METHOD IN HER MUSIC Laura Veirs
Jan 12, 2010
"It is more nerve-wracking": But we predict the gifted singer-songwriter from Portland's gonna work it out.
BY JENNIFER KELLY
Lush, natural, organic - you might think that Laura Veirs' July Flame, her seventh full-length, came easily to the Portland songwriter. Its melodies are caressingly warm, the images of plant life and summertime, the mood tranquil and unhurried. Still, let other musicians sit patiently and wait for inspiration. Veirs works at her music, in a methodical, disciplined way. She is, for instance, the only musician we know who keeps a practice chart in her studio and grades herself on a one-to-five scale for her efforts.
That work ethic becomes particularly useful when she's writing a new album. Every day, she heads back to a free-standing studio and works for several hours. "If I'm just piddling around the house, the whole day can go by, or a week, without me writing anything. So I have to be disciplined about it. I've learned that over the years," says Veirs.
If Veirs starts a song, she'll keep at it until she's finished at least a demo. "I don't like unfinished things. They make me uncomfortable. Once I start to write a song, I'll just push through and finish it," says Veirs. "Most of the time it's not good. But then, I guess, one out of ten times or whatever, it is good."
The next day, she'll come back to the studio, listen to the new song and see if it works. "I can't judge a song the day I write it at all," she admits. "But the next day it's always clear whether it has something that resonates with me or with others."
For July Flame, Veirs wrote a total of 80 songs, then pared them down to 13 before recording. The very first song, however, was the title track, named after a variety of heritage peach she tasted at a farmer's market. "It wasn't really the peaches, so much as the name that evoked something for me," says Veirs. "Sometimes I'll struggle with a song, with the words or the melody, but this fell right out. "
"I had been feeling a little bit bored by myself, kind of like, oh, I've written so many songs in my life. How am I going to make this one interesting?" she added. "That one kind of set me off on a new path."
Veirs' has always drawn on natural imagery in her lyrics. Trained as a geologist and coming from a family of scientists, however, she brings an unusual precision to her lyrics. Geological concepts like meteors and the ice age have figured in her songs, as well as forest fires and ocean waves. But with July Flame, the palette has shifted to warmer tones. "I think this album does have more pastoral themes. More like summer - bees, pollinators, flowers, wildfire, smoke, buffalo...it's almost out of ‘Home on the Range' or something," says Veirs. "Maybe it's because that theme embodies the summer for me, which is what this album focuses on."
But though it distills summer into music, for business reasons, the album had to come out in the dead of winter. She says that she thought about the seasonality, but decided not to worry about it. "One of my friends told me I was lighting up the winter months," Veirs jokes.
Veirs worked with long-time and new collaborators on the album. Regional fixture Tucker Martine, her producer for all her previous albums and her live-in partner for the last two, recorded the album. Martine, who has worked with the Decemberists, Sufjan Stevens and Bill Frisell, brings a strong, subtle sense of rhythm and an encyclopedic knowledge of music, says Veirs.
"Tucker has an insatiable appetite for learning about music -- what everyone's doing and what everyone has done, across all genres," she adds. "That's one of the reasons I like working with him, because it's not going to be normal. It'll be normal enough if you want it to be, but there will be something weird underneath."
Eyvind Kang, the celebrated jazz violist, contributed to this album, as he has for all the rest. "He's a brilliant guy," says Veirs. "All of his viola playing on all of my albums is improvised. He just plays things as he goes and it's wonderful to watch him work in the studio. It's like his mind is working on another level."
Kang is not the only string player on Veirs' album this time. She also reached beyond her established circle to bring in Samuel Barber and the Tosca String Quartet for two cuts ("Little Deschutes" and "Make Something Good"). Other guests include My Morning Jacket's Jim James on "I Can See Your Tracks," "Sun Is King" and "Silo Song."
Even French romantic poet Arthur Rimbaud makes a cameo (of sorts) in the lyrics to "Sleeper in the Valley", a gorgeous ballad with a strong anti-war sentiment.
"I actually was struggling to write about the war and feeling like, I can't do this, it's too big," says Veirs. "So I thought, well, ‘What does Rimbaud say?' And then I found his poem ["The Sleeper in the Valley"] and I thought, ‘that's perfect.'" The poem "Sleeper in the Valley", like the song, considers a young soldier lying dead, an image that is, unfortunately, as relevant now as it was in Rimbaud's day.
"Sleeper in the Valley" is one of the album's more serious moments. Another song, "Carole Kaye," about the famous funk bass player, is a lighter one.
"It was fun learning about her, because she's this white girl from Everett Washington, close to where we live, and somehow got mixed up with Motown Records and Stax and was the person to call in the 1960s for funk bass playing," Veirs explains. "I researched her a little bit and realized, listening to her, how creative and amazing her bass playing was. And then there's this thing that she's the most recorded bass player of all time. I was like, okay, I've got to write a song about her." Veirs' song incorporates a long list of the songs Kaye played on in its lyrics: "Smile," "Good Vibrations," "Help Me Rhonda," "Homeward Bound," "I'm a Believer," "Come Together", "Mission Impossible" and others. In the song, Veirs says she hopes to meet Kaye one day, and although that hasn't happened yet, she has a signed photo of the bass player on her mantle and hopes to connect one day.
Meanwhile, Veirs is getting preparing for another tour to promote her new album. She'll be traveling this time with a four piece band: violist Alex Guy, and multi-instrumentalists Eric Anderson and Nelson Kempf.
Veirs will also be promoting the album herself. Her last several albums came out on Nonesuch, but with her contract up, she decided to try self-releasing (the album is released by her own Raven Marching Band Records in the U.S. and Bella Union in Europe).
"I have a reasonable audience now. It's not like I'm starting from scratch," she concludes. "I have a label manager and a publicist and a radio person and all these people helping me get this out. I'm investing a lot of time and money into it.
"It is more nerve-wracking, but I just feel in my gut that it's going to work out."
[Photo Credit: David Belisle]
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