The Healer's Path: An Interview with Singer-Songwriter Rorie Kelly

            There are times when life can feel like such a solo journey. The world keeps giving us more than we can process in a thousand and one sittings. We don't know what to do with it all most of the time. It's a lot. And who among us can possibly bear it all alone? Music tends to put down anchor in the midst of all that. A good song cuts through and to the quick of us, hand to shoulder, a voice in the dark, singing out, it seems, just to us. As Jimmy Dale Gilmore puts it "Music is communication, so it's community. The next little stretch from that is it's love." Maybe every song, then, is a love song, a community song, a gathering song. "I make music for people who don’t feel like they fit," Rorie Kelly says. Describing her sound as "ladybeast music", her songs strive to be shadow-workings of "the sides of ourselves that we have tried to mute and push down in order to assimilate in a world that does not always understand us," Kelly says. Adding; "Sometimes, you gotta own your power and show up for yourself when the world doesn’t seem to want to step up and help you out." Not fitting in can be painful, but it can also reveal to us an awful lot about ourselves that we'd come to know no other way, or as completely, than we do when we find ourselves riding long stretches' of our life's road alone. We find "our others" in such wildernesses, and eventually community forms around the edges of the soul's town. Real-deal community. When done from the heart, the work we do feels less like work and more like a form of immanent worship, or alchemy. We do heal up eventually. And never alone. Rorie took some time to talk with us recently about her approach to music, healing, and creating that common artistic ground, where those who feel like they don't belong, find that they do. 



AHC:  What has this journey in music, so far, been like for you, the highs and the lows, and what life lessons do you feel you've picked up along the way?

Rorie Kelly: Well a big lesson I have learned is that if you’re really following your dreams and putting in your best effort, it’s supposed to feel like an emotional rollercoaster ride. That’s just what it’s like to be deeply committed and all in. I’ve had to unlearn the idea that there’s going to be some finish line where I feel beautifully balanced and stable. Growth is chaotic! It does not happen in a linear fashion. So when I feel a little bit like I might lose my mind over whether something I’m doing is a success, I remind myself that that’s a sign I’m on the right track — it means I’m putting myself out there 100% and that puts me in a vulnerable place, honestly!

The other thing I’ve learned is that my job as a musician is not to be an entertainer, but a healer. I love to make people happy and give them something to dance to or belt along with in the car. But I’m not doing my job right as a songwriter if the only thing people get out of hearing my music is a fun time. Music touches our souls. There are specific songs and albums I listen to when I’m going through a very difficult time, because I know they will take me through the emotional journey I need to go on and put me back together. It’s not about distraction. Music will take you right into the heart of the difficult thing you’re going through. But the magic of art is that it can take us right to the middle of our most challenging emotions — and make it be OK. It doesn’t fix what you’re going through but it makes you feel seen, validated, understandable. It lets you know that your feelings matter and you’re not alone in them. That’s the most powerful healing magic I can think of and that’s why I do this.

AHC: What first drew you to music and what was your early musical environment like growing up? Were there pivotal songs for you then that just floored you the moment you heard them? Which musicians, throughout the years, have you learned the most from? Or writers, artists, filmmakers, teachers/mentors etc? 

RK: Both my mom and my dad were/are musicians. It was a blessing to grow up in a musical household, although the tricky side of that was feeling like I needed space to find my own voice instead of being a carbon copy of either of my parents. When I decided to get serious about playing guitar and songwriting, I hid the guitar I was using to teach myself behind a chair. I didn’t want my parents to hear it until I had already made some progress! And I needed room to make my own music in my own way. When your parents do something at an incredibly high level it can feel like a lot of pressure to be perfect right away. So, I think keeping my music to myself for a while at first was a way that I intuitively gave myself that space to be imperfect and grow.

Singer/songwriters have always been my hugest inspiration — Shawn Colvin’s song “Sunny Came Home” was the one that hit me at a magic moment and made me realize “I have to learn how to do this.” Later on I discovered Joni Mitchell, Alanis Morisette, Fiona Apple, Rufus Wainwright. Seeing these incredible musicians who used their songwriting as almost a journal was incredibly powerful to me. It made me feel like what I was going through mattered. It felt more intimate to me than a three minute bubblegum pop tune, although I do love pop music and think it’s a really cool and legit art form. But for me, digging deep and being able to get honest and weird and raw through songwriting is where it’s at.

AHC: What do you think makes for a good song, as you're writing and composing, is there a sudden moment when you know you've found the right mix, that perfect angle of light, so to speak? 

RC: Very subjectively - for me an amazing song has lyrics that hit me emotionally and aren’t too trite or obvious. Musically, I want it to be an earworm in some way — whether it’s in your face and hooky or a slow and introspective melody that sneaks up on you. I don’t always know what’s going to move people. I know what moves me, but frankly I wouldn’t be writing a song if I weren’t already moved by something. More than once I have written something I don’t consider to be that amazing artistically — but then it becomes a song that people request again and again. All I know is I’ve got to keep writing for my own sanity, and keep hoping that what comes out of me resonates with people.

