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KGRL Exclusive Charlotte Martin 2009 Interview
The Alley Studio - 03.02.09
KGRL is very honored to have a new interview with our January 2007's Flower Powered Artist Of The Month, Charlotte Martin. The 2009 interview took place right after a very special KGRL FPA Live Session at The Alley Studio - 03.02.09.
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KGRL: Congratulations on having your baby, Ronen. How do you find the time to take care of your musical career now that you have a baby?
Charlotte Martin: That's a good question. I have very good people that work for me [and] that I work with, and I'm not working full-time. I'm working three days a week, and I have help. I have a babysitter and nanny that comes in. The good news is that I work at home most of the time so I can be with him, but that's also the bad news too because there [are] many days when I can't get away from him. Right now my head is in a space where I can actually get some work done. He's ten months old and eating food and crawling around, so he's not quite as needy of me right now, which is sad but part of life....[During] the first several months after he was born I couldn't even write a song. I was just too happy, and me writing happy songs is probably not a good idea.
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KGRL: Do you feel that you've changed the way you write music because of this?
Charlotte Martin: Yeah. I made a promise to myself way before I had Ronen, probably after I made Stromata, that I would not continue to write songs or make records if I felt that my creativity was slipping or my material was slipping, which was really a difficult promise because this is how I make my living. It was tough to swallow but I just didn't want to be somebody that puts stuff out there just to make a buck, you know. I'd rather just get another job. I never forced it after Ronen was born. I wrote a lot while I was pregnant, but funnily enough I wrote a lot for other people and not so much [for] myself.
I am not forcing it....I'm just starting to get inspired again. I mean, it's really easy to get depressed by watching the news so I'm having lots to write about right now. Now I can focus on that space, whereas before I knew I wasn't inspired and I knew I wanted to dive into being a mother. I just didn't even try, so I wouldn't write crap.
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KGRL: Rarities .5 sold out in a few hours. Just how rare is Rarities .5? How many copies were made?
Charlotte Martin: In the past we did 200 on the road. We just thought it would be really fun because I was touring so much. The idea was to release them at one show and have people try to hunt them down, because I like games. Then I wasn't touring so I wanted to release something last year, so we just released it online. This last one, Rarities .5, we actually printed 300 [of]. I wanted to hold some back for every show, and make some available to the people online.
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KGRL: How many more Rarities CDs are you planning to do?
Charlotte Martin: When it's all said and done, hopefully ten. There's been talk about doing a compilation on my next tour and just having it on tour of the last five and then maybe including six on it so people can get all twelve songs at once, because I know that would really stoke people out, and then do a larger run of that so more people could have it. For as many people that like to illegally download, there's way more people that like to collect my stuff, and I think that would be really fun for them and fun for me, you know. We'll just have to figure out what's on Rarities .6.
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KGRL: Most of the fans are not able to attend shows where you sell your Rarities CDs. Luckily, Rarities .5 was made available online. Are you going to make all your future Rarities available online as well?
Charlotte Martin: I think so. I think so, especially because I'm not -- at least at the moment -- going to be doing some crazy touring. I mean there's talk of doing some stuff later this summer, but even those I'll be doing short runs [of] until the next record is done and comes out. I'm still warming up with Ronin and seeing how that dynamic is going to work, but the good news is he travels very well.
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KGRL: You mentioned touring, which is what our next question is about. How hard is it for you to tour given your current situation?
Charlotte Martin: Touring in general is really hard work. It's not glamourous and it's a whole lot of mental and physical stress to gear up for the one-hour show, and then the hour meet-and-greet. But it's worth it. It's so weird. I talk about this with my crew all the time. We just spent the last 22 hours to get to do two hours. But I know he did well in New York and he's a very adaptable little boy, and the good news is he really, really likes action. He does very well on planes. He likes new scenarios and new people. He loves people, so I think we'll be fine as long as I have good help with me. There just won't be any parties going on in my dressing room.
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KGRL: You did acoustic piano sets on those shows. In your previous shows, your set-up was more on the electronic and you were with a drummer, Fernando. Those shows feel like a rock show. Does it feel a bit weird getting back on stage and playing acoustic solo?
