A Conversation with Brandi Carlile (continued)

PM: Can you share the story of how you got signed to Columbia in 2004? How did that come about?

BC: That story is so convoluted. So many different weird things happened that led us to being signed to Columbia. But the long and the short of it is we made a record, we made the Brandi Carlile record on our own--we made some of it at our house, some of it in various studios, some of it in our practice place. Whenever we had money to throw at it, we would go record these songs we considered to be B-sides. And then Columbia signed that record; they bought that record from us and put it out.

PM: Wow.

BC: That's how we ended up getting signed to Columbia, which could be the reason why they were so great about us getting to go make this record without very much label involvement, in the studio.

PM: Right. How did they find out about you, or how did they get on to you guys?

BC: I think at that point we had a manager, and lawyer, and all of that infrastructure.

PM: Okay. That was all in place, managers and lawyers and stuff.

BC: Yes. This guy from Columbia, Tim Divine, came out and saw us play, in front of James Taylor. And he ended up signing us. We were, at the time, planning on signing with Rick Rubin.

PM: Really?

BC: Oh, yeah. We're all huge Rick Rubin fans. We love Rick Rubin very much.

PM: Big time, yeah.

BC: So we had made this record, and we're talking to Rick Rubin the whole time, for like a year. He was talking to us on the phone and giving us ideas. So God, we've been lucky, haven't we? We've gotten to work with some really amazing people.

PM: Well, the harder you work the luckier you get, too.

BC: [laughs] I guess so. I should write that on my guitar.

PM: And you happen to be blessed with a pretty crazy set of pipes. It's really amazing, your music. I mean, sure, it's lucky on the one hand, but you're not getting anything you don't deserve.

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