Artist Spotlight on... Rachael Yamagata
Rachael Yamagata: Something to Sing About
By: Nicole Roberge
Rachael Yamagata has been touring, and stunning, across the country with her debut, Happenstance. This broad record full of songs that range from ballads to pop to almost cabaret all demonstrate the eloquence in songwriting that Yamagata possesses.
Getting her start in the Chicago-based funk band Bumpus, Yamagata got her first tastes of what music would be like if she pursued it professionally. Jump ahead five years and there was her solo career, and what a bright one it is looking to be. Each song is a unique insight into her self, and each listener can automatically crawl into the song and find themselves in a whole new world. She dazzles on piano, her smoky vocals driving her compelling lyrics, while at times her songs seem so confessional, it's almost as if you’re sitting in a quiet coffee shop while she confides in you. Yamagata is a songwriter with a unique view of the world and her place in it, and her honesty really shines through in her music. She doesn’t hold back, and that is what is so intriguing about this young songwriter.
Yamagata has had a busy touring schedule, but I caught up with her via phone before a show in New York City, where she enlightened me on the topics of songwriting, the growing recognition of female songwriters, and the importance of keeping music honest:
Tuned In: First of all, congratulations on your album Happenstance. It’s just a really great album and I was so impressed when I first heard it. One of things I liked about it was the continuity of it, and how each song seems to have a place on the album. When you were putting the album together, did you have a specific place for each song, or was it more how they fell into place in the end?
Rachael Yamagata: I did have an idea of what I wanted to be
on it. We had to be careful with the order, trying to make it all fit well and
make sense. There are a few songs I knew I wanted on there, like “Worn Me Down”
and “Quiet” and the hidden track I kind of had to fight for but I definitely
wanted that on there. And then there were some co-writes at the last minute
that just fit in a new way and we decided the keep them. But I didn’t have this
conscious decision of “okay this one’s going to go into this one and that’s how
it’s going to make sense.” I tried to figure out each song to its full entity
and carry it out to its fullest and hope it worked out eventually.
TI: So you had gone to school to be an actress, and then decided to pursue music instead. Do you remember a distinct moment when you thought it was definitely music you wanted to do?
RY: Well, acting I still love, I just got kicked out of acting class (laughs). It happens. Somewhere in my Junior year, I was in the theatre program, I just happened to see this band called Bumpus from Chicago. I went with a friend and that was when I just had this overwhelming desire to be up there with them. Their chemistry was so intoxicating and they had this sound that I had never heard. Something about their performance that night made me think, “I’ll do anything. I’ll play tambourine with them. I don’t know what but I need to be on stage during this music.” I had always done music, I just never thought of doing it professionally. Somewhere along the line when I started songwriting, I felt like that was my true calling because it affected me in a new way that reading a script never had. Trying to embody this character that had already been pre-written. Something about the writing process hit me in a way that the acting bug probably hits actors. It was definitely in seeing that show at this pool hall in Chicago, this dive club, it was like I have to be in their band, I have to figure it out.
TI: So when did you start working on your own music?
RY: I was actually still in Chicago. When I wrote these other songs I wrote them at the same time as being in that band. I was in that band for about five years, touring, doing shows, you work at restaurants and you have that whole lifestyle. Kind of on the side I just kept writing and writing and writing and I had 200 songs over the course of five years. Kind of doing them side by side. And there were three other solo projects within that band that other members were doing, because everyone came from a different musical background. They did these other things on the side, and that just happened to be my side project. And I really didn’t show anything to anybody for the longest time. It wasn’t until the fifth year of that band that I even considered doing an open mic and it was so strangely immediate that when I did show them to people, everything just fell into place, the whole label whirlwind started.
TI: Was there a certain sound that you were attracted to? Because what you do now is so different from Bumpus. Was there a certain sound that you wanted to create?
RY: I think I’m still creating my own sound. I think the kind of song I’ve been drawn to writing are heavily based on relationships and have this darker edge to them and they just weren’t appropriate to even try to fit into Bumpus. It wouldn’t have been right for the band to try those songs and it wouldn’t have been right for me to try and impose them on the band. I was really coming from this really stark place with piano and vocals where I wasn’t sitting there envisioning my live sound and what it would be like if I were solo because it never really occurred to me to try and go solo. I pretty much thought my songs were shit and nobody would ever like them. It’s only now after I’ve been touring for about a year and a half with my own band that I’m starting to figure it out.
TI: You have a lot of different songs. Is there one of yours that you see as your signature song…that you wrote and thought, this is me and everything I want to do in music?
RY: There’s so many different ones. I think I’ve written it now, I don’t think I had it on the first record. There’s certain songs where I think that it captured something so raw and genuine in me that at least the feeling of getting it down, that was what I wanted. It doesn’t particularly say that’s the style I wanted or that’s the only thing I want to do. But something like “Collide” which was on the EP, there’s a song called “Quiet” on the record (Happenstance), there’s the hidden track, there’s things I think are so uniquely me and so honest that that’s what I want to keep about them. The live show, it almost takes on a like rock show now, they way we’ve structured it, the new songs I’ve been creating, but songs like that are where I feel I’ve really captured something that was distinctly me and had nothing to do with being commercial or formulaic or any of those things.
TI: Have you ever had a reaction to one of your songs
that was completely different than how you thought it should be conveyed?
RY: A lot of people, I think, interpret my songs differently. I had one person who was kind of explaining to me that he had heard “Worn Me Down.” He had been in this long-term relationship and heard “Worn Me Down” and it inspired him to go follow the lead of this affair he had been going into. He kept reciting different lyrics that were basically telling him to go follow his heart and be with this other woman when in fact I wrote that song out of a deep source of pain of being the other woman. I was like, “No, that’s not what I’m saying!” So it’s always different. People will be a pick a song like “Reason Why” and say “what’s that about, what is that?” and it’s not a love song, it wasn’t about a particular person. I think it always comes back to the same passions and desires and is often translated as a romantic song.
