There’s A Song In Everything: An Interview with Lo Carmen

Photo: Katerina Stratos


                       
​                   There are voices that we all know, iconic cadences, and then there are vocal hauntings, sounds of a life that has gone up against the ropes. In an alternative universe where Marianne Faithful and Hope Sandoval are leads in The Highwaywomen, in our reality, Lo Carmen steps in with such raw musical authenticity we shake and shiver at the sounds pouring out of a spooked jukebox in a bar just off the highway. Sometimes dreamy and light, like heat hallucinations in the desert, sometimes disquieting, as even the darkest country songs are also frightful warning shots of a wrong turn ahead on the long road of life. "I’ve learned that the harder something seems," says Carmen, the better the song you’ll probably get out of it. There’s a song in everything if you look hard enough." Lo's new album,  Lovers Dreamers Fighters, which releases today, was recorded at Nashville's Welcome to 1979 and The Butcher Shoppe studios. Featuring a duet with Bonnie "Prince" Billy along with an impressive all-star line up of musicians, "it was the perfect place to make this album," says Carmen, "with the perfect people to bring it to life. I was just trying to keep the smile off my face at how every song was sounding exactly how I dreamed it would." Here Lo talks about the new album and her life in music which has taught her, perhaps most poignantly that "there’s room for everyone in the world, no matter what it is you’re trying to bring into it." These songs, like the best of friends, "will always lend an ear to what you have to say." 



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? 
 
Lo: The writing of the songs, the recording and performing are the highs for sure, and they feel like catching up with old friends now. I have made enough records to understand that each one is a cycle from the beginning of the first tune to the end of the promotion, each part is as important as the other, even the tedious, non-creative parts, and each album is unique. I’ve learned that the harder something seems, the better the song you’ll probably get out of it. That there’s a song in everything if you look hard enough.
 
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?
 
Lo: My dad was always in bands, he was musical director of a revolving country band that had over 100 members fly in and out, and he was also a solo piano bar artist, with a studio at home or nearby –so he was always working on something. Most of our family friends were musicians. Kids were welcome and running around at most venues. I was always a night owl, obsessed with going to the gigs, I loved the behind the scenes stuff, learning the songs, reading through and organizing the lyric folders, wrapping leads, listening and watching the bands. I always loved chatting to the musicians. Not much has changed. I would literally just go to sleep beneath my dad’s piano when I got tired and then wake up for the after-show party! I can still go to sleep leaning against a speaker.
 
AHC: Do you remember the first song that you ever wrote or played? Or that first moment when you picked up a pen and realized that you could create whole worlds just by putting it to paper?
 
Lo: I wrote a little number called “I’m a Pyromaniac” about age 6, that used to get me a lot of attention and laughs which I thought was pretty good. I remember making myself cry with a serious weeper I half-wrote around ten years old called “Forever In Your Eyes”. I think it was about someone knowing they were dying, and telling their lover they’d live on “forever in your eyes”. I also quite quickly realized that I’d be mortified if anyone ever read the lyrics. My first acceptable song was called “Up”, about the same age. I was lucky enough to grow up in an incredibly creative environment, where my dad worked out what the chords were that I was trying to sing and then a famous local musician, Barry McAskill, allowed me to perform the song with his guitar accompaniment, emerging from under his star spangled magician’s cape at a huge, wild New Year’s Eve party.
 
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? 
 
Lo: I guess for me it’s just in a turn of phrase that catches something in a different light. I can’t be bothered writing anything that doesn’t give me a little thrill.
 
AHC: Do you consider music to be a type of healing art, a slightly imperfect vehicle through which to translate a feeling, states 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?
 
Lo: Sometimes I need a song more than it needs to be written. Seeing the world through the prism of a song always helps me in ways I didn’t know I needed. Songs make more sense to me than the world does, let’s put it that way.
 
AHC: What are your fondest musical memories? In your house? In your neighborhood or town? On-tour, on-the-road?

Lo: A life of making music does tend to bring a million frozen moments of surreal beauty. I remember getting ready for my first show in New York, gigging for the first time with Jim White (drummer extraordinaire, currently of Xylouris White, Dirty Three and The Double) whose playing I’ve always been totally awestruck by. We rehearsed at Marc Ribot’s kitchen table, who I’m also a huge admirer of, Jim using knives and forks for drumsticks and me playing an unplugged rather out of tune electric guitar. Somehow that turned out to be super special, one of my favorite musical moments.
 
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?
 
Lo: I try to avoid the world mostly. It’s a pretty sad place! I prefer to attempt to illuminate secret and beautiful things.
 
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?
 
Lo: I just believe that there’s room for everyone in the world, no matter what it is you’re trying to bring into it. If you are excited and fulfilled by what you’re doing, there’s no point in listening to anyone else’s opinion about it, especially if they are trying to mold you into something more like something else that has gone before. My favorite words to live by come courtesy of Waylon Jennings “There’s always one more way to do it, and that’s your way”. My other little mantra is just to do at least one productive thing for your music every day, no matter how small.
 
AHC: Your new record, Lovers Dreamers Fighters, which is just now releasing, features an impressive lineup of musicians, including a duet with Bonnie "Prince" Billy. What was it like to work with this line up and to fill the studio with so much incredible talent in collaboration of bringing your vision to fruition?  Could you explore for us some of your ideas behind this record, its message and appeal to the world?
 
Lo: With this album I wanted to explore love in all its forms and shades, I tried to write about it from all kinds of angles and corners. I wanted it to feel exhilarating and comforting and tender and magical, like one of those old records you turn to when you want to create a certain mood.  I’ve felt a pull towards the Nashville sound ever since I can remember, and it was the perfect place to make this album, with the perfect people to bring it to life. Although there was a lot of preparation before it, the actual recording was quite effortless and dreamy and I was mainly just trying to keep the smile off my face at how every song was sounding exactly how I dreamed it would as I bashed away alone creating the songs with my very basic guitar skills, letting my imagination fill in the rest. When the girls came in to sing their backing parts I was very choked up by how beautiful they sounded and how very lucky I was to have been able to make a record that sounded exactly how I wanted it to sound.


Visit www.locarmenmusic.com/ for more.
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