Melissa Ferrick
She'll move you. Her live performances are both electrifying and heartbreaking and capture the essence of her music. Truth be told, Ferrick is one of folk music's best-kept secrets.
By Jennifer Miyasaki
Published: February 21st, 2003 | 12:12pm
Melissa Ferrick will move you. Her live performances are both electrifying and heartbreaking and capture the essence of her music. Truth be told, Ferrick is one of “folk” music’s best-kept secrets.
Ferrick’s energy and intensity are volcanic and unpredictable. During one song she erupts with confidence and infallibility, a bona fide, independent superhero. But as she segues into the next song, it’s as if she slips into a thinner, more transparent skin. Ferrick opens herself up and lays her most intimate thoughts and feelings on the table, inviting you to take what you want, what you need, and you will find that that is much more than you expected. By the end of it all, you won’t quite be sure of what exactly, just happened to you, but you will be certain of the fact that Melissa Ferrick has just moved you in some way and you liked it—you liked it a lot.
Ferrick is currently on tour to promote her most recent effort, Listen Hard, the third release from her own independent label, Right On Records. Listen Hard is her ninth record in a recording career that spans more than ten years.
Ferrick’s maturity and musical mastery on Listen Hard illustrates her increasingly personal, increasingly complex, songwriting style. The vulnerable, honest tracks reveal glimpses into the life of an incredibly talented singer/songwriter as she attempts to reconcile the perils of increasing fame, the insecurity of long-distance love, and simply giving herself a break.
The range and depth of both subject matter and emotion in Listen Hard run the gamut—from total defiance to total submission, from intense self-scrutiny to liberating self-love. Were you at all surprised by the cacophony of voices—of competing, contradicting emotions—that emerged while you were writing and recording this album? I don’t think I was surprised because I think that I knew that I had that in me, you know. But I think that what I was mostly afraid of—or have been afraid of in the past—is really writing what I wanted to write and thinking that anybody is going to like it. Sometimes it’s like I’m my own worst critic, and a lot of times I just will not write stuff because I think it’s silly or whatever. Or I think that nobody will care, so what’s the difference? But with Listen Hard that didn’t seem to be the case. It seems like the more I write the truth about what’s going on with me, the more people seem to relate, so that’s surprising as well. I guess it’s kind of like you feel like nobody else in the world could understand or feel what you feel, but then you find out that everybody does. I’m really glad that I did this record the way that I did, but it definitely sets the bar a little higher for the next thing that I do.
There is a thread of hyper self-consciousness weaving through this record. Even though the tone and emotion in the tracks vary, there seems to be a distinct presence of self-awareness in the lyrics. As a songwriter, are you aware of this self-consciousness, or is it something that emerges later? I get the awareness in the song, or what the song is about, by reflecting on it. I feel like I figure it out when I look back on it, not necessarily as I’m writing the song. But I do know before I go to write—when I’m actually sitting down there—that I’m going to let something go here that’s really personal, that’s for sure. So, there is definitely a lot of concern about that sometimes.
Are there moments even now when you censor yourself, or do you just sort of let it go these days? These days I’m just letting it go. I have this song called, “Nebraska,” which I just wrote, and there’s just no editing at all in it, so I feel good about that.
Do you see this as the future of your songwriting? Yeah, more and more, I’m allowing myself to just really go there. I think that’s why I’m not making a record this year, I’m putting out two live things, and it’s mostly so that I give myself plenty of time to write. I have to just slow down and tour this record for more than a year and get a whole bunch of songs under my belt. When writing comes to me, it seems to be the most truthful. I think that I’m just kind of starting to get on the real road for the rest of my life, musically, anyway. I think it might have started with Valentine Heartache just because that record was so personal and there were a lot of songs on that record that I felt like were true, but I didn’t go to the deeper place, on a soul-level of writing, the way that I did with Listen Hard—especially with songs like “Fighting Chance,” “You,” “Thinking,” “Marie in the Middle,” and I can name a lot them, and just when I think about them—even for a second—I know that they’re the truth.
