A Conversation with Aoife O'Donovan (continued)

PM: What are you reading at the moment?

AO: What am I reading? I'm reading a book called The Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster. He wrote the New York Trilogy. He's a Brooklyn writer.

PM: Right, right.

AO: I just picked that up in the bookstore the other day, and it's amazing. It takes place right where I used to live, for a year. I'm halfway through at the moment.

PM: Anything special on the iPod?

AO: What I've been listening to nonstop to this Norwegian singer named Hanne Hukkelberg.

PM: And what does she do?

AO: She is this amazing Norwegian singer with lots of really cool sounds, and an amazing songwriter. And it sounds like you're listening to a Norwegian fairy princesses.

PM: Is she singing in Norwegian?

AO: English. It's sort of got this indie rock vibe.

PM: Oh, an indie rock vibe. And how did you find out about her?

AO: Through my friend from college, Justin Keller. He's always turning me on to new female singer/songwriters.

And I'm also really into Emiliana Torrini, who's this Icelandic Italian chick who sings in English, and kind of sounds like Bjork, and she's amazing. And I found out about her on Grey's Anatomy.

[laughter]

PM: Why, do they list the musical credits at the end of Grey's Anatomy?

AO: No, but you can search--first of all, Grey's Anatomy plays amazing music.

PM: They do, yeah. Yeah, a couple of my friends landed tunes on that, and a couple of them paid really well.

AO: Sure, well, because it's the best show ever. But I think Sometymes Why needs to get on Grey's Anatomy, because I think that that's very Grey's Anatomy music. But... [laughs] Anyway, I searched the song on like their website or something. That's how I found out about it. The amount of people that watch Grey's Anatomy, that's millions and millions of people.

PM: Yeah, it's insane.

AO: Because that's like the most popular show on TV. HBO, The Sopranos is really popular, still you have to be a subscriber to watch it.

PM: Right, yeah, it's not ABC.

AO: Yeah.

PM: Speaking of which, that really sucks that Lost isn't on until February.

AO: Don't tell me, because I still have to catch up on the first--I only watched the first two episodes. It's on my computer. I haven't had time to watch it.

PM: Really? Oh, it's really good. You'll dig it. Would you call yourself a spiritual person?

AO: Not really--in a way. I mean, no--kind of. I definitely can be sometimes, and I am a spiritual person in that I believe in the power of my family and my friends and music, and maybe in nature, but not necessarily from spirits.

PM: Yeah, or a higher power, or stuff?

AO: Yeah.

PM: Some people come to that spiritual place through family, through people.

AO: Yeah. And really, all my spirituality, I think comes from my family, who are--I'm obsessed with my family. I live two miles away from my family, my parents. And I have two brothers and a sister, and I'm the oldest. So that's my spirituality right there.

PM: I hear that. Is Crooked Still getting Triple A airplay?

AO: I think so. I'm really out of the business loop right now--

PM: Because they certainly could, if they worked it correctly. It's blown up enough--I don't know what I'm trying to say. It's explosive enough to certainly get more than acoustic music may get, or bluegrass music may get, or any of that stuff. I mean, it should be getting Triple A airplay. It's explosive.

AO: Right. Well, hopefully it will.

PM: Will the next record be traditional tunes for reinvention, or will it include any original stuff? What's the play there?

AO: Well, Crooked Still is a traditional band. We do original songs, like "Mountain Jumper," if they fit in the vibe our band. So I think that the next record we do will probably be more kind of even taking it further, taking the traditional music and the kind of really old songs, taking it even further, because we're having such a good time with it, and people are really responding to it. And our last couple tours have just been so amazing. And we're having a great time.

PM: Is there a DVD in the works?

AO: The only thing I've seen is what's on YouTube, so go check that out, "Come On In My Kitchen." [There's a link to it at the bottom of this page.] And if the rest of the songs turn out like that, I think that we will definitely do a DVD.

PM: Oh, because that was the idea, that's why that guy was filming it professionally to hopefully do a DVD.

AO: Yeah. That was what we definitely wanted to do, for release next summer.

PM: That's beautiful. You're a really super open-ended artist. Are there projects in your sights that you've not attempted?

AO: Well, I think later this month I'm going to go to New York. And I have a bunch of guy friends, great musicians. I'm going to record some more of my own songs with sort of a kickass band backing me up. So we'll see where that goes, see if it's good enough to release an EP, or make it a demo and shop it around to labels, because Crooked Still, I think it's the kind of band that we'll do for a long time, but I don't see it being a band that I'm going to do until I die.

PM: Yeah, right. I don't think that you can be contained by any single band that you've been in so far. I think you're just beginning to take off, as a person, as an artist, and as a singer. I mean, you're outlandishly good for how young you are. I certainly look forward to following your musical exploits and speaking like this again with you in the future.

AO: Well, thank you so much. I just had my birthday on Saturday. So that was a really fun time, at the Thile show in Charlotte. We had a big cake, and it was really a blast.

PM: Well, when I get out to one of these shows, I'll come up and introduce myself. And it was wonderful talking with you. You're a really, really nice person.

AO: Great. Thank you so much, Frank.

PM: Not at all, Aoife. And regards to your compadres, the men and the women.

listen to clips     buy Shaken By A Low Sound here or here

print (pdf)      crookedstill.com      sometymes why online

buy Sometymes Why by Sometymes Why here

check out Crooked Still's debut CD Hop High here

okay, now go watch "Come On In My Kitchen" at youtube!

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