July 30--The last few years have been filled with change for Brandi Carlile. The singer-songwriter left her longtime major label Columbia, took a three-year recording hiatus, signed to the artist-friendly indie ATO and prepared for first-time motherhood.
Personally and professionally, her life is thriving. Carlile and her wife, Catherine Shepherd, are the proud parents of daughter Evangeline, who recently celebrated her first birthday. On the creative front, Carlile recently released her fierce new album, "The Firewatcher's Daughter." It's a raw and rootsy collection that features her powerhouse vocals and the spot-on harmonies of longtime musical partners Tim and Phil Hanseroth (known as the Twins). She's currently on tour, and shares a bill with Old Crow Medicine Show at Ravinia on Friday.
Carlile called recently from her Seattle home to share her thoughts on parenthood, her collaboration with the Hanseroth brothers and marriage equality. This is an edited transcript.
Q: You took a three-year recording hiatus before your recent return with "The Firewatcher's Daughter." What did you focus on during your time away from the studio?
A: I was definitely not focusing on writing and recording music, which was a godsend. I needed to forget some of the formulaic, industrial-craft mindset that I had about music at the time. I was thinking about starting a family. My wife and I were doing in vitro fertilization and trying to get our house ready. So when it came time to write again, it was like meeting the Twins all over again and figuring out what the three of us do when we create music. It was really new. That's exactly what we were hoping for. We had gone our separate ways with Columbia, which lent itself to even more wonderment.
Q: What was it like leaving the major label that for so long had been your recording home for a decade?
A: It was really bittersweet, but heavier on the sweet than the bitter. It's a special, legendary label that's affiliated with everyone you ever thought was a poet. It was a really brilliant decade to be on that label. But we'd been there and done it. We really wanted to go about recording and living our musical lives in a totally different way. We needed a radical change. In that way it was beautiful.
Q: There was a lot of personal change leading up to the recording of "The Firewatcher's Daughter." Did that affect your studio experience in the studio?
A: I was really uncertain and self-conscious, which I don't think I've been since my early 20s in the studio with T-Bone Burnett. I was also distracted and anxious about becoming a mother. My wife was nine months pregnant and could have gone into labor at any moment. I felt on the edge in a totally new way. Vocalizing that and singing was really helping. It was more out of control and unrefined than being in the studio has ever been for me.
Q: What has the adjustment to parenthood been like?
A: It's been funny. You don't just wake up when your child is born and you're a parent. You are, but you're still you. You have to find ways to fit yourself into the life you have with this new enormous responsibility. I'm not 25. I've already had a lot of life experiences. I have my routines and things I've got to do. One of the things about bringing Evangeline into the world for me and my wife in our late 30s -- we're definitely integrating her into our life instead of building our life around her, because it's just a little bit too late for that. It's fun.
Q: You've played in so many different live situations, from your completely unplugged Pin Drop Tour to performing with an orchestra. How have those experiences informed you?
A: It comes down to what I value most about what I do, which is to sing and entertain people in whatever context. I'm not married to any one way of doing that. I started out busking because I wanted to learn what made people stop what they were doing and listen. Then you take that into bars and learn what makes people put down their drinks. Then you take that into theaters, where people are sitting there focused on you, and it's the most beautiful, easiest thing you've ever done. But I never played an instrument or wrote a song for any other reason than just to have a way to entertain people. That is my true personal driving passion.
Q: You've collaborated with the Hanseroth twins for more than a decade. How did you meet them and how has the relationship evolved over time?
A: We met in Seattle, post-grunge era. I was still busking and doing residencies at restaurants. I wanted to plug in and be in a rock 'n' roll band, and they wanted to unplug and find their roots. It was an interesting contradiction. I think that was a really big basis for the uniqueness of our sound. We were also really enthusiastic about singing three-part harmony together. At the time, that was really an un-rock 'n' roll thing to do. Nobody thought it was cool, but we were really into it. That was a big part of what musically connected us. Now we're an equal trio. We collaborate on everything.
Q: You've been a long-time advocate for marriage equality. The recent Supreme Court decision to make that the law of the land must have been a deeply emotional moment for you.
A. Yeah, absolutely. When I met my wife, who is from London, there was a time when we didn't know if we could live in the same country together. We were getting detained at the airport. That's when you know your basic civil rights are being violated. (Civil rights) were being violated in other ways too: Elderly couples losing their homes due to the death of one of them. Families not being able to visit each other in the hospital. Those things were reality in so many people's lives. I think it really changed once heterosexual people got behind the cause and said, "We're not going to tolerate this happening to our brothers and sisters anymore." For me, that was beautiful.
Chrissie Dickinson is a freelance writer.
onthetown@tribpub.com
When: Friday, 7 p.m.
Where: Ravinia Festival, Lake-Cook and Green Bay roads, Highland Park
Tickets: $33-$65; 847-266-5100 or www.ravinia.org
