Part I: Travelling Again

Dar took some time out to talk to darwilliams.net in late January. This is the first two installments of that exclusive interview. The other parts will be posted when there's time to transcribe the tapes. Any questions or comments, please e-mail me.

1. We know you won’t be at Falcon Ridge this summer, are you going to be playing at other festivals this summer, because you didn’t play at too many last year.
I didn’t know I wasn’t playing at Falcon Ridge this year. [Anne Saunders told us that you weren’t]. Well then, that’s weird, I guess I’m not then. It would make sense to me. I have been there like five years in a row. It’s a little weird because of the Dar Camp thing but you know at this point it’s not exactly a pure Dar phenomenon, so it’s okay.

2. Do you have plans for any touring outside the U.S. this year?
Yeah, the plan is to go for one week this summer and December just in the U.K. or U.K-Ireland or maybe just two weeks in December.

3. How was your trip over there last year?
It was good. I had not been back there for a long time so some of it was regaining lost ground and that was appropriate, that was okay. It taught me a lot about how to sort of stay in touch with every part of your career. It’s good. I think that I’ll be going back every year at this point.

4. Were the audiences really different than what you’re used to?
Well, you know, they smoke more [laughs]. You notice the physical differences but in general, I would say  . . . I used to feel spooked by the quietness. Now I just take that for granted, that it’s going to be a little quieter than an American audience. At the same time, it’s probably not that much different. They’re very smart. They listen. You can hear them hearing specific lyrics in a really great way.
    They’re not as effusive or rah, rah. Sometimes it’s an energy thing. You just sense it. An enthusiastic listener is different than an intent listener.

5. Are there places both in the U.S. and other parts of the world where you’d like to play but haven’t had much of a chance or would like to play again?
  Somebody said Iceland from the audience. Somebody said come to Ireland, come to Amsterdam, Aberdeen. And then somebody said come to Iceland and I thought, “yes, yes, yes.” I really love Scotland and I’d love to play in Amsterdam again. And what an amazing thing it would be to play in some of the places that you may never venture to see like Iceland or Denmark. Everything I see about Copenhagen, I’m in love with. It’s a city I’d love to see. It would be lovely to do a workman’s holiday in any of those places.

6. How do you decide what you’ll play for each show?
It’s a mix. It’s always nice to get a request I can do ahead of time and get it together. And that sort of mixes it up. Generally, I try to anticipate, I try to do two or three so at least those people who’ve come for certain standard songs hear them. And then I mix them up with new stuff. And also you want to make sure the flow of the evening is such that there is some kind of wave pattern to it, even if it means ending on a low note. Sometimes I’ll end on a very quiet song, like When I Was A Boy or something. It doesn’t necessarily mean a crescendo up to a big bang ending. It’s more like making sure you have a mix of tempos and themes. Sometimes I realize I’m doing a woman’s thing — suddenly I’m doing song number five about some aspect of being a woman and I think “oh-oh, this is my woman’s music set.” Sometimes I like, “oh man, I’ve just done five songs in a row about desperate addicts.” So I try and make sure I’m mixing up the different themes as well.

7. Are there any songs you don’t like playing or really love playing?
What Do You Hear In These Sounds is kind of hard to play on this new guitar, truth be told. It’s because of the shape of the neck and the song is very high up on the neck so it’s difficult. Other than that, no. I’m happy to play anything that I have a chance to go over. At this point, while I’m not as prolific as some other writers, but I do have about 60 songs I can play. That means some of the back material is a bit rusty.
    Other than that I’m cool. Some of the stuff that I don’t play for a long time and that I play, I feel like “ooh, I wish I could have changed that lyric, ooh that doesn’t really quite work as well as I thought.” That happens kind of rarely ‘coz usually, once I’ve committed to a lyric, I commit to it fully. Some of those songs where I sense a klinker, I’m a little more loathe to turn back.

