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Interview: Rachael Yamagata sinks her teeth into music
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Rachael Yamagata (c: Word Press)
A few rounds of heartbreak … a broken wrist … eight stitches … a blown-out eardrum … and label realignment. It wasn’t easy getting here for Rachael Yamagata.
Touted as a music hybrid of Norah Jones and Damien Rice, Rachael recently released Elephants and Teeth Sinking Into Heart, a single record in two parts, to outstanding applause. And whilst she has been on the public radar for three years now, her recent success in providing music for many television shows, including How I Met Your Mother, Nip/Tuck, One Tree Hill, Brothers & Sisters, ER, and The O.C., (on which she made a guest performance), is ensuring that she will be around for quite some time.
Rachel talks to The Examiner during her US Tour. Check her out in San Francisco on November 17 at The Great American Music Hall.
Why did you decided to release your recent album in two parts?
It wasn’t a conscious decision to split it – it happened when we were going through the mixing stages and I didn’t even know if it was a good idea at the time. I think it came more from not wanting to put on an average show. I love heart-wrenching ballads but I also wanted to write guitar-based songs that I really envisaged playing in front of raucous crowds!
It has been said that Elephants is much darker than Teeth Sinking Into Heart. What provided the inspiration for both styles?
They both kind of came from the same place. They are a projection of the flirtation of being in the public eye. Your time is no longer only your time. It’s shared with like ten other people with different things for you to do. I wrote this album in Woodstock and I was very much quarantined from life in general so I could tap into that feeling. The difference in the albums came from wanting to perform well in front of people – to make it more interesting.
What is your writing process? Do you lock yourself away somewhere secluded, do you go on holiday – what makes your creative juices flow?
I have to be away from distraction. I am very prone to procrastinating. I literally almost have to be where there is nothing around. Otherwise I’ll check email, read a book, rearrange furniture – there will be 8000 things I could be doing other than writing. I work best at four in the morning when nobody else is awake. I need to be very isolated.
You’ve been touted as a musical hybrid of Norah Jones meets Damien Rice. How do you react to such a statement?
I guess it’s weird for me because I’ve been writing songs for such a long time it’s weird to have comparisons made of me when we were all probably writing and recording these songs at the same time. I am sure they both wrote long before their albums came out. Mine just took a little longer to get together! I love both of them as artists though so ultimately, I take it as a compliment.
It’s pretty hard to define your genre. How would you describe it?
I agree – it’s so hard to define it. People always ask me what or who has influenced me and I would say everyone from Stevie Nicks to Carole King. Their songs are so poignant and heartbreaking. Jeff Buckley, the way he writes or he did write. There is so much drama and texture - but it follows the guitar. He really starts off softly in a different place, then it can become an explosive rock song. Stevie Wonder does this thing where he takes you in a completely different direction to the one you expect when the song starts. There are all these things that I pick up on and think ‘that’s a great idea’. Writing is piece-meal, it comes from all over the place so it’s natural that when you put it together, it can combine lots of different musical elements. When I write, hopefully it’s coming from something organic in me.
You’ve said that you sometimes worry that analyzing heartache in your songwriting is too often mistaken as depressed obsession…can you elaborate?
What I write is very internal. I am writing from a place of hopefulness that maybe showcases alleviation of heartbreak. I think sometimes people assume I must be depressed, or obsessed with heartbreak and I guess in a way I am, but it’s never because I think that’s the end of it all. I always say it’s like a doctor studying a disease. You have to ‘love’ it, or be fascinated by it, in order to find a cure. The point is you don’t dwell on it, but you try to solve it – which makes you passionate about the subject. Being in the public eye, people see what I put out and expect that to be me.
Is there one song from the album that is most meaningful to you?
I think Elephants has special meaning because it was the first strange song in the way it came about. It’s more like a poem for me and I don’t write poetry. It has all this imagery in it and I don’t really use imagery. So it was a real learning process – a job well done! I am drawn to the song because it feels magical to me.
You have a song called ‘Sunday Afternoon’. You said during a show once that it’s about letting go of something that’s probably bad for you. What do you mean by that?
I wrote that song right after I finished recording my first record so it was too late to include it. The lyric is really about allowing yourself time to grieve but not to a point where it takes over your life. So it’s almost like, ‘ok, I am grieving and it’s painful but I will only let myself grieve at certain time so I can move on, I will only grieve on Sunday afternoon’. To me there is always so much nostalgia associated with Sunday afternoons. Even when I was in school, you’re letting go of the weekend. You want to soak it up for all it’s worth but there’s a bit of sadness too because you realize it’s back to work tomorrow. There’s something romantic to me about that time of day. I like it to be the day to heal and reflect without letting it invade your week.
So what IS your favourite way to spend a Sunday afternoon?
Definitely curled up with a warm blanket and a book by the fire - with a glass of red wine!
**If you enjoyed this interview, check out: Getting Down and Dirty with Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard
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