Popcorn Youth: What were some of your very first inspirations in music?
Alison Russell: Well, my father knew about a lot of different types of music. I just knew a lot of very musical people. My Aunt Janet is a beautiful songwriter. Everyone sings, and I learned a lot of old Scottish murder ballads from my grandmother and I love that stuff. Of course, she was a staunch Scottish Presbyterian her entire life, and she played the piano and accompanied music and she sang. So people played instruments and sang around me while I was growing up.
I didn’t hear a lot of the more “popular music” until my later teens, actually. But maybe that’s a good thing because I came to it with fresher ears. But, of course, inevitably you hear a certain amount of “whatever” on the radio and in stores and elevators and that kind of thing. When I discovered Benny Goodman and Sydney Bechet it really jazzed me up. I got very excited by that music. When I was about 14, I had a friend get me this tape, a limited run issue from the Library of Congress, a compilation of early race recordings, particularly women singers, very obscure singers. And that just blew my mind, that tape, women singing about their daily hardships. And it really rang true with me.
Popcorn Youth: Do you ever encounter people who are surprised that you are an all-female band?
Alison Russell: I think it’s always been common. But, like most professions, it has been male dominated all these years. (Laughs) But that doesn’t mean that women weren’t making music! We were always making music; we just didn’t have the pop form and the money being put into it like male artists did. But um, still, my God, some of the questions we get asked! And I know people don’t mean harm, but literally questions like, “How do you tell the difference between girl bands?” and I’m like, “Are you joking, are you for real?” (Laughs) They don’t even realize the latent misogyny inherent in a question like that. It doesn’t occur to them that that’s a really strange thing to ask. (Laughs)
And it’s an interesting thing, people say, “Oh, it’s a gimmick,” but you don’t say that if it’s an all-male [band]. And John [Raham, their percussionist and producer] is definitely a boy. It’s not like, “Oh, you have to be a girl to play in our band.” It just so happens that the four of us connect strongly on a personal and musical level. And that’s three-quarters of being a touring band and keeping it going if you can: being able to get along with each other for long stints in less than ideal circumstances, in compromised circumstances. (Laughs) And it’s like, forget about it, so many amazing bands musically just crash and burn because they can’t stand each other after a while. We’ve been really lucky. We’re all from really different backgrounds but with some commonalities.
We’ve all had pretty troubled early childhoods, and left home very early, around 14 or 15. And each of us have found music or music found us, and it’s become protection, in a way, from other things that could have happened. So we just play music, and that’s been the calling for all of us since then.
Popcorn Youth: Can you talk about the creative process when you guys writing songs?
Alison Russell: There’s a lot of cowrites on the new album, but we also write individually. But even when we do write songs individually, putting them together is definitely a very collaborative process. Everyone’s songs change — the versions you hear in Po’ Girl might be drastically different than if you heard them on their own or in different projects. So they really take on the character of the band; that sort of magical alchemy that happens when you get a bunch of copasetic people together. Stuff happens that you couldn’t do individually.
Popcorn Youth: So everyone is involved in side projects?
Alison Russell: We’re all involved in other projects. Trish just released an album with her other band, the Be Good Tanyas, and John Raham also plays with that group, so they’ve been busy doing that as well. Diona just recorded a gorgeous album with Carolyn and Jeff Burner and tours extensively with them as well. Awna and myself have another project that we formed called Salt and we’re getting ready to release our first full length album in the UK in September. So there’s a little month and a half window with the Po’ Girl tour. So we all keep ourselves really really busy and I think that also helps keep all of us creatively inspired and not take any one project for granted, you know?
Popcorn Youth: So can you talk a little about the guest appearances on “Home to You”?
Allison Russell: Absolutely. A lot are from our musical community. Chris Brown and Kate Fenner are ongoing musical collaborators, and CR Avery is an ongoing musical partner too. We actually recorded two tracks with Chris Brown. “‘Til It’s Gone” is a beautiful song written by our friend Jeremy, one of the only two covers on the album, and “Home to You,” which Diona Davies and I wrote together. We wrote and recorded that all together at Chris’ palce in Brooklyn, and it was just such a great experience, having Chris’ keys on there, and Kate sang. She’s one of my favorite singers in the world.
And Shawn Brody, who we met in Vancouver, but has since relocated to Toronto, he’s a wonderful multi-instrumentalist who plays with a lot of different people — Roger Dean Young, and The Hidden Cameras, and they’re all very different. But he’s wonderful. He plays the trumpet and guitar and accordion and sings beautifully. So I’m sure you’ll see him popping up all over the place as well.
Popcorn Youth: So what was the purpose of having so many guest artists? To expand the Po’ Girl sound?
Allison Russell: I think it’s just what happened naturally. Our group of friends are all writers and musicians for the most part, and when we’re traveling that’s the way that we socialize, really, is hanging out and playing music. So it’s a natural thing to have friends that we collaborate with to agree to play on the album.
At the same time, this album is very much the band’s sound. The guests provide lovely embellishments and textures, but it’s really the band’s sound. For the last two years, we’ve been a stable five-piece lineup, and I think that’s really captured on the album — this live sound that we’ve captured touring. And we try to not get overly cerebral and studio-y. We recorded a lot of the album live, all together, through analog tape, just to really keep true to the sound that we actually have playing live. We weren’t trying to do any wild studio concept albums. (Laughs)
Popcorn Youth: So you were involved in the production process from the beginning until the end?
Allison Russell: Oh yes, very much so. It was very much a group effort with John Raham, our drummer, who is also a wonderful engineer. A good friend of ours Graham Brown did the mastering. And at that point we needed an external pair of ears (laughs), because we were too close to get any perspective.
Popcorn Youth: How would you describe your audience?
Allison Russell: I’ve found that there’s no common factor, other than they like music. (Laughs) And I’m happy with the diversity of our audience. We’ve had 88 year-old grannies show up with their entire families. (Laughs) And we’ve had 20-something transgendered anarchist punks show up at the show, too. (Laughs)
(Pauses) My bandmates are laughing at me because they’re all just now waking up and wandering around not really clothed. (Laughs) I have a towel on … anyway. It’s laundry day and we’re all very excited that we’re going to have a
chance to do laundry today.