Matisyahu - Interview

Hasidic reggae/hip hop artist Matisyahu raises his voice with Torah-inspired verses and a groove he describes as a cross between Bob Marley and Shlomo Carlebach. Bearded and attired in traditional Orthodox Jewish dress, with black fedora, tzitziot, and dark jacket, he carries the universal message that you can be strong in who you are and still unite with other people.

Audiences are obviously catching Matisyahu’s vibe as his recent 45-date, sold out tour indicates. I got hooked too after his South by Southwest performance last month in Austin, Texas at Buffalo Billiards. As drummer Jonah David, bassist Josh Werner and guitar player Aaron Dugin warmed up the packed room with contagious dancehall/hip-hop rhythms, the anxious crowd responded chanting in unison, “Matis! Yahu!” until the performer emerged on stage with inner-fire blazing and rousing vocals rhyming.

“Unification doesn’t mean giving up yourself,” Matisyahu told MTV News at the event. “It means finding out who you are and being alright with that and then being able to connect to others. So that’s universal. That’s not just for Jews or religious people, you know?”

The performer’s new record deal with Or Music promises to take that philosophy to the next level. Or signed the performer to a multi-record deal and entered a strategic marketing and distribution relationship with non-profit record and event company JDub, who released Matisyahu’s debut album, Shake Off The Dust. Under the union Matisyahu: Live at Stubbs was recorded in Austin, Texas in February and was released this month.

STARPOLISH: What led to your OR Music deal?

MATISYAHU: I started out with JDub and they are basically friends of mine that I knew from college before I became religious. They were kind of like pulling me out of Yeshiva trying to convince me to do this concert or that concert and when I started with them, one of the first concerts was almost sold out. It wasn’t billed as a Matisyahu show. It was something else, but all of a sudden they started filling a hole that was there in New York, which was for a young Jewish audience. So the first thing I did there were tons of people there. Then the next thing I did there were tons of people there. Then they wanted me to record a record, so someone came into the picture and we did it. They’ve sort of been like friends who were helping me do this and at the same time I think I was helping them build their company…We knew at some point that for things to get to the next level, there had to be something with a bigger company…So OR came along and they just seemed like the right people. One morning we did this concert at this high school on the upper West Side and Jacob [Harris], my manager from JDub, comes over to me and said these record company guys are here. After the show they came up to me and were so into it. They were so enthusiastic and they dropped everything they were doing. That day I was on Carson Daly, so they came there and they were right away ready to sign me.

STARPOLISH: I know that there’s been this tremendous buzz about your beat boxing performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live?

MATISYAHU: The Jimmy Kimmel one got leaked out to peoples’ computers and it just started spreading, like everyone was getting it. I’ve talked to hundreds of people who found out about me through that. Real underground grassroots.

STARPOLISH: What you’re doing is obviously different. How do people respond?

MATISYAHU: …Once people actually come and see the music, they get over the whole stereotype thing, which I don’t blame them, and people are usually really positive. The same goes for any musicians. Last night we opened for Jimmy Cliff. About half way through our set I look up on the balcony and Jimmy Cliff’s whole band from Jamaica were up there screaming and going crazy.

STARPOLISH: You came to your faith out of calling rather than upbringing. What events led you there?

MATISYAHU: Basically there was a seed that was planted in me when I went to Israel when I was 16. Around that time I was really searching and just discovering myself and spirituality. ..When I went to Israel I saw Hasidism and I just connected to Judaism as more of an idea…There was something mystical about the Torah and something spiritual about the Hebrew language. So, I was in college, in my early twenties, and I was kind of stuck in my life. My whole life up until then I had really believed in God. I believed I had this connection to God and God was sort of with me through this journey that I had gone on…At this particular point in my life, instead of taking a hike and meditating out in the woods or zoning out and listening to Bob Marley, I just decided to pick up a prayer book and started reading the prayers…I would go up to the roof of my school building after school in college in the Village [NYC] and wrap my grandfather’s tallit around myself and pray even though I didn’t really understand the words. But I felt like, “Look there’s a God,” and I thought God was listening to me and there’s something about the Hebrew, there’s something about being Jewish and that just kind of opened the doors and then I just went running with it.

