one more: indigo girls in GCN, dublin
i like this interview and was glad to see that GCN finally put it up on their site. i wanted to archive it here.
INDIGO GIRLS
Ever since Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, collectively known as The Indigo Girls, burst forth on the world in 1987 with their album Strange Fire, they've been a rare presence. In the intervening decades they've juggled songwriting, extensive touring and solo careers and an indie label with a brand of radical activism that would normally be a kiss of death in the music industry.
But then again, the Indigo Girls' outspoken political sensibilities appeal to a core audience that just keeps on growing. Both Ray and Saliers are lesbian and from the outset they have courted a devoted following of similarly inclined sisters. They may be a generation or two beyond today's younger lesbians, but there isn't a baby dyke on the block who doesn't know who the Indigo Girls are. And because Ray and Saliers keep on delivering the goods, they keep gaining new fans.
The two got to know each other as children at Elementary School in Georgia and started performing together when they went to High School as The B-Band. They subsequently split up to go to college, but homesickness got the better of both and they returned to Georgia to form the Indigo Girls.
The rest, as they say, is herstory. The success of Strange Fire led to a major contract with Epic Records and a second album, Indigo Girls. The first single from that album, Closer To Fine made them a household name and it won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Recording 1990.
Since then they've released nine critically acclaimed albums of original material, one live album and one greatest hits compilation, and had raft of hit singles. They have also championed gay rights, the rights of Native Americans, environmental conservation and the abolishment the death penalty in certain US states. Last year they featured on P!nk's album, I'm Not Dead in the song, Dear Mr. President, a pop-political statement to George W Bush about poverty, queer rights, and the right to education for all children.
P!nk returned the favour and appears on the Girls latest album, Despite Our Differences, which goes back to Indigo basics, interspersing folk ballads with all-out rock 'n' roll, with a keen political and personal edge.
The duo are coming to Ireland this month to perform tracks from the new release along with some of their classic tunes, and Amy Ray, for one, is looking forward to it. Down the line from her home in Georgia, she's a little quieter than you might expect at first, taking her time to get into the swing of the interview. But after a while she finds her own comfortable ground and starts sharing like we're old buddies.
So, you're coming to Dublin with your new tour. Do you like playing here?
We've played in Dublin quite a few times over the years and we always have a good time. The audiences are great and we like hanging out and catching up with friends we have there. It's just a really warm place to be.
You've been friends and performing partners since 1980. What's the secret of your longevity?
I think a lot of it comes from the fact that we write our songs separately and then come together to arrange them. This gives us that creative space so that we always feel have a way to express ourselves artistically as individuals.
If we have differences of opinion or if we have anything that we feel might interfere with that, we always remember that it's really precious and it's what we want to be doing, and to protect it.
Do you ever have any political disagreements?
Not major ones. Usually it's about things like lifestyle choices - the difference between being vegetarian or not.
As far as the big political things go, though, we work together as activists on certain issues and we feel very similar to each other on those things.
Is your activism as important to you personally as your music is?
I think I would be an activist no matter what I was doing, so it's definitely as important. But it's also important for us to keep our activism in its proper place.
I mean we don't spend the whole show talking about politics. Sometimes we do benefits for certain causes and that's what we're there for and that's what we talk about. But other times it's just about the music. The activism might be implied in the lyrics of the songs, but it's important to have a space to celebrate and play too.
Do you think it's the duty of celebrities to speak out if they have political opinions?
I don't. As a human being it is important to interact with your community and engage and give back, to be involved. But I don't think there's a special pressure on people who are in the limelight to do something big. I don't value one artist above another just because they are politically outspoken.
Emily and I have always been activists and we met some people very early on who helped us create a few situations that have carried on for a long time. We've been lucky because we get a lot out of it.
When the Dixie Chicks spoke out against George W Bush, their career was damaged. Do you think this put pressure on other artists in America to keep quiet about their political convictions?
I think in certain areas of music, yes. The Dixie Chicks existed in this very pop-country radio arena and I definitely think that other people who work in that area got scared and decided to back off.
People who owned labels or were managers were saying, 'Oh, we've got to be careful', but I think other groups, who weren't scared about the ramifications on their careers, might have been encouraged to speak out more.
The Dixie Chicks were very inspiring. For the radio to go as far as they went, pulling the song and inspiring this kind of witchunt was absurd to me. What happened and what it meant inspired righteous indignation in a lot of people.
You worked with P!nk on her recent album. What was that experience like?
Amazing. She's a great person and we were totally flattered when she asked us to do it. She's a great artist and a really cool person. We had such a good time that we asked her to come sing on our record.
