Chattanooga Times Free Press entertainment reporter Casey Phillips spoke with Lucy Tight, co-lead singer of folk/blues duo Hymn for Her, about living and recording in a 16-foot Airstream trailer and why music is more cathartic for them.
Casey Phillips: Where are you and Wayne right now? On the road somewhere?
Lucy Tight: Right now, we’re back in Philadelphia for a few weeks, for the holidays. We have a few shows. We had one last night in Philly, and we have one coming up in Brooklyn for New Year’s Eve. We’re playing Delaware on Jan. 1.
CP: And after that?
LT: We’re going back on the road full time. We’re leaving on Jan. 5 and touring through the May and June. The whole summer, we’re hitting the road.
CP: What was 2010 like for Hymn for Her? You released an album. Any other highlights?
LT: I guess that’s it. Working on an album and actually recording in the Airstream was really fun. It was this fun idea we had, and making it a reality was really cool. It was like, “Wouldn’t that be cool if we got an Airstream and made an album in it.” It was one of those things where we said all that and then made it happen. That was a highlight.
CP: What are your expectations going into 2011?
LT: We want to tour a lot. We’ve been getting a lot of radio play out in Colorado, so we’ll hit them quite a bit in the spring time. That’s the plan. We want to play Red Rock.
CP: Any particular reason you feel drawn to Red Rock?
LT: Have you ever seen it? It’s pretty incredible to be playing outside there. I’ve sat on that stage before when there when no one was there, and it was so overwhelming and beautiful. Imagine playing a show there. It seems like it would be such a cool venue. I love those outdoor, natural venues. Then, we want to start playing caves. (Laughs.) We want to do a cave tour all over the U.S.
CP: Really?
LT: No, I’m just kidding, but that would be really cool. (Laughs.) We have a song called “Cave” on our CD, and it would all tie in perfectly.
CP: How did you and Wayne fall into music? When did you meet each other?
LT: We’ve both been pretty much musicians all our lives. Wayne and I were in another band together for a bunch years and put out 10 records. It was called MPE Band. It was a trio, and we still play together sometimes. We toured all over the US and Europe and the U.K. Then, Wayne and I had a baby, so we took two to three months off.
We started playing more folky music together, and Hymn for Her blossomed. After we got sick of doing all the folky songs and sharing one mike and playing the ukulele and the banjo, we pulled out the cigar box (guitar) we got as a present while in the other band.
We pulled that out and started rocking it. It was just a stomping sound. People love to dance to it when they heard it. It just livened up everything we were doing. We added that in to what we were doing, and the band formed around that.
CP: How did you meet originally?
LT: We met long ago when I was working in a music store, and he would come in from across the street to get strings. We would play music together, and then we formed this other band. We put out 10 albums together in this other trio we were in.
CP: Who were some of your influences?
LT: Frank Black and Nirvana and The Pixies and Nick Drake. We’re both Jeff Buckley fans. We love all sorts of music. We’ve got very eclectic tastes. We like Johnny Cash and Radiohead and Willie Nelson. I love Gilliam Welch, for sure. I’m a big Ray Charles fan as well. Zeppelin is probably one of our bigger influences.
Also just people we meet along the way playing music, and we get inspired by to try something new. The travels have kind of brought our music to where it’s at.
CP: So you’ve always got your antennas up when you’re on the road?
LT: Yeah. We play shows with other bands, and we listen to different things and we’re like, “Ah man, that sounded great.” We always have the antennas up for sure.
CP: What do you derive, creatively, out of traveling and, at times, recording in a 16-foot trailer complete with a child and a dog? That sounds like it would drive some people crazy.
LT: What comes out of that is probably a lot of frenzied energy. Sometimes, it’s a little claustrophobic, and you’re feeling a little frantic, and the release is through the music.
We’re living in there because we’ve both loved Airstreams for years and always wanted one. Our lives are living on the road, and we’re musicians and that’s what we do and how we live.
If we had a bigger Airstream, they’re really hard to pull and really hard to find parking for. So the 16-foot Airstream seems to make the most sense. While it would be nice to have a 24-foot Airstream for the extra space, it’s not ideal for touring and what we’re doing. It’s more out of necessity.
Sometimes, it’s very freeing to just have your home on wheels with you. Even though it’s cramped, it’s also very open. You have all this space, and you’re on the wide open road with your home behind you, and you don’t have a lot of stuff. You’re not being held down by most of the things we’re normally held down by when we live in one space in one area.
It’s always a give and take. There are always things we’re giving up and let go when we make a choice like what we’re doing.
CP: But all in all, you’ve made the right decision?
LT: We’ve made a good decision. It’s the decision that we made, so it’s the right one for us, right now. Who knows what the future holds?
I don’t imagine spending the next 20 years in the Airstream on the road, but it could happen. It’s not a bad lifestyle. It’s got its perks, and it’s a lot of fun. We definitely have ideas with the Airstream that include other musicians as well. We’ll explore that, too.
