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Home , 1200 Curfews, Amy Ray, Emily Saliers, Indigo Girls

JULY/AUGUST 2010 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM Q&A

Emily Saliers, Matt Odom Staring down the challenge of a live together

WHEN THE INDIGO GIRLS BEGAN since we started, and I think this live album stint on this summer’s 2010 tour, compiling Staring Down the Brilliant is an extension of our sensibility.” the Girls spoke to us about revisiting their Dream, their fi rst live album since 1995’s After two decades of major-label last few years on the road. , Amy Ray and success, last year the Indigo Girls released were pretty sure they knew what wouldn’t their 11th studio album, Poseidon and the Why release another live album now? be included: their signature hit, 1989’s Bitter Bug, on their own IG Recordings, AMY RAY: It had been 15 years and we “Closer to Fine.” They were looking for partnering with for were between records. In order to do a live lesser-known gems and newer songs. But distribution only. “There’s more freedom— record, you need quite a lot of time to listen then they stumbled on a performance of we think of things and then decide to do to things, and sort out what you want to the song featuring guests , them. It’s not a big process,” says Ray of use, and mix. We saw a gap of time, and it , Julie Wolf and A Fragile their return to independence. “It’s not that seemed like a good time to go through all Tomorrow’s Sean and Dominic Kelly. It deftly a label wouldn’t want us to do a live record, these recordings and see if we had a live summed up the warm, cooperative feel their it’s just that it’s hard to make things happen record in there. live shows have always offered. “We grew when you’re part of a big machine.” EMILY SALIERS: Our front-of-house sound up playing in a bar, with friends joining us on In the midst of their many projects, man, Brian [Speiser], recorded all our live stage,” Saliers says. “We’ve been doing that including an upcoming holiday album and a shows from 2006 to 2009 and came up

‘When you’re playing live, it’s a mutual exchange with the audience.’ –Amy Ray

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with some really, really good sounding Which guitars in particular do you Do you feel like Indigo Girls is at its recordings, even before they were mixed usually take on the road with you? most pure live? and mastered. So given the fact that the SALIERS: I play Martins on stage. I have RAY: I used to feel that way. But we do fans liked 1200 Curfews so much, we a D-45 that only 50 of them were made, things in the studio we probably wouldn’t thought this was a good way to present and I love that guitar so much. It’s very do live, just because we have other players a little slice of our history. Since the different than my J-40 Martin, which is with us, and we have the time to develop the recordings were good, we had a lot to kind of like the workhorse. I primarily play vocals in a different way or try things that we choose from. that J-40 on Amy’s songs, and I play the can’t necessarily repeat live. It’s a different D-45 on mine. The J-40 is a little bit arena. It’s important to capture the energy, How did you select the tracks? more muscular. but it’s also important to take advantage SALIERS: Brian put together a huge list RAY: I play a Martin 0-18 from the ’40s that of the ways that the studio is different. of tracks that had come out really well, and I’ve had since high school, and a Martin J-40, When you’re playing live, it’s a mutual we made a list of things we were looking which is kind of the utility. I play a D-35 on exchange with the audience. When you’re for, more obscure tracks and a few different Emily’s songs. My favorite guitar right now in the studio, your involvement is with things. He went through all of his recordings is a Gibson J-45 from the ’50s. A Martin has technology and equipment, and the way a and presented us with the fi rst round. We more upper mids, but on the Gibson every microphone sounds. vetted our own songs fi rst, which was a way spectrum is represented very well, so it’s of saving time at the outset. Then we spent very versatile. What’s the secret to your longevity? hours listening and making notes—and then SALIERS: There are a lot of reasons. Our chose the songs together. There are a lot How have you changed as a live act families grew up together, and we’ve known of songs on this record! We had to put the over the years? each other since we were little girls. Also brakes on eventually. SALIERS: I don’t think we’ve changed so we have healthy independent lives, so when RAY: We would pick three or four versions much in terms of spirit. Obviously we try we come together, we’re not bored. It’s a of a song and compare those, and whittle it to get better. (laughs) We try to hone our beautiful thing. down until we had the shape of something that felt right, that covered the territory, songs that we hadn’t put down live. Then we looked at what songs felt good, sounded good and didn’t have mistakes in them.

Aren’t mistakes part of the charm of live performance? RAY: Mistakes are charming when it’s live

in the moment, but it wouldn’t be charming REUTERS/Chris Pizzello/Landov to hear over and over on a record. (laughs) So we try to balance that. If there’s a small mistake that doesn’t distract from the song, we don’t worry about it.

Did any particular tracks leap out immediately? SALIERS: “I Believe in Love,” which we didn’t play that often with the band, and we don’t play it with just me and Amy, because At the 22nd Annual ASCAP Pop it’s really a band song. I play the ukulele on Music Awards, Beverly Hills, 2005 it. When we got a good take of that, it was like, “Wow, I can’t believe we got this one.” And that became a no-brainer. Other songs ‘We have healthy independent lives, had a lot of very good versions, like “Don’t Think Twice” with . We did look so when we come together, we’re not for a lot of band tracks. bored.’ – Emily Saliers RAY: A song we do acoustic a lot, but I felt like the band version was always better, is “Three County Highway.” It’s kind of a craft and become better players, and we’ve RAY: One big thing is that we write slow country song, but the drummer picked up more instruments along the way, separately. That gives us our own little has a good feel on it. There was also a which keeps it more interesting for us and creative space. But also, we know that recent show that, after we played it, the fans. Fifteen years ago, we didn’t have what we do together is the thing that we Brian said, “That whole show could be a the ukulele or bouzouki or harmonica or can’t do alone. Musically, it works. We live record.” So we knew to mark that to banjo, so I think adding those instruments got lucky. listen to. has been positive growth. –Katie Dodd

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