STARPOLISH: You followed Phish on tour and were a huge Bob Marley fan so obviously you already had musical stirrings. How did you bring your faith and music together?

MATISYAHU: Basically I always loved music. I always felt like music was my way of expression and connection. It was always very much a part of me. I followed Phish and I used to sing, played the drums and beat box and all that kind of stuff. Then I became religious and I put it all on the back burner basically. My whole life up until this point I had sort of been a floater and never put my foot down or really worked at something. So when I was at Yeshiva becoming religious I really didn’t do music at all. It wasn’t until after this whole thing started that I actually started getting back into music. Basically what happened is my music just became a little more refined. Because of the Hasidic influence in Crown Heights a lot of the Hasidic songs and melodies somehow worked into my music.

STARPOLISH: Was reggae always your first music love?

MATISYAHU: Yeah. That’s what turned me on you know? I was into hip hop and was turned on to psychedelic rock and that stuff too, but I always felt a really strong connection to reggae. When I was in college, in my early twenties, that music was such a strong influence. Everywhere I went I had headphones on. I was listening to sort of like the conscious dance hall stuff and I had a PA system in my apartment. I used to buy these instrumental hip hop and reggae tapes and turn them all the way up on these JBL speakers. That’s kind of how my style developed. It was never a conscious decision that I’m going to try to do this style. It was just that’s what was my love.

STARPOLISH: Do people close to you understand your need to put your message to music and are you getting any resistance?

MATISYAHU: When I started out there were a lot of Lubavitchers that were like, “Who is this kid?” “What is he doing?” At this point, we just got back from two months on tour and I spent a lot of time with rabbis all over and everyone that I know is so positive about it and really supportive. It’s really cool.

STARPOLISH: You open each show with “Sea To Sea” for a reason?

MATISYAHU: “Sea To Sea” is how we open up the show basically every time. I don’t usually listen to music that much now, but my agent gave me a bunch of these reggae CDs and I decided to check them out and one of them is a Vibrations CD and I was hearing how they come out on stage and the first thing they say is, “Greetings in the name of his Imperial Majesty.” They basically shout out their king who they’re out there representing and that’s basically what I’m doing when we start the show. I say “God open up my lips and my mouth will declare your praise.”

STARPOLISH: Can you pick another song and tell us what you’re singing about?

MATISYAHU: “King Without A Crown”…basically the idea being that at the end of the day, a person knows that they have faults, no matter what a person pretends or acts like. When they get down to their core, they realize they’re just human and therefore, they’re shaky. It’s like your whole ideology, your philosophy, could be wrong. Who knows what’s what? You’re just kind of thrown into the mix and you have to figure it out. You try to be a good person and you try to do what’s right, but sometimes you make moves and you don’t know…At the end of the day you have to do the best job that you can do but you’re living your life according to these laws that are set out that we believe to be the will of God basically and this Torah that has been around for thousands of years. It’s like an anchor. It’s like strapping yourself onto a rock and I was realizing that gives you so much confidence…I think I’m connected to this ancient thing, which is above even nature, above even reality and no one can knock me off of that. That’s kind of the idea when I say, “A king without a crown/You keep falling down.”

Originally posted on Starpolish.com 4/13/05.

Matisyahu video for "King Without a Crown."

