By her own admission, Grey DeLisle's new live album, Bootlegger, Vol. 1 , was born out of the simple need to have something to promote on a tour this fall in Europe where, thanks to her 2002 release, Homewrecker , the Los Angeles-based artist enjoys considerable popularity. "I've sold thousands and thousands and thousands of copies over there," DeLisle says, stunned. There's Oor magazine, she explains, "which is kind of [the Netherlands'] Rolling Stone, and there was an article that said, 'I don't think a better record will come out this year.' It was amazing."
So the alt-country songstress went local for the sake of the far-off fan base, appearing at the Scene, a small club near her home, one rainy Friday evening in May. She knocked out something like 17 songs with her band, which includes guitarist/mandolinist/producer Marvin Etzioni, guitarist Willie Aron, bassist Murry Hammond, and drummer Perry Ostin. Later, she chose 10 for the album. And there you have it. Easy enough.
But Bootlegger, Vol. 1 is not mere product, it also serves as a mile marker of sorts, documenting an artist just before the next step, which in this case is a studio effort due next spring for Sugar Hill Records called The Graceful Ghost. And what Bootlegger, Vol. 1 captures is an intimate, occasionally roof-raising night of dramatic twang-rock in the budding career of the 29-year-old performer.
It's hardly flawless -- DeLisle's quick to boast about the complete lack of post-production fixes -- but that seems precisely the point. DeLisle's not about flawless. She talks passionately of the potential found-beauty in mistakes when the tape's rolling in the studio, like the sound of hands sliding down the next of a six-string. This from a woman prone to cry at the mention of the recent passing of June Carter Cash, this from a woman whose upbringing nothing short of extraordinary. Yes, being raised in a demon-dispelling household that shunned rock music in favor of speaking in tongues can make you see the world a bit differently.
DeLisle's rise is one to covet. She already has one acclaimed effort in Homewrecker , her second album but first with substantial distribution. She has a team of artistic compatriots in former Lone Justice member Etzioni and in Hammond -- known in various quarters as either an Old 97 or as DeLisle's husband, if not both -- who travel a like-minded creative space. And she has a day job (she's one of the most sought after voice-over actresses in Los Angeles; if you have a child who watches PBS Kids, Nickelodeon or Noggin, DeLisle has likely been a frequent guest in your household) to fund a music career that comprises her own, unbending vision with soul-soothing amounts of autonomy and passion. MoMZine editor Neal Weiss hears her sermon.
MoMZine: So, you did a live album because you could?
DeLisle: Exactly. And I really did think about it like, "This is the last time you're gonna be able to do something like this, so just go for it." Also, we've come to a really neat place with the band. I just kinda wanted to capture the spirit of what we sound like right now because everybody in the band is really excited about playing. We don't hate each other yet [laughs].
MoMZine: Any particular live albums you're a fan of?
DeLisle: Cheap Trick's Live At Budokan, I played that over and over.
MoMZine: Recently?
DeLisle: No, when I was a kid. Actually, when we were mixing the live record, I kept telling Murry, I didn't realize live records were edited. We played about 17 songs and he said, "We'll just pick the best 10." I said, "Oh, you mean live records, they change things?" In our defense, we didn't overdub anything, we did not change any vocals, we worked with exactly what we had. That's the way we work. Having a live record for us wasn't that different from doing a regular record because we don't fix anything. There are no computers involved, it all goes to tape, it's all on vintage equipment. And we just play and play and play.
MoMZine: That explains the moment on the live version of "Homewrecker," where you come in too early with the verse coming out of the lead, singing, "Now I'm a woman."
DeLisle: Yes. Marvin wanted to call the record Now I'm A Woman, when we were mixing but we already had all the art done. Marvin, he's such a great mandolin player and he's got such a great energy on stage and he gets a little carried away. And no matter what we rehearse it's like, "Marvin's over there doing his thing, I'm gonna let him do it." But I kind of was ready to sing again [laughs]. So yeah, I did come in a little early. We kept it.
MoMZine: Talk about the experience of performing live, is it something you enjoy?
DeLisle: Oh yeah… It's actually scares me to death. And people don't understand that because they say, "Don't you make your living as an actress in the day time?" The thing is about music that scares me is that I'm not acting, it's me. And so there's no character protecting me from the audience. I thought I was gonna throw up the first time we had to play… and I just thought, "OK, you need to just act like you don't care and that you're really excited about playing and you're just a bad ass" [laughs]. So the feeling people get [from watching me perform] is "Oh, she's mean!" because I have this look on my face like I'm ready to kick somebody's ass…But I really love it now. I just decided, "I'm gonna sing this song like the character in this song." And that makes me feel really safe and empowered. So I use that a lot. So, now I love it.
MoMZine: What about that particular night do you recall heading into it?