She's one of the very few pop stars who actually try to make political points on their records. She really addresses society, and I love that.
What's your opinion of George W Bush's State of the Union Address?
[Laughs] We were playing a show when he was delivering it, so I only saw highlights. I feel like he's just walking this line, wanting to have some kind of legacy. So he's feeling out what he should do domestically that might satisfy some people.
But it's kind of a joke. It's very empty. He had a few guests there that he pointed out, like, here's this guy who saved somebody's life on the subway. Every president does this, gets people from the real community, but it felt with Bush like it was kind of a parody and that he was just trying to do what someone told him to do.
I think that they're delusional about Iraq. I used to always want to listen when he spoke about Iraq, to see what's going on. But I can't even listen anymore. It's so absurd and I think he's actually gone crazy.
Are you a supporter of Hillary Clinton for the Presidency?
I don't know. I like Hillary Clinton a lot, but I'm sort of a Barack Obama fan. So I vacillate between those two. The dream ticket would be both of them, with Obama as Vice-President.
This is definitely one election where I want to see a debate. I want to hear what the different candidates have to say before I make any decision. I love Hillary Clinton, but I don't know what her agenda is from a Presidential point of view. Neither her nor Obama have made any specific references to policy yet.
Do you think that the Indigo Girls have been discriminated against in the music industry because of your gender or you overt sexual orientation?
It's not anything that we let hold us back, but the media and radio are extremely homophobic and sexist still, and they're anti-political too. So we sort have everything going against us!
I think there are moments in our career when we would have done better if we hadn't been so gay, or so political, but it's hard to quantify. I definitely have felt it, but it's not something we let get us down. There are enough people who don't feel that way.
I read that you prefer the term 'gay' to 'lesbian'. Is that true?
I prefer the term 'queer' actually, because it's more encompassing. But I don't have a negative feeling about the term 'lesbian'. A lot of people do though. It's like this thing where there's a kind of backlash against saying 'lesbian'. It seems to have all these negative connotations, for some reason I don't get.
You also describe yourself as butch. What do you think of these labels we give ourselves?
I am butch! Labels are important sometimes and not important at other times. I just don't think people should be boxed in by them. I think we all to learn how to articulate gender and sexuality and our different stands on those things - what our identity is. When the world won't let you have an identity, you start articulating it more specifically. Those terms can be useful, but they're only dangerous when you can't be anything other than that.
I don't believe you should label other people, but it's perfectly okay to label yourself, if you feel comfortable with that.
What's your personal stance on gay marriage versus civil union or partnership?
I think people who want to get married should be able to get married. Civil unions are a halfway point, but marriage is something to work towards.
I don't think we should spend all our resources fighting for gay marriage, though. There are such high suicide rates in the queer youth community, there's such a lot of need for public health issues to be looked at, socio economic issues, racism within the queer community... I don't want marriage to be the only thing we talk about.
For me marriage is an institution that's tainted in so many ways, so sometimes I'm like, who cares about gay marriage? Let's create our own way of doing this after getting the legal protections set up.
Are you aware of Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan, the lesbian couple who are bringing an appeal to the Irish Supreme Court to have their Canadian marriage recognised here?
Yes I am. I think they are pioneers and they are paving the way for other people to have rights. I really applaud a couple that are willing to go through that. It's pretty hard to stay together in the middle of all that controversy and to keep on fighting.
Have you ever considered having children?
Carrie (Schrader) and I have been together a long time, and we plan to have kids. She's a film producer and she's really busy, so we plan to have them in about three years.
Who do you think is making the most interesting music right now?
There are so many great people, and when it gets into world music, it's just mind-blowing. I listen to everything from hip-hop to folk, to spoken word. Some of the most interesting music I get is on demo tapes that people send to me, that they made in their garage.
Who is the most recent signing to your own label, Daemon Records?
The most recent thing was a box set from a man called Utah Phillips, who is an anarchist, hobo folk singer. He's quite a bit older so he has a history. We put together a box set of his stories and songs.
It's a very small label and we do left-of-centre stuff.
Your last solo project was the album Prom in 2004. Are you working on more solo stuff?
spike's note: actually, it was 2005...
I actually released a live record last month. It's out digitally on a site called emusic. It's called Amy Ray and the Volunteers: Life in Knoxville.
Are the Indigo Girls going back in the studio soon?
We're touring with the new record at the moment, so it will be a while before we go back into the studio. But we definitely plan to.
source
so yeah, some misinformation (i just couldn't let the prom thing go!), but a few interesting answers from aray.