8. I read something recently where you said you’d been doing some writing for other musicians.
Yeah, but it doesn’t . . . there was one song I wrote that was a country song. My manager made a joke, he said “you know I have someone who tried to use the expression ‘streets of London’ in a country song and they said it was too literate.” He said this pop country these days, alt-country is a whole different bag . . . but, I wrote two songs and I thought “these are really simple.” So I submitted them. What I got back from them was: No, no way. Even from the people I worked with, they didn’t even pass them on. They said “these are just a tad too pat, too arranged for what they’re really looking for.” I think that when I stray from what I consider to be the Dar Williams path, sometimes people come back and they say “this is your path, it’s just a change in it, but it’s yours.”
    I wrote a song for Gail Ann Dorsey for whenever she wants to record a CD. But that was a no-pressure thing. I wrote basically the story of how she went to a public school around mainline Philadelphia when she was actually growing up in the inner city of Philadelphia. Actually, she snuck out on the commuter train every morning at dawn to attend this public school. The way she describes it — she was totally free of rancour about the whole thing — she just said: “they had the facilities I needed. They had an AV room and I could learn film and audio visual and that was what I needed. They did not have these facilities in the school in Philadelphia.” So she doesn’t say it was a better neighbourhood and it was more affluent. She just says, “they had what I needed.” I just love this. My thought was “how did she get away with it?” So the song is basically sussing that out. My conclusion is that there were probably a lot of teachers who knew exactly what she was doing and they were so proud of her for it that they totally facilitated it.

9. Do you like writing songs for other people or are you really more about writing songs for yourself?
All of the above. It’s really exciting to hear a song in your head and to develop it. I think writing for other people has a lot to do with hearing something in my head and taking it seriously enough to develop it, even if it’s a goofy song. You know that song I have about those potheads in college, that started out as sort of a lark. But I kept on thinking, “well, just finish it.” If it’s lark, then it’s a lark that you’ll finish. It’ll be a finished piece. I tend to take my whimsy pretty seriously and I kind of half superstitiously believe that’s a part of my success. Because the universe only brings you so many things and if you keep on turning them away maybe they’ll stop coming.

10. Do you watch any TV shows regularly?
I so wish I could plead the 5th on this one. I never had a TV in my adult life until this year. And suddenly because we have cable access for our computers, we have zillions of channels. And Michael works so hard all day, he’s pooped, and I don’t mind taking a mental break. We love The West Wing. And I will confess we watch the Sopranos and Sex in the City when they have those episodes back-to-back — that’s on HBO.

Part II  The New Music

11. You’re going to be going into the studio to record your next album next month [February], can you tell us a bit about the new recording?
It’s weird  . . . I don’t know, something’s happening. I used to labour over songs for years, a little piece at a time. And now they come out in a few weeks or they don’t. So that’s a new thing for me. Other than that, and I think some of them are shorter, less lyrics. It’s kind of a ‘be careful what you wish for scenario’ because they are more economical, these songs. Whether that will be disappointing to listeners is yet to be seen. Yet they are a little bit different for me. But I don’t dislike them, I’m just sort of noting the change.
    Other than that, they sound the same, it’s not a whole new direction — excpet for a little radio play I’m putting in the middle [giggles]. I hope that I can pull it off. I have been a little lazy about it. It’s a little radio play I want to do. A little drama in the middle. More like a drama disguised as a sonic exploration so it will still count as music. Truth be told, singing this Yoko Ono song, and talking about it, and thinking about college, and talking about it with some of my friends from college reminded me of how much I loved experiemental theatre and stuff. So I just thought “well, if I do love it, then rather than just going off and making a fool of myself and doing a completely experimental record, how can I manipulate the boundaries of this next album and the album after that?” Just to try things because you and I both know it’s better to fall on your face than disappoint with sameness.

12.  What or who have been your most recent influences?
I don’t know if we’re going to have long enough in the studio to do something like this, but the Wilco album Summer Teeth was so playful and beautiful. Michael is really into The Band, Neil Young — the flipside of Judy Collins and Joan Baez and all the stuff we grew up with  — he grew up with The Band and Bob Dylan and Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen. So he’s turning me on to that. I don’t know if that’s an influence but it’s certainly my vein of music. I enjoy it a lot.

