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An interview with Mirah

I’ve been a fan of Thao (and her Get Down Stay Down crew) and Mirah in their solo efforts for a while now. Each has such a distinct style – it was actually difficult for me to audiolize (did I just make up that word? Think visualize but for the ears) at first – especially upon hearing Merrill Garbus of tUnE-YarDs fame was doing a lot of the producing.

The collaborative album from Thao & Mirah , aptly named Thao & Mirah, has been on my best of 2011 list since the second the first chords of “Eleven” hit my ears. Sure, the one song was just a small taste of what was to come, but the heart and soul that was poured into that one song convincing enough to believe the rest of the album would be just as great. And I was absolutely right.

We had the chance to catch up with Mirah, who was at a local record store trying to find a physical copy of their album at the time. Once she found it, she hopped on her bike (I made sure she was wearing a helmet) and we started our conversation. AfterEllen.com: This interview really comes at an interesting time for me because I’m reading Chuck Klosterman book Eating the Dinosaur and the very first chapter basically asks the question, “Why do people answer interview questions?” Mirah: That is so hysterical because I actually was talking to my therapist the other day about that. “What can I do so I can enjoy interviews because, why do them?” I don’t even know why I do them. I think I’m supposed to do them and other people tell me I should do them and then, well, I feel like I’m not really in a position to claim recluse status – which would aid the cause of people hearing my music – which is actually what I would really love to have happen. Like, I’m not famous enough to be that much of a diva but I was like, “What can I do to make interviews more fun?” and then she and I were discussing all of these options like first of all, why do I do interviews? And second of all, how do I make them more fun? Which is why I’m on a bike ride during this interview.

AE: Yeah, I was wondering. You should check out that book. Have you heard of Chuck Klosterman before? M: No, but I love that you started your interview off with that.

AE: For me, I love doing interviews but they get me very anxious and I get butterflies in my tummy. I get so nervous because I think, “What can I ask these people that they haven’t been asked before, that they would actually be excited to talk about besides their projects?” Because that’s usually what everyone is asking about. M: Yeah, but it’s not that talking about our projects aren’t fun and engaging it’s just good practice for me getting to know myself and practice discussing all the work that I’ve done and especially after doing five interviews in a row you start feeling like your mom and your dad are nagging you and you turn into a like eight-year-old kid and you’re like, “Stop nagging me. Stop nagging me.” When maybe, I like homework, I like the book I’m reading, I like the album I made or whatever.

AE: I get that. You love it but sometimes it becomes a chore to talk about it. It’s bad. M: Yeah.

AE: But for me, on the interviewer part, reading the book, it actually intrigues me and scares me like, “Why are they talking to me?” M: [Laughs] To avoid having the person start acting like a brat.

AE: Right, because I want it to be fun and really get to the personality of whomever I am talking to. M: Well here’s my personality. I’m riding my bike right now. Can you hear me? It’s totally windy.

AE: Umm, I can hear you OK right now. M: That’s amazing I didn’t even buy the fanciest headset you can buy I just thought, “Well, this ought to work!” Talking and riding my bike I know is unsafe to do but I will let you know that I’m wearing my helmet and I’m not on streets I’m in Golden Gate Park on the bike path.

AE: Good, that does make me feel better. M: It’s not really impressive to do an interview while on a bike.

AE: For me it’s kind of impressive. I usually can’t breathe and talk and ride my bike at the same time. But you’re a singer so maybe your lungs are used to all the work. M: Yeah. I’m a singer and I’m a runner and I’m a biker so I guess my lungs are alright. Although, I have to say I went to see Merrill Garbus [of TuNe-YaRds fame] who co-produced the album with me –

AE: Yeah, I love her! M: I saw her kick-off concert the other night here in San Francisco and if you don’t already know this, Merrill has got incredible lung capacity and breath control. Like unbelievable. I’ve sung with her and hung out with her so I know she has this incredible instrument – but singing like that for a whole hour like singing her material it was awesome. I feel so inspired by her really.