How is this different from your writing in the past? When I first started writing, I wrote a lot of really personal songs—I mean very honest and very specific—I was like 17 or 18 years old. So, when I got signed to Atlantic [at the age of 21], I had something like 150 songs, and we picked 14 of them to record. Out of those 14, really the only one that is on the first album [Massive Blur, 1993] that I feel came from that “old school” type of writing for me, as far as personal stuff goes, is “Hello Dad,” even though there were so many other songs.
I remember making that record. The producer and I picked out 14 songs that were all kind of like “Hello Dad,” you know, very slow and heartbreaking, just very “self” oriented. The producer basically said that there were really two albums that could have been made: this kind of record and have everybody want to commit suicide by the time they are done listening to it, or the other kind that would be a little more upbeat with songs like “Happy Song,” “What Have I Got to Lose,” and “Blue Sky Night.”
So, we went in the latter direction, and that was really not my decision, it was really the label’s decision and the producer’s decision—and I’m glad, I guess—but I think it kind of set me up as the “pop songwriter” that never really quite had a hit. I never really ever thought of myself as the girl that wrote “Happy Song,” or “Everything I Need,” or “Hold On” or “This is Love,” or “Til You’re Dead” for that matter—and now “Drive,” I mean, “Drive” is great because at least it’s not a little pop song. Don’t get me wrong, I really like little pop songs, I really do. I like to play them, and I like to sing them, but they are not the songs that I remember as far as other people’s little pop songs go. I mean, when I think of Ani Difranco, I don’t think of her “32 Flavors.”
Listen Hard is the third release by Right On Records, your own label, preceded by Skinnier, Faster Live at the B. P. C. and Valentine Heartache. Why did you feel that it was necessary at that particular point in your career to create and record on your own label? Being on a record label didn’t make any sense for me. Being on W.A.R was just crazy. I was basically paying for people to pay their own bills. It was ridiculous. I really should have done this a long time ago. For me, it was kind of a long time coming.
Maybe a little bit overdue? Oh, way overdue.
Has running the label been a massive amount of work for you? Yeah, but you know, I was doing all this work anyway in my head, so it really doesn’t change anything. It’s more stressful from a responsibility standpoint. From a financial perspective, it’s a little scarier, but I really feel like I’m up to the challenge. You know I have a—well, I could tell you, but I’m not going to tell you—an enormous amount of money riding on credits cards, but I choose to do it that way. That’s what I choose to do because I love what I do and because I believe in it.
As much as I hate the idea of anything being “universal,” the emotion in your music that is drawn from your personal experience seems to appeal to a diverse audience—whether queer or not, or even female or not, for that matter. Yeah, which is great. I mean, I never decided to make music for a specific group of people, that’s for sure. At the same time, I agree with you, and I would never assume anything to be universal because I don’t believe in it either. But, for somebody who tours for a living, who makes their own records and puts all their own money behind everything they do, and buys their own frickin’ manila envelopes—of course I want more people to listen to my music.
You know, I do want to shove my music in front of a bunch of 35 year-old straight guys because I know they’ll get it—well, not “get” it—but I just know they’ll like it. So for me, you know, I have to practice what I preach. It’s important to speak up about inclusion and non-separatist things, and to try to include the hippies and that community, and to hang out there and listen to other bands and keep myself open to other types of music. I can sit around and say, “If you like this band, then maybe you’ll like me,” but if I’m going to do that, then I have to go see other bands too and stay aware, and stay open, and be willing to risk being the only dyke at a moe. show, even though I’ll find that I’m not the only dyke there, and I’m not the only girl there either.
That’s what is so great about this kind of “21st century hippie culture” that is out there right now: they really are inclusive, and the love that you feel when you’re in any space like that is undeniable. I have been there, and I have felt completely free in my sexuality and my identity, and who I am as a woman and as a human being, as all things that I am—I am safe in those rooms—and that’s a really, really nice thing to have found.
Has playing festivals and touring as much as you do been the most effective method of sort of getting your music out there? I have found it to be. Festivals are awesome because you know that you’re gonna sell records to people who have never seen you play before. I have a lot of fans who come to a lot of shows, and it’s great, but I’d also love it if they would bring someone who has never seen me. As for touring—for anyone who is a songwriter, there really is no other way to do it these days. You have to have it in your blood, and it’s a way of life. You either love it or you don’t. For me, I just love touring so much; I love to play live; I love to travel; and I love to be on the move—in one place one moment then out the next—it’s a nomadic way of life. It’s just in my blood.
