No ... I mean I hope that it's just a natural progression of what touring does. When I talk to the fans after the show, they never say I came because I saw you on this TV show or I heard you on this radio station. They say oh I saw you open for Ray LaMontagne or ... it's a touring thing. The biggest difference I've seen which just makes me smile ear to ear every show is hearing people sing the words in the audience.
That's got to feel good.
It does. It feels so good. You know, I used to go to Indigo Girls concerts as a teenager. People would start singing so loud and now, seeing that kind of experience in our audience, it just makes me feel so good.
Well especially after, I'm sure you've had this experience, too, where you’re touring and you wind up in some town playing for six people and noone’s listening...
[laughs] Yeah, well, at any level it's a luxury to be able to tour. I have this friend in a band called [inaudible] I was just talking to her, she's in the Midwest right now, in the middle of Iowa. And [she had a show where] the power went out and she wound up playing to five people by candlelight. I miss when that s*** used to happen. And trying to figure out where you're going to sleep, whether the car’s going to make it ... there's something really romantic about that kind of touring, too.
Is it nice, though, now that you have someone driving you around in a big bus; you can just kind of kick back in the back and do whatever it is that you do?
It's nice for different reasons, yeah. It's really cool.
So how do you pass the time?
Oh, well, I draw horses, talk on the phone. I try to avoid the computer at all costs ... Sometimes we'll stop off at state parks and go fishing and stuff.
How has it been to hand over your front line of communication (who's answering your emails and doing your MySpace page, etc.), having to give up that sort of direct access to your audience? Is that weird for you, or frustrating? Is it just part of that process ...?
Well I've never been really good at the computer thing. I've never really dealt well with updating MySpace and stuff like that. I still get emails that I respond to. What I do with my journal and stuff like that, I write it down on a piece of paper and then I call my manager and read it to him over the phone, and he puts it into the computer. One of the things that's been really hard with me is going out after the show and meeting the audience ... I had to stop that, because now it can take hours. You know, that really makes me feel awful because I feel like I have a responsibility to people to go out and talk to [them], thank them for seeing the show. That's one of those things that are getting pushed more and more out.
And how do you see your music evolving, in terms of your next album? Obviously songs evolve the more you play them every night, but what direction do you see your next record taking?
Oh, it'll be different; it'll be another theme. It's hard to say. I've been playing a lot more electric guitar, but I could see the next record going in a really raucous acoustic direction, too. Because I think you can make some heavy music acoustic—heavier than electric rock and roll songs. Acoustic instruments are so percussive. There were a few songs on The Story where, in the studio, I didn't play guitar, I just sang instead. And the songs were so much heavier when I had an acoustic guitar. There’s something about ... guitars just being beaten to death. It sounds really reckless to me. I love it.
Well, yeah, you get that percussive smack of the strings on the wood.
Yeah, I know, it's great. It can be so loud, too ... it's so percussive you almost don't need drums. You know, bass notes are in there ... I'm touring with the Indigo Girls now and Amy [Ray] plays acoustic guitar so loud and reckless, she plays like she's playing an electric guitar. I just think it's so cool. And the two of them together just sounds [even] heavier.
Page 1: Brandi on The Story and working with her band
Page 3: Brandi on her influences and what makes music so good