INDIGO GIRLS
Ever since Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, collectively known as The Indigo Girls, burst forth on the world in 1987 with their album Strange Fire, they've been a rare presence. In the intervening decades they've juggled songwriting, extensive touring and solo careers and an indie label with a brand of radical activism that would normally be a kiss of death in the music industry.
But then again, the Indigo Girls' outspoken political sensibilities appeal to a core audience that just keeps on growing. Both Ray and Saliers are lesbian and from the outset they have courted a devoted following of similarly inclined sisters. They may be a generation or two beyond today's younger lesbians, but there isn't a baby dyke on the block who doesn't know who the Indigo Girls are. And because Ray and Saliers keep on delivering the goods, they keep gaining new fans.
The two got to know each other as children at Elementary School in Georgia and started performing together when they went to High School as The B-Band. They subsequently split up to go to college, but homesickness got the better of both and they returned to Georgia to form the Indigo Girls.
The rest, as they say, is herstory. The success of Strange Fire led to a major contract with Epic Records and a second album, Indigo Girls. The first single from that album, Closer To Fine made them a household name and it won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Recording 1990.
Since then they've released nine critically acclaimed albums of original material, one live album and one greatest hits compilation, and had raft of hit singles. They have also championed gay rights, the rights of Native Americans, environmental conservation and the abolishment the death penalty in certain US states. Last year they featured on P!nk's album, I'm Not Dead in the song, Dear Mr. President, a pop-political statement to George W Bush about poverty, queer rights, and the right to education for all children.
P!nk returned the favour and appears on the Girls latest album, Despite Our Differences, which goes back to Indigo basics, interspersing folk ballads with all-out rock 'n' roll, with a keen political and personal edge.
The duo are coming to Ireland this month to perform tracks from the new release along with some of their classic tunes, and Amy Ray, for one, is looking forward to it. Down the line from her home in Georgia, she's a little quieter than you might expect at first, taking her time to get into the swing of the interview. But after a while she finds her own comfortable ground and starts sharing like we're old buddies.
So, you're coming to Dublin with your new tour. Do you like playing here?
We've played in Dublin quite a few times over the years and we always have a good time. The audiences are great and we like hanging out and catching up with friends we have there. It's just a really warm place to be.
You've been friends and performing partners since 1980. What's the secret of your longevity?
I think a lot of it comes from the fact that we write our songs separately and then come together to arrange them. This gives us that creative space so that we always feel have a way to express ourselves artistically as individuals.
If we have differences of opinion or if we have anything that we feel might interfere with that, we always remember that it's really precious and it's what we want to be doing, and to protect it.
Do you ever have any political disagreements?
Not major ones. Usually it's about things like lifestyle choices - the difference between being vegetarian or not.
As far as the big political things go, though, we work together as activists on certain issues and we feel very similar to each other on those things.
Is your activism as important to you personally as your music is?
I think I would be an activist no matter what I was doing, so it's definitely as important. But it's also important for us to keep our activism in its proper place.
I mean we don't spend the whole show talking about politics. Sometimes we do benefits for certain causes and that's what we're there for and that's what we talk about. But other times it's just about the music. The activism might be implied in the lyrics of the songs, but it's important to have a space to celebrate and play too.
Do you think it's the duty of celebrities to speak out if they have political opinions?
I don't. As a human being it is important to interact with your community and engage and give back, to be involved. But I don't think there's a special pressure on people who are in the limelight to do something big. I don't value one artist above another just because they are politically outspoken.
Emily and I have always been activists and we met some people very early on who helped us create a few situations that have carried on for a long time. We've been lucky because we get a lot out of it.
When the Dixie Chicks spoke out against George W Bush, their career was damaged. Do you think this put pressure on other artists in America to keep quiet about their political convictions?
I think in certain areas of music, yes. The Dixie Chicks existed in this very pop-country radio arena and I definitely think that other people who work in that area got scared and decided to back off.
People who owned labels or were managers were saying, 'Oh, we've got to be careful', but I think other groups, who weren't scared about the ramifications on their careers, might have been encouraged to speak out more.
The Dixie Chicks were very inspiring. For the radio to go as far as they went, pulling the song and inspiring this kind of witchunt was absurd to me. What happened and what it meant inspired righteous indignation in a lot of people.
You worked with P!nk on her recent album. What was that experience like?
Amazing. She's a great person and we were totally flattered when she asked us to do it. She's a great artist and a really cool person. We had such a good time that we asked her to come sing on our record.
