having a relatively standard conversation,
you know? It wasn't like long, but it was more than just
a little exchange. We kind of hung out for, I would say
about 5 minutes, which is with Joni Mitchell is amazing.
I was like "this is so cool, she's so awesome!"
I don't know, I would love to cross paths again, I'm sure
she would have absolutely no memory of that! Of course,
it was burned indelibly into my brain!
S: Of course! Was she how you envisioned her? Was she
how you envisioned her before you met her?
SM: Well, kind of. I mean, she's older than when you look
at the album covers when you're a kid and so that's a different
person she is now, but the same. Basically the same.
S: Yeah. Me and my family really like Joni Mitchell
and really respect her as an artist and as I was getting
a look at your material, and your lyrics, I really like
the way in which you write your lyrics. They're very simplistic
but the rawness of their meaning is just so immensely powerful.
SM: Thank you so much for saying that!
S: I really, really enjoyed all the songs. I just, actually
like two days, I friended you on Facebook.
SM: Oh my god, thank you so much!
S: Yeah, I really enjoy your music, especially The Raise(?)
because like now a days, the lyrics tend to be overly complicated
or poorly written and it's just about promoting the music
and getting a product out there.
SM: Yeah.
S: So, it's just refreshing to see someone to actually
take time to write music!
SM: Yeah, how novel!
S: I know, right? (both laughing)
SM: No, I know definitely. I mean, I really appreciate
that. That means a lot to me, it really does.
S: So, do you have any specific way you go about writing
lyrics, or a song perhaps?
SM: You know, it varies from song to song. Some of my songs
have literally just poured out in their completeness. It's
really trippy when that happens. That's one of the most
exciting things about writing, is when you're just kind
of like a channel and that it's just a burst of song, you
know? But a lot of times it's different. A lot of times
it comes together over, sometimes a period of a long time.
Hard Tracks(?) is an example, where I have scribbled, I
forget where I was. I think I was adding up my receipts
for taxes or something. The original lyrics are written
on the outside of a manilla file folder, so I quickly scribbled
them down, and it was just the chorus, just "you're
going to be hard pressed to find" just that, "find
a woman like me." It was just that idea, that nugget
if you will, that kind of was the kernel of the song and
that was the concept at first for the whole song. Later,
much later, I think I found that file literally I saw it
while looking for a receipt or something, saw the outside
of the manilla folder, and was like "Oh my god, yeah!
That could be a bad-ass song!" Then I sat down and
I wrote. First I wrote the rest of the lyrics. Then, this
is an interesting story: At that time I was a substitute
teacher and I was teaching in different schools. This was
before I got my job as a music teacher, cause I taught music
in a French school for a year and a half.
S: Oh? Wow!
SM: Yeah, to little kids. Before that, for about a year,
I was kind of floating being a substitute teacher in all
these different schools.
S: That's cool.
SM: Yeah, it was great. I was teaching music at this school,
fancy school in Beverly Hills and the kids were at recess
and I was left in this really nice music room with a grand
piano, and nothing to do for half an hour. So I sat down,
and I had my notebook, the one with the Hard Pressed(?)
lyrics in it, and from the outside of the file folder to
a first grade classroom in Beverly Hills, and the song was
finished.
S: Wow.
SM: That's an example of how a lot of my songs come into
being. It's just strange Frankenstein circumstances or situations
where circumstances meet in this magical way and all the
sudden the song is finished. It's really cool when that
happens.
S: Yeah! So, speaking of this
SM: Oh, I have to tell you! I also wrote Triplets Die(?)
at that same school.
S: Really? Maybe you should go back there!
SM: Yeah! (Both laughing)
S: The yearly pilgrimage to the school to write music!
SM: Yeah. (laughs)
S: You seem well traveled.
SM: Yeah, I am.
S: What places have you been?
SM: Well, my parents were really big into traveling and
on a budget, it's not like we had a lot of money but they
would just save up everything to be able to take me and
my brother on these crazy adventures.
S: That's awesome.
SM: We have pictures of me at 2 years old in a backpack
on my dad's back going through Europe, things like that.
