Interview with Mary Gauthier

AE: Was Between Daylight and Dark recorded live in the studio?
MG: Yeah, I played the songs in front of the band, then everybody went and took their places and we all played together. Then we played together again and after four or five times we had it—with the tape rolling each time…We managed to make the record in about four or five days.

AE: Would you prefer to record live?
MG: Oh, hell yeah! More spontaneity, more authenticity, better all around. I don't have a lot of patience for the studio. I don't want to get it perfect, I want to get it real. And doing it this way, if I came in today and did it with the same band, it would still be a completely different record. You're capturing a moment in time. It captures a performance, it's not a construction project.

I never had the confidence as a singer to do it this way before. I'd have to sing a song 30 times to try to get ... I'm not a great singer, I was always insecure about my voice and I'll go over and over and over again trying to get it where I could not flinch when I heard it back. With this, you don't get that chance. You sing and that's it. So it's real and raw, and it took five records for me to get comfortable enough to do this.

AE: How is it that someone that doesn't have that much confidence about themselves as a singer says “I want to be a singer/songwriter?”
MG: Well because if I don't sing it, who would? I don't really have a choice. I know I'm a writer, but the singing part, I had to grow into that part.

There was no way I could be a writer and not a singer because of the kinds of songs I write. Who in the hell's gonna sing a song called, “Drag Queens in Limousines.” That's a country song! I knew I had to sing my songs if they were gonna be sung. They're not marketable. I have to be the one to sing ‘em.

Even for my favorite songwriters, it would be a problem for them. Look at Neil Young. Who would sing those songs? He's gotta sing ‘em. And his voice is quirky as hell but we love it.

AE: Men are really allowed to sing all kinds of ways, ways that are not conventionally “pretty” or melodic, but it's rare that a woman gets away with that.
MG: Patti Smith would be the forerunner for this kind of out there singing for a woman. Patti Smith is the hero, I think. And what a hero of mine she is. It takes courage. That's why she's a hero, she's just so damn brave. It takes courage to go out there when you know that your voice is not something that people are used to hearing, and they're not conditioned to listening to it, and so you know you're gonna strike them as odd and not as a “real” singer. To most people, a “real” singer is Celine Dion.

So I've got the right voice for my songs.

AE: You wrote, “Can't Find the Way” about Hurricane Katrina. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
MG: I don't really remember writing it so much. I was trying to capture the devastation, the feeling of what it must have been like to have gone through that. And I hope I got it. I tried to find the voice there ‘cause I didn't go through that. I was in Nashville. Actually, I was in Hawaii when it happened. And yet those people are so familiar to me. Those are my people. And you can really only tell the story well from the first person. I know that. I know that because that's what Woody Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen taught me. One man's story, one woman's story. And that's how you tell the whole story. If you try to tell the whole story, you end up with a bad song.

That's why it's one person telling what happened that day. And then it gets a little big in the end. That song was not easy, it took me quite awhile to find that voice. Finding that character's voice was the hard part. Who is this guy and how would he say it? I could be a good writer, but I want to be a great writer. So then I've got to move past the personal and into the — past the “me” and into the “we.” It's mandatory if you want to be a great writer.

AE: Your music has been described as "Southern Gothic," does that term resonate with you?
MG: Absolutely! If you were to compare me to Flannery O'Connor, I would just love it. That's exactly what I'm aiming for. And that's my world view.

AE: How does your Southern heritage impact your taste in music, or the way you make music?
MG: I grew up with AM radio, so it was either country or Jesus — that's all there was! And coming from the South is profound, and it's a very different part of the world. I think Southerners in particular are fond of their stories and have a history or storytelling. There's just a damn darkness down here, there's a lot of secrets, there's a lot of aunts in the closets. The South is very rich for storytellers. The first thing I did when I could was get the hell out of the south, and now looking back I'm so glad that I'm from the South. Eventually, getting older, I came back. I came to Nashville in 2001, but I didn't' understand the relevance of the South until I started to write. And then I realized that I'm so glad I'm from the South because the stories are so rich. I'm glad that this is where I grew up.

I have a Southern world view. I think people should be nice to each other. I believe in social niceties, whether you mean it or not. I don't want a door slammed in my face. At a four way stop I appreciate when a person lets me go in front of them. It still rattles me when people slam on their horns and are aggressive in traffic. I like gentility. I like the social graces of the South that are still here but completely gone in other parts of the world. And I don't care if it's sincere or not. It just makes it easier when you walk into a store and someone smiles and says, “Hi” instead of “What the f*ck do you want?”

AE: Where do you want things to go with your music career?
MG: Oh I don't' know. I'm just following it around, seeing where it's gonna take me. I don't have any specific goals. I just want to continue to play and write and do my best work. Whatever happens out in the world with it, I don't have any control over it, I don't plan it. I have good people, I have a great record label, a great manager. I'm going to be signing a new deal with a great publisher. So I have good people around me and there bound to make good things happen, so I just need to keep writing and keep my best work ahead of me, not behind me.

For more information, check out Mary Gauthier's myspace page or her official website.