Thalia Zedek
With the release of her second solo full-length, the former Come member talks about her day job and becoming a solo artist
By Ling Ma
Published: August 25th, 2004 | 3:05pm
Thalia Zedek isn’t a twentysomething singer-songwriter, thank god. She’s a fortysomething indie music veteran who, after having spent the '80s and '90s cutting her teeth (and her voice) in indie bands with rockier, harder sounds such as Live Skull and Come, later defined her solo career with softer, slower songs on her debut, Been Here and Gone (Matador), and a follow-up EP, You’re a Big Girl Now (Kimchee). Both records showcased the visceral contrast between Zedek’s rough, gristly voice and the delicate, emotional subject matter of her songs. Ruinous and dense with experience, her voice does not merely express, but seizes and makes immediate the grief of what she sings.
Zedek completed her second solo full-length, Trust Not Those in Whom Without Some Touch of Madness (Thrill Jockey) in fall 2004. Named after a handmade message found in the fortune cookie of a Chinese restaurant and recorded in 11 days in Montreal, Trust Not Those boosts a folksier sound and a more contemplative tone than her earlier solo work. Zedek spoke on the phone from her Boston home, where she has lived for more than 20 years, about her new album, her choice to become a solo artist, and her day job.
What are you working on, outside of making music? How are you spending your days and supporting yourself?
I’ve been working for like the last year and half or so at this pizzeria. I’ve been cooking there and also waiting tables. Before that, I did catering for a lot of years. A lot of cooking, actually, and I was really kinda getting sick of it. Then I found this little pizzeria where I had some friends who worked there. The owners were just totally cool, and everyone who works there is really nice. It’s kind of hard work, but it’s a very laid-back environment.
In 2001, you said in a Portuguese magazine interview that you went solo because you preferred music that was calmer and slower at that time in your life. Could you elaborate on what you were thinking then?
Well, when I played with Come at one point, we did this tour. We were sort of in between bass players and drummers [after bassist Sean O’ Brien and drummer Arthur Johnson left]. And I had a really good friend, a really good piano player — her name’s Beth Heinberg. Her girlfriend Nancy [Asch] plays drums. We decided to do this tour.
She plays the songs really beautifully. It was like almost a more piano-oriented tour, like it was a lot quieter. Me and Chris [Brokaw] were playing guitar, Beth was playing piano, and Nancy was playing percussion. [We were] reworking songs, but in a completely different way. And I really, really enjoyed that. I could hear myself sing for the first time. When you’re playing stuff that’s quieter, you can do a lot more subtle things.
And so we did this tour like that, and then we came back, and Chris was like, “I want to rock out again.” So we did this really loud rock record. But I had really enjoyed the other way of playing. I started doing solo shows with just me and Beth, with just piano and guitar, and really liking that, and getting a good response on that. When Come broke up, I kept on doing shows like that. I’d known this viola player — David Michael Curry, who plays with me — and he started joining us on stuff. It turned into more of a full band thing, but I think at the same time retained the more subtle quality of just the stripped-down simpleness. I do like noisy stuff, and I’ve kind of gone back to that for some songs, but I guess I like for there to be a different range of dynamics, you know?
How would you compare the new album to your previous solo stuff?
I think the songs on this new record are, in a way, less conventional in terms of structure than the songs on the other two records. Like a little more experimental, which probably comes from doing live stuff with Dave and Daniel [Coughlin] and just experimenting with noisier aspects. Like Dave does some cool stuff with tape loops. So it was kind of written a little bit looser. I think the songs on the other records were a little more conventional in terms of, you know, "verse, chorus, verse, chorus."
At the same time, [this record is] a little more melodic. I think I made a conscious effort to try to write stuff where the melody was more in the vocals as opposed to in the guitar playing. The songs are personal, but I think a little bit less about relationships than on the other ones. More about specific people, you know.
You have these songs with titles like “Ship,” “Sailor,” and “Bus Stop.” It seems like a lot of it deals with people coming and going. There’s this prominent traveling theme.
Yeah, I think that’s right. There’s been a lot of changes in my life in the past few years and also in the world at large. I just let myself be a little more free form with this record, as far as the lyrics go. I was saying more stream-of-consciousness type of stuff.
Some of it was more political. I think in the last few years, everyone in this country has sort of been forced to look more at what’s going on in other places in the word, as opposed to being as insulated, as Americans usually are.
Where else are you taking your music in the future?
I hope to do stuff that’s a little bit more ambient, say. I’ve been talking with a coupla friends about working on some film stuff and that’s something that I’d always really love to do. There’s a friend of mine [Suara Welitoff] that does these sort of — they’re almost like paintings but on video. We’ve worked together a couple of times with her projecting stuff live and me and Dave or just me playing along with it. And that was really cool.
Maybe utilizing more different instruments. I have a band [MC House Cooperative] that I play clarinet in with the viola player Dave and he plays a lot of different instruments too. Maybe doing something where we switch around a little bit more, just experimenting. Maybe a little bit away from the rock structure.
Your album is dedicated to Laura Carter. I was wondering if you wanted to say anything about who she is.
She was a really good friend from a long time ago who died a couple of years ago, and I was really thinking about her when I was writing some of the songs. She had come to the States shortly before for a trip with her son, but I was on tour and we had missed each other. When I got back from tour there was a message from her. And then a couple months later she died under kind of strange circumstances.
She was a really incredible person. She was in this band called the BBQ Killers. They were in Athens, Georgia, and then she had a band called the Jack ’O Nuts. And we played together a lot, like the Jack ’O Nuts played with my old band Come a lot. And when I was in Live Skull we would do a lot of tours with the BBQ Killers. She was, yeah, just a good friend. A really amazing person, a really amazing writer and musician. It’s kinda hard to describe how unique she was, but if you ever met her, people who know her are just like, "Oh, Laura." She really was one of a kind.
Are you working tonight?
I am working tonight, but I’m not going in until like five.
So you sleep during the day.
I don’t sleep all day. I’m definitely more of a night person. I’m definitely not a morning person, that’s for sure. So I like that schedule. It works out good for me.
Are you gonna be touring?
Yeah, we’re actually gonna go over in Europe and do a pretty big tour in October.
Finding a replacement for your pizzeria job?
(Laughs) I don’t know what I’m going to do. I might just give it up. It’s a really nice job, but it’s not the kind of job that I would lose that much sleep about. They’re probably gonna have to replace me, but then when I come back, I’ll give them a call and probably fill in for people. I’m just gonna kind of take off and see what happens when I get back. Hope that I can sorta weasel my way back in.
Issue #25
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