Blanche - Tracee Mae Miller Interview

BLANCHES’ TRAVELING MEDICINE SHOW

by Tina Whelski

Blanche’s spooky, old country, American roots sounds on their latest CD, If We Can’t Trust The Doctors (V2) seem to wind around the mountains and settle at the bottom of your psyche. You may draw some Carter Family parallels for the band’s penchant in finding release and happiness in typically melancholy-seeming songs, but the brew is their own. Blanche’s scarred, darkly humorous lyrics demonstrated a twisted and compelling approach to storytelling at their Emos show at South By Southwest in Texas with pedal steel guitar, banjo, and Autoharp haunting the room. The vocal interplay between husband and wife Dan and Tracee Mae Miller was as mesmerizing live as was the band’s depression-era wardrobe and theatrics. What makes this band most peculiar, besides the fact that you feel you’re watching a traveling medicine show, is that all members play their secondary instruments. This is most fascinating when you realize several Blanche players are highly accomplished musicians on their primaries. Most recently good friend Jack White called on players Feeny, Little Jack Lawrence and Dan for contributions to Loretta Lynn’s Van Lear Rose album. (In fact Tracee and Dan actually shared a band with White called Two-Star Tabernacle from 1997-1999).

Tracie Mae Miller talks to WomanRock about the band’s musical remedies for the forlorn and grief-stricken.

WOMANROCK: Finally seeing Blanche live was really exciting for me. You were much more theatrical than I expected. I know you’re a visual artist as well as a musician. Is the band’s look your doing?

MILLER: Well that’s the funny thing because everyone as you can tell from Feeny’s suit, to my dress, it’s all along the same lines, but everyone’s own interpretation. So I guess it’s one of those weird things where we all came together with similar tastes, but distinctly different too. I kind of came up with my look and I don’t know if that gave everyone else the freedom or the go ahead to do what they want to do, but I have a lot of fun with it.

WOMANROCK: I talked to you before about the interplay between you and your husband Dan as you answer each others’ vocals. Do you plan any of that drama before you hit the stage or just go with the music?

MILLER: It’s just go with it. Each night we play it’s completely different and I think for that night, well, it’s always a little high-pressure at SXSW cause you don’t get a sound check and you kind of get thrown up there, but that night was really interesting because I was really nervous, but there was such a good feeling on stage.

WOMANROCK: You’ve talked in the past about a sense for “nostalgia” and that Blanche has found a way to be true to your time, but keep your “attic intact.”

MILLER: I think the nostalgia part of the band comes from within. It’s not necessarily thought out. For Dan and I it’s a part of life. I’ve always been that way. It’s one of those things where the first record I put on my record player was Hank Williams and I started collecting antiques when I was a teenager. I think it’s so important to keep a hold of the past and keep that spirit alive. For me I guess it really is a way of life. It’s not like we think, “Okay, we’ll just get a bunch of old crap and put it on.” Even the house we live in, it’s almost like a museum, but then of course we have to have the coffee pot and the cell phones and the computer, so it’s not a complete gimmick of having to live completely in the past.

WOMANROCK: You’re all obviously big fans of old mountain and country music and I’m curious because I know you and Dan have been together a long time, did you both come into your relationship appreciating that music or did you influence one another? What do you listen to now?

MILLER: It’s funny because when we first met we thought, “God, that’s really strange that we have the same interest in that old country music.” …I get stuck in the past though as far as music goes. I have a hard time seeking out newer stuff, which is easier now being in a band because you get exposed. But the similarities were there. As far as what we listen to now, I’m pretty bad. I mean I can listen to a Ralph Stanley CD every day all day long and kind of wear it out and Dan buys more of a variety of music.

WOMANROCK: I’m trying to imagine those first conversations between you too. What were some of the bands you had in common where you were like, “No way, you listen to them too?”

MILLER: Well, it was Hank Willliams of course and Carter Family, but also Nick Cave. I love Nick Cave. The first time I saw Dan was the early 90’s. I went to see a Nick Cave concert in downtown Detroit, the first time I had taken my parents’ car and drove downtown. I forced a friend to go with me. We got there early and went in the front and Dan’s band Goober & The Peas was opening for Nick Cave. That was the first time I actually saw Dan and then I didn’t really meet him until maybe a year later. But it was pretty funny that he was opening up for one of my favorite performers.

WOMANROCK: A lot of If We Can’t Trust The Doctors is about trust and uncertainty. Can you talk about the life influences that helped shape the CD?