She's one of the very few pop stars who actually try to make political points on their records. She really addresses society, and I love that.
What's your opinion of George W Bush's State of the Union Address?
[Laughs] We were playing a show when he was delivering it, so I only saw highlights. I feel like he's just walking this line, wanting to have some kind of legacy. So he's feeling out what he should do domestically that might satisfy some people.
But it's kind of a joke. It's very empty. He had a few guests there that he pointed out, like, here's this guy who saved somebody's life on the subway. Every president does this, gets people from the real community, but it felt with Bush like it was kind of a parody and that he was just trying to do what someone told him to do.
I think that they're delusional about Iraq. I used to always want to listen when he spoke about Iraq, to see what's going on. But I can't even listen anymore. It's so absurd and I think he's actually gone crazy.
Are you a supporter of Hillary Clinton for the Presidency?
I don't know. I like Hillary Clinton a lot, but I'm sort of a Barack Obama fan. So I vacillate between those two. The dream ticket would be both of them, with Obama as Vice-President.
This is definitely one election where I want to see a debate. I want to hear what the different candidates have to say before I make any decision. I love Hillary Clinton, but I don't know what her agenda is from a Presidential point of view. Neither her nor Obama have made any specific references to policy yet.
Do you think that the Indigo Girls have been discriminated against in the music industry because of your gender or you overt sexual orientation?
It's not anything that we let hold us back, but the media and radio are extremely homophobic and sexist still, and they're anti-political too. So we sort have everything going against us!
I think there are moments in our career when we would have done better if we hadn't been so gay, or so political, but it's hard to quantify. I definitely have felt it, but it's not something we let get us down. There are enough people who don't feel that way.
I read that you prefer the term 'gay' to 'lesbian'. Is that true?
I prefer the term 'queer' actually, because it's more encompassing. But I don't have a negative feeling about the term 'lesbian'. A lot of people do though. It's like this thing where there's a kind of backlash against saying 'lesbian'. It seems to have all these negative connotations, for some reason I don't get.
You also describe yourself as butch. What do you think of these labels we give ourselves?
I am butch! Labels are important sometimes and not important at other times. I just don't think people should be boxed in by them. I think we all to learn how to articulate gender and sexuality and our different stands on those things - what our identity is. When the world won't let you have an identity, you start articulating it more specifically. Those terms can be useful, but they're only dangerous when you can't be anything other than that.
I don't believe you should label other people, but it's perfectly okay to label yourself, if you feel comfortable with that.
What's your personal stance on gay marriage versus civil union or partnership?
I think people who want to get married should be able to get married. Civil unions are a halfway point, but marriage is something to work towards.
I don't think we should spend all our resources fighting for gay marriage, though. There are such high suicide rates in the queer youth community, there's such a lot of need for public health issues to be looked at, socio economic issues, racism within the queer community... I don't want marriage to be the only thing we talk about.
For me marriage is an institution that's tainted in so many ways, so sometimes I'm like, who cares about gay marriage? Let's create our own way of doing this after getting the legal protections set up.
Are you aware of Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan, the lesbian couple who are bringing an appeal to the Irish Supreme Court to have their Canadian marriage recognised here?
Yes I am. I think they are pioneers and they are paving the way for other people to have rights. I really applaud a couple that are willing to go through that. It's pretty hard to stay together in the middle of all that controversy and to keep on fighting.
Have you ever considered having children?
Carrie (Schrader) and I have been together a long time, and we plan to have kids. She's a film producer and she's really busy, so we plan to have them in about three years.
Who do you think is making the most interesting music right now?
There are so many great people, and when it gets into world music, it's just mind-blowing. I listen to everything from hip-hop to folk, to spoken word. Some of the most interesting music I get is on demo tapes that people send to me, that they made in their garage.
Who is the most recent signing to your own label, Daemon Records?
The most recent thing was a box set from a man called Utah Phillips, who is an anarchist, hobo folk singer. He's quite a bit older so he has a history. We put together a box set of his stories and songs.
It's a very small label and we do left-of-centre stuff.
Your last solo project was the album Prom in 2004. Are you working on more solo stuff?
spike's note: actually, it was 2005...
I actually released a live record last month. It's out digitally on a site called emusic. It's called Amy Ray and the Volunteers: Life in Knoxville.
Are the Indigo Girls going back in the studio soon?
We're touring with the new record at the moment, so it will be a while before we go back into the studio. But we definitely plan to.
source
so yeah, some misinformation (i just couldn't let the prom thing go!), but a few interesting answers from aray.