Charlotte Martin: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I got really used to all the bells and whistles and the electronics, especially since...I programmed more than half of [Stromata] myself in my own studio, and I love drums and I love beats and I love Fernando's playing. It's a totally different kind of performing. It's a totally different kind of performing. I was saying to you earlier, I did that one solo show in New York right in the middle of touring on Stromata, and I think I was not happy with it because it's hard for me to go back and forth. I have to be either all-electronic with my three synthesizers -- there's so much that goes into that. I'm triggering samples. I've got floor pedals. Then you've got Fern[ando] and you've got ears. It's even different how you relate to an audience because it's so much more intimate just solo. It's much more terrifying to play solo to me, much more. Even though I did it for years and years and years, it's really terrifying, you know. And it's good. I need to be uncomfortable. It makes me a better musician.
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KGRL: Do you miss having your electronic set-up?
Charlotte Martin: Well I don't miss having it set up, that's for sure, and I don't miss it crashing in small towns. I miss Fern. I miss playng with Fern, but we'll play together again. That's really the part I miss the most.
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KGRL: In our interview with you way back in 2006, you told us that the most complex songs for you to perform were: Cut The Cord, The Dance and Drip. Has that changed?
Charlotte Martin: Little Universe is pretty complex too, but The Dance is even more complex, [like] any of those songs off Stromata where I'm playing three keyboards at once in the song plus I'm mixing in two other samples, where you're actually hearing five keyboards at once. So for instance I'm playing sounds off of a computer, and then I'm mixing in the actual keyboard while I'm playing. That stuff's hard. That's the hardest stuff. I mean, it was really fun and a good challenge but it's really difficult in my book -- I have high standards -- to perform well when you've got that much going on, and it sometimes would be hard for me to actually get in the spirit of the song because I couldn't miss a trigger, or couldn't miss changing a patch at the right time. But I geared up for that.
When I started touring, I started headlining, I started solo, and then I added one keyboard on top, a virus, and then I started changing patches on the keyboard and things up here, and then I added on the next tour a virus over here. So by the time I made Stromata, I was already used to a three-keyboard setup, and changing patches in the middle of a song and playing. I could go on and on.
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KGRL: Can you tell us about your most memorable experience playing live?
Charlotte Martin: There [are] so many. Right now, the three shows I just played were quite something.
I know a good story. This was 2004 and we were ending the tour with Liz Phair and The Cardigans, and I was very sad because that was probably the most fun I've had on a tour with other people ever. I'm still friends with those people. That's when I was touring on On Your Shore and I was closing the show every night with Wild Horses. Right when I'm in the really serious part, getting ready to belt out "wild horses", three of the crew people came out on those horses with pogos, the little stick-horses with the stuffed horse at the top, and started galloping up behind me, and I don't see it. We're at the Nine-Thirty Club and I don't see it. I'm just playing and they're like sneaking up behind me and everyone's laughing. I'm like "What the hell, why are people laughing?" at the most traumatic part of the song, and they literally carried me off the stage. That would be the most memorable.
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KGRL: How is your fourth album coming along?
Charlotte Martin: Slowly. Slower than any of my other records, but that's only because I can only mentally do one thing at a time to be honest. I can either rehearse or I can write lyrics or I can write a song or I can demo, just because I have a baby. It's a different process. I'm multi-tasking for my son so I can't fully do that with music yet, but I have about fourteen songs that I like. The process we're using right now is, Ken has erased almost all of my electronics out of my studio, taken all my synths out, and he's limiting me to a certain amount of instruments to work with to see what kind of record I come up with. So we're about fourteen songs in. I'm going to finish writing it hopefully at the end of April [2009] and then we'll go in and start tracking it.
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KGRL: Can you tell us which direction you're heading for the new album?
Charlotte Martin: Definitely more stripped-down. Definitely more minimalistic....On Your Shore, even though it was acoustic, it was very big and it had a 32-piece orchestra. I think it would be a good challenge for me to be a little simpler in my production but not have it be boring, and that's hard. I get bored easily and that's why I love to layer, but I think if the songs stand out then they won't need a lot. So it's just making sure that those songs are the right songs, that they can hold their own without needing a bunch of stuff....I mean, there'll be some production. It's not going to be like a solo piano record at all but compared to Stromata it will be stripped-down, because once you make Stromata you can't add anything else. That record is everything plus the kitchen sink. Songs have 120 tracks. It's ridiculous. There's nowhere to go. I was talking to someone at work. "There's nowhere for you to go creatively except to pull back for your next record." I can't grow three other arms and play three more keyboards.