I have an idea of “Lucy and Wayne Live from the Airstream” in say, Asheville, N.C., where we go there and find a musician who’s a little under the radar, get them in the Airstream, play some songs, video tape it and have them show us around their city and do a little interview. It’s sort of like a live radio show. That’s a thought I’m working with now.
CP: So like an on-location version of Woodsongs Radio Hour?
LT: Kind of like that, but much smaller and for those sorts of people you wouldn’t hear, other than traveling in those parts, people you wouldn’t come across.
There are people on the streets who you would never hear in a club because they would never be able to get it together to get in a club, but they’re amazing musicians who are out there doing it for the love of music.
We would get someone like that in the Airstream to record them doing a song and talking about their life and their hometown and why they’re there and ask them some funny questions that would be interesting to people.
CP: What’s your daughter’s name?
LT: Diver.
CP: And the dog you take with you?
LT: Pokey Joe.
CP: Have you named the Airstream?
LT: The Airstream is called The Bambi Airstream. We didn’t name it, but that’s what it’s called. They all have different names, but the Bambi is the one we wanted. We got really lucky. We met this couple in Massachusetts, and they were selling the Airstream, but they didn’t have a computer, so they didn’t realize that Airstreams are going for a lot of money. We got really lucky with it. It’s in beautiful condition. He redid the whole thing and took great care of it. It’s awesome.
CP: When did you actually pick it up, and how long after that were you out on the road touring in it?
LT: We bought it about a year and four months ago, and we went on the road with it right away. We went to Detroit and were in Detroit for a little while playing with another band. I was playing drums and Wayne was playing guitar, and we were backing up this other couple, this singer/songwriter duo we knew from tours before.
We all toured cross country together. We toured out west to California and to the Redwoods and to the gulf waters. We toured all over the place, and that’s when we started making our records. We had two shows a week, so during our down time, we started recording in the Airstream because we didn’t have anything else to do. That’s why we put out a record; it just sort of fell together.
CP: An Airstream doesn’t seem like an ideal recording space, but you managed to get a very big sound out of it. What’s your secret?
LT: It’s a very small space. It’s very tight. There are beautiful rounded corners in the Airstream. When you whisper into a wall, it kind of reverberates around the whole Airstream. It has a very unique sound to it. It’s a very tight sound, and it’s very live. The space really lent itself to what we’re doing now.
CP: The song “Not” off “Lucy & Wayne and the American Airstream” starts with the sound of a rainstorm. Was that going on during the recording process or added afterwards?
LT: It was pouring when we were recording. I think that was one of the last songs we recorded. We were all set up and ready to go, and it started pouring. We were like, “Damn, it’s pouring.” We just said, “We’re just going to record and see what comes up.” The rain is all in there. The storm of that day is rerecorded forever in the song “Not.”
CP: It certainly seems to fit the tone of the song.
LT: We’re very happy with how it turned out because it’s a very melancholy song, and the rain and the feeling of being in the small, enclosed area with the rain on the roof really captures the song.
CP: Do you find yourself inspired by the time you spend touring? Is that a wellspring you draw from very often?
LT: Yeah, definitely, for sure. We definitely are inspired by traveling and seeing this beautiful country. When we go overseas, we’re inspired by seeing the beautiful country over there – and sometimes the not-so-beautiful country.
We do have a few songs on the album that are from not being so inspired. We have a song called “Trash,” which is kind of our solution to pollution idea about sending all our trash up to the sun. We were inspired to write that with all the garbage and trash we were seeing along the road in certain areas.
You never know what’s going to inspire you. If you’re a writer, you feel compelled to write about what you see. That’s all we can do, so wherever we are, that’s where the inspiration comes from.
CP: How many miles did you drive while touring last year?
LT: I know our van has almost 300,000 miles on it. We got it when it had about 25,000 miles on it, but we were touring with the other band. I’m not sure, but we put a stupid amount of miles on our vehicle. It’s just crazy. I can only say “a lot.”
We went out West twice, back and forth to California and all up and down the coast, last year. That’s where we did our recording, and we’re going to do that again. We’ll go out West through April and then come back and go down to Florida, go up to Philly and go out to Colorado again. We want to hit Colorado when it’s warmer.
Our last tour we did, we were on the road for three weeks, and the storm just followed us everywhere we went. Then we came back to Philly, the next day there was a huge snowstorm. It became kind of comical after a while. You just have to laugh when things like that happen. There’s nothing else to do but laugh.
CP: When you’re stuck whiling away the miles, do you ever wish you could take a break and just stay still for a few days?
LT: There are times on the road that it would be nice to have a couple of days down time and just chill out at a really nice farm somewhere with a lake or a place to go swim and relax. That’s nice, but that happens. It all happens while we’re traveling. If we want to, we can always tell our agent to schedule a couple of days off, and we can do something like that. I think the nomadic life is the way for us right now.