13.  Who are some of the musicians you’ll be working with?
All the same from the last album but it’s not set yet. There’s some people we’re still talking to to figure out the core group.
13.1  Who is producing it?
Stewart Lerman, the same producer as The Green World, and Rob Hyman — the two of them.
You’re obviously  happy with the result from the last one.
I am, I am. I also like the idea of continuing where you left off. Seeing if you can find the “next thing.” That’s easier to do with the same people, to continue and maybe find a deeper thing.

14. With Out There Live, you completed your five-record deal with Razor and Tie. Is this new one going to be on the same label or are you changing?
No, I’m on Razor and Tie. We resigned with them.
14.1  What is it about Razor and Tie that makes you want to stay with them?
I think I just do something really specific and they  basically try to find the audience for the specific thing that I do. They do that work very thoroughly. They give me a megaphone instead of trying to change me. I like that. I also like that in a world where I kind of feel the lowest common denominator is exploited. Not really with the music that I do. I mean, Emmylou Harris I don’t believe is exploited as a sexual object or anything but I wouldn’t want to be caught up in it.
    I talked to somebody who ended up not being my manager, who said “it’s good not to wear a wedding ring on stage or to really talk about a husband or things like that. Because, you know, everybody wants you when you’re on a stage. That’s just a fact.” And I just thought, that’s the unfortunate fact, if it is the fact, and there’s all sorts of words for the kind of love you feel for a performer. So for someone to sort of blunt it and bastardize it and say “c’mon you gotta admit it.” It’s like saying how you dress is really the way people perceive you as opposed to who you are. When people bully you and say “c’mon, admit it, it’s a Darwinian fact,” it makes me really uncomfortable.
    Razor and Tie never does that. They never say: “god if you’d just get those breast implants, we bet you’d sell a lot better.” They’re like: “what can we do for you to do this better?” A lot of times, it’s wonderfully unglamorous, hard-working stuff like strengthening their relationship with a retail chain or trying to get an interview again and again and again and finally being granted one or something like that. I am so proud of them for having the integrity to take it on themselves to do better for better sales as opposed to coming to me and saying: “hey, it’s a dog-eat-dog world, why don’t you weigh under a 100 lbs and dumb down your music?”
    They actually had a meeting once where they said “Dar’s doing a lot of fundraisers and there’s a political and environmental agenda coming out. How do we facilitate it?” as opposed to slowing it down. They didn’t say “how do we exploit it?” They said, basically, “how do we allow her to do this and get that out to the world that that’s a part of who she is as a performer.” From the reports I heard about that meeting, it was very respectfully dealt with as opposed to “let’s see if we can make her the Greenpeace poster girl.” I respect them a lot.

Part III: A History in Verse

15.    Are you reading anything right now?
I just finished a book called Adam Bede by George Eliot and my sister gave me a book called Slaves in the Family [by Edward Ball] for Christmas that I’m reading now. I loved Adam Bede. George Eliot is really a great writer.