MILLER: A lot of that CD does revolve around superstition and trust because Dan and I both had somewhat of the same upbringing and experiences when it came to sicknesses in the family and hospitals and we both spent a lot of time as young adults in hospitals and both experienced death at young ages. Dan being the songwriter, I think he was really able to get some of that stuff out. It’s really difficult when you grow up with that to have an outlet. In the two previous bands he had, being Goober and the Peas and Two-Star Tabernacle, I don’t think he really got to dig into those subjects. This album really gave him a chance to exercise those thoughts and demons and get them into the open. It’s funny because a lot of those issues he had, I had the same ones.

WOMANROCK: Very much a cathartic experience.

MILLER: Yeah exactly. I guess it’s been eye-opening as well because you can harbor all those feelings and I think we were talking about superstition last time, where you actually become superstitious of your superstition. So if you don’t start having a sense of humor about it or acknowledging it, it can just grow and grow and grow and you can become cynical. It can just change your life in a really bad way. I think that the album gets it all out there. You realize that life goes on and you have to find hope and beautiful things that go along with the bad things in life. I think that’s really what the album’s about.

WOMANROCK: I know you just came into bass playing not that long ago, but I didn’t expect to see you hike up your dress and jump behind the drums at Emos. When did you learn to play?

MILLER: I don’t know how to play drums! I just really love that jungle beat and it’s so much fun. The first time I got behind drums to play that, because Lisa usually played that part, but when we first started playing it she was more timid, and I’m kind of the more aggressive one so they put me behind the drums for that and just let me go. I don’t think I could be a drummer. I don’t know how I could do a whole set because I like to hit hard.

WOMANROCK: I know. I hit really hard when I play too and when you come out with a little too much enthusiasm, the energy can wane very quickly!

MILLER: I love hitting hard, but it’s hard work, so I don’t know about my career as a drummer, but for that one song it feels really good, especially if I’ve had a really difficult show. I can really hit the drums and get rid of that frustrated feeling of, “Oh, fuck” and get that out and end the show on a better feeling.

WOMANROCK: Blanche was essentially born in your living room. Everybody, as we just talked about in your case, just sort of jumped in on whatever instrument made sense that day. Can you talk about everyone opting to pick secondary or even brand new instruments?

MILLER: We have some great musicians in the band like Dave Feeny. He’s been in tons of bands, but he had never played pedal steel and Dan thought, for this band we really need a pedal steel player. Well Feeny’s hanging around. Let’s put him there. And Lisa’s played guitar, but had never drummed and he’s like, “Here you hit the drums, see what you can do.” Our first banjo player, Patch, never played any instruments. It was one of those things like truly, buy a banjo and don’t even learn. Maybe take a few lessons, but learn mostly on your on…We got Little Jack who’s an incredible musician as well but had never played banjo.

WOMANROCK: It’s a good think Dan really played guitar or you could have had a train wreck.

MILLER: Well the interesting thing is that Dan didn’t have that much experience playing guitar cause in Goober & The Peas he was the singer. So he had that struggle of being an entertainer, singing and playing guitar. For me, I had the struggle of somewhat knowing how to play bass, but I never took lessons and I guess I’m self taught which is probably pretty obvious. Then the singing, I honestly had never sung before. I didn’t even know how to sing Happy Birthday to tell you the truth.

WOMANROCK: Those sessions were either so much fun or, well you tell me?

MILLER: Sometimes after a bad show I used to have these fits. I’d be in tears as I’m walking off the stage cause the singing was so stressful and I was talking to someone from the label we have in England and he’s like, “Oh you really have gotten much better” and this and that and he’s seen the tears before. I told him, “The funny thing is I used to cry at practice.” I used to really be in tears in the basement practicing because it was so difficult for me to do. I really am so shy and singing is so personal and it’s got to be the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

WOMANROCK: I’m with you on that, but we couldn’t tell. While you were in Texas did you get to see some other bands?