TI: It seems to vary with songwriters whether each song is a personal experience or completely imagined. What is more compelling to you, and what personally do you think has more effect, or do you think it takes a little of both?
RY: I think great writers can probably look at any situation and write a song about it, and whether or not it has to do with what specifically they’re going through, they can nail the emotions that surround that situation in a way that people will be effected by it. I don’t think that I’m very good at it quite yet. I was just working with Ryan Adams and he was writing these songs and making up these really vivid storylines and they completely had super deep emotion in it and we’d sit there and be like, “oh my God, this must have happened to you,” whereas I’m not sure it did. I think that makes him a great writer.
I think for me, at this stage, I only seem to be able to pull it off when it’s something that certainly has been triggered by something I’m going trough at the time. I don’t think that one is more important than the other; I think that both can be extremely effective. I think for me, it’s definitely based on very personal stuff.
TI: Have you been working with Ryan Adams on new songs then?
RY: No, he had offered some dates for me to tour with him, and I would love to tour with him, so I wrote him this letter and I was like, “I would kill to tour with you but I’m going to be in Europe at this time and anytime in the future, please let me know. I’m a huge fan.” And he called me up, and he was like, “I’ve haven’t stopped listening to your record since it came out and I’m a big fan.” So for the past week and a half I’ve just been randomly stopping in, cause we’re both in New York City right now and he’s working on his new album with the Cardinals, his new band. So he’s like, “Come by the studio.” So I stopped by and he’s like, “throw some piano on this track,” and I think we’re just kind of mutual fans and I think in the future we might try and work together. It would certainly be an honor for me, I would love it. But it’s just a very new acquaintance; we have a mutual respect for each other’s work.
TI:
For you, as a female in the music world—there doesn’t seem to be a lot of women
making good music that can be appreciated on several levels. I think when
someone thinks of a female singer it’s usually a 16-year old with a headset and
glitter. Where do you think artists like yourself stand in the music realm?
RY: I think there are a lot of us out there; I just don’t think they’ve gotten the appropriate attention. There’s a girl named Rosy from Chicago who I used to go see seven years ago who writes killer songs and has this voice to die for and can play the shit out of the guitar and should be huge and she toured with the Indigo Girls for a while. There are people out that are out there that inspired me way long ago to try and get my stuff down. There’s a lot of great records out there that maybe just haven’t gotten the attention. There’s a few like Gillian Welch, and there’s a new record by this girl, her name’s A Girl Named Eddie and I think she was born in New Jersey but lives in the U.K. now and she just put out an amazing record. So for me, looking at people, they’re out there, I think they just haven’t gotten bigger commercial attention. So I’m not really sure where I fit. I think people are kind of mystified by it a little bit because they’re definitely expecting a certain show and when I get in front of them they’re like, “Oh, you don’t just sit there and play ballads.” Hopefully it starts this new wave where people don’t come expecting this jazz, lounge show, the come expecting a solo artist who has something very particular to her. It’s hard to say where things are going. There’s this huge wave of new stripped down, cool…I don’t even know if can call them indie bands, but like the White Stripes, Franz Ferdinand, The Killers… I think if you make good stuff and create your own little world and fan base, then you will break through and get the attention in the mainstream and that’s pretty much where I’m focused.
TI: You were saying how it took you a while to get up the courage and let people hear your music. What would your advice be to people in a similar situation, or even to female artists who feel like they have to present a certain image to succeed in music?
RY: I think that the important thing is to have the courage to try what is instinctively pulling at you as your sound, and to really know your sound and get out there and play it live and be so confident in what you’re doing that you don’t think about whether you’ll succeed or fail. They tell you this when you’re first starting out and you don’t believe it because you’re so excited about the potential of a record deal or getting signed or maybe you’re the flavor of the month, you can make it work, you can change. But really the most important thing that can carry you over is just to embody your own sound and give up on whether it’s gonna succeed or not because the wave will change faster than you can predict and the only thing that’s gonna make it is what’s precisely you. I think it’s really hard to predict. I think if you want to be a trend, that’s what you’ll end up as. If you try to embody yourself, you’ll have staying power, because that’s you. But playing live I think is the huge thing because you really get to know yourself through doing it, it’s really important.
TI: What would you say is the most important thing for you with creating music?
RY: Being open to where something wants to go and ignoring everything around you that’s telling you to shape it in a certain way. Really just settling in with yourself and being courageous and honest. If it feels honest and you put it out there, it’s bound to resonate because it will just hit the core of a person. A person can tell if something’s put on or if it’s fake. You just know if it’s truthful.
TI: What is your goal then, as a singer-songwriter—what are you trying to put out there, and what are your goals for the future?
RY: I think my goal is to give up my expectations of whether it’s gonna hit or not. My goal is to get better with my playing, to learn more about production and structure things the way that I hear them, and be honest in the lyrics that I’m writing and try to have enough courage to put out there something that maybe people will hate. The biggest goal is to just be honest with the music and have faith that it will end up where it’s supposed to be.
Rachael Yamagata certainly has a solid perspective of the music industry and her place in it, and as she follows her own advice, we will definitely being hearing much more from this bright talent in the future. Yamagata is currently in Japan touring in support of Happenstance, and she continues to write new songs. There’s always the possibility of a new EP, she says, with all the new songs she’s been writing. But for now she plans to continue touring and writing and enjoying the great ride that is coming along with this great album.
For information on Yamagata and her tour schedule, as well as to purchase Happenstance, visit, www.rachaelyamagata.com
Click here to read Tuned In Music's review of Happenstance