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| Photo credit: Julie Moe |
been touring Europe in support of it.
Before her show at The Mash House in Edinburgh, Lindi was kind enough to take some time out to chat to us about her tour, her album, playing at the Grand Ole Opry and share her views on the current country scene.
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How are you finding the tour so far?
- Well, it’s been a little challenging just because I ended up getting sick in Belfast.
It’s a long tour as well, isn’t it?
- It’s a long tour but it’s really just started. We’re about eight days into it and for most of those eight days, I’ve been battling a cold. But I think it’s on the way out soon. I can’t imagine it can get worse than it’s been.
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| Lindi Performing at The Mash House (23/1) |
What’s the tour been like so far? You’ve already played in England, how was that?
- We’ve only done a couple of shows in England. We started off in Ireland and then Glasgow last night and it’s been great. I mean, as good as it can be with me trying to battle a cold and make my way through the shows.
Do you like touring?
- Yeah, when I’m not sick, it’s fun.
Is it difficult being away for so long from friends and family?
- From family, it is. I also have cats so I miss my cats. It will also destroy any relationship you’ve ever had in terms of anything romantic. It doesn’t work out ever for me. It makes for good songs so at least I get something out of it.
You’re off to other parts of Europe after your UK dates. What’s it being from an English speaking country, what’s the language barrier like?
- I mean Sweden has a language barrier, Germany has a language barrier. I’m just used to dealing with countries that their first language isn’t English but people are always, if they like my music, they understand what I’m saying. They make an effort to speak to me. And I make an effort to speak to them, I try to learn little bits and phrases everywhere I go which I think is the kindest thing to do when you’re going to a country that doesn’t speak English.
Let’s talk a little bit about your album. I read that your Cigarettes and Truckstops album was inspired by a Hank Williams biography that you read?
- The album wasn’t inspired by that. I would say that my whole career has been inspired a bit by Hank Williams. My move to Nashville was inspired by that biography as I read a lot about Nashville from reading that biography but no, that record wasn’t really inspired by one particular thing.
So, is it fair to say that Faded Gloryville is the same, that it’s inspired by over the years and not just one thing?
- Yeah. I named – this is the problem I have with naming my record after one song as everybody thinks that the whole record is about the title of that one song and I’m starting to realise that the next record I make isn’t gonna be the title of any of my songs, it’s just gonna be completely different. Yeah, it was just one song that was inspired by a Jeff Bridges movie called Crazy Heart and I wrote this song but all the songs, they’re not all connected and there’s no major or overarching themes or anything.
What’s your songwriting process like? Do you write when you’re on the road or do you sit down and write when you know you’re gonna make an album?
- I don’t really have like a procedure or a formula for how I do it, I just do it differently. Sometimes I’m just inspired, I’ll think of song lyrics when I’m walking down the street and they’ll turn into something and other times they’ll just all come out at once.
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| Lindi's latest album, Faded Gloryville |
You wrote and co-wrote this album all but one song on this album. Do you have a favourite song from the album or any that mean the most to you on the album?
- It changes. And that co-writing my album is very different, I’ve never did that before. I co-wrote a couple of songs on my records before but the reason there was so much co-writing on this record was time constraints, so we were just trying to get songs together in a particular amount of time. It sort of came up quite quickly the fact that we were gonna be making a record so I started to open myself up to working with a bunch of different people and try to come up with a bunch of songs but I rather enjoy writing my own.
There’s obviously a cover on the album, of a Bee Gees song. Was that also down to time constraints or was it just a song you really wanted on there?
- No, I actually really liked that song and I was singing it in my live sets for a really long time so I just wanted to put it on the record.
Last year, you were at the Grand Ole Opry. What was that like?
- It was amazing. I was nervous, I don’t think I’d ever been more nervous for anything in my whole life. That experience…I mean it’s the stage where all my country music heroes played and it was just an incredible experience. I can’t even articulate what it was because it was surreal to me.
What was it like to get that call to play?
- It was surreal. I mean, how could you say no? Are you even asking? Of course!