DeLisle: We were in the studio doing the new Sugar Hill record. The studio's our living room. We'd been recording all week and then that day we recorded in the morning and then we packed up our gear and went down to the club. It was pretty hectic because they were doing a DVD which, of course, there's that added element of "Oh no people can see me. This is for posterity. Forever." So I tried to forget that. Actually when I start performing, I don't even know who's there, I don't even know what happened. I remember afterward thinking, "Did the photographer take pictures?" And people are like, "Didn't you see all the flashbulbs going off in your face?" I'm just so in whatever I'm doing that after I get off stage I feel like I woke up. I want to know all about what happened. It was interesting looking at some of the footage because I don't really remember any of it. It's like getting married every night [laughs].
I just remember coming in a haze and we didn't get to soundcheck all the way because people started trickling in to try to get there early, which was exciting because it's still hard for me to get used to people actually coming to my shows. I'm used to being the girl with the flier going, "Please come to my show. It's free, with free beer." So that was interesting. And it's the first time anybody's ever asked for an autograph. It was very strange. And it might have been because Murry was there. But Murry says, "You can't keep giving me credit for that, it's not really [about] me."
MoMZine: And how do you feel about that particular gig, in retrospect?
DeLisle: I feel like I was able to let go of the fact that it was being recorded and let go of the fact that it was being filmed and just be there, enjoying it and being in the moment. That's mostly what I struggle with, being present, and I think it went pretty well.
MoMZine: Do you count any artists as particularly influential on your approach to playing live?
DeLisle: I have not seen a lot of live shows. I grew up Pentecostal, so I was very sheltered and wasn't allowed to cut my hair or wear any makeup or wear pants, so it's big deal for me to be wearing pants [laughs], let along going to rock shows. I think the Old 97s was one of the first bands I ever saw live. Strange that I actually ended up marrying Murry. I saw some rock shows at the Del Mar Fair, but still to this day I have not seen very many people perform. So that was another scary thing for me when Marvin said, "OK, now we've got this thing going, you've got to go out and show people what we're doing." Which I was excited about but I was also really scared because I thought, "Well, what do you do? What do you do with your hands?"…I didn't know what to do with my hands, I didn't know where to look…it was just very, very frightening. But I think once you see it done, you think, "Oh, OK, I can do that. At least I know that it's possible."
But I was just so sheltered. I mean, I was able to listen to music growing up, only because friends would give me little bootleg copies. I remember my friend made me a Lone Justice bootleg -- it's so funny that all these influences kinda came together -- and it had a little bit of X on it, More Fun In The New World. And I remember not knowing who the bands were because there was no writing on it or anything. I didn't see a lot of performances so I don't think I had an influence. I saw Tom Waits when I was 23. I'd say that was one of my major influences because it was so theatrical and I could relate to that, growing up in the theater. And I've been in plays since I was five.
MoMZine: So, Waits was the first show that really had an impact on you?
DeLisle: That I really took in. Aside from the Gap Band at the fair. [Waits] was really acting everything out. I didn't even have his record [Mule Variations] , I didn't even know what songs he was playing, I wasn't familiar with him at all. But I knew he was from San Diego, which is where I was from, and my friends said, "Oh, you'll love this, it's like theater." I think I try to capture a theater feel when I perform.
MoMZine: Bootlegger has a wide range of covers, including Elvis Presley's "That's Alright Mama," the Carter Family's "My Dixie Darling," and the Beach Boys' "Don't Worry Baby." Knowing your interest in country music, "Don't Worry Baby" seems the most surprising.
DeLisle: My mother sang in a Beach Boys cover band, so I know every Beach Boys song ever.
MoMZine: So, the Beach Boys passed the Pentecostal test growing up?
DeLisle: Let me explain my growing up. My mom was a musician. She was a really great singer, but she was also, hand in hand, a drug addict and an alcoholic. Then she got saved when I was about 10. So that's where the Pentecostal thing comes in. So, I think that that rock 'n' roll seed was planted early on. And then my dad was a complete Hank Williams/George Jones fan, so I listened that that when I'd visit him. They divorced when I was two.
MoMZine: Your mom sang professionally?
DeLisle: Yeah, she was in a lot of bands and she recorded, and my grandmother sang with Tito Puente, she was a really major Latin singer, and that's why I like to do Spanish songs on my records, because she taught me so much growing up, a lot of the boleros she used to sing. But both of them were stopped from doing it by either having babies or getting married. When I was marrying Murry they said, "Don't do that, don't let him take your music away from you because when you marry a man you have to give that up." And he's been nothing but [supportive]. It's actually opened up a good door to being able to do more.
But my mom had been in a band that actually had a hit in the '70s, I don't remember what their name was. But they auditioned people in New York, Chicago, LA, Las Vegas, and my mom drove up to LA and auditioned and of all those girls they picked my mom and they called her to tell her and she said, "Oh, I'm marrying George," which is my dad, "and I'm not gonna do it." My grandmother was so upset with her.
MoMZine: Your music tends to be very intense, is it fair to say that your strict upbringing held inform the approach?
