A Conversation with Rebecca Martin (continued)

PM: Wow, you're like Bill DeMain, you just crank them out.

RM: Yeah. [laughs] Bill DeMain, my new favorite person in the world, by the way.

PM: Oh, yeah, well, we're old friends, me and Bill.

RM: I spent a week with him in England and all we did was laugh. We can't even look at each other without laughing. We just had a ball. I'm going out to see him in October, that's for sure.

PM: So you're thoroughly acquainted, I take it, with Swan Dive, right? [If the reader isn't, check out our recent interview with Swan Dive, as well as the one that appeared in our very first issue.]

RM: Oh, yeah. They're incredible.

PM: Yeah, and you'll love Molly, too, when you meet her.

RM: I can't wait to meet Molly. And they're singing a song now that he and I wrote together, which makes me so excited.

PM: "One Shining Hour," is that what it's called?

RM: That's it, yeah.

PM: And they're already playing it. See, they're like that.

[laughter]

PM: Do you know Jill Sobule as well?

RM: I know her, but--I actually just auditioned for her play in New York.

PM: Her play?

RM: Yeah. She wrote music for a play called Prozac and Platypus. And it was a really interesting play that was going Off Broadway for a week as part of a festival. And she called me and said, "Would you come and audition for this part?" And of course, I mean, anything to get to sing Jill's music. So I went to audition. But my take was, the role wasn't fully developed, and apparently what they ended up casting was a woman with lots of tattoos. They wanted a tougher kind of character, and I'm not an actress. It was more of a singing part, but they wanted something tougher. But it was a wonderful experience.

And it was great to see Jill again. I see her on and off over the years, but for some reason, recently, her name comes up all the time. I'm not quite sure what that means, but maybe we're going to see more of each other soon.

PM: Yeah, the circle is growing more concentric. I'm crazy about her, too.

RM: Oh, God, yeah, she's wonderful.

PM: So tell us something about your co-producer Brian Bacchus. I don't know about him.

RM: I think Brian was, like, the vice president of A&R or the president of A&R at Blue Note for a long time. And I met Brian because a few years ago the New York Times touted Middlehope as one of their top ten picks.

PM: Amazing.

RM: It was unbelievable. I just had no clue that that was even in the works. But through that, Brian came to see me at the Living Room [a great little listening room in the Village where one can see various artists who have been featured in Puremusic]. And we just hung out. And when I got signed, I thought it would be really nice to have somebody helping me with a lot of the fundamental things of making a record, and having somebody who helped the label, and who'd just work with me to get things accomplished. It was a really good experience.

Brian actually was one of the catalysts for me to choose Pro Tools, which was a great thing for me to try. I wanted James Farber to record my record, but James didn't know Pro Tools. So Jay Newland, who's a very close friend of Brian's, and who is also a wonderful jazz engineer--intense, and with big successes by doing both of Norah's records--had the Pro Tools rig in his home, with a studio. It was a very hard thing for me to do, because I didn't want to leave James out. And in the end, James did some mixing on Pro Tools to learn more about it. And halfway through the mixing, he was totally proficient, and could do it! And I was like, "Damn!"

[laughter]

RM: Everything really happens the way it needs to. I believe that so much. And from Brian I got a lot of great knowledge and information about a different way of recording that I'm really grateful for. For somebody who's been in the business as long as he has, he's like a little kid with music. He's so excited about it. And he's a DJ, he spins records in clubs. He travels and hears tons of music. He produces a lot of different artists. And he's in it all the time. He's always on the prowl for something new and good. I love that spirit. And that spirit was really nice to be around, too--a whole different energy, which helps when you're in the thick of it.

PM: We have another mutual friend in Richard Julian.

RM: One of my oldest friends.

PM: I like the song very much that he co-wrote with you, "It Won't Be Long."

RM: Yes, me too. Thank God for him on that tune, because that little oom-pa-pa section, [singing] doom, doot, dam, doom, doot, Richard wrote that. And to me, that's the whole tune right there. [laughs]

PM: Wow.

RM: That's the essence of that song. And the lyric that came from that section--I mean, I quoted it on the record cover, in the artwork. ["In a world where no one seems to be thinking, / keep your thoughts warm and forgiving. / That's when you know you're turning a corner."] It's a great tune. It was fun to do some work with him.

PM: I also loved the co-write with Cardenas, "Here The Same But Different."

RM: That's amazing, isn't that?

PM: Yeah, it's a fantastic song. That's a great, great progression.

RM: That tune was written--that song is actually called "Para Ti," which is Brazilian. It's on Steve's record called Shebang, that is on Fresh Sound. I met Steve in Once Blue, because he toured with us for a year. And he was playing that progression in the van one afternoon, and I wrote the lyric then.

PM: Wow.

RM: That's how old that song is.

PM: That's a fantastic progression of chords, I love it.

RM: Oh, God, it's an amazing song. And so many singers have said, "Are there lyrics to that music?" But I'd never finished it. We'd pull it out sometimes, but we wouldn't really ever do it. And when we were rehearsing for the record, just on a whim I said, "Steve, let's play your song for a minute with the band and see how it sounds?" And I decided that day that we were going to put that on the record.

PM: Wow.

RM: So that song had been written--the lyric had been started eight to ten years earlier. And [laughs] so I'm glad it got on there. The next thing I do will be a tune of [tenor saxophonist] Bill McHenry's. I'm working with a lyric for that now. And I just think it's great to have that kind of melodic tune to write something over and to sing. continue

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