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09 October 2010
In 2000, when Jess Klein (www.jessklein.com) released Draw Them Near she was being hailed as a rising star, but things went a bit quiet, apart from some collaborative projects, including contributions to the Willard Grant Conspiracy album, Regard The End. In April 2005 her follow-up solo release, Strawberry Lover, is destined to raise her profile once more. Barry Jones spoke to Jess in her Brooklyn, New York, home to find out what she had been doing, and why it had taken so long for this welcome return to centre stage. Read the interview here! Interview date: 23rd February 2005
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Hello Jess, I believe that you moved to Brooklyn to record the CD, Is it a more creative place for you d’you think? It must be quite cold there at the moment? It’s fairly noticeable that there’s quite a big gap in your career for maybe four years. Can you tell us what was going on during that time? Yeah. I read that Greil Marcus had levelled some criticism at you, but I gathered that you felt that what he was saying was actually ok. Is that right? And what did he say? The article that he wrote was prior to Strawberry Lover? I read that you had some 70 songs, but only 3 made it on to Strawberry Lover. Are those songs just junked now, or do you still do them? How unhappy can you be with songs? I was wondering if it was that you’d had some sort of broken relationship that you felt you needed to write the songs about? The Strawberry Lover songs seem to have a sort of theme about them, an element of broken relationships about them? I saw a line, which said, “When I was still innocent enough to dance around the living room.” Is that something that you feel unable to do? In one review I read that you’d revealed yourself to be a veritable Aretha Franklin in Joan Baez clothing. But I imagine that you’d be happy with it bearing in mind the sort of Motown sensibility of your album? The other one was Aretha Franklin and Dolly Parton. I don’t know how you feel about those? I’m sorry for these comparisons, but the other one that I’d read which struck with me was Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris; both of whom do quite successful duets with people. I was wondering if that was something that you would consider and who might you like to do a duet with? In 2000 you were doing some singing on a Willard Grant Conspiracy tour, anything happened since? I’m surprised if they haven’t wanted you to do some more stuff for them? Delving back into your past, I wondered what you studied at college that necessitated you to spend twelve months in Jamaica? The song Soda Water, was that some sort of residue of that do you think? Or is that based on other influences? You started off playing clarinet, and yet I’ve not heard any evidence of that in your work. Is it not something that you would include in your arrangement at all? The other thing was short story writing. Do you now contain yourself to short story writing in songs, or do you actually do any other writing? Well, let’s hope that doesn’t happen. You mentioned Voices On The Verge, any lasting involvement with that or is it just finished? That’s a good sign. What about the Peter Malick project? You’ve actually stated how important his harmonies are in your songs. I was wondering whether he would tour with you? What are your plans for coming over here? And what have you been listening to? I love Arthur Alexander. Well I wish you every success with the album; I hope that we can see you when you come over here on tour.
Yeah, I lived in Boston for a long time and it was a very comforting sort of nurturing environment, but I really needed to be somewhere that made me feel a little more challenged, and made me want to step up to the plate and feel like I wasn’t just gonna be that…y’know I couldn’t sort of rest on my laurels or hide behind my successes I wanted to be challenged a little more and New York is definitely a challenge (laughing).
It is a little cold, it’s a little cold, but sunny.
Sure. I just really wanted to wait until I thought that I had something vital to say, to make an album, and it took me a little while to figure out what that was for me, and to get away from my... to get away from everyone else’s opinion of what kind of album I was supposed to make to follow up my last album, or what kind of songwriter artist some people seemed to think I was. Because, I mean, something funny happens when you start to get attention for your work as an artist, as I started to get on my last album, which is that all of a sudden everyone has an opinion about what you’re supposed to be, and what you’re supposed to sound like, and what direction maybe you’re supposed to head in, and I guess I didn’t start making music so that I could do what people expected of me, and I just wanted to really make sure, if I was going to commit my life to this kind of work, that I was doing it for the right reason. And, for me, that means…that meant really finding my own sound, and my own motivations, and reaching for something that went deeper than just wanting to please people, y’know?
I did read that review, and I actually think something in it resonated with me, because what he sort of said was that it sounded like I was hiding behind something on my last album, although I have to be honest with you I don’t pay that much attention to most criticism, that sort of struck a chord with me, and I thought, “Maybe he’s right, maybe there’s really more…side of me that I’m not showing, because I’m afraid to really be myself, and really let my colours come through. Y’know, I think my last album really had sort of… it was a little a little more middle of the road as far as emotional content goes. And the reality is, I’m a person who has really strong emotions, so yes, I guess part of what I really wanted to do was to really dig into those, and for me, if I’m going to… I just really wanted to have something strong to draw on, and not just sort of go out and sing my songs and go on with my night. I really consider it an honour to get on stage, and I wanted to give them something real, and in order to do that I had to have something strong to draw on. And that is a little scary, to go for that kind of emotional material, like really deep-seated, and that is ultimately the challenge that I was looking for.
That was the last album, which was called Draw Them Near.