You tour incessantly, it seems. How do you physically and emotionally deal with being on the road for the majority of the year? I think it’s harder emotionally more than anything else. I don’t really have a problem with the physical aspect of it just because I’m really physically fit right now, and my health is really good. I don’t drink or do drugs anymore so that really helps. So for me, it is not a physical problem, but emotionally it’s exhausting. Not the shows—the shows aren’t hard either. I mean, I get physically exhausted after shows—yeah, my body gets tired because I play for two and a half hours five nights a week, which is a real workout.
Emotionally it is difficult, not from playing, but from staying happy, from being in a good mood everyday. Wherever you are, those people paid however much money they’ve paid, and they want you to be in the best mood and play the best show of the tour that night, and they deserve that. It’s sometimes really hard to deal with the outside aspects, though.
But I’m just saying for me, for Melissa, from my personal side, it gets emotionally exhausting to have to be the happy singer that’s psyched to be there and would rather be nowhere else and ready to play the best show of my whole life every time. And you do that, it’s not once, it’s everyday, and it’s everyday of 50 people, or however many people, who think they know you, and that’s kind of the worst.
Has your relationship with your fans changed as a result of your increasing success and exposure? Definitely, even just over the past year. There are fans that I’ve had for ten years that I do have a relationship with just because they’ve known me for longer—and they do “know” me, to an extent. I think that they know that I’m a nice person and that I’m a human being, and they don’t think of me as a “rock star” or whatever. For god’s sake, they know all that’s gone on in my life, and they understand that I tour as much as I do and this is what I do for a living.
The people that come to my shows that have recently been discovering my music are different, which is really what the song “Burn This Guitar” is about—this sort of newly attached or projected “mystique” about me, you know, as if there ever was one. The older fans come up to me and are like, “What’s up?” The new fans are usually just sort of whispering, “Oh my god, it’s Melissa Ferrick.” I try really hard to be nice and to remember that this moment is about them, it’s not about me. It’s important for me to try to stay open to what’s going on with the other person, and what’s going on in their life, but I find that sometimes that doesn’t come back to me because not all people think that way. I try to remember that, but sometimes I flip.
I have to tell you, the worst thing that anyone could ever do is get in my face when they’re drunk. I’ve had that happen, and I’ve pissed girls off, and I really don’t care because I don’t want to play for two and a half hours, walk off the stage, and have somebody grab me and be like, “I want you to come over here and meet my friend, and can you sign this thing…” And I’ll do it, but I have to say, “Can I just sit down for a minute?” But I cannot spend my life being a doormat, either. I have to set some perimeters and still be myself. I think that if people like my music because it’s me, then I’d be the kind of person they would want to be friends with. I’m just like your friends. It’s the same thing. It’s like, “Melissa doesn’t take any shit, and she shouldn’t,” and either should you. It’s not just a rule for me; it’s a rule for all human beings. We all need to set boundaries and have our own lives.
Is it hard to come home after being on the road for such long stretches of time? Being home is harder than being on the road, for sure. This is the unfamiliar, being in one place. But I have kitty cats that I love, and I have Bryna, and I have my family, and I have a niece and a nephew. So I have things at home that I really don’t on the road. p> It seems like the more I practice staying sane on the road, the more sane I am when I get home. I’m still learning how to take a vacation; I still don’t know how to do that. I love this way of life, but it certainly doesn’t afford me the time or the opportunity to come home and ask Bryna if she wants to go to Florida for a week, then drive down. We just don’t do it, in addition to the fact that we are working on the next tour.
I’m on the computer until five o’clock in the morning every night—printing shit out, calling people up, getting t-shirts made, and making new stickers. Or I’m cleaning out the truck, and making contracts, and faxing people, and picking out a new 8 x 10, and doing interviews. I mean, it’s a lot. It’s everyday. It’s an endless job, but it’s what I love to do. So, be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.
Issue #25
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