Despite the madness of a sold-out tour schedule and the logistics concerned with having to lug both equipment as well as band mates from town to town, popular singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile was kind enough to sit down with Rockworms.com earlier this week to discuss her current tour, past tour mates & her plans to rock Mankato. And by “sit down” we mean, our writer was sitting and I am sure that wherever Brandi was when she called, their was a 45% chance that she was seated as well. Or standing. Actually, it did kinda sound like she may have been on an elliptical machine…
ROCKWORMS (RW): Thanks for being here Brandi. To start things off, in the name “Brandi Carlisle”, you possess not one, but TWO names that are both not the most common spelling of that name. Have you ever had any memories from being out on the road or when you were starting out that you found your name misspelled on a marque or a banner?
BRANDI CARLILE (BC): *Laughs* yeah, actually a lot, to this day. My own label even. Countless times I’ve gotten B-R-A-N-D-Y C-A-R-L-I-S-L-E. One time when I was starting out, I was on tour with Howie Day and they made up some t-shirts for the tour and the shirts for this one town read “Howie Day and Bradnee Carlisle”. Brad-nee. So, yeah, it happens a lot. I sometimes feel I should be an 80’s pop singer spelled “Brandee Carlisle” with two “ee’s” or something.
RW: You are originally from an area I know quite well, Ravensdale, Washington. Right there by old Maple Valley. I grew up in Seattle. Went out to Lake Retreat on occasion.
BC: Oh very cool. (Justified long pause)
RW: (awkwardly starting back up) I was listening to some of your music the other day and I am convinced that I hear a Natalie Merchant influence in your singing. Would you say that her vocal style has impacted your own in any way?
BC: No, not really. But I love her as an artist. So, while I don’t hear a lot of myself in her voice, or hers in mine, I would guess that we share a lot of the same influences. Like Patsy Cline and chicks like that.
RW: Brandi, you are on tour a lot, where are we talking to you now from?
BC: I am in the town of Portsmith, New Hampshire.
RW: A lot of the our readers live in Minnesota and as mentioned you are on the road these days and you are going to be playing in Mankato soon. Any thoughts on that?
BC: You know, I’ve never been to Mankato, but I have been to Minnesota many, many times and it is one of my favorite places in the world. I have a lot of family there and I am very excited about going back.
Is that where you are right now?
RW: No, I am actually living in New York City now.
BC: Oh, I was just there the other day.
RW: Neat. Brandi, you are a constantly touring band, who have been some of your favorite people to go on the road with. You mentioned going out on tour with Howie Day…
BC: Well, I wouldn’t put Howie Day in my list of favorite people to tour with, nothing against Howie, but I just going out with some other people more. I love touring with the Indigo Girls. They are probably my favorite people to go out with.
RW: In your bio in talks about you getting discovered, at the now increasingly huge Sasquatch music festival in Washington State. How did you end up finding yourself on-stage at the Sasquatch festival back in 2003?
BC: Well, I’m not really sure. We had a very consistent touring schedule around that time and I loved the Gorge Amphitheater (home of Sasquatch). It is a really beautiful venue and we kind of just beat down the door trying to get on. I got the chance to see a truly beautiful Coldplay concert there once. It was just gorgeous. It was wonderful.
RW: A few months back we reviewed your Live in Boston EP. You seem to release a lot of EP’s and live albums. Do you feel that it is important to always have something new out there for your fans?
BC: Well, we are really a live band and we feel the process we make as a group is shown in our live show so we like to put out examples of what we are going through creatively along the way. The whole recording of a studio album is such a grueling process and we prefer to express ourselves through live recordings. We just like to release little blurps of their tour life. So it makes sense for us to put out EPs.
RW: Thanks for giving us some of your time Brandi and we look forward to seeing your in Mankato!
BC: Thanks I look forward to coming.
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You can find out more about Brandi’s current tour as well as any of her albums at her website at: www.BrandiCarlile.com
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