AHC: Do you consider music to be a type of healing art, the perfect vehicle through which to translate a feeling, a state of rupture/rapture, hope lost and regained? Does the writing and creating of the song save you in the kinds of ways that it saves us, the listener?  

RC: Yessss. This is so beautifully put. Honestly, music has saved my life so many times. It’s lanced a wound and allowed me to cry when I needed to, it’s given me hope to go on when I could not find that hope within myself. I very seriously believe that there’s an alchemy thing that happens when we create art — where the act of creating, turns our pain into healing, for ourselves and others. It’s straight up magick in my opinion.

AHC: What are your fondest musical memories? In your house? In your neighborhood or town? On-tour, on-the-road?

RC: Well, my dad is my recording partner and what’s wonderful is every week I meet up with him and get to make really special art with someone I love. Those are memories that keep getting created week after week. He’s also family, so we regularly make jokes at each other’s expense. When I first wrote If You Teach a Bird to Sing, which later became a big fan favorite, I sent it to him and his one line text reply was “If I was a bird, and some dummy thought I needed flying lessons, I’d fly away too.” It made me laugh, it’s nice to not have to take things so seriously all the time.

AHC: When you set out to write a song, how much does 'where the world is' in its current moment, culturally, politically, otherwise, influence the kinds of stories you set out to tell?

RC: A LOT. I sometimes joke that I’m a social justice bard. I wrote a song called “Alternative Facts” early in 2016 and I put it out as quickly as I could. I really wanted to put a voice out there reminding people that women matter and deserve to be treated with respect, at a time when our highest elected official was making misogynistic statements left and right. And I wanted it to be a little bit funny, because it’s a heavy topic and I think people need to be able to approach it with humor — it feels a little less overwhelming if we can talk honestly about it, but in a lighthearted way. 

AHC: Do you have any words of advice or encouragement for other musicians and singer-songwriters out there who are just starting out and trying to find their voice and their way in this world? What are the kinds of things that you tell yourself when you begin to have doubts or are struggling with the creative process? Or what kinds of things have others told you that have helped push you past moments of self doubt/creative blocks?

RC: For starters it’s really important to me that other aspiring musicians know that this absolutely is something you can make a living at, and you don’t have to be super famous for that to happen. A lot of people seem to have the idea that an artist can either be, like, Beyoncé-level famous, or starving and living in their parents’ basement. It’s really important to me to let other artists know that there is a WORLD of possibility in between those two extremes — and a sustainable career in music is more possible than ever now that we have access to put ourselves and our music out into the world without the help of a label. Middle class musicians, who don’t have day jobs, exist. I am one. It’s possible. It’s important to me to share this every chance I get — because I had to UNlearn a lot of pervasive and limiting ideas in order to find any kind of success. 

I also want people to know that there is an audience for the music that’s in your heart. You don’t have to try to make everyone happy and you shouldn’t even try. You should make art that pleases you. You should strive to keep leveling up your craft to your own satisfaction — and you need to know that if you were moved enough to write it, someone else will be moved by hearing it. Your goal as an artist is to find the people who need music like yours. I promise you they’re out there.

AHC: You're working on your new album at the moment, which you say is about, in part, shadow work; the things inside ourselves that we sometimes hide for fear of what the world will make of us if we reveal our deepest, rawest self. Could you talk some about this record and your hopes for where all of this lands? 

RC: Yes, thank you for asking! Well, in 2016 I put out an album called Rising Rising Rising and I really wanted it to be an empowering album. It was about my own journey to finding my power, which was no small task — a lot of those songs are about learning how to befriend myself and show up for myself. As I’ve dug deeper I found that it was very important to me to make music about the dark stuff and the hard stuff as well. Personal growth requires that you look at yourself and your life honestly. For myself, I was at the part of my journey where growing wasn’t just about feeling empowered — it was about unraveling stuff from my past and finding a new perspective. I also look at music as a healing modality and the truth is you can’t heal someone with constant positivity. You need to honestly look at what’s hurting and what feels broken, in order to heal those things. I’m always finding that the art that heals me the most isn’t the bright uplifting stuff — it’s the songs that really get right at the heart of my pain. Those songs make me feel seen. They make me feel like my pain matters. And when I feel like I’m allowed to feel it, I can begin to heal it.

So I just started writing songs about my own journey with shadow work. What’s funny is that I knew I wanted to make this album about shadow work before 2020 — and then COVID19 came along and the circumstances of the lockdown threw everyone into shadow work whether they wanted it or not. We all had to face our fears, face parts of ourselves that maybe we had avoided by being busy and working hard. 2020 has been a year of shadow work for every person and it was not by choice! I think maybe the fact that I was already working on this album was a little bit of divine timing, or a collective unconscious thing perhaps. I’m really hoping that when this album comes out (Spring 2021), it will be just the right time for people to hear music that kind of holds their hands while they look back on what a wild journey the last 12 months were. I’m hoping it gives folks room to acknowledge and own their pain and trauma, and move through it with a little bit of grace.


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