guitar world interview, issue 13, 1996

Evolution Number 9 On Nine Objects of Desire, Suzanne Vega ventures into unfamiliar territory - again. by Jeff Colchamiro Reprinted from "Guitar World Acoustic" magazine. Issue 19 - 1996 Who is Suzanne Vega? The shy girl who emerged from the New York City folk scene in 1987 as a pop star with a topical hit single, "Luka," has shifted gears so often in her career that she and her music are impossible to pigeonhole. On her new release, Nine Objects of Desire (A&M), Vega once again takes a left turn, coming up with a new sound to complement the fingerstyle guitar playing, image-filled lyrics and haunting vocals that have always been at the heart of her music. Her first album in four years, Nine Objects features such un-Vega-like characteristics as a soulful, bass-heavy sound, jazzy themes and bossa-nova rhythms. Vega's first serious forays away from the folk-oriented style that characterized her early work came in 1990 with Days of Open Hands, on which she began exploring less commercial, spacey new age sounds. Later that year, British DJ's DNA exposed her music to a broader audience when they released a dance remix of Vega's a cappella song, "Tom's Diner." The new version of the tune became her second major hit single. In 1992, Vega shocked many of her folkie fans when she teamed up with producer Mitchell Froom (Los Lobos, Elvis Costello) for her 99.9Fo album, which blended her acoustic-based pop-rock with industrial sounds and experimental production elements, such as dance beats and synthesizers. Much changed in Vega's life during the four years that followed 99.9. After completing a world tour in 1993, Vega and her boyfriend/producer Mitchell Froom had a daughter and got married. Shortly thereafter, the couple entered the studio and began preproduction on Nine Objects of Desire. Guitar World Acoustic: How did getting married and becoming a mother affect the way you work? Suzanne Vega: I found it really difficult to get back into the swing of writing songs. It changed my writing style a lot because I found it very difficult to be introspective. GWA: Would you say the songs on Nine Objects of Desire are less introspective and personal than your older songs? Vega: No. In the end, they are very personal and less objective than some of my other songs. I was, finally, able to sit down with my guitar and finish some of the introspective songs and straight-forward acoustic songs. In another sense, some of the songs were riskier for me, and the writing process was different. A song like "Lolita" was really based on the production - that is, the production came first and the lyrics came afterwards. Those kinds of songs always make me nervous. It's good to have one or two, but you don't want to have a whole album based on production. My style has always been to try to base at least half the album on songs you can play on acoustic guitar. GWA: "Lolita" has a soulful sound to it, like a Santana or Traffic song. Was that a style you wanted to explore? Vega: Mitchell came up with the groove and the bassline for that song. I had a lot of the lyrics written without music, and they seemed to fit together really well with his ideas. Both of us really love War - we listen to "Cisco Kid" and "Low Rider" - and it reminded me of them. I agree that it sounds like Santana, who I used to listen to as a teenager. I thought that cool, groovy sort of sound was a good element to have on the record, but I would have felt foolish making a whole record recorded like that. GWA: In some ways, the production seems a continuation of what you started, to some degree, on Days of Open Hand and developed on your last album, 99.9Fo. As you were writing the new album, did you have a lot of ideas about different sounds you wanted to experiment with? Vega: Not really. It's funny, ever since 99.9Fo came out, when people heard I was making a new record they'd ask me things like, "What kinds of sounds are you planning to have?" [laughs] The topics really dictate what the sound is going to be. Nine Objects of Desire doesn't have any of those clnagy, industrial sounds that were associated with the last album because they weren't needed. These songs, in a sense, are more about different kinds of seduction - not an atmosphere where you want to have loud clanging. It's not needed. GWA: A lot of the songs seem to be centered around basslines and sounds, as opposed to your guitar playing. Do you sitll write everything with a guitar in hand? Vega: No. I use the acoustic guitar when I can. It's sitll the main instrument that I play and write on. But I hear a lot of things in my mind that I'm not able to play. For example, on "My Favorite Plum," the melody was all written, the idea was there, and most of the first verse had lyrics. I felt like an idiot singing this melody line, because it seemed so odd to me and I didn't know how to tell Mitchell what kind of music it was. The best I could do was say, "This is a melody I've thought of for years; I kind of hear it as a Russian folk song." Mitchell never laughs at me; he just listens quietly and makes a little tape and thinks about it. We kind of fling ideas around, and after some tinkering it comes out to be what it is. Songs like that come from ideas that I hear in my mind. "Tom's Diner" and "Blood Makes Noise" were like that, too. I've started to pay attention to these songs that come out of the clear blue sky, even though I can't execute them myself. GWA: Did you used to just ignore those ideas? Vega: In the beginning, if I couldn't play it on the guitar, I would feel silly trying to even pursure it - except for "Tom's Diner," which seemed to work a capella. But Mitchell will find useful something that I might think is kind of silly. If I come in and say "I have a song called 'birthday' and I have no lyrics and no melody - all I have is this riff going (sings guitar riff)." To me that doesn't sound like much, but he gets excited and starts coming up with ideas. GWA: you definitely shocked a lot of people with 99.9, especially with "Blood Makes Noise" as the first single. What was the reaction from your fans like? Vega: Most people really liked it, but some people seemed puzzled by it. My hardcore folk audience probably moved on to other artists who are less likely to hit them with