16.    So you wrote this book for 10 and 11 year old girls. What’s it about?
It’s about a kid, an only child with a single dad, who has four really dysfunctional friends. But when the dad gets sick the friends become sort of superheroes. Like they come through to the best of their specific, strange abilities, and really show the kiddo that you can’t just overlook people. You can’t just overlook the gifts of unusual people, which ultimately, I think is a good message for the kid. Of course when you start to write something, that was my focus, but I became more interested in the kid as I was writing. And creating a world of characters in her school that challenge her to respect her strange self.
17.    What propelled you to write this?
A friend of mine’s father died and the people who came through after his father died just came through with whatever they could offer. It was like anything from a free lawnmower, for instance (I don’t want to give specifics). If somebody can lend you a car, if somebody is very good at pastries. People come through with the one thing they can do, which you hope is not just singing telegrams or something. If somebody worked for a company and had a lifetime supply of X, where X is foot lotion [laughs]. I was struck by the idea that people come through with what they have to offer and it’s just a lot of apples and oranges sometimes.
    But it’s still very touching how tenacious they are in offering that when really the question is “does anybody really care?” And suddenly they care and they’re showing up with basketfuls of what they can offer, which is often touchingly unuseable or suprisingly useable. I just thought that was a terrific thing for a kid to watch: people who have a really hard time functioning in their lives to suddenly become superfunctioning and to really shine as humans.
18.    Is this book going to be published?
Well, I think so. I’m hoping I’ll have a real first draft — I came up with a pre-first draft, with holes in it to sort of say “what would you want me to put in these holes? What’s not being developed?” In December, I did that — and the hope is that I’ll fill up those holes and have a first draft by June and then maybe a finished draft by the end of the summer. In which case, it could come out next spring. But if I get held up somehow, it would be next fall.
    I wouldn’t do it myself if Scholastic doesn’t accept it. We have a contract with Scholastic but the contract is pending their accepting the book. If they don’t accept the book, then nothing.
    I have to tell you something . . . I have also written a story about the Statue of Liberty that I’m very proud of. It’s written in verse [giggles]. I’m going to submit it to Scholastic as well. They’ve already told me that they don’t hold it against me that I came to them with an idea . . . they basically came to me saying “are you interested in developing any of the voices you have for, by and about children in your songs, you know the narrators. Are you interested in trying to find a prose equivalent?”
     They were lovely. They basically offerred me something on a silver platter that just would make a lot of people keel over with happiness. I didn’t quite know what to do with it. A friend of mine said “what you do with it is you meet with them and you talk to them.” They said we’re doing everything from pre-5-year-old books to a new teen line, called Push with really heavy themes. I’m very proud of them. It’s really amazing stuff, it’s really a branch off Scholastic. It’s something like a guy who drops acid and discovers he has no life. It’s a very non-moralistic teen series, where people just realize they have to stop their self-destrutive behaviours because they’re not working. They were really saying, you have the world to choose from here.
     I came back to them saying I want to write a novel for 11-year-olds and they said “great.” Then I came back and I said and I’ve also written this thing for 7 and 8 year olds. And they went “great.” And I said “but I’m still serious about the 11 and 12 year olds.” They said “we know.” So we’ll see.
     I just finished the Statue of Liberty book and I’m just so proud of it. But there’s no illustrator or anything for it yet. At this point, it’s 45 couplets. I’m so proud of it, I can’t even tell you. I don’t know why.  Most songs when I finish, I like to keep it to myself but this, I want to send it to my parents and. . . . I think there’s something about it that so sing-songy that it’s not like offering your viscera, it’s just sort of a clever thing that one is proud of.
     The Statue of Liberty thing came about because I’m interested in people making regional education more interesting. Specifically, the Hudson River for New Yorkers. I was trying to figure out how Clearwater could play a bigger role in that. I had this huge fantasy of the history of the river told with stories and songs and slide shows and paintings. And also things like sturgeon and eels and stuff like that — the ecology and the future, which all hinge on the politics.
    I just like the idea of kids being excited about the Hudson River because I just remember regional history being finding out that native Americans ate out of wooden bowls. It wasn’t very awake for me and I think there’s no reason for kids not to feel like they live in a magical place, wherever they live. The Hudson River, there’s no excuse to feel bored about regional history when you the Adirondaks on one end of the river and New York City on the other. So that’s where it started. I said there need to be more exciting books about regional stuff . . . well I’ll write a story on the Statue of Liberty. It was sort of a joke and then I got really excited.