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KGRL: By being stripped-down, are you saying that there won't be any epic-sounding songs like The Dance, for the next album?
Charlotte Martin: Not true. Not true. There's a song called Language Of God that's very epic-sounding and it will still sound big. It just won't have as many things on it. It'll still sound big. I'm still into my big drums. That'll be really hard to get out of my system, the big drums.
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KGRL: Do you already have a target date for finishing the album or are you just taking it easy for now?
Charlotte Martin: I have a target date of when to finish it, and where it's released we're not quite sure yet. We don't plan to put it out on our label, so that's for the people that I work with to figure out. Yay!
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KGRL: In our 2006 interview you mentioned that you do word trees and keep a journal. Do you still do that?
Charlotte Martin: I do. I do. I'm actually very far behind, but I do. I have about nineteen journals now, where I just brainstorm ideas and then I pull from those ideas later if I'm blank, which is most of the time when I sit down. So I just like to come in prepared, and then one idea will lead to another idea. Very rarely do I have an idea like two days before. I'm going to write a song about "this" and sit down to do it. That only happens if I'm writing for somebody else. For myself...I don't even know what I'm writing about usually until the song has been played several times.
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KGRL: What music do you listen to lately? Do you listen to any new artists?
Charlotte Martin: There are. There [are] a lot of records that I listen to that I won't sound like. There's a band called M83 that I'm really, really, really into. You know I work with Tommy Walter a lot, from The Eels. He has a new project called Glacier Hiking that's really cool, and I listen to his stuff all the time, and Abandoned Pools. What else do I like to listen to? I listen to a lot of classical because I can do that in the car and my kid won't scream. I've also been listening to a lot of Neil Young and PJ Harvey.
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KGRL: Which amongst the songs you have written so far stands out as your most favorite?
Charlotte Martin: As far as new ones go, there's a song called Volcano that I really am into. As far as my old stuff goes, the things that I'm the most proud of on record are Veins [and] Something Like A Hero. That's a tough one. That's like picking favorites. The Dance for sure. The ones that I have the most creative input are my favorites because I feel like I've completely built them from top to bottom. What would another one be? As a writer, Darkest Hour. I'm really proud of that song.
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KGRL: We loved your Reproductions CD. We listed it under the best CDs of 2007. If you were to pick three new songs to cover, which would you pick?
Charlotte Martin: Well that's hard. Three new songs? What am I into right now? Maybe We Float by PJ Harvey, solo. I really like the beats on that though. That's a tough question, three new songs. I covered like 20 last time. Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper. I'm an '80s girl. Monitor by Siouxie And The Banshees. That would be cool.
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KGRL: We've seen the influx of new artists whose music get exposure from TV shows. Are you working on placing more of your music in movies and TV shows?
Charlotte Martin: I'm planning on it. We've got a few. A lot of dance shows like to use my songs, which makes sense because they're dramatic. So that's really cool that dancers like my stuff. But they've been in a few TV shows and a couple movies, but yeah I would love more. That would be great. Yay! More!
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KGRL: What can we expect from Charlotte Martin for the rest of 2009?
Charlotte Martin: At least another tour. I'm not sure if the next record will be released this year, but it will be finished. I plan on returning to the road for a spurt at the end of the summer.
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KGRL: Any last words for KGRL listeners?
Charlotte Martin: Yes, thank you for supporting female artists and female musicians and independent artists. I've had the opportunity to be both not independent and independent, and I don't think...it matters. I want to thank the station for supporting good music, quality music. Thank you to the listeners.
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Very special thanks to Charlotte Martin, Matt Solodky, Kat Sambor, and the rest of the folks at Dangerbird Management.
Photos by Jeff Koga.
Transcription was done by our good friend, Flour (E.S.).
Charlotte Martin Links:
Official Website: http://www.charlottemartin.com
MySpace Page: http://www.myspace.com/charlottemartin
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