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A Conversation
with Caitlin Cary (continued)
PM: "Second Option" seems to be the song from the record that's getting the most airplay at the moment. Was that picked by you or the label as a single, or are the DJs picking it?
CC: I think the DJs are picking it. I think the label is definitely of the opinion, as are others connected to the record, that it's the "up" song. It's the one that sounds country and potentially modern as well. I'm hoping to be able to do a video. CMT has intimated that they would play a video if we made one. So we're trying to do that, and I think we'll do that song, because the powers that be say, "That's the one."
PM: Well, God bless 'em, CMT is coming around just a little bit.
CC: I know, I know. It's good.
PM: They're starting to play some other people's videos besides the usual suspects. But in "Second Option," that's a wild little breakdown section and solo, right?
CC: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love doing that live. I love when it comes around every night. It's totally exciting. And that's all Aaron, it's that bass line that does it.
PM: It's really cool. Is that one of the songs that was written way before the sessions, or right at that time?
CC: Oh, it was right at that time.
PM: It's got that sound.
CC: Does it? Yeah, it's spontaneous.
PM: Yeah. I personally am very partial to the song "Something Less Than Something More."
CC: Ah, thanks.
PM: What a great song. I just love that kind of folky train groove thing.
CC: Well, that's funny, I kind of stole that from one of Thad's songs. I can't remember which one right now, but I was thinking about the beat, and exactly that movin' on beat. Yeah, well, thanks. I love doing that song every night--although, it depends on the crowd. Sometimes you feel like, "Oh, is this boring people? Is this too pretty?" Because sometimes everyone in the audience is completely transfixed by it, and other times they just start talking.
PM: What's the story behind that composition?
CC: Well, I have the happy honor of saying that I married my best friend. [Her husband is former Whiskeytown drummer Eric "Skillet" Gilmore.] And I like that model. But the song came from having painfully fallen in love with my best friend in high school. I never know quite what to say in interviews, in case he reads them, because it would probably embarrass him.
PM: Too bad, right?
[laughter]
CC: Yeah, that's right. I don't know, when I get ready to sing it, I always say, "This is a song about accidentally falling in love with your best friend and the ache that happens in your whole body every day when you feel that way, and you don't want to take the risk of messing up the friendship, and you're not sure how they feel, or if they feel the same way, and you feel kind of sure that they might." I think probably everybody has been there at some time or other, right?
PM: It's just so archetypal a situation.
CC: It is. I'm very lucky that it was actually my husband who broke the ice. We were in Whiskeytown together and had this total rule about "you don't date in the band." And since I was the only girl, it kind of applied only to me, really.
[laughter]
PM: Or to anybody who wanted to date you.
CC: Anyone who wanted to date me couldn't have me.
PM: Right.
CC: But Skillet and I we were spending every minute together all the time, and finally, he was the one that said, "You know what? I actually love you." So thank God he did it, because I don't know if I ever would have had the courage to do it.
PM: Right. You didn't want to break the rules. So is Skillet playing with one of you guys now, or both of you guys now?
CC: He plays with me in Tres Chicas, when we can. He has a band called Patty Hurst Shifter that's sort of his first commitment. So he's busy with that right now. We keep trying to work it out to where we're playing and touring together all the time. But right now it seems to be about half the tours I do, he comes along, which is probably good. It's good to have it together and also to have it apart. I feel really lucky to have somebody in my life that understands this life so well. I don't know how musicians marry non-musicians and have it work. continue
