Mar

23

The Stereopathic Interview with Laura Gibson

Filed Under Featured, Updates 

Laura GibsonLaura Gibson very kindly risked carsickness and the bleary-eyed, sleepless rigors of living in a tour vehicle while en route to a several-show stint at SXSW to answer some questions we posed to her in anticipation of her upcoming show here this Friday. Laura, touring in support of her much-beloved by Stereopathic record, Beasts of Seasons, alights upon Moscow alongside Seattle’s Pablo Trucker and Troubletown (also known as Jenna Conrad). An elegant and deliberate record, Beasts of Seasons piqued our curiosity not just about Laura’s songwriting and recording processes, but also about the thoughts and experiences she distilled into her songs, particularly how people and places have affected her music.

First, here’s a brief review of Beasts of Seasons that we posted a few weeks back on the Stereopathic blog. My question is, did we land anywhere near what you intended with the record?

Thanks for that review. It’s deeply encouraging when someone writes about your music, and is able to explain it better than I could explain it myself. The line that struck me most was “Beasts of Seasons gives us a gracious portrait of an artist who looks inward and finds other people, who looks outward and finds herself.” I hadn’t thought of it in those words, but that rings so true to the ideas/feelings that inspire me. I like the idea of looking inwards and seeing other people, and looking outwards, and seeing ourselves.

From what I’ve read of yours, you seem to be very precise and deliberate about your songwriting process. “Sweet Deception” and “Come by Storm,” as they exist on Daytrotter, bear a basic resemblance to their much more ornate versions on Beasts of Seasons. Given the volume of collaborators you had on the various songs, how precise and deliberate can you be in the recording process?

I like to go into recording having some things, very specific and sure and known…and then a few things left up to mystery. In working with other musicians, I like the idea of letting them improvise, and them create their parts “in the moment” with the songs. Other parts were developed over the course of playing with a band over the past two years. More than anything else, I tend to be very protective of space, when it come to the recording process. Space and silence are so wired into my music-making. I love orchestration, but want the songs to take deep breaths. That feels important to me. I feel so fortunate for all of the musicians that gave their time and talents to this record, but would never want to lose the lose the songs in the quest for grand arrangements. Structurally, very little changed between the original versions and the versions on the record.

I do tend to be very deliberate in my song writing. Maybe, sometimes, too deliberate. I’ve been challenging myself lately, to let my writing go a bit, to have more of a stream of consciousness. But ultimately, I suppose it’s a good thing to be disciplined with songs.

Given that you “take great care with words”, and seem to have a strong ability for poetic thought, why set it to music? In your opinion, how does setting these thoughts to music change them?

I suppose I approach songwriting in a couple of different ways.

The past year I’ve tried to focus on writing for the sake of writing. Writing without thinking of the end product. I keep notebooks of thoughts, or words that I like, or phrases that come to me. Some writings trickle down into songs and some don’t. I try not to worry about where things will end up, initially. Words find new meaning in the contexts of songs, and little phrases become parts of larger narratives.

Certain lyrics, though, would never have come to me outside of the context of music, without the inspiration of notes and strumming the guitar.

What singers do you admire, and who do you hope you sound like?

Well, I hope to sound like myself. I think to hope for anything else would be a failure on my part. I do admire old Appalachian folk and Delta Blues music. I am also inspired by old Jazz singers, the way they use their voice as an expressive instrument.

You grew up in a small logging town in southern Oregon—which one, might I ask?—and now you live in Portland. What imprint did/does your upbringing have on your music? You seem to be in a certain community in Portland, a community of people that seems to have something to do with one another, at least musically. Was the small town a place where you had community? When did you start to feel situated in a certain group of people?

I grew up in a little town called Coquille. It is near Bandon and Coos Bay, in the South Coast region of Oregon. For better or worse (mostly for better), community is the essence of living in small town, and definitely influenced my understanding of the world and of relationships. I didn’t play music within the indie music community, for my first few years in Portland. Mostly, I was intimidated by the idea of a scene. I didn’t keep up with music, and rarely went to shows. It seemed really foreign to me. My first few years, I felt set on making music in a different context. I played “shows” every Tuesday night at a residential AIDS care facility called Our House of Portland. Those two years, more than any other time, influenced my understanding of sharing music for people.

I guess I began to feel at home within the community after recording my first record. I timidly approached Adam Selzer about recording some songs for me. Adam has made some of my favorite records with his band Norfolk and Western. I was a fan of his, and he agreed to record some songs. Adam brought in most of the musicians, and by the end of that record-making process, I had a handful of new friends. All of the musicians that played on my record were also playing in other bands. I got to know those bands, and so on and so on. I think my initial reluctance to approach the music community was partially misguided (based at least partly on fear). Some of the sweetest, most genuine people I’ve ever met, are people playing music in Portland. I feel supported, and feel a genuine sense of belonging. It is such a precious thing, community. I am reminded, almost daily, how fortunate I am.