(Laughing) I think a few of them I’ll play once in a while, but for the most part I just sort of see them as it was just sort of a period where I was trying to get my bearings, and I think a few of them hold up, and I think that the reason why most to them didn’t make it onto the album was because they weren’t as strong, or they weren’t as definitive, and y’know… but it was important work to do… for now they’re probably just in the vaults.
I guess the major theme that I was drawing on was childhood, and trying to make sense of the sort of good and beautiful things from childhood, and the more difficult things, y’know specific relationship wise I don’t know… but I think that I was … it was important for me to write about a time in my life when I was not cogniscent of other people’s opinions. For me that was in childhood, so a lot of the stuff for me personally is about innocence, and the loss of innocence, and how do you deal with trying to keep your heart open even if you’re getting hurt, and of course that happens all the time in adult relationships.
(Laughing) No, but I wanted to… I don’t know how to explain, except to say, when I started writing music, it was because I felt I had something to say, and a special way to say it, and I didn’t care because I didn’t know what anybody else would think about it. And I think that is how artists connect with people, when they’re worried about their appearance, and so that was the place that I wanted to draw on. But I still dance around, but I don’t have a living room right now because my apartment’s kinda small.
It’s sounds like something someone else said.
(Laughing) I mean I think all of those, especially Aretha and Dolly Parton are phenomenal, I love their music and I did listen to a lot of Motown when I was growing up. That was what my mom had in her record collection, so I guess that Motown always seemed to me… I just grew up thinking that was what a real song is like y’know? Something that really has such great melody, and musicianship, and the feelings are so universal, just taken right out of your own head, just really get swept up in it and something to strive for.
I really, really love singing, harmonies especially, but I would love to do a duet. I did some singing with Josh Ritter. I toured with him in Ireland and that was really fun, but I would just I love lending my voice to other people’s work, so anything I love doing that stuff…I’d love to sing a duet with Ray Lamontagne.
I spoke to Robert a few weeks ago, and maybe I will be able to tour with them again, I’m not sure. I know that he’s doing something more string… he has a lot of orchestral string arrangement, and I don’t know how good a fit it would be musically, but I love his work, I adore it, and I love singing with him. His voice is so powerful, so resonant.
(Laughing) I just…it was like a large college, I majored in women’s studies, so I was going to learn about women’s work in developing nations, and I just ended up learning a lot about music, sort of doing my own thing and meeting up with a bunch of poets and singers and stuff, and it really changed my life, I’m really glad that I did that.
Y’know, it’s really strange; I never attempted to cover any reggae or Jamaican influence into my work. I wrote that song very quickly, in about five minutes, and I didn’t really have any… it was sort of one of the few songs I didn’t have sort of specific visions of how it was going to come out, and when I started playing it with the band they just started playing like a reggae… and I don’t know, it just came to me, and it’s really fun. I didn’t plan it that way, but the sound of the drum in that type of a song…it’s sensual and rhythmic and fun.
Yeah that’s true I’ve never played it on my own stuff. I did a tour a few years ago with Voices on the Verge, which was with Erin McKeown, and two other songwriters, and I did play the clarinet a lot in those shows. We did all sorts of interesting instrumentation and arrangements and stuff, but I haven’t… I guess I just haven’t, I don’t know, it hasn’t come up. I haven’t done anything with a sort of jazz influence, maybe it’ll come up some day, I’m kinda rusty at the moment.
I haven’t been doing prose writing outside of songwriting in a long time. Maybe at some point I will, but pretty much, when I started writing songs, that to me just feels like the most fun writing I can do, because it gets to have a melody. And I like to do other artist things, like visual… I like to draw, and other things like that, but I don’t know if I’ll return to that… maybe someday, if I lose my voice or something.
I think it that Voices happened when it happened, and musically it was really phenomenal, but we all had our own paths to follow from there, and we’re still friends.
That was also just a kind of one time thing. It just came up; it was fun. For the moment I’m pretty focussed on this album, and collaborating with my producer Mark Copley, and I guess that I feel like for the first time I’ve got a really strong collaborator, who’s a good partner for me really. Something really clicks about us working together, so I’m going to focus on that for a while.
Yeah, he has been touring with me, he’s been doing a lot of duo stuff, so I’m really hoping when I come to tour in the UK he’ll be with me, because he’s a phenomenal guitarist and singer and energy… it’s great to have him.
I know they’re working on me coming out in March and then they’re working on a tour for me over there. I don’t have the exact dates yet, but I’m imagining it will be starting around then.
I have been listening to the two cd compilation called Night Train to Nashville. It’s like all these tracks from the radio station called… I don’t remember, but it’s all African American music. It was played late at night from the forties through to early seventies, soul music and like Stax stuff. It’s really amazing, a lot of stuff I hadn’t heard before, like from Arthur Alexander.
Amazing, and Etta James, and it’s just really great to listen to things that were recorded before Pro tools y’know, everything had to be good, you had to really sing, you had to really play, and I like that, if you listen closely, you can hear like someone make a mistake somewhere, but it’s part of it. I’ve been listening to that, and P J Harvