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NWMS: Are you going to have the band with you? BRANDI: Yeah. It’s been cool working with new songwriters. One of the songs I’m recording, Tim my guitar player, wrote by himself. I’ve actually had to learn how to sing other people’s songs which has been kind of cool. NWMS: How long have you been writing with other people? BRANDI: Well, I met a guy named Eric Schermerhorn. He was in Iggy Pop and the Stooges and was on David Bowie’s Afraid of Americans tour. He’s basically a really amazing, amazing guitar player who just goes on tour with people and goes in to record records. So I went and flew down to L.A. and I wrote some songs with him and that was one of the first times I ever really collaborated in my writing. We came up with some great stuff. Then I came back and the band I was playing with… we just couldn’t write together. We just had too different of taste in how to write songs. It wasn’t until I started working with Tim that I started really learning how to collaborate. So I guess I would say it started working with Eric Schermerhorn but my most successful writings come from writing with Tim. Then when Tim’s brother jumped on board… Tim has a twin brother named Phil… and once Phil was playing with us, it’s basically like writing with two of the best songwriters in Seattle. Tim and Phil are just geniuses. We’ve come up with some really great songs in the past couple of months just because of them. NWMS: Is that what inspired you to get back in and record so soon? You just had a record released in June. BRANDI: Well I’m not really recording an album. I’m recording EP’s or demos to send out there and say this is what we sound like. I don’t think the album really portrays that anymore because when we first wrote the record, we were just beginning to get together as a band. We didn’t have Phil in the band. We were trying to learn. If you listen to the record, although I think it’s really good and it represents me really well, you can definitely hear that we were trying to find some kind of genre to slip into. We go anywhere from sounding like Radiohead to the Beatles to Third Eye Blind. It just covers a bunch of different genres. I think the next record’s going to be a lot more uniform I guess you could say. NWMS: The band line up that you have now, are they going to be a part of your music indefinitely? BRANDI: I hope forever. Tim is just great. Our acoustic stuff has been really fun. NWMS: Do you have a good following? BRANDI: Not only do we have a lot of fans, but also the fans that we have are really cool people. They are pretty much really kicked back and respect our privacy and they love our music and they’re always really supportive. They’re the kind of fans that want to know what they can do to help you. Flyers or whatever, they’re just really great. They know the words to the songs. That’s fun NWMS: That must make it that much better when you’re playing. To look out and see that people know the music and are responding to it on that level… BRANDI: It makes it really fun. NWMS: You’ve had so many phenomenal opportunities in your career. How have those opportunities come about? Is it word of mouth or… BRANDI: Yeah. People hear about you. I guess the India.Arie thing was that we’d just been sending demos to the Pier. By we, I mean the people who work on our team and help us promote shows and stuff. Gosh, you know that’s a really good question. I don’t really understand how things come about. I just don’t. I get told that I’m playing here or I’m playing there and that’s the way it goes. I know that Vienna Tang kind of helped hook me up a lot this summer. NWMS: Do you have a day job or have you been able to do music full time? BRANDI: No, I just do this. NWMS: You’re already a successful musician then. BRANDI: Oh yeah, hardly. A day job would be… a day job’s not just time consuming but it’s thought consuming. I think that it benefits me to spend twenty-four hours a day focused on music and not to take eight of those hours away for anything else. Even if I’m not playing my guitar, as long as I’m focused on that and I’m not worried about inventory at some grocery store or some employee that I can’t deal with, you know what I’m saying? It’s just not in the cards for me to have a day job or any kind of other career ever. NWMS: That makes sense. It can set you back so many years when you’re energy is focused elsewhere. I’ve waitressed in the past and it’s ridiculous how much it affects you. BRANDI: It does affect you. Even if you don’t take it seriously and you say, ‘oh, it’s just a job’. Anywhere you spend eight hours a day, you can’t not take it home with you. The only thing I’m going to be taking home with me is my rehearsals and my recording and my shows. NWMS: What’s been your favorite experience thus far? BRANDI: When we were in L.A. a couple of year ago, I got to have sort of an encounter with one of my biggest all time heroes, Bernie Taupin. He’s the lyricist to half of the entity that is Elton John. It was pretty cool because I got to go into the management company, the people who manage him and go into his office and sit in his chair. Then they made a phone call to him. It was pretty cool because I just think he’s amazing. I’m super blown away by him. NWMS: How did that happen? BRANDI: Well the management agency that manages my producer was just kind of giving us a tour of their offices and Bernie Taupin has his own office there. He wasn’t there but I got to go sit in the chair in his office. I wouldn’t say that’s one of my most inspiring moments, but if you think about it he’s like… You know what? I had a picture of Bernie Taupin on my wall when I was like eleven years old but I also got to do something really cool last year. I got to go sit in on a strings session with Paul Buckmaster. He’s a string conductor, like a maestro. He writes and records strings for people’s records. He did Elton John’s records from like 1969 to like 1975 or something like that. So basically everything that was ever really, really good. I had a picture of him on my wall from the time I was like eleven years old too. So I got to hang out with him and watch what he does and see it really close up. That was really cool. Then every time I get to record with Rick, he’s like kind of a legend too so that makes things pretty fun. NWMS: Doesn’t it make you realize how small the world is when you have encounters like that with people you’ve looked up to for so long? When you’re younger those people seem so out of reach and so inaccessible, but in reality, the world is very small. BRANDI: There are all of these big rock stars and movie stars that you think are so inaccessible like they must live on Mt. Olympus or somewhere in another world. But if you go to L.A., it’s like you can’t go into a coffee house without running into Diane Keaton or whoever. It’s like these people are just normal people and they’re so accessible. Actually, often times they’ll disappoint you. You know what I mean? If you meet somebody you really admire, it’s so likely they’re going to disappoint you. They might be having an off day or they’re just not going to care about meeting you. It’s not that they’re bad people. They’re just so busy. Going in and just kind of chilling out and looking at Bernie Taupin’s notes and hanging out in his office and taking a picture and things like that because he’s such a huge star to me, I think was way better than actually meeting him because suppose he was an asshole or something. How would I have felt? ‘Oh no! Everything I ever believed in…’ I think that’s why I haven’t met Elton John yet. Everybody I’ve really wanted to meet I have met but Elton John’s kind of… I guess that Elton John and K.D. Lang are my He-man and She-man I guess you could say. The two ultimate... NWMS: Have you met K.D.? BRANDI: I haven’t met K.D. Lang, no. I went and watched her show at St. Chateau Michele Winery. I thought that was probably one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen in my life and I’ve seen just insane amounts of concerts. I thought that she was so incredible vocally with just a cool presence and stuff. She’s funny. It’s like going to Vegas and seeing a show. It’s really cool. She’s got props. Her band looks like they’re going to kill over and die but she’s just like vibrant, incredible, full of energy. NWMS: Have you seen Elton John? BRANDI: Oh yeah. Every time he comes to town I see Elton John but I haven’t like, I haven’t found it in myself to call up his management company and say, ‘hey, can we get…’ I don’t want to play that card. |
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