AE: That’s awesome. I mean you know you bring up Merrill and I have to say that this album is one of my favorites of the year. M: Awesome!

AE: What was your favorite part of collaborating with, obviously Thao, and Merrill? M: Merrill has an incredible keen sense of adding just the right touch; very subtle things. I would say it’s a very tricky thing to be a producer of a song who’s not the writer of the song. Like Thao and I wrote all of the songs except the first track which we all wrote together. Merrill knows how to treat a song without over-treating it. It’s all about basic stuff and the subtle touches. It’s really a dance.

I worked on co-producing pretty much all the recordings that I have put out, but doing that work for other people’s songs and approaching them from that vantage – which is the vantage of the songwriter – to me it seems like a very difficult, very subtle thing to do. Thao is awesome to work with and it’s funny because I’ve had a lot of Pisces in my life lately.

AE: Oh? M: Yeah and I’m learning a lot from Pisces. My mom is a Pisces so it’s not like a totally new language, but making music with Pisces is. They are connected to some other place – which is exactly the place that I, as a Virgo, have a hard time getting to. [Laughs] I can be so exact and I know exactly how something goes and I have a very exact idea but I’m not like a jammer and Thao is a total jammer. She’ll totally just play base banjo just winging it. I’m not as good as that. I’m not a jammer.

And we worked with an awesome engineer who I just love, Eli Crews, he’s great he’s on tour right now with Merrill. It was a great team. Recording that album was one of my all time favorite recording experiences. Don’t tell all the other people I’ve recorded with. [Laughs] There was something about it, something cohesive. I’ve also never just recorded an album all at once. I’ve always had starts and stops and did it in bits and pieces.

AE: While working with other touring artists it seems like you would have to keep things on schedule. M: Yeah, that’s very true actually. Thao is amazing just running around flying places so it was hard to try and coordinate our schedules.

AE: So how did you get your schedules to coordinate to begin with? M: Merrill and I had moved to the Bay area at the same time. I think within a month of each other and the three of us have a common friend, Lauren Ross, who we all work with for our publishing. Lauren knew that we were both moving to the Bay area so she wrote an email to the three of us saying, “You guys should do projects together.” And Thao and Merrill had already known each other and worked together to a small degree. But I hadn’t met either of them until I got this email introduction and a sort of proposal that we all work together and I’m always up for collaboration. It sort of helps me stay engaged it’s like, “Alright, who can I work with next?”

AE: Interesting. M: I love people. I just love people and I love music so collaboration is a natural go-to for me. So that’s how it happened just a random email Yenta thing.

AE: [Laughs] As a Jew I can appreciate that. M: Yeah, it was like we got set up.

AE: Merrill and Thao I think you can organically think of their sounds as separate artists coming together but having your sound be able to blend in there pretty seamlessly is just incredible. Was there ever a time in the creative process where someone was like, “Forget this! I’m going to my room!”? M: Doing anything for that many hours in a row, for that many days in a row in a small group of people you think they are going to come up. That’s why people are in a relationship together so that things can come up. People brought their moods into the studio or their menstrual cycles and their stresses from other things that were going on and their excitement from other things that were going on so it’s kind of like, you become a little family unit and you just kind of ride it. Ride it out and there was never anything that came up that was like, “Oh man, this sucks!” [Laughs]

AE: [Laughs] M: Nothing anywhere near that.

AE: So this might sound a little weird but I consider myself to be a little psychic. Remember when Johnny Carson used to hold an envelope up to his head and know what’s inside? So I did that with your album. M: Whoa.

AE: The image that I got was couscous. Like a delicious bowl of couscous salad. Does that mean anything to you? M: That is hysterical! Here’s what I think you were seeing: quinoa salad.

AE: Yeah, that might have been it! M: [Laughs] You might have seen quinoa salad because Thao and I were eating a lot of quinoa at the time.