I read an opinion piece that you did on women in country music. Do you think it might be off putting for women wanting to pursue a career in country music right now, if they don’t think radio will play their music or they don’t think they’ll get heard in the same way that, perhaps, men do?
- It depends. What I do is not considered country music in terms of that world, in terms of mainstream market in new country and radio so I personally don’t chase that, so I can’t speak as I don’t know as that’s a world that I don’t really exist in, but I don’t think anybody should be dissuaded from wanting to do anything that they want to do. I just think that you have to follow, whether you’re a man or a woman or whatever, a path that feels right and passionate for you and don’t listen to what anyone else has to say if you intrinsically feel that way in your soul.
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| Lindi Performing at The Mash House (23/1) |
I saw Angaleena Presley the other day and she performed a song called ‘Outlaw’ and she talked about how her lyrics are seen, by some, to be purposely controversial even though she is not trying to be. Your lyrics could also be seen to be edgier too – do you ever consider the potential reaction to them when writing?
- No. If I was looking to be on country music radio then I would be singing songs that I would hate to perform every night and I don’t have any desire to do that.
Do you think that’s [edgier lyrics] a reason why radio doesn’t want to play your and other women, such as say Angaleena’s and Brandy Clark’s, music as much?
- I honestly don’t know and I don’t think about it and I don’t really care. Country music, as far as I
know now right now and what they play on the radio are men talking about women in blue jean shorts, drinking beer, calling women ‘girl’ and dirt roads, hanging out in trucks, dirt roads whatever and it’s like…do I care that they’re not playing my music or that they wouldn’t play something edgy? No, I don’t. I honestly don’t care.
How would you define country music?
- I couldn’t define it. I have no idea what it is right now. I could tell you what it was and where it came from and the history of it. Right now, country music as far as mainstream radio is concerned is something that is so foreign and alien to anything that I would have considered country music of what I traditionally would listen to. I love classic country. I love Hank Williams – he’s one of my favourites -, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton. Dolly Parton is a really good example because she’s one hell of a songwriter and a lot of people don’t realise what a huge repertoire of songs she has and what a smart business woman she was. And it seems like lyrics were really such an important thing in country music for a long time and now it seems like they, lyrics, are taking a back seat and that it’s really more for the party crowd and for people going to the bar and wanting to drink and frat boys on a Friday night with their trucks and it doesn’t appeal to me in any sort of way so I really can’t comment on something that…you know. I really can’t comment on it as I don’t listen to it enough. I’ve heard it and it hasn’t seemed to change, it’s the thing that has been going on for the past two, three years. Until it changes, until it becomes something that’s not all that all the time, I’m not really interested in listening to it.
Do you think it will change anytime soon?
- I don’t know. We keep thinking that’s gonna happen when people like Kacey Musgraves win CMAs and get mainstream attention. The same thing with Chris Stapleton but whether that translates to it actually changing and to whether country radio is actually to start playing more songs like that is yet to be seen. And they don’t seem to want to change the formula and perhaps, cycling back to your mentioning of my article that I wrote, perhaps it’s because people like Keith Hill, who was the radio programmer who suggested that we take women out of country music radio, perhaps it is those damaging words that lead to this stagnancy in country music radio and a lack for it to evolve in any sort of way and it’s been the same way for three years so until the evolution really starts occurring, which I don’t know what the catalyst for that is – I thought that maybe it would be a Kacey Musgraves, I thought maybe it would be a Chris Stapleton but we have yet it see it happen.
Finally, one of the things our blog is about is promoting upcoming artists in UK. Do you have any advice for any new artist trying to break through right now?
- I do have advice for somebody who wants to make a living doing what they love and I would just say: be prepared to work your tail off and to sacrifice your rooted life and don’t do it unless you absolutely love it because otherwise you’ll end up resenting it because it takes you away so much. It becomes your whole life and it’s all encompassing. It’s something that you really shouldn’t do unless you have a great passion for it.
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Special thanks, again, to Lindi Ortega and to Six07 Press. You can keep up to date with Lindi through her website and through following her on twitter @lindiortega.
