A Conversation with Stephanie Winters (continued)

PM: There are two bits of info that I need from you--first of all, what are you currently or lately reading?

SW: Reading? That's so interesting. I thought you were going to say listening to. Right now I'm reading The Vision of Emma Blau. It's a novel by Ursula Hegi. You know where I get my reading? I'm at the airport, and I need something to read. Chicago Midway has a pretty good bookstore. That's where I bought this, and that's where I bought the book before that, which was The Secret Life of Bees [by Sue Monk Kidd], which I loved.

PM: That's what I'm reading now.

SW: You're kidding!

PM: It's fantastic.

SW: I love that book. I read that book in like one day.

PM: It's really beautiful.

SW: I had a long flight, and I couldn't put it down. So yeah, those are the most recent.

PM: And naturally, I want to know to whom you're listening.

SW: Right now I actually am not listening, but I can tell you what everyone just gave me to listen to.

[laughter]

PM: That's not the same, but could be interesting.

SW: I can tell you what I'm going to be listening to this weekend when I'm on tour. Walter and I worked with a producer--or he mixed our first album, a guy named John Kurzweg, who did all the Creed albums and is a heavy rock guy. So I was asking him who I should listen to, because he might want to use me in the studio playing cello for this big budget production stuff. And he told me Puddle of Mudd, which he produced.

PM: Puddle of Mudd. Is that the name of a band?

SW: Yeah, Puddle of Mudd. So I have Puddle of Mudd that I borrowed and that I'm going to listen to.

And then Daniel Lanois, I just got a copy of Shine, which is a year old, I'm behind the times. But I've been a Daniel Lanois freak for a number of years.

PM: Oh, yeah.

SW: Like a little borderline obsessive crazy.

[laughter]

SW: Oh, and I've been listening to the music of Kathleen Mock, who's been playing in the NYC subways for 18 years. [Since the taping of this interview, I've had the pleasure of catching Kathleen and Stephanie playing on the platform of the 110th St. subway station in Manhattan.]

And then Jody Elff just gave me all this stuff that he wants me to listen to--which is I think kind of Mark Hollis and the Blue Nile--

PM: Oh, yeah, Blue Nile.

SW: And he gave me David Sylvian, too. He wants me to listen to these to find out more about how to present my music. I'm doing some stuff where I'm going to be playing to track. And we did a gig a few weeks ago where Jody played ambient electric guitar, so he covers some of the more ambient stuff that the multitrack cello creates, and I'm playing the melodic stuff.

PM: Interesting.

SW: Yeah.

PM: Have you messed around with looping at all? [There's a short explanation of looping in our review of Spooky Ghost.]

SW: Jody does that stuff. But he writes his own computer program to do it. He's very esoteric.

PM: Hi-tech looper, yeah.

SW: Yeah. Not the Boss looping pedal. Though not to dis the Boss looping pedal--because I'm doing a gig a week from Saturday, opening for Turtle Island String Quartet. And my friend Kristen Miller, who's a cellist [whom I later learned was in MI, and they rehearsed on the phone], did an arrangement of "Xenia" using the Boss looping pedal, where she's accompanying, and I play the melody. And she's worked out a couple of different arrangements where she's accompanying me on the cello, so we're doing cello duo. And then I also have some string quartet arrangements of this stuff that Alan transcribed. And so it's a whole adventure. I thought when I finished the album and got the artwork done that I was going to be done with this, and I realize now that it just got born.

PM: Yes. Oh, it just got born, all right.

Last question: Are you a spiritual person?

SW: Yes.

PM: In any particular way?

SW: Like a particular discipline?

PM: Or approach or anything, yeah.

[And here the artist did share some information, but it was off the record, personal. But we include this much because it's a question we often ask, and the artist answers in the personal positive.]

PM: I'm going to let you go, because you've been very generous with your time.

SW: I'll just tell you one thing, because you asked about the spiritual side. The reason the album is called Through the Storm is because it was such a difficult five years when I was making the album. I had developed tendonitis, and that was another time when I stopped playing--for a couple of years I couldn't play much because I had shoulder pain.

PM: Oh, God.

SW: So when I did the "Precious Lord" and I heard that phrase "through the storm," I thought, "Man, does that sum up this album…"

A lot of things had happened. I lost my best friend at the World Trade Center. She's the person the album is dedicated to. But I don't want to focus attention on that and other personal sorrows of that period, because the music and the artwork are what remained after the storm. And that's what this album feels like, because my life is great now. There's been a great transformation. I want people to focus on the music. The comments I'm getting from people are like, "I'm going through a hard time, and I came home from work, and I listened to the album, and it was comforting." So I think the expressiveness of the album has meaning for people.

PM: I think it will mean a great deal to a lot of people. And I appreciate our conversation today.

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