A Conversation with Laura Veirs (continued)

PM: Your songs are always great, but I think this is a very special batch of songs, more emotional without being angsty.

LV: Uh-huh.

PM: I don't include you, but a lot of people can't get emotional without getting angsty, is what I mean.

LV: Yeah, right. I can see that. That's kind of an easier way to go about things, I guess. It's just there. Angst is always there, so it's easy to talk about it. I try to find other ways to talk about complex emotions rather than just dwelling on the dark side.

PM: Right. Or just staying kind of in the personal emotional realm, yeah, you find other ways to get to that subject.

LV: Yeah.

PM: What's afoot in your life that fueled this batch of songs?

LV: Oh, you've probably read about it. I went through a lot of personal changes, and I kind of don't want to talk about them anymore, because I'm just like kind of exhausted by it. But I went through a big breakup, and got together with someone new. And that's the foundation of this record.

PM: Good for you. But I would like to talk about your move from Seattle to Portland, which is more my kind of town.

LV: Yeah. It's a neat town.

PM: How is that treating you?

LV: It's fun. I've been on tour so much since I moved there that I haven't really felt the, like, core of the city yet. I don't really know all the different neighborhoods yet. But I do know my neighborhood, which is in the northeast part of town.

PM: That's the cool part, right, the northeast?

LV: Well, southeast is really the hipster, more hip cool part, and northeast is like the next up and coming cool part, I guess.

PM: I see.

LV: But southeast is traditionally, I guess, for a longer period, it has been the place where all the artists live. But I think that it became too expensive, like it always happens, so people started moving to the northeast. It's so funny, because it's a tiny town. I mean, it is a city, but people really do stay to their neighborhood, and that's kind of interesting. Like I was talking with Khaela from The Blow--I don't know if you know that band, but--

PM: I don't yet, but I will.

LV: She lives in the southeast, and I told her I was moving to Portland, and she's like, "Where are you moving?" And I was like, "Northeast." She was like, "Oh, I'll never see you."

PM: [laughs]

LV: Because people just don't really go--they have everything they need in each neighborhood, really. I mean, you can walk, basically. It's a very walk-friendly and bike-friendly town, so you can basically just get around without a car. I don't have a car. Anyway, the point is that it's still new to me, very new. And I really like it, but I honestly haven't really been there for more than a month at a time. And it was rainy when I moved there. I moved there in November, so it's harder to get out and about when it's raining all the time.

PM: Portland has that all over Nashville, which is not really a walking or a bike-friendly atmosphere. And that really makes a town, I think.

LV: Oh, it does. It's very much more European in that way. I mean, that's why I love to go to Europe because everyone is walking everywhere. You kind of have to walk, because the streets are too narrow to have a car, or you can never find parking. It's just really set up for pedestrians, which I think is one reason why there isn't such an obesity problem there, because people are forced to walk.

PM: Right. And in Europe, bike lanes are everywhere.

LV: We love going to Holland, because they're crazy for bikes there. And they have like bike lanes that go underneath the highways, roundabouts. I mean, they've got bike lanes that are separate roads in various places. Of course, bikes dominate in Amsterdam. You really have to be aware when you're crossing a street there, because the bikes will just mow you down. That's how they go. The bikes control the thing, and that's great.

PM: Bikes rule.

LV: Yeah. You'll find moms with four kids on a bike, one bike. They just have a way of doing it that makes it look so effortless.

PM: I'll tell you one town I didn't like biking in was Shanghai.

LV: I've biked in China because I lived there for a year. But I was there about--well, I'm sure it was terribly crowded then. I found it really interesting in Beijing. There was this flow that happened in the bike world, like--

PM: A sea of bicycles.

LV: Oh, yeah. It's like this river. And you just get in and out of the roundabout, just like a little drop of water would in a river. It was fascinating. But what happened to you in Shanghai?

PM: Oh, it's just the traffic is so scary, there's so many things coming from so many directions at every instant that you just have to stay so on your game. And then life seems so cheap over there, so if somebody gets hit by a car, well, it's just no big deal. You got to take care of it on your own, because there's no insurance. And the police don't make a big deal about it. It's just another world, as you know.

LV: Oh, yeah. It's much more free like kind of anarchy over there.

[laughter]   continue

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