Does the place, the physical place, with its smells, weather, history—terroir , as a vintner might summarize it—affect your music in ways you’re aware of?

I believe place certainly affects my music, in ways that I am aware of, and maybe more so, in ways I am not aware of. I read a few interviews with bands recently, where they stated that because of the internet and touring, there is no such thing as a “Seattle band” or a “Brooklyn Band.” I would have to disagree. I am not a band per se, I am just one person making music, but I can’t imagine my music would be the same had grown up in New York or the Southwest. I am really sensitive to space, it affects my mood, my thoughts, the way I interact with people. If I am going to be authentic in what I do, place will always play a part in what I am doing. Similarly, when I travel, I am missing a different home than a band from New York or Austin, and that longing for home is a part of me.

How hard is it as a touring musician to be rooted in the place where you live?

I have traveled so much in the past few years, I imagine it affects my music as much as it affects my mood and understanding of life. My family all lives in Portland now. That is a very tangible “rooting”, more so than any sort of scene I belong to.

Beasts of Seasons is divided into two sections—Communion Songs and Funeral Songs—and you have spoken of how you saw two themes emerging as you wrote these songs. I think the “funeral” theme is in plain sight, but how does the Communion theme make itself known? It’s a theologically-charged word—how familiar are you with those associations? If so, did you mean to draw those in? Why unequal time for Communion Songs and Funeral Songs?

Actually, because the first song, “Shadows on Parade” is so long, the parts are pretty equal in length.

I use Communion, both in the theological sense, and in the non-theological sense. I suppose I meant connection, but wanted the word to have some connotation of the sacred or transcendent (and besides, “connection songs” sounds pretty cheesy). I grew up in the Episcopal church, and communion was one of my first experiences with the idea of sacredness. I have friends who grew up in other traditions and have a completely different vocabulary for communicating the idea of transendence. Communion carried a certain weight for me. I used the phrase “communion songs” in the song Postures Bent, and the phrase stuck with me.

The song “Glory”—how is it a Funeral Song? The verse about your father’s voice—particularly that breathtaking line about it being “dressed in anger, swollen with grace”—it’s surprising, not least because it’s de rigueur nowadays to be resentful and one-dimensional about one’s upbringing. But you come across as astonished and grateful—and the refrain, that you “have not seen such glory since” suggests that those things are now absent. Is that so?

I can’t imagine writing a resentful song about my family. It wouldn’t be possible, whether it’s de rigueur or not.

“Glory” is a song of loss and of new life.  I have experienced both, and both are present in family life. The song is not specific to my family, but a collection of images.

In making a collection of songs centering around mortality, I kept coming back to tenderness in relationships. You can sharpen your philosophy and your understanding of death. You can circle around and settle on a certain perspective or subscribe to a certain doctrine. But at the end of the day, if you’re on an airplane, going down, it’s the faces of those dearest to you that come into your mind.

The song is a showstopper in most ways, but especially lyrically. It’s essentially a collection of moments in which you find examples of grace and glory. Do you find that you recognize those moments as they’re happening, or is that usually something that strikes you in memory?

Like all things, I am sometimes aware of things in the moment, and sometimes only aware of things in hindsight. Those aren’t specific memories, but a series of images that came to me one afternoon.  They do remind me of my family, but aren’t specific to my family, exactly.

We live in a culture that is largely innoculated from death, that hides it or calls it by other names. You wrote many Beasts of Seasons songs overlooking an old cemetery, and that had a clear effect on your thoughts and songwriting, though it didn’t seem to make you morbid. Death, clearly, sunders relationships, ends communion, is an enemy to be contended with. How would you say you contend with it? What wards off morbidity?

I’m not sure when I first realized that all of these songs dealt with mortality. It just seemed to hang in the air. I’m not interested in looking into the darkness for the sake of writing dark songs. I think I was dealing with fear, through the process of writing these songs. But, even in the darkest circumstances, there are moments of hope, of tenderness, of reverence. That is something that inspires me. I feel like these songs are the most hopeful songs I have written.

I learned that songs about death are ultimately songs about the urgency of life. The word reverence isn’t really tossed around or used in much music. But I cared deeply about the record having a sense of reverence, for life, for relationships, for things outside of ourselves.

You deserve an easy, rhetorical question. Is there a better city in the United States than Portland?

I’ve enjoyed many aspects of many of the places I’ve visited. But it would be hard to live anywhere else. Portland is pretty special (even if it is being overrun by bands).

Brendan is not this guy, nor was he this guy, and he is not at all cool with this particular namesake. He does occasionally guest on Stereopathic Sessions with Larson and Josh, and is staggered at how inarticulate his words are about the things he loves the most.

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