DeLisle: Yeah. And also that church is so theatrical. Speaking in tongues every day, casting out demons. I mean, my parents cast out demons in our living room, it's pretty intense. And it's funny because people think you probably shove religion down a hole after an experience like that. But Murry and I go to church every Sunday, Murry teaches Sunday school part-time, and we sing a lot at church. But we're human beings and we have dark places like everybody else and I'm not on any high horse about anything. It really is still a big part of my life, although I would never go to a church like that again. The music's beautiful. Those churches don't let in a lot of that contemporary Christian music that we all know and hate. And the Carter Family was so accepted because it was so gospel-driven.
MoMZine: You talk a lot about artistic independence, so what made you decide to align with Sugar Hill?
DeLisle: I didn't even shop. I didn't even send it out. The whole concept to me seems kind of weird, especially demos. When people do demos and then shop them, I'm just like, "Why don't you just make a record? Are you waiting for someone to tell you to create art?" It's sort of sad and it kind of puts you in this mentality of, "Please, sir, may I have some more?" So, I was just gonna make records [on my own] forever. I wasn't really concerned with a label. But Sugar Hill contacted me, and they said, "Why don't you just come down and meet with us?" They just seemed so family-oriented and with a down-home kind of spirit and it wasn't like some man in a suit saying, "We're gonna make you famous." Which is exactly what I don't want. I really love things on the small level and I just feel like you have more control just because you're not feeding some beast of fame. And they were just so nice, that I just thought, "Well, if I ever go with a company I guess it would be a company like this." And they made me such a nice offer and really promised me that I'd have as much control as I wanted. It's the only company I ever talked to. I think they were surprised when I said, "OK, let's do it." And they said, "Are you gonna be looking at other labels?" And I said, "No, I'm just gonna go with you guys." It feels good to surprise people and act in a decent way because that doesn't happen very often in the music business.
MoMZine: Sugar Hill will put out The Graceful Ghost next spring. How would you describe it?
DeLisle: It's really small. The basic sound is Murry on acoustic guitar, Marvin on mandolin and also on some acoustic guitar, me on autoharp, Greg Leisz on steel, and Sheldon Gomberg on bass. He's an amazing bass player. He played this 80-year old bass. He plays with Ryan Adams, Ricki Lee Jones and Joni Mitchell. And that was it. I wouldn't let anybody plug anything in. I didn't want any drums. Marvin thought maybe it would sound better with [Greg playing] steel guitar plugged in. And I said, "I just can't. He's gonna have to play the Dobro or something."
MoMZine: It's entirely acoustic? Why is that important to you?
DeLisle: I just wanted to sound like we're doing it at home. We just hung vintage microphones around the house and had a real ambient sound to it. I wanted it to sound like we taught ourselves to play out on a porch somewhere, [like] we haven't had much contact with anyone else. If you feel like doing something, just do it, don't worry about what it's gonna sound like. I'm not gonna worry about the notes, I'm just gonna worry about the feeling behind it. Sometimes it sounds pretty even when it's off-key.
MoMZine: Homewrecker was a fairly eclectic effort. Is The Grateful Ghost similar in that respect?
DeLisle: I guess the biggest comparison I can make is the Carter Family, I mean, that's been the center for me since as far back as I can remember. It comes from such a pure place and if you can't relate to that then, I don't know what to say. I'm actually thinking of dedicating it to June Carter because when she passed it was just so devastating for me. I just was weeping. It was awful. I felt like part of my family died.
MoMZine: So will people tag it as retro?
DeLisle: It is retro in some respects but it's also something brand new. I try to make it something that's not retro at all. But I do get the retro tag a lot because so much of my influence comes from so long ago. I don't really know about anything that happened after, like, 1975. I really feel like I've been in a vacuum since then. A couple things from the '80s, like X, only from friends, because I was so restricted to what I could listen to growing up. I mean, if it had any sort of racy anything on it, it was burned. I remember I bought a Depeche Mode CD, maybe it's best this happened, and my parents burned it, along with my Marilyn Monroe poster. They had a little bonfire, they said the devil's in that, we can't have that in the house. Same thing happened to the Cure. I was saved from bad '80s music, I guess. I was saved in more than one way.
MoMZine: Of all these experiences in your past, is there one in particular that you feel is the most profound moment to you with regard to music you now make?
DeLisle: I dream a lot of my songs and I have to wake up and write them down. And that just started happening all of the sudden. I wrote a song called "Buckle Shoes" when I was five. It was horrible. It was a rip-off of "King Of The Road." I didn't realize it was a rip-off but it was blatant. And then, until I was like 21, I never wrote songs again. And then all the sudden I just started having these really vivid, lyrical dreams and I could not keep sleeping, I had to get up and write them down or sing them into my phone recorder. For this new record, Murry actually put a tape recorder to my mouth when I was sleeping because I was singing a song. We thought maybe it's a real song, maybe I'd heard it somewhere, but I hadn't. I don't know, it's sort of mystical and spooky and goofy but I guess it all started when I started dreaming these songs and they wouldn't let me sleep…I used to say that to Murry, "This little song just keeps tapping me on the shoulder and it will not leave me alone until I write it down."