something like that. I did have a sense that I lost some of my audience, and that troubled me because I felt that as an album 99.9 was very balanced. There were acoustic songs on it such as "Bad Wisdom," and "Blood Sings." To me it felt like a very natural step forward. But I think some people heard "Blood Makes Noise" and didn't want to go past that. At the same time, though, a lot of people who wouldn't have ordinarily listened to my music became attracted to it. GWA: Do you think this album will also find a different audience? Do you think it will bring back any fans you've lost? Vega: I have no idea. I can't tell if they'll come back or not. I have the feeling that people who really love acoustic music would be attracted to artists like Nanci Griffith, Dar Williams, Tracy Chapman or the Indigo Girls - people who are not always folk, but are less likely to do something like "Blood Makes Noise." But you never know. I don't write the songs to market them. I just write them and hope that they find good homes in the world and that somebody likes them. I like having an audience. It troubles me to think that my audience might be getting smaller, but I don't feel I can control that. GWA: Why did it bother you that people expected you to make another acoustic album? Did you feel limited by acoustic music? Vega: I didn't feel that that was the thing that was special about my writing. Even my first album, which was based on acoustic guitar, had a lot of experimental textures. I didn't feel that I was a good representation of a traditional folk artist. When I read about myself in magazines, everyone said, "Folk music is back," and I was like, "Excuse me, maybe not." I love folk music, but I think of myself as a songwriter first who writes in different styles of music, one of them being folk music. That seemed to be more accurate than the way I was being prtrayed. The stereotype really bothered me. It wasn't anything other than that. GWA: Many of your influences were singer-songwriters. Would you say you come from a folk background? Vega: Yeah, definitely. When I first started playing as a teenager, that's what I really loved - Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Laura Nyro. I liked singular people with a point of view. I liked to see their pictures on the covers of the LP's. I could have cared less about bands, except for the Beatles who were cool. Certain songwriters seemed to have a very personal way of writing. I felt like they were people that you could get to know, in a sense, even if you'd never met them. That's what I wanted to be like. GWA: Did you have any influences as a guitar player? Vega: [laughs] I was trying to do the best I could. For a while I was listening to Leo Kottke and John Fahey, though I would never presume to even imagine that I could play like them. Mostly, I was just making things up. I had a book of Sixties pop songs which had chord diagrams. So I learned the chords that I liked and invented patterns for myself. They were just simple structures that I could hang a story line on. That was the way I thought of it. GWA:You seemed surprised when I asked you about guitar playing, yet you do have a very distinct guitar style. Vega: I never sat and tried to imitate anyone and said, "I think I can play like that." I found it really hard to play other people's songs. I was a camp counselor for a couple of years and had to play songs like John Denver's "Leaving On A Jet Plane," and I reall had a hard time strumming. I liked picking things. Even though I didn't listen to Joni Mitchell at that time, I think we're probably attracted to similar chords. But it wasn't a conscious thing. Then there's the downstroke thing that I did, which I guess was influenced by Lou Reed. I wnated that hammering sound. It's all down [plays air guitar], which was sort of my way of trying to explore the New Wave thing that was happening in the Eighties. GWA: What guitars do you play? Vega: I play a Yamaha on stage and a Martin in the studio. I like the Yamaha because it's amplified and I can hear the strings above the sound of the band. The Martin has a soft, warm sound and is beautiful to look at, but the Yamaha is more practical. GWA: Can you see yourself making another acoustic album, now that people don't expect if from you? Vega: [laughs] Probably. It seems more likely now than it was a few years ago. I really love the acoustic guitar. People have tried to get me to play electric, and I find I really don't like it. I can't control it. Mitchell gave me a beautiful one for Christmas, and I just find, because of the whole amp thing, that I don't play it. You have to set all the settings and everything. With an acoustic guitar, you just put it on your lap and play. It's right there and very controllable. There's something about the wood and the strings that I really like. An album doesn't feel right to me unless it's got at least a few songs that I can play at a folk festival. To me, those are my bread-and-butter songs; they're my core thing. "Blood Makes Noise" is fun and that's fine. But I need to write songs I can stand on stage and play by myself. GWA: Was "Luka" part of the reason you got the "folk" label? Vega: No, not really. It's not really a folk song. It's got drums in your face and it sounds like Eighties pop - like U2. What people were responding to was the image: girl, guitar, protest song. I had come out of the folk scene in New York. I liked being part of that scene because I liked the people in in and was really involved in it. But I didn't care about the label. I feel a loyalty to the scene and to my guitars. I just don't want to be limited by that. I'm not, so I have no grudge against it. GWA: Do people still associate yo with "Luka"? Vega: Yes, in some parts of the world. I'm "The Luka Chick," as Beavis and Butt-head put it. And that's okay. I was glad it was that song that made a big noise in the world because I think it was a good song, and an unusual song to become popular. I would much rather have it be gthat than some little love song - I'm not likely to write them, anyway - or something more stupid. Submitted by: Paul Murphy (in HTML) - also submitted by Unique212@aol.com

Please send your comments, suggestions, submissions to:
VegaNet.

Up to The Suzanne Vega Home Page

VegaNet@aol.com