CP: Have there been any particularly memorable moments from the road? Incidents that stand out as noteworthy?
LT: A lot of times during the tour for me, I’m very focused on making sure my daughter is OK. We drive for hours and hours, we get to the gig, and if we don’t have someone with us, I have to make sure she’s OK.
Then, we set everything up. We have a screen projector now, so we show some old slides of really cool old images. We set that up, and then I find someone to make sure they’ll be cool watching my daughter.
Then we play, and at that time, my whole mind is focused on playing the show. When we’re done, I go and get my daughter and we hang out, and I can relax. Everything leading up to that is the drive to the show and finding someone for my daughter to hang out with and then playing. It’s very focused energy. It’s like, “This is what I’m here to do.”
In our other band, it was more freestyle and relaxed. It was very free living, like, “Whoo! What’s going to happen next?” This is more of a family on the road. This is a life where we make sure the dog is fed and make sure the baby is changed. You have to make sure all that stuff is covered before you get on stage to rock.
Like I said, it’s more focused, so it’s more immediate. The music is almost more important because we have everything leading up to the music, and then we have this short time to hit it and play it the best we can and give everything into the music because that’s why we’re there and that’s what we’re doing. Once the music is over, it’s like “OK, on to the next show to do it again.”
CP: So is playing music for Hymn for Her more cathartic than when you played in other groups?
LT: Yeah. I’ve been in lots of different bands and played with different people and played different styles, and I can say that, right now, the way we’re doing it definitely lends itself to us exploding on stage, just getting that energy out and putting it all out there for that time slot we have. It’s all energy into the music, whether it’s energy into a slow love song or into a fast crazy tune. It’s all there.
CP: Do you ever have to scale back your songwriting ambitions to accommodate it being just you and Wayne on stage or have you learned to write well within that framework?
LT: We work really well together, the two of us. We’re very creative together. We always have projects going on, whether it’s writing an album or like right now, where we have two albums ready to record for the next time we get to record.
We’re always writing together. We write separately. I might write lyrics and bring it to Wayne to put music to it, or I might have music and take it to Wayne to provide lyrics. It just flows really well. We don’t have to hold back anything, creatively, at all. Our creative energies are always ongoing, and we’re always creating things together.
CP: Does having only two instruments playing at a time ever feel limiting on stage?
LT: Actually, I think having that limited amount of instruments to play with is more freeing. In the trio we were in, we played so many instruments that we all switched off on guitar, bass, drums, ukulele, piano and three part harmony. It was a free for all. We were always running around and switching up instruments, evening the middle of the song.
It was great and fun and a learning process to learn all these instruments and become adept at playing, but it got to the point where it was spaghetti on stage and we were tripping on chords. There was so much going on, and it started to feel like a cacophony of instruments.
So when Wayne and I did our first record, “Year of the Golden Pig,” we wanted to have a completely acoustic album, exactly what we weren’t doing with the other band. We wanted to just go in the other direction and have something so simple, like just two acoustic guitars. We did that, and then, when we incorporated the cigar box guitar and the sound started changing itself, we said we still wanted to keep it as simple as possible. Simple feels good and pure, like you don’t have to think about it; the music just happens. It’s easy to rock out like that. It’s really easy. I think the simpler, the better.
That’s right now; talk to me next year. (Laughs.) It could be different.
We’re writing lots of songs. They keep coming and keep sounding different. All the songs are not sounding like the exact same song. The cigar box is tuned in G, and all three strings are tuned in G. When we first started, we were like, “Well, how is this going to work? This is just going to be boring? Every song is going to sound the same.” But it wasn’t. We’re able to maneuver around that thing. After figuring it out, we’re able to try out new ideas on it. It really kind of opens your mind to, “What else can we do with that?”
CP: So are you working on the next album yet or do you plan to tour more on this one for a while longer?
LT: We want to tour on this album, for sure, through April or May. Then, we’ll need to record these songs because we don’t want them to get stale. That’s what happens when you’re playing on the road. You’re always ahead of yourself, musically, because you’re playing so much. Then, you have the next album or two worth of music, so it needs to be recorded while it’s still alive and fresh and you’re excited about it.
When we recorded this “Lucy & Wayne and the American Airstream,” all these songs were brand new. Half of them weren’t even written; we wrote some of them, just recording them. They were partial songs that were getting written as we went along. That is part of why it feels so alive and present and the energy is all there.
We’ll probably record again in the Airstream, but we’ll do a different approach so it has a little different sound. We’re not sure what yet.
We’ll work with a couple of people helping to record and get some good drum sounds. We have a good friend who’s a drummer and also has a studio, so maybe he’ll help us get some really fat drums sounds. We’ll see what happens there.