A Conversation with Amy Correia (continued)

PM: There's a remarkable freedom all over your music, in your writing, your playing, and especially your singing. Does that show up in your personality day-to-day?

AC: That's such a nice question. I like that. Well, first of all, I'm glad you hear that kind of freedom in my music. I would say that in some ways I think I am really free, and in other ways I feel I'm not. I guess I'm striving towards that freedom.

PM: Were you raised that way, or did you teach yourself to be free?

AC: I'm not sure. I mean, I grew up Catholic, which is not normally a liberating atmosphere.

[laughter]

AC: But my mother and my dad, they're really special people. They've always encouraged me to just go out and live my life. They lived kind of a very traditional life. They grew up next door to each other in the same town of Lakeville.

PM: Unbelievable.

AC: Yeah, they've known each other since they were five years old, kind of a small world. I think that gave me a solid foundation. And I like the way my life and career are going. I'm not getting rich off it, but I'm certainly having an adventurous life, and I really feel like that's a blessing.

PM: Yeah, you're living the life, absolutely.

[Then we talked a while about the pros and cons of living in Nashville, the housing situation, and her desire to come down and have a look around, as her list of Nashville friends grows.]

PM: On the news section of your website, it struck me beautifully when you were talking about doing some dates with Aimee Mann in March, you chose to say that her bassist Paul Bryan had made a really good album, which I liked a lot, the Handcuff King.

AC: Oh, do you know Paul?

PM: Well, we've emailed in the past, and I'm sorry to say, I never covered that record for one reason or another, but it was great.

AC: Yeah, yeah. [laughs] You know what? This is funny--this is part, I guess, of my own gypsy lifestyle. I'm about to go and live in his apartment, because he's going out to make a bunch of records with Joe Henry in California.

PM: Really?

AC: In California, yeah. He's making a couple records out there with some R&B singers.

PM: Beautiful.

AC: Yeah. So I'm going to be going to live in his apartment for about three months and play with his instruments, and I'm going to do a lot of my writing for my next album. I have an apartment in Brooklyn that I sublet that has a nice bed and some furniture, not a lot. But I don't miss that stuff even one bit. It's been two years since I've lived there. So, yeah, I'm going to be in Paul's house this summer.

PM: Where's he live? Last summer I spent in SoHo, that was a really good time.

PM: Oh, that's cool. Paul lives in Greenpoint, in Brooklyn. And he lives right over--well, Gerry Leonard, the guitar player? You know Gerry?

PM: Oh, sure, Spooky Ghost.

AC: Yeah.

PM: Yeah, we've covered him before in the mag. [see our review] Yeah, I love him. He's great.

AC: That's the nice thing about being back in the East Coast, because I was in L.A. during the making of my first album. I love the musicians--well, I like them on both coasts. The best part of this whole life is being able to meet so many people.

PM: And although everybody doesn't understand them, one of the greatest parts about being a musician is having a million musicians for friends, because there's nobody like them.

AC: I know. I know.

PM: Okay, they're flaky, immature or self-obsessed in some cases, this or that, but there's nobody like them.

AC: That's right.

PM: I know that you started out with a love for literature at Barnard, and all that stuff.

AC: Right.

PM: Do you write any prose these days?

AC: I haven't, but we're having a reunion at Barnard this year. And there's a group of people in New York called Moth and they're storytellers.

PM: What's it called?

AC: I think their site might be themoth.org. And they're storytellers, Moby did some stuff with them, and Ethan Hawke, but tons of other people, too, that we've never heard of. And they go around in New York and they put on these different shows. And they've asked me to tell a story. And I think I'm going to accept, I have to call her today. So I haven't really been writing, but I think this is a great opportunity to think about a story from my college years and write something. I am still interested in that, but I really haven't been doing much of it, not yet.

PM: Well, I encourage you, write a story and do that. You've been kind to give me so much of your time today. You're very interesting, and a real find as an artist.

AC: I've really enjoyed talking with you, Frank. Thank you for calling. See you in Nashville sometime pretty soon.

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