October 29th, 2009
INTERVIEW: A Fine Frenzy’s Alison Sudol
Tomorrow night, Alison Sudol — who makes terrific piano-centric pop under the moniker A Fine Frenzy — comes to World Cafe Live with her four-piece band in support of their sophomore album Bomb in a Birdcage. As I noted in this week’s PW: “AFF’s 2007 debut, One Cell in the Sea, had a dreamy, whimsical, romantic quality about it—it pulled off the neat trick of being charming without being dainty or cloying—and Sudol’s clarion voice and clever lyrics spoke to love and loss in simple but wise ways. On the group’s new Bomb in a Birdcage, Sudol and company expand their palette, adding a tad more complexity and texture and, gasp, even a bit more aggression to the mix.” We caught up with the always friendly and gracious Sudol over the phone last week as she was kicking off her U.S. tour:
Feeling good about the new album?
Yeah, I am, actually! I don’t have full perspective on it for sure, it still feels pretty new. But I do feel like it’s definitely different than I thought it would be when I was making it, and I like it. And it always surprises me when I put it on. Something happened when we were in the studio and it was more than just musicians coming together and making music — something just kinda happened that wasn’t planned or controlled or anything and I feel that when I listen to it, more now even than when I made it.
Are there one or two moments from the recording sessions that stick out for you now?
Yeah, you know, there definitely are. There were a lot of very special moments. But one was the very beginning. I wrote “What I Wouldn’t Do” far before we went into the whole album process, and funny enough, I never get sick but I was actually sick when I wrote that. I was stuck inside and I wrote it in an hour and a half or two hours, and I was sick again when I recorded it. And I just remember it coming together, and I did that vocal and I was literally kinda propped up on a pillow feeling awful, and then I was like, “Oh, I feel like singing,” and there was something so joyful and free in it.
Do you sit down before you write the songs and think about overall moods or themes for an album, or do you just write and record all the songs and then see what you’ve got and what works together?
I guess it’s a conscious effort to try to make something of a piece. There are songs I’ll write that won’t go on the album because they just don’t fit in, but I think there were subconscious themes that I didn’t realize until afterward. There’s a lot of, like, elemental themes, and there’s a lot of birds and flight and sort of mythical struggles and stuff like that on this album. Just like One Cell had a lot of fairytale elements, and I didn’t really realize that too much until afterward.
That’s interesting that you can have a greater understanding of something you’ve written a year or two later than you do when you’re in the moment.
Hugely, and it’s funny, too, because there are things that, like, maybe I thought I was writing about at the time and I look back and I see that a song might have been more honest than I was being with myself. Like, I might tell myself something but actually be writing about how I actually feel and not understanding it at all when it’s happening, not until later when I get some clarity and understanding. It really makes you wonder about the whole time and relativity thing. It’s on a different plane and I don’t claim to have any power over it and it’s definitely not me. I don’t know what it is, I’m just grateful that it’s there to be tapped into.
When you’re in writing and recording mode, are you aware of the audience that will eventually hear those songs, and are you trying to communicate something to them? Or are you mainly just trying to get things out from inside?
Ummm, I think I’m aware of it as much as, like, I wanna make a song be relatable by someone that’s not just me. So, there’s a way of writing a song which is just for you, where you would include details in a way that it would just carve out everybody else from being able to participate in the song, to where people listen and they don’t feel like it could possibly be them. I write songs like that sometimes when I’m being self-indulgent and having a pity party, and then I’ll put it aside and go “Okay, that was stupid. Cut that out!”
Yeah, you don’t wanna get too emo, huh?
[Laughs] I want people to be able to step into my shoes, or have the shoes of the song be a one-size-fits-most [laughs]. So that a person can benefit from that, because in my opinion music is such a healer, and if I go through something and can maybe find a way to communicate about it in a way that hits some sort of truth, then that might make somebody at least feel like they’re not alone. Maybe I don’t have an answer, but at least it’s a sort of unity. I would never want to make a song exclude the listener.
One Cell in the Sea was a pretty big success, and the music industry being the way it is, I would imagine a lot of people now look at you with dollar signs in their eyes. How have you been able to navigate that?
I’m very lucky in that the people I work very closely with are there for the long haul and know me and understand me and have been there for a long time, so I was shielded from a lot of that. I was definitely made aware of it, but, you know, I think I’m grabbed onto far less than the norm in this industry, and I feel very grateful for that. I think I’ve been treated very well and have been remarkably unscathed.
What’s your favorite part of the whole thing — playing shows or making albums, or something else?
For me, my greatest joy in the whole world is writing a song. There’s nothing that really compares to that.
The first moment when you come up with a song idea, or when it’s fleshed out?
The first moment. Everything else is touching, but that moment of creation is really what I do this for. Seeing it come together is on par with a fabulous show. It’s that exciting. But the fact that you have nothing, and then you have something, and then you have something that’s this jewel that didn’t exist before, it’s amazing.
I think the nature of artists is that they want to be able to capture that at will.
You can’t.
Is that frustrating, or do you accept that?
It’s a frustrating thing that I accept [laughs]. It’s like a cat — sometimes that cat just will not let you pet it no matter how much you follow it or give it food, and then you go and sit on your couch and you’re like, “That’s okay, I’m just gonna be a little sad for a while.” And the cat comes and snuggles in your lap, and you’re like, “Ohhh, there it is.” And you try not to move so that it’ll stay as long as it does, even though you know it’s gonna go again.
A Fine Frenzy plays World Cafe Live on Friday, October 30th at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20.50-$30.50.
