Lissie – In conversation with Ovi

‘Mississippi Moonchild’ TAKE ONE AMERICAN NATIVE, FROM ILLINOIS; put her in Los Angeles to pursue her music; when times get tough, give her expensive Canadian honey to sell to yuppies so she can pay the bills (no, really!); pop her in the studio with Band of Horses’ Bill Reynolds to record ...

‘Mississippi Moonchild’

TAKE ONE AMERICAN NATIVE, FROM ILLINOIS; put her in Los Angeles to pursue her music; when times get tough, give her expensive Canadian honey to sell to yuppies so she can pay the bills (no, really!); pop her in the studio with Band of Horses’ Bill Reynolds to record an EP (2009′s ‘Why You Runnin’) and watch her get taken into the hearts of Great Britain’s music fans.

Now, I’ve been reading my ‘How To Make It Big in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Industry’ book and I still can’t find this chapter, though I did find the one still being written that’s entitled ‘Make Huge Waves in the U.K. and Then Watch Them Ripple Back to the United States of America Until Massive’. This happened to Kings of Leon, and they turned into megastars. It also happened to Killers, and they too turned into megastars. And now, it’s happening to Lissie.

It must feel amazing for any band or artist, when their hard work is rewarded with sold out shows and fantastic reviews. But how does it feel when the birth of all this popularity begins away from home?

“I feel like the U.K. has totally embraced me in a way that hasn’t happened as much anywhere yet. I definitely feel like this is my adopted home, and I’m loving it.” she states, proudly.

After moving to Los Angeles and slogging away in the music scene for years, things still didn’t seem to be happening for Lissie.

“Prior to the last year or two, I don’t think I was even ready; I don’t think I had the right material; I hadn’t met the right musicians or producers yet. I think I was sort of growing into myself. So it could have just also been at the time I was in L.A., the stars just hadn’t aligned; it took me a little longer to find my vision. I’m gonna be 28, but it didn’t really feel I grew up much until a year and a half ago, so I’m a late bloomer”. She adds, with a giggle, “I do find it interesting that it took me coming to the U.K. for people to realize ‘oh, she’s actually talented’”.

Poor old Cupid is currently being rushed off his little wings as people leave venues at the end of Lissie concerts. Inbetween songs and offstage, she is contagiously happy and sweetly demure. Whether she’s playing to an audience of 200, or playing in front of a large Glastonbury crowd; she might as well be in your living room, playing to you alone. The intimacy of her performance transcends regardless. The passion and sincerity she exudes is enamouring. She makes you feel like you are up there on stage with her, holding her hand, feeling every drop of emotion she sweats out.

“When I’m actually singing my songs I channel the emotions of sadness or anger; things that cause me to write the songs, or frustration. I dig it up a little bit when I perform, or when I sing. All of my songs are auto-biographical, so I just write about whatever I’m feeling or experiencing.

And what is it in her songs that are provoking these emotions and what place of inspiration does she encounter creativity for them?

“Subject matter is usually in the realm of romance, relationships gone wrong, or just this feeling of longing and striving, and just life. Sometimes it’ll be the end of the night and I’ll go outside on the porch and all these big questions about life sort of settle in, I feel a little melancholy, and that’s usually when I write. I never know what the song is going to be about, it could be coming from that melancholy place which is ever present, or something I experience with another human being.”

As well as wowing crowds with her music, Lissie also performs the odd cover here and there which she totally strips apart and makes her own, from Lady Gaga to Metallica to Kid Cudi. Her duet of ‘Everywhere I Go’ with Ellie Goulding at Brighton’s 2010 Great Escape festival has also become a youtube favourite:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Does she have plans to do any more duets in the future?

“I think it would be awesome to do a song with Kid Cudi. I’m sure I’ll sing with Ellie again – we guest at each others shows from time to time. I love Brian Burton who’s Dangermouse (one half of Gnarls Barkley and one half of Broken Bells), he’s just this awesome producer, but that’s not really a duet, I’d do the singing and he’d do the music. Damon Albarn would be pretty amazing, he seems like he works with different people, but I don’t know if I’d make the cut. Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead, he’s dead now but if dead or alive it would have been cool to work with him; the band Phish – I would love to sing with them”.

News has travelled back to America of the voice and talent of Lissie, and boy has it traveled fast and high. Filmmaker David Lynch (Twin Peaks, The Elephant Man, Mulholland Drive) has been tweeting his praises of the singer: “I’ve fallen in love with Lissie, especially the live sessions including the cover of Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’”; “Lissie is head and shoulders above anything I’ve heard in a long time. Incredible, incredible stuff”.

With her popularity ever growing, and her fanbase stretching back to her home country, how has all of this influenced album number two?

“Right now I’m writing songs that are pretty much in the same realm, but I didn’t just go through a break-up, so there will probably be less ‘guy related’ songs on it because that’s not where my head’s at. It just depends on what happens. I have a song called ‘Everybody Else’ that I haven’t quite finished, about if you worry too much about what everybody else thinks and what they need from you and pleasing them, then you’re never going to really figure out who you are. So, just songs about me finding myself, and kind of encouraging other people to embrace who they are and try to make good decisions, and behave properly, as I learn, I have so much more learning to do and will never know the answer, just sort of a life question thing, what I usually write about”.

After an incredible set this year at Glastonbury Festival’s Park Stage, which Lissie remembers in typically humble fashion:

“It was great because at Glastonbury the album had just come out, so it wasn’t like I feel we really were as known as maybe we are now, so I don’t know if it was just sort of by luck that people were just sort of like ‘hey, let’s go over to the Park Stage’. I feel we lucked out. I think a lot of people who had never heard of us turned up just because they were excited to be outside because the weather was so great”.

Will we be seeing a return in 2011?

“I was asking my booking agent if he thought that I’d be doing Glastonbury and he said ‘yeah, I think so’, so we’ll have to wait and see; but I’d love to”.

If you haven’t already, go and catch Lissie in the small clubs while you’ve still got the chance because 2011 could quite possibly see one of those iconic Glastonbury performances from our Rock Island hero, after which she will most definitely be treading the boards of much larger venues.

‘Catching a Tiger’ is out now via Columbia. Check out Lissie’s playlist in the Music Store.

(Top photo courtesy of Kate Meyer; second photo courtesy of Alan Wild – www.alanwildphotography.co.uk)

Source : http://blog.ovi.com/2010/12/03/lissie-%e2%80%93-in...