AE: I knew it! M: [Laughs] Wow, if you’re that psychic can I ask you some questions about what I should do with my life right now?

AE: There is a very obvious answer for that which is, “I don’t know” because I still don’t even know what I want to be when I grow up. [Laughs] M: [Laughs] Ok, that’s a good answer. I’ve actually come up with that answer many times myself. AE: Well, obviously I’d tell you to keep doing music because I’ve been a fan for a long time. But really this has been my favorite. M: OK, if you say so. It’s a hard weird job and so much of it depends on “How am I? I don’t want to do this. I’m just going to just go move to the family farm and live in a cabin by myself.” Or like “Maybe I should go to grad school and be an academic.” Honestly I’d be a terrible academic.

AE: I know how you’re feeling. You know how they say celebrities are just like us – that would be you! You’re just like us. M: One of my favorite quotes of last year – and I think it was in Rolling Stone – and Lady Gaga said, “You know sometimes I wake up and feel just as sad and insecure as any other 24-year-old but then I look at myself in the mirror and I say, ‘You’re Lady Gaga! Get up and walk that walk today!” [Laughs] Oh my God, I love her. [Laughs] I think about that quote a lot. It’s very inspiring to me.

AE: When you look back on your catalogue as an artist do you feel like your songs are a journal of your life during those times? M: Very much so. Sometimes even when I feel uncomfortably exposed and that’s not necessarily because of the subjects of each song you know – who I was talking about or what was going on in my life – but more so my voice has been a public commodity since I was in my early twenties and sometimes I’ll listen to the way that I sounded in my early twenties and I don’t like it as much. But that recording of that person and that voice is still me and sometimes I feel like it’s strange because having your work be like such a direct imprint of yourself and your growing up and it’s catalogued and accessible to everyone.

Sometimes it feels strange. Actually I don’t think about it that much. Mostly I just wander around and I don’t think about carrying this weight of a public persona. I mostly don’t think about it but when you ask me to think about it, which you just did.

AE: [Laughs] M: I think, whoa I really have been baring it all haven’t I? And then I think, that’s great because I have benefited and learned so much listening to the music and hearing the growth from all types of artists and I admire them and what always attracts me to the people I admire are their honesty. Being able to observe their true personhood and that’s kind of what I am doing.

AE: Yeah, it’s kind of like getting paid to voice your own therapy session. M: [Laughs] Right! Actually.

AE: What’s your personal favorite song off of this album? And what does it mean to you? M: I love how that first track turned out.

AE: “Eleven”? M: Yeah, it was totally different than anything I have ever done before and it was a totally different thing than what Thao has down before because that was the one that Merrill had the most imprint on. I love exploring new sonic territory with my songs and with my voice and with my work. I think I love it because it is so far from what the sounds that come out of me naturally. And also because all three of our voices are so prominent on the song and I like that. AE: I just saw your cover of Pat Benatar’s “Love is a Battlefield.” M: Awesome!

AE: It was a great cover. What made you choose to cover that song, other then the fact that it’s a total jam? M: It’s true, love is a battlefield. We actually came up with that idea a long time just because I was watching some music videos with my friend Christopher who I will be making a music video with. I was looking for inspiration to make one and I ended up watching these Cyndi Lauper videos and they made me cry. Cry in a good way because they were so incredibly nostalgic because I’ve loved Cyndi Lauper since I was kid. I was literally crying.

AE: So good. M: I was just on YouTube and Pat Benatar came up and that video came up and “Love is a Battlefield” is so awesome! That’s like the era where I was in elementary school and I was just starting to listen to pop music and steer away from my parent’s music, which was all really great. But the 1980s, that era of the ’80s, really was what started my love of pop music and I’ve always had a soft spot for it. I just love the song and that video.

AE: Thank you so much for your time. I hope it was painless for you. M: Yeah it was fun.

You can download Mirah’s favorite song from Thao & Mirah, “Eleven,” or buy the whole album on iTunes. They are on tour now.

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