So, since I was very little I've been all over. I mean,
I lived in Israel for a year and a half. My dad worked in
political science there, and while we were there we went
to Egypt, and we went through the Sinai Desert with camels;
slept in tents with Beduins(?). Yeah, I've had some amazing
adventures, you know? I've been to Japan, and I took an
acoustic tour of Japan.
S: Oh! How was that?
SM: That was amazing! I cannot wait to go back.
S: Do you plan on going back any time soon?
SM: Oh, no, I mean, not until I release a record there.
But, I mean, I'd love to! It was so wonderful. I love the
Japanese people.
S: That's good. Speaking of touring Japan, are you planning
on touring anywhere in the US any time soon?
SM: Oh, yes, absolutely. We're working on that obviously
and trying to find the right situation.
S: Yeah, of course.
SM: So, when you accept a tour you want to make sure that
it's going to be the right thing. But I'm playing around
LA, for those of, well, your audience doesn't live here
but I'm playing here the next couple months and then I'm
going to go out and I'm sure our paths will cross down the
line. In the mean time, people can just go online! I mean,
we have the internet, and you know people can go to MySpace,
go to YouTube, and go to iTunes because my record's going
to be out this Fall on iTunes and Amazon.com and all that,
really soon. I think maybe even before the release date.
Obviously at least by the release date.
S: I'm definitely going to have to hook up with that,
because I'm definitely going to be buying that.
SM: Cool! Well, really, it's very grass roots so I definitely
need people like you to just, you know, it's all about viral
spreading the word, you know? And basically that's how things
get heard.
S: You were saying that you're an avid promoter of the
musical evolution of the different mediums like MySpace
and Facebook? Because some people tend to think that it
might lead to a certain cultural and musical monotony instead
of the grass roots type of thing.
SM: Yeah.
S: What do you think about that issue?
SM: What exactly do you mean?
S: I mean that they think that it takes away. There
was the whole issue with everyone was upset with iTunes
because you could buy a song and it was possibly destroying
the art form of the album?
SM: Oh! Right, right, right, right, right. Weal, yeah.
I personally just think that's true in the sense that when
you grow up holding a record (or even a CD, but back in
the day when it was records), you'd sit there and hold this
beautiful piece of art and just stare at the pictures and
read the lyrics and experience this thing in such a different
way. You know? But I personally am a huge fan of iTunes,
and especially because it's so Democratic. Anything you
want to find, you can find it! It's out there, and you can
look it up. It really is globalization at its finest. It's
one of the great things that has come out of the internet
and out of unifying people. I think there's a real strength
in being able to just buy the tracks you want to hear. I
mean, frankly I'm sure I'm not alone, but you hear one great
song, you run out and spend fifteen bucks on the record,
and everything else is filler!
S: Yeah.
SM: And that's why I made a point of weeding out, of all
the songs I'd written, taking my 12 best songs and then
putting a 13th bonus track on there because I wanted every
single song to be an experience that people would love.
I didn't want any of the songs to be just around the single
or whatever. I think iTunes is cool in the way that you
get to narrow down what the songs are that you want. So
I'm totally into it and I think it's great for the music
industry. There's going to be way more stuff like that popping
up.
S: So have you downloaded anything off iTunes recently?
SM: Yeah, actually! I did a Harry Nelson(?) tribute a couple
weeks ago.
S: That's cool.
SM: I got to cover "Everybody's Talking(?)" which
is like, my favorite song. So I downloaded that and I downloaded
just a few other Nelson songs that I wanted to hear. So,
I had a whole Nelson download. You know, I download stuff
all the time, tons of time. I think probably not as much
as most people because I already have so much music. I have
so many things that I need to experience already, you know?
I'm a huge iTunes fan. I love it.
S: If you had to download one of your songs off from
iTunes, which would it be?
SM: People are really going to disagree about that, and
that's what I love is that people have different favorite
songs off the record. I mean You are Coming (?) obviously
was on Grey's Anatomy and people love that song but "Never
Been Hurt(?)" is one that people for some reason they
really respond to that one. They really respond to it. I
would say it's interesting, because I don't even know which
song on my record is the single. (both laughing) I guess
that's a good thing. Yeah. What do you think?
S: Actually, that's my favorite song.
SM: See!
S: I was listening to it on YouTube, actually, this
morning.
SM: People really like that one.
