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Dates Appearing: July 26 - 31 Current Release: Happy Town |
It was a time when friends were consoling themselves with prescribed mood enhancers, the dreaded black helicopters were circling over her New York City apartment, and the world seemed a hostile place - especially for a singer/songwriter who had once carefreely confessed to kissing a girl.
Her guitar sat in the corner untouched, seeming to parade its dusty curves in an expert demonstration of passive aggressive behavior. She and it were at an impasse. True inspiration had to be lurking somewhere - something to spark the kind of awakening that would send her guitar hopping back into her welcoming arms.
"I'm really bored with my guitar," confessed Jill Sobule late one night while on the phone to her album producer/friends Brad Jones and Robin Eaton. "I keep going back to the same chords, the same patterns." She'd see them soon enough down in Nashville, Tennessee, where they'd begin the second set of recording sessions on "HAPPY TOWN," Jill's second album for Lava/Atlantic. Maybe their energy would help her find the way.
"I have a hard time writing in New York," explained Jill to the cab driver while on the way to LaGuardia Airport. "I get a lot of stimulus in the city, but I need to get away to write." With a carry-on bag stuffed with promising but as-of-yet unrealized songs ideas, she arrived in Nashville feeling a bit pensive and thinking about River Phoenix's last movie. Her mood lifted upon stepping into the cozy and familiar Alex The Great recording studios. The site where Jill recorded her 1995 self-titled label debut, the studio is filled with dusty old books, kitschy antiques, and various doo-dads. "It's like somebody's living room," Jill likes to say.
A friend happens to own the place so there was no time pressure, no meter running. Jill was free to experiment and have some fun. It was the perfect opportunity to get behind the kit and road test the drum lessons she'd recently started taking.
Instant catalyst.
She quickly landed on the looped beats to what - with contributions from Richard Barone (ex-Bongos) - became "Bitter." "I had no idea what I was doing," said Jill later, during her album photo shoot. "I was just playing a groove off the top of my head. There's something very fresh about that. You know how there's naive painting - I guess I'm the naive drummer."
From that moment on, Jill was happening in an even more creative way. She subsequently recorded drum tracks and gave direction to "I'm So Happy," "Half A Heart," and "Love Is Never Equal." And soon she was back on the guitar...
"When it came around to the third set of sessions... suddenly it was, 'hey, I like my guitar again.' So I picked it up and wrote songs like 'Barren Egg' (one of several written with Eaton) and 'Little Guy.' But I wouldn't have if I hadn't worked on the drums. I had been feeling very empty. I needed to fill myself up with new experiences. By forcing myself to play other instruments, it brought me back around."
It also brought Jill around to the album's inspired, almost conceptual discussion of the modern pursuit of love and happiness - the idealistic illusions of which often serve to play out the role of donkey's carrot.
Throughout this rich, diversly flavored album, Jill's openness and fearlessness extends to such topics as the shifting sands of romantic love ("Love Is Never Equal"), the fears that come with giving yourself completely to a someone you can't be sure will return your feelings ("Half A Heart"), and a celluloid return to childhood innocence ("Super 8"). On such tracks as "Sold My Soul" and "When My Ship Comes In," Jill confronts the notion of success versus fulfillment and searches for a balance.
As she'll tell you, all the hard work she put into making and promoting "JILL SOBULE" left her spiritually drained. "Music became toxic to me... impure," says Jill. "I wouldn't listen to music because I would judge it. 'That's a good song, but is that person a better singer than me?' I started to turn into a real curmudgeon. 'Bitter' is my saying this is not how I want to be."
This past year has also been a time where Jill has been considering the realities of family, future, and freedom. "On a pop album, you're supposed to write about love, sex, and violence... but the biological clock? It seems almost taboo. At this time in my life, I have no real responsibilities to anybody. I can fuck up and the only one it hurts is me. Right now, that's okay, but there's a certain emptiness and innate selfishness to it, too."
With her unrestrained embrace of the unexpected topic, Jill has revealed an even greater artistic poise and poignancy. The sweet melody of "Attic" is countered by an Anne Frank-inspired discussion of the Holocaust. "I'm obsessed by the A&E channel," says Jill, who spends hours taking in documentaries about Hitler's coming to power and World War II. "Being of Jewish heritage, it's part of me. I recently asked a friend of mine, 'Would you have hidden me in your attic?' It's the ultimate expression of love you could ever offer someone."
Around a core of multi-instrumental players - Jill, Jones, and Ross Rice - the album was recorded under an open door policy appropriate to Nashville. "We had a pretty laid back atmosphere going in the studio," she says. "People would get on the phone and say, 'Sure, I'll come over.' So it was that Steve Earle came by to cut his tasty guitar and backing vocal parts on "Love Is Never Equal." Other contributions came from Al Perkins on pedal steel and Jim Hoke, who cut all the woodwind parts. "It worked perfectly the way all these super-talented people kept dropping by. You can't get away with that recording in New York or LA."
It was just a year ago that Jill was honored at the Seventh Annual Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Media Awards with the Outstanding Song award for "I Kissed A Girl," the MTV "Buzz Bin" single from her "JILL SOBULE" album.
That was the album that prompted Interview magazine to write, "Jill Sobule articulates desire and the eccentricities that make us all special, in a way no other pop star has in recent memory. She gets under the skin of everyday life and pulls out the real sparks." In Esquire's annual "Women We Love" issue, Jill was included in a prestigious list of "Women We'd Throw Our Leopard-Print Thong Onstage For."
Jill's musical life began in 6th grade, when she got a Gibson SG. She played guitar in the Junior High School stage band, and wrote her first song in 7th grade. Jill got her first full-time gig at a club in Seville, Spain - where she'd been during a college vacation. She dropped out of school and spent a year overseas.
Back in the States, she started doing her own material, playing around in various bands. She migrated between Denver, LA, and New York City. Her odd jobs included selling shoes at Barney's, assisting a wedding photographer, and one night of waiting tables. A few years down the road she made a very folky first album, produced by Todd Rundgren.
Most recently, Jill has been heard on soundtrack albums to Harriet The Spy (with her "The Secretive Life" track being seen on VH1 and MTV), The Truth About Cats & Dogs ("Where Do I Begin"), and Grace Of My Heart, ("Truth Is You Lie").
For now, keep an eye out for the on-tour Jill as she makes her way across America. You can bet she'll be pulling into a happy town somewhere near you.
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