MILLER: For me whenever I’m at a giant music festival I don’t see any bands. For our showcase I saw The Kills and The Raveonettes, and The Lashes. So we had a good night at Emos. The only other band I saw was Buck 65, which I really enjoyed. It was really inspiring. But everyone else in the band had their little schedules and they took off and stumbled back in at 3 a.m. For me, one of the last nights we were there I just ended up in a normal bar having drinks. It’s like a little vacation.

Origially posted on WomanRock.com April '05.

Blanche "Do You Trust Me" Video.

Rachael Yamagata - Interview

Turning Turmoil
Into Tunes

by Tina Whelski

Rachael Yamagata’s first solo show ever was in New York City at the Living Room on an out-of-tune piano and her second was a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden opening for David Gray. If that sounds like a head-spinning experience for the husky-voiced performer, it’s nothing compared to the raw accounts of love won and ultimately lost that she documents on her debut full-length album Happenstance (RCA) produced by John Alagia (John Mayer, Dave Matthews, etc.).

Yamagata actually came into music because she kept falling in and out of relationships and needed a creative outlet for the emotions. And her brutally honest accounts burn, but don’t take my word for it. The fact that a fan mailed her song “Reason Why” to a lover to explain why their relationship failed is proof of their potency.


Rachael Yamagata Talks about turning turmoil into an album.

WOMANROCK: You’ve been out supporting Happenstance a while now. Have the stories evolved for you as you’ve grown and spent time with them? Do songs take on new meaning?

RACHAEL YAMAGATA: Sometimes they do. Sometimes you just grow to hate them (laughs). In other songs there are just emotions that can be applied to different relationships that are universal emotions. Sometimes I’ll be in a relationship that has nothing to do with the one that was the source of the song, but it still carries the same weight. Then of course you talk to people who are watching for the first time and tons of people come up to me and tell me their stories and they interpret the songs differently.

Every now and then you’re on stage and your mind wanders and you can think of it from their eyes or you find a different meaning, like “Reason Why.” I wrote it kind of about this group dynamic, a business relationship really. Everyone thinks it’s a love song, so every now and then I’ll play it and dedicate it to somebody. In another situation I heard from this guy who was dating this woman in Chicago. She moved to Ibiza, Spain and told him their relationship never went anywhere. She said he never asked her to come to Chicago and he was writing me this email because she ended up getting my EP, which has “The Reason Why” on it. She sent it to him in Chicago and said, “Listen to this song. It explains the reason why I left.” So you hear these stories. It’s just so odd how people interpret them. So in that respect it does change.

WOMANROCK: That’s got to feel good when people find personal meaning in your songs?

YAMAGATA: It does. It’s so surreal and kind of trippy (laughs).

WOMANROCK: You’ve talked about how Happenstance deals with the battle between chance circumstances and the belief that everything happens for a reason. What kinds of things have been thrown in your path this last year that have influenced you as an artist?

YAMAGATA: Well different things. On the business side, I’ve been through like five different record mergers and it’s insane. Literally South By Southwest was one big collection of people who tried to sign me in one way or another. So in that respect I’ve been through this whirlwind journey of even getting a record out there. Things that I thought were sure things or were the exact right places for me to be ended up falling through and probably were the only things that kept me alive through these changes of hands. I’m pretty comfortable with turmoil being shoved at me. I always feel like it’s the best thing for that moment and you end up using it as a source of material. It makes you feel lonely and confused and you go through this process, which ends up just giving you more fodder for songs.

In my personal life, I think I learn a lot of my lessons through my romantic relationships with people and things that are just so painful and just the worst circumstances where you just have to say, “I can’t believe this is my life and this is happening to me.” The weirdest things happen where someone just happens to be right there or whatever. It seems to show up in my writing so it’s a catch 22. I never seem to fail to have something to write about. I go through this hell in order to get there.

WOMANROCK: …And everyone wants to be an artist. Sucks doesn’t it? (laughs)

YAMAGATA: I know! I sit there and I’m like, “You only get one or the other.”