S: It's just the emotion that seems to pour out of it,
and it's so simple and yet so complex at the same time.
It's just good music. It makes you want to listen to it.
That's my take on it; there doesn't need to be a whole dealer
promotion on it like more pop, like for Brittany Spears
and Christina Aguilera, there doesn't need to be any promotion
because the music will promote itself.
SM: That's what I'm hoping, you know? I'm hoping that real
music fans are going to find this record, and tell their
friends, and it's just going to go from there. That's what
I'm hoping. I mean, let's put it this way: Part of the reason
I made the record is that I had to make these songs come
to life, and I just felt so good knowing that it's done.
It just makes me feel so happy, you know?
S: I heard that you used to live in Indiana?
SM: Yes, I did. I grew up there.
S: Both your parents were professors?
SM: Yeah.
S: What was that like, growing up there?
SM: It was a wonderful place to grow up as a little kid.
It was safe, you could play on the sidewalk, and it was
a wonderful world to live in as a little kid. You know?
S: Yeah. It must be drastically different from LA?
SM: Oh, my gosh! Yes. That was the problem though, is by
the time, if you have any kind of restless soul, or you're
an artist, or you want to make something of yourself, by
the time you hit puberty, you by this time are kind of getting
wind that there's a lot else out there, you know?
S: Yeah.
SM: And that's when it becomes a problem. So I just wasn't
one of those people that could stay in Indiana, and I just
had to get out. It was not a moment too soon. That being
said, I'm very fond of it! I love going back to visit! I
don't want anyone from Indiana to take offense to reading
that. It's growing up in a small town anywhere that's like
that.
S: Oh, yeah. I'm sure everyone can agree.
SM: It's not a function of the state, it's a function of
growing up in a small town and having big dreams, you know?
S: What made you go to LA then?
SM: Well, I actually came out to LA to work as an actress!
S: Oh.
SM: I had all these songs that I was writing, and I was
learning guitar at the time and didn't play very well. I
mean, I played piano but really just learning guitar. Just
basically kind of decided I was going to do acting, and
I did actually do a bunch of acting. It's like, it's funny
but if you go to imdb.com, have you heard of that website?
S: No!
SM: It's I M as in Mary, David as in David, B as in boy,
dot com, imdb. It's the Internet Movie Database. They list
everyone's acting credits. It's pretty funny, all the stuff
that I've done. So I had this, basically, this acting career
and then it sort of just ended up falling by the wayside,
and my songs kind of came together, and I had a band, and
you know.
S: Well, there you are! Wow!
SM: Yeah! I was on Frasier, and Wonder Years, and Beverly
Hills 90210; all these random shows, you know? That was
then, this is now. Different life times for sure. Interesting.
S: I was also reading a quote that said that as an artist
that you stated on record you "Capture a unique moment
in time?" What do you think your new album "Dirty
Mind" captures?
SM: It's interesting. I mean, now when I play the songs
with my band, I feel like "Oh, god! Why don't we just
record this rehearsal and that'll be the record! Oh god!
Let's just do it over!" Every time you work on something
it just becomes better and better. Now, what you have to
deal with as an artist is the reality that what's on the
recording is on the recording. You have to be okay with
that. You have to be like "That was valid, because
that was that day, with those people playing, and that was
at the point when I had written the song a month before
and we were just getting used to the song. It sounds beautiful
for what it is and now it sounds, in my mind, it sounds
better. For someone else it might not. It's so subjective,
you know?
S: Does it tend to come out that each time you play
the song it kind of holds a different meaning?
SM: Yeah.
S: It develops more and more, like it matures every
time you play it?
SM: It does. I also feel like, when you write a song, you're
in an emotional moment that you're trying to articulate,
you're trying to express in words or music. Later, let's
say a year later, or a year and a half, or two, or 10 or
15 years later like James Taylor, you know? How do you recapture
the connection with that emotional moment in your live performance
for your fans to have that same experience? You know what
I mean?
S: Totally.
SM: In a way, it's almost like an acting exercise.
S: I guess your acting came in handy then, didn't it?
SM: Exactly. It's allowing yourself the permission to go
back to how you felt when you wrote that song in that moment.
