A Conversation with Amy Rigby (continued)

PM: But as great as all three of those environments were, my very favorite stuff is the tracks that were cut in Glasgow.

AR: Oh!

PM: Wow, David Scott of the Pearlfishers, who is this guy? I'm coming to yet another party late on the Pearlfishers. I've written him subsequent to hearing the record. He's going to send me some music.

AR: Did you hear back? Because he sometimes doesn't check his email that often.

PM: Yeah, he got right back to me very nicely. We hope to cover David Scott and the Pearlfishers shortly.

AR: Oh, good.

PM: But give us your take, how did you meet him and what was that experience like?

AR: Well, Davie's a wonderful sweet guy that I met at a friend's. A mutual friend introduced him to me. I was playing a show in Scotland at this little town outside of Glasgow, and my friend actually gave Davie all my CDs. And through email I talked to him about just playing guitar with me on a couple of the more challenging gigs that were in loud kind of drinking places where nobody would know my music, or necessarily even care.

PM: Right, help you break through.

AR: And I just needed even some moral support up on stage.

[laughter]

AR: And so literally he came to the first gig and just knew every one of my songs, knew what to play, and was--he didn't just know them, he totally enjoyed playing them. And we had such a great time. He did that with me on a couple shows in Scotland, and was just real encouraging. After that first trip, he gave me his later Pearlfisher CD, which I took home and I just cried, I just loved it so much. And it was so touching to me how--I mean, we're too spoiled here. Given what people have to work with in other places. Not to say they don't have good equipment and stuff like that, but their music is so much their focus, or something, and the love of what they're doing just comes through. It's almost like magic, because they're in this cold rainy place and they love this California pop music [laughs]--or he does. And he just creates it out of thin air, and I just think that that's amazing.

PM: Yeah, to take a rainy, industrial, down and dirty place like Glasgow and make California surfin' pop music, it's something to think about.

AR: Yeah. It's like he really does have some kind of magic about it, I believe it [laughs] though it sounds kind of crazy. And it's that pure love and joy for that kind of music. So when we worked together, it was basically me needing to trust him. We didn't have much money to work with or a lot of resources. Even on "The Deal," when it got to the little instrumental break, we talked about how the obvious thing to do would be to call a horn player and have them come in and do the little background horns.

PM: Yeah.

AR: But Davie said, "Well, we're here now." So then we did the little vocal thing instead, more out of necessity than anything else. But now I just can't imagine anything else. Because the horn would have been so obvious, and so kind of copping what it should be, whereas the little vocal thing, I don't know... So I think that all of the songs that I did with him are kind of like that. If I heard something and I would say, "Well, could we get somebody to come in and do this music?" And he'd say, "Well, you hear it, why don't you just do it?"

PM: [laughs]

AR: Not giving me a hard time or anything, but just making me feel like, "Well, why not? What's going to be bad about it?"

PM: Wow.

AR: So that was really just--I don't know, it worked out great.

PM: Well, yeah. You and I have talked before about you doing an album someday of all your--or at least a dozen of your--co-writes with Bill DeMain.

AR: Yeah.

PM: And I hope that when you do, you do it with Davie Scott.

AR: With Davie. Yeah. It's interesting, because I think if you don't have as many resources--and it was really just me and Davie and a drummer, so something about the songs, like it just feels like it goes right to--I felt that a little bit with the stuff I did with George, too, like it just goes right deep to your emotions. You're not having to translate your ideas for a half a dozen people, so it more comes out of the same place that the song came from.

PM: Has Davie been to Nashville yet and met the Brad Joneses and the George Bradfutes?

AR: No. I mean, he's well aware of Brad, and he's been out--I don't know that he's made it to California. I know he's been in contact with like Mark Linnet, the guy who engineered my first two albums and who's done a lot of the Beach Boys remixing and worked on a lot of stuff with Brian Wilson. And so anyway, Davie's well aware of a lot of the people over here. And so, yeah, wouldn't it be great if he could come over.

PM: Yeah, we'll see him sometime.

AR: I hope so, yeah.

PM: What's the story behind that great duet with Todd Snider on "Til the Wheels Fall Off"?

AR: I took the title from that Dylan song "Brownsville Girl," where he says, "We're going all the way"--and he says--"'til the wheels fall off and burn." But when I heard the song, I thought it was roll.

PM: [laughs]

AR: And then somebody said to me afterwards, "Oh yeah, where he says, 'Til the wheels fall off and burn,'" I was like, "Oh, that's right. It was burn, not roll." [laughter]

So anyway, I've been doing these shows with Todd Snider, opening a lot of shows for him lately, and just really loving it, having a great time, and really enjoying him. I could watch him every night. And once we'd recorded the basics for that song and knew it was going to be kind of lively--almost like a party track--I thought it would be good to have another voice on there, a guy. And I started trying to think of who had a nice real-sounding character-filled voice, to play the guy. So I asked him to do it, and he was so happy to come in and do it. I mean, he loved it. So that was cool.

PM: Wow. How would you describe his personality? What kind of cat is he?

AR: He's a really, really funny person. He's just funny. Tells a hilarious story. He's super sweet and super--I don't know, what's the word--like unassuming, and gentle, and honest. I mean, he's just an honest person. I don't know. I won't use that word "real"--

[laughter]

AR: Way overused. But yeah, he's just honest. In one way he seems like a sort of messed up guy, that's part of his persona almost, and maybe it's true, but he's a great performer. And I think he works really hard.

PM: Right. Yeah, he makes great records.

AR: And his songs are so touching and honest, but funny at the same time, and that's just how he is.

PM: That was a really cool blend that you guys had there.

AR: Yeah. It was fun to have him come and do it, and I didn't know really what it would sound like. He had me come up and sing a time or two on a song of his on stage, but we hadn't really worked on it or anything, and it probably sounded okay. But I didn't really know what our voices would sound like together on tape. But somehow I just felt like even our personalities went well together. continue

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