WOMANROCK: Many artists try to create journeys with their music, but the process of recording Happenstance was literally a trek from place to place. Was this a choice or a matter of course?

YAMAGATA: That was kind of a product of having an adventurous producer. I had made records with other bands, but never on my own and he [John Alagia ] was very willing to let me follow my nose towards things. A lot of the time we’d move because it just felt like it was time to go. We started in The Bahamas and that was amazing. It was like every five minutes, “Let’s go get a Margarita.” We’d come back and lay down some parts and then, “Let’s go get a Margarita.” We did the basic tracks down there and then we happened to follow musicians. We wanted certain people and they could only be in New York at a certain time or I had a cellist who fell through at the last minute and so I met Ollie [Oliver Kraus], Tom McRae’s cellist months before and he happened to be in the country in California doing a residency or tour so we picked up and went out there. Then we trailed it back to New York to get some other people and eventually down to Maryland where John has a studio that’s right on the Chesapeake Bay—a great place to mix.

WOMANROCK: That’s hysterical. Usually musicians have to come to the project, not the other way around.

YAMAGATA: I know. Well we did have them, but we were like, “We’ll meet ya there.” Things would come up where we’re like, “This could really use French Horn.” Someone would be like, “My uncle plays French Horn, but he’s got to be in New York for the New York City Ballet, so let’s go to New York.” So it was really one of those crazy things. I think it was great for this record. I think for the second record there’s a ranch somewhere in Maine where there’s a horse farm and the studios are in different barns and you stay there and ride horses and have your own private chef or something. Everyone has to come there and no one’s allowed to leave until it’s done (laughs).

WOMANROCK: Are you working on new material?

YAMAGATA: I’m actually doing a lot with new stuff. My problem is I must have ADD, because I’ll play a whole set and people are like, “What?” I’ll be like, “Oh. Okay, I’ll play one song from the album.

WOMANROCK: Sort of like, “Who was that?”

YAMAGATA: Yeah (laughs). They don’t recognize anything, so I have to settle down. I’ve started playing the new ones on the road though cause I’m constantly writing. I keep telling the label I’ll submit them and then I find another tour. I think by late summer I should start recording the next one.

WOMANROCK: Songs?

YAMAGATA: My favorite is probably “Quiet” and then there’s a hidden track about three minutes and twenty seconds called “Ode To…” That’s probably my favorite just because it’s really stripped down. It’s just guitars and just me. It’s one take, like 3:00 in the morning, literally just before mixing. We were in the producer’s place, just him and me because everyone else had pretty much finished the record. I had just written it because I was going through this other thing that seemed to, of course, turn out badly.

WOMANROCK: Oh no, quick—song.

YAMAGATA: Yeah. Wrote it that morning and literally had the lyrics on the floor and sat there crouched over with the guitar. I was just starting to learn guitar and it’s a really long song so I just kind of sat there. He was in the room and just pressed record and played through this thing. It’s just really raw and really honest and really vulnerable. It’s got no production on it at all and it’s just kind of fresh because it was so personally present at the time. I had a lot of fun with this album experimenting with strings and horns and clarinets and crazy production and I think I’m gravitating for the next one probably more towards spur-of-the-moment spontaneous things. That one’s my favorite just because it’s almost like a release of the fight for this particular love. It’s like a giving in and just doesn’t shy away from the fact that there was another person involved and you weren’t chosen and it’s this really heartfelt kind of thing. It sucks but it’s a reflection on the fact that it sucks. It’s not that you’re angry. It’s just so sad. So that one I really love and “Quiet” is like a lullaby.

It’s a really simplistic chord progression for the piano and the same kind of vulnerable realization that after a huge relationship you question whether you may not have made a difference in somebody’s life at all. It’s that point where you’re just reflecting on the fact that you spent all this time and all this investment and think, “Did it actually change anything?” Of course it did, but there’s that moment where you second-guess everything.

Originally posted on WomanRock.com April '05.

Rachael Yamagata performing "Be Be Your Love."