It's being able to tap into that, and access that truth,
because if you don't, people can smell it a mile away, and
it's not going to sound real.
S: I totally agree.
SM: If you're not connecting, every time, not 90% but 100%
of the time, if you're not connecting with that material,
it won't come across and so I think one of the biggest challenges
is remembering what that song means to you personally, and
transmitting that feeling to others. I think that's really
important at the center.
S: What kind of message do you think that your album
is going to send out to the audience? Do you have a message
that you think your songs are going to tell?
SM: I do, I really do! It's interesting because it's kind
of dovetailing with the election. I feel like no matter
who we end up with I feel like the country and the world
as a whole needs a message of hope, as trite and clichéd
as that sounds. We need hope. We need to look at the positive.
There's just so much negative out there. That's kind of
like "Nuclear Sun(?)" and the message is "The
time is now." You know? It starts out "Maybe the
damage has been done." It's just kind of like people
throwing up there hands in apathy and going "we can't
do anything, we can't fix anything," and the song is
supposed to be uplifting saying "yes, we can. The ride
has stopped, and it won't last, and it's already in the
past. But we're only here once. We only go around once.
This is our time, and it's our chance. And then we die."
S: (laughing)
SM: Really! That's how it works! We can either choose to
be apathetic and throw up our hands and flick a cigarette
into the street because the damage has been done or we can
inspire each other and ourselves and uplift each other and
ourselves and believe against all odds. It's like Martin
Luther King. It's like, "Yeah, I have a dream."
And that is my dream, that things can change and in any
small way I can I want my voice to help be a part of the
solution, and not the pollution.
S: Well I definitely think as unique and special as
your voice and your music tend to be that I don't think
that'll be a problem. I think your message will be widely
heard by all that hear.
SM: Thank you so much!
S: One little tidbit for our readers, is there anything
special or unique that no one else knows about that you
might be able to tell us?
SM: Sure! I don't know if this has come out in any other
interviews but, a really big part of my life that I hope
to be able to share with people as a whole is my yoga. I've
been doing yoga for 13 years every day. I teach yoga. It's
a huge, huge, huge part of my life.
S: When did you start practicing yoga?
SM: Oh my gosh. 1993? Yeah, 1993.
S: Was it just something you stumbled into, or was something
happening in your life and it just came up as something
that might calm you down?
SM: Yeah, I mean basically it was a need to get centered
and find out who I was and stop the shattering noises that
there's just so much stress. At the time I was going through
a really bad breakup and just really needed something to,
you know, center me. My friend brought me to a yoga class
and I've never looked back since. (both laugh) Never.
S: Was that out in LA, or back in Indiana?
SM: Actually, it was out in LA. Yeah, and it was one of
my first experiences here, and I was like "Okay, this
is so California." But I hoped that it would work,
and it really means so much to me. It really really does.
S: That seems to be a really popular form of exercise
and meditation among celebrities in Hollywood now a days.
SM: Yeah. It's popular for a reason. That's why I say for
people reading this who never thought they would like it
or be challenged by it or want to try it, I would urge them
to investigate it with the right teacher, because a bad
teacher can really turn you off with it. With the right
teacher there are really ways to find out things about yourself
physically, mentally, and even emotionally. You just have
no idea. It starts to affect your whole life in such a positive
way.
S: It definitely wasn't what I expected when I went
to one of my classes because I was sore for at least 2 and
a half weeks after that class! (laughs)
SM: I'll tell you , it's true! People are like "oh,
that doesn't look like much."
S: Oh, they're definitely wrong!
SM: That's so funny. I actually have to take my two dogs
out right now. Are you close to the end?
S: Oh, yeah. We're just right there.
SM: It was wonderful talking to you.
S: It was wonderful talking to you too, have a fun walk
with your dogs!
SM: Oh, yeah! They're so cute, oh my gosh. I love animals!
S: What kind of dogs do you have?
SM: I have two Shepard mixes that were both strays that
were adopted.
S: Oh, that's good.
SM: Yeah. Found them on the street, and they're looking
at me like "okay…"
S: Well, I don't want to keep their mommy from them
any longer.
SM: Rockin'!
S: Yes.
SM: Thanks!
S: You have a wonderful day.
SM: I will, you too. Bye.