19.    When are you getting married?
May. It’ll be in New York.

20.    How did you and Michael meet?
Michael was asked to  . . . some friends invited him to come see me as sort of a Wesleyan thing. You know when you go to college there are all sorts of Alumni events you’re invited to, so this was a mock version of a Wesleyan event, a group of friends who’d gone to Wesleyan coming to this concert. They couldn’t get a table and they saw me wandering in and out. This was during the three shows I did with the big band [The Green World release party in NYC in Aug. 2000]. So Michael asked, he was really embarrased, “can you get us a table?” God, I have friends who call me up the day of the show and ask for 10 comp tickets, this was nothing. I said “absolutely.” Then I whispered to somebody: “Make Razor and Tie give up one of their tables.” Which is lovely . . . another thing I like about Razor and Tie is that I can kind of treat them like family. I mean, they’re lawyers, but then, so’s my manager, so that’s all kept under control!
21.    Did you know him from before?
We’d met a few times, yeah. He didn’t know anything about my career, which was great. He was actually going to call me once upon a time after the Honesty Room was released, that a mutual friend had given to him that he thought I’d sort of put out on a vanity label — on a self label. He said at one point he was going to try and track me down and call me and say “keep up the good work” like as End of the Summer was coming out. So that was very sweet. It was nice. He felt very supportive but not from the point of view of just wanting to be in. He had a very specific relationship with my music that didn’t have to do with the rest of my travelling and touring and all that.
22.    How did you go from getting a table for him, to getting married to him in May?
After The Green World tour I went on a date with him and that was it. Just one date.

Part IV Random thoughts on random topics

22.    Do you live in New York City most of the time now?
Basically yes. Michael’s in New York. My house is in Rheinbeck, which is about two hours north. So I spend a lot of my time in New York City because (a) I think it’s inspiring, so it’s good for my work, and (b) my management, my label, my record production and now my potential publishing company are all here in New York City. There’s always something to be here for.

23.  Given the chance to attend college again as an 18-year-old, would you choose Wesleyan again, or another school?
I definitely would have gone to Wesleyan but if I could with all the memories, I definitely would have gone and chewed out a few more people. I might have done it differently [laughs]. I wish I had adult wisdom to address the really massive misunderstandings I had psychologically. Wesleyan was the right-on, perfect school for me because it was all about hands-on theatre, and hands-on music — a hands-on experience. The sex-drugs-and-rock-n-roll reputation it has I think is more based on ‘hmm . . . that’s an interesting pill, why don’t I swallow it.’ It’s very Alice in Wonderland that way. I didn’t do drugs but I feel like I was invited to try all sorts of stuff, socially and theatrically. It almost killed me because I took that too seriously and I didn’t find out who I was. I was so busy trying everything, I was afraid to commit to an identity. That’s a misunderstanding. You have to know who you are in order to try these kind of things and allow yourself to be changed but also stand up for yourself.
    If I were 18 right now and going off to college, I’d look at Vassar as well. Vassar’s pretty great. And of course now that I live in New York, I think Columbia’s pretty great too.
    I also like Goddard. You know, they have no grades. My friend Anne Weiss went there [inaudible story about mushrooms or something]  . . . it’s like no grades but possibly death.
And also people have turned me on to the politics of state schools and how cool they could be. That would probably be something else, if I really wanted to challenge myself. A friend of mine who went to U Mass Amherst said: “here we don’t study other people, we live with them.”

24.  In Yoko Ono, what’s with the ‘whispering Chuck Berry?’
John Lennon loved Chuck Berry. So I imagined him crooning to her. From what I heard, they weren’t just all about, as they used to say at Wesleyan, ‘why is a chicken?’ They weren’t all about deconstructing reality. They also had some very concrete normal courtship stuff in common. When I knew that he loved Chuck Berry, I imagined him singing in her ear. I didn’t imagine him channelling Chuch Berry.

25.   Last year you got a new guitar. Why’d you choose a Huss & Dalton?
It’s faaaaaabulous! I was trying Collings and Lowdens, and those are the sort of extremely resonant sometimes smaller bodied guitars. I think Shawn Colvin has a Lowden. Larivee, Martin, Taylor, Guild, Gibson those are some of the great guitar companies. Then there are the smaller companies that make stuff that is known to be achieving something that has a very full sound with a smaller body — the genius that a smaller business can achieve. Even though I’ve heard amazing Guilds and Martins and all that, that was my dream to have a Collings or a Lowden. And then the store I was in in Lawrence, Kansas, with Bob McWilliams, who was promoting a concert and took me out to the guitar store, and he actually drove me there, which was great. The guy who was helping me at the store said “you should try these Huss & Daltons, they used to work with the band Joe Maker [sp?].” I was like, “nooooooo, thank you.” And then I picked it up  . . . Bob was so funny, Bob said “I’m no expert at this, but that’s the one.” And that’s exactly how I felt. That was that.
[Dar plays a Huss & Dalton OM Custom guitar.]
25.1     Do you only play the one guitar?
Yeah. I have all the other ones at home but I only travel with one guitar. I travel with two, just in case, on big tours. I have a limited edition Joan Baez Martin guitar that I also travel with.
25.2     What strings do you use?
Martin SPs or my  favourite is GHS Vintage Bronze.

