Lissie Interview

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Lissie - "I'm just happy to be able to do what I love"

Harry Guerin: Your debut album has received great reviews and a lot of interest in Europe. Were you expecting quite so much attention so soon?
Lissie: I was hoping for it! I guess I didn't realise how kind everyone would be to me about it, so that was a surprise. I sort of try not to get too ahead of myself and [just wait to] see what happens. It's not like I'm totally shocked but it wasn't exactly what I was expecting. I was just trying to take it a day at a time. It's great. I'm so pleased.

HG: Your voice and sound have been compared to singers like Stevie Nicks and Bobbie Gentry. Do you just take that as compliment or do feel pressure from the comparisons?
L: I take it as a compliment and try to do my own thing. I don't really know how else to take it or react to it. I would be wary to ever feed into that and then end up accidentally or subconsciously trying to sound like anyone else. But it is cool because some of the references and comparisons hark back to when music in my opinion was at its best - the 60s and 70s. It feels good to be lumped into that category rather than cheesy 90s pop or something!

HG: You've crammed a lot into 27 years - moving from the Midwest to Colorado, living and playing gigs in Paris for a while, moving to LA, playing gigs there and doing different jobs. Were you always a restless spirit?
L: I think so. I think [it's] because I grew up in a town that my family have lived in for generations and that was somewhat of a small town. I didn't really feel like there were a tonne of opportunities for me there when I was a teenager. I definitely wanted more excitement and culture in my life.

HG: So you moved away.
L: I went to Colorado to go to school [college] and after two years I felt like I had seen that and done that and it was time for a new challenge and I went and did some school in Paris. That was when I decided, 'I'm going to move to LA'. I think I was always looking for my next challenge, the next thing that would make me evolve into the person I would become. I thought I needed to keep moving and meeting new people and having new experiences to figure out who I was. I don't like to be in a rut. I don't want to keep doing the same thing. I think at some point if I ever have a family then I'd be fine to stay in one place, but when you're young it's the perfect time to try a bunch of things out.

HG: Was there one moment you can remember where you said, 'I'm going to do this as a career'?
L: I think when I was little. I always sang and I was in musical theatre when I was little. I was in the musical 'Annie' in my community theatre and I just loved it. I knew that I lit up from the inside out when I was singing and when I was on stage. And I always just thought, 'This is what I'm going to do'. And I didn't necessarily talk about it because I knew if I did people would say, 'Oh, you know you should get an education'. Not only my parents and my parents' friends, but my brothers' wives' parents and their friends!

HG: I think plenty of people have heard that.
L: I'm the youngest of four and when I'd tell people I wanted to be a singer they'd be like, 'We know someone who has a regular job but she does community theatre'. They were always trying to act like it was impossible and you couldn't really do that and I would need to get a normal job and then I could sing in my church if I wanted to sing or something. It got to a point where I almost stopped telling people that I wanted to be a singer because they would always come up with reasons why that was impossible. I knew it was possible. I'm pretty stubborn. I always knew it was going to happen. When I started writing songs in high school that gave me a way to write my own music and not be dependent on having to really care about what anyone else said because I was writing my own songs.

HG: So from the time you came back to the US from Paris and moved to Los Angeles, was it a slog to get to where you are now? Were there times you doubted things were going to work out?
L: I never really did. It's funny: a couple of my friends had jokingly said, 'It's amazing that you don't ever get discouraged!' I had situations where I had some opportunity that seemed liked it was going to lead to something and then nothing would really come of it. And I was still just hanging out at the same bars, playing the same songs and writing songs but not really getting a huge fan base. This was over a five-year period of being in LA and having successful bits happen and being well received but it just not quite taking off. But I just knew, 'It'll happen when it's meant to happen'.

I think it kind of worked in my favour that it didn't just happen immediately for me because I don't think I would've been quite as good because i wouldn't have had as much experience to draw from. I had to have the relationships I was having and I had to, y'know, grow up a little bit. I didn't get discouraged, and maybe I should have, but I just always thought I was doing well even though I was just hanging out in LA playing shows. I always thought that I was on to something; it was just taking a while.

HG: I read on the web that one of the gigs you got in your LA days was to sing at Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore's wedding?
L: [Laughs] Yeah, it's true. It's totally random, but I did. During the ceremony, while they were exchanging vows, I was singing.

HG: How do you find yourself in a situation like that? You're playing gigs in LA and then you get asked to do a wedding...
L: That was because for the first two years I was in LA I knew this guy called Guy Oseary who ran Maverick Records. I was on Maverick Records for a brief, brief time and nothing really came of it. But I had met Guy Oseary through that and he always seemed to be really supportive of my music and thought that I had something going on.

He called me and told me I needed to learn a couple of love songs and that I'd be singing somewhere but he couldn't tell me where. And so I prepared the songs I was going to sing, got a nice dress to wear and showed up at his house. He drove me and this other guy who was going to play piano on a song - that I literally met that day - to this [another] house. Then we had to get on this shuttle [bus] to another house - it was all very secretive.

We get there and we go into this really nice house and all of a sudden we're told, 'This is Demi Moore's house and she and Ashton Kutcher are getting married tonight and you'll be singing during their ceremony'. And I'm like, 'Wow, ok'.

HG: No pressure.
L: It's weird: I thought I would've been more nervous but singing is the thing that comes most naturally to me. I felt totally confident and good about it. It was a cool thing to be a part of. They were really friendly to me and it was cool that I got to be part of someone's special day, famous or not.

HG: It's a great story.
L: I've got a couple of those random stories. I don't really talk about them a lot in case it seems [like] I'm namedropping. But if you live in LA for long enough you'll have an experience where you end up at some house with a bunch of famous people.

HG: Was the wedding singer gig the strangest?
L: That was pretty strange. I was also invited to this party one time that I sang at. Everyone at this party was completely famous. [Laughs] Madonna was there, Prince, Tobey Maguire, all the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Perry Farrell... The list goes on and on. Seal, Heidi Klum, Ashton and Demi, Gavin Rossdale, Lionel Richie... Everybody in the place was famous and I was asked to sing a song. I was supposed to play this song I had written, a new song I really wanted to do, but I had forgotten my capo [used when playing guitar].

HG: So did you sing the song?
L: It was sort of awkward. John Frusciante [Red Hot Chilli Peppers guitarist] was the only person that really was talking to me at the whole party. So he offered to hold down the fret while I played the guitar. We'd gone like about halfway through and he got a cramp in his hand and had to stop doing it and it was really awkward and embarrassing. He hatched this great plan that he was going to be my human capo and then it started to hurt his hand after a while. It all sort of fell apart. You know, after that I wasn't really invited to another party like that so maybe I didn't really make a good impression! [Laughs]

HG: Well, the good thing is you saw all that stuff from the inside before your own album was released.
L: Yeah, it's just funny. I guess you see things like that and... All those people are totally nice but I think where I'm coming from is that I'm just happy to be able to do what I love. And as far as anything else that comes along with it... I'm just content to go home after my shows and go to bed rather than go to party with the stars or anything.

'Catching a Tiger' is out now on Columbia Records. The single 'Cuckoo' is released on 20 August.