26.     Do you still take lessons — guitar lessons or voice lessons or anything?
I was taking voice lessons until I left Northampton in 2000. I haven’t taken them since. I haven’t taken guitar lessons for a really long time. It’s really hard to find a guitar teacher. I’ve taken lessons from a lot of people and I’ll pick up a little something from each of them but it’s just really hard for me to find a teacher that I like.

27.     What’s some of the craziest things fans have said to you?
There was the famous “I was just telling my dad that I think you’d make a good stepmom,” which isn’t crazy, it’s very touching. Nothing too crazy. A lot of invitations to dinner and requests to sign things. It’s very sweet. I’ve seen people opening their car doors and barfing at truck stops and then people get really shy and say “can you sign my  . . . cast . . . my shoe.” That’s nothing. I’ve signed a few bras. I’m always suspicious when people ask me to sign this for their friends and “can you sign it ‘you stupid pothead.’” Usually I say “no!” There’s a couple who are crazy and we won’t talk about that because they’re really problemed people.
Frankly, I’d be thrilled if someone said “can I take you out in a boat to see some manatees?” or something like that. You have a fantasy of getting an unusual insider track on the town. But usually I’m too tired or on my way out of town or the perfect offer of going flamingo sighting or whale sighting are not usually proffered.
27.1      What’s the craziest thing anyone’s ever given to you?
Someone gave me a dog tag but usually people give me little nuts and shells and flowers. Things that they sort of pick up that they like. It’s very sweet. There was definitely a pretty heavy duty hemp necklace period, which seems to be abating, but maybe just because it’s not the summer. Nothing really gross.
27.2    What are some of the nicest things they’ve said or given you?
I have to say I can’t remember if I lent or gave, in that kind of ‘give away the things you love’ way  . . . somebody gave me the sweetest little cucina, totem doll, with beads that I loved so much. I swear it was a good luck doll. I would perch her in whatever room I was in in a hotel and light a candle and find my way to writing some new lyrics to a song. I loved that thing so much and I gave it to a friend of mine. I remember who the friend is but I can’t remember if it was on indefinite loan or whether I gave it to her. I think it would be bad luck to ask for it back if I gave it to her.
   Misty [Cochrane] also gave me the sock monkey, which I just adore. Whenever I’ve been single, I have this thing where the passenger-side of the bed is all books and journals and lyric sheets and things. We call that the Dar Café. The sock monkey was the guest of honour at the Dar Café during my single life. I think the sock monkey is one of my favourites of all time.
    People just give me things that are extremely useful. Someone gave me glitter tha I wear on my face. Sharon [Goldberg] gives me chocolate and cheescake and kleenex. People do that sometimes, which is very sweet — little helpful things.

28. Will you continue to come out after shows to meet and greet fans?
Yeah, I sometimes do, I sometimes don't. Last night I couldn't because I was driving home. Generally I do.

29.    What’s your favourite place to eat?
I'll give you a list:
    Soba in Pittsburgh
    A bunch of great restaurants in New York City -- Carmines, a huge Italian place
    Citrus in New York, I really love their white sangria
    Any sushi restaurant in Vancouver
    The Intermezzo Cafe in Berkley
    A few places in Austin, Texas, but I can't remember their names.

30.     What’s your favourite place to shop?
There's a store in England called Monsoon. That's my favourite place to shop.

Lastly . . . everybody has to buy the Statue of Liberty book. It's my proudest achievement.

Return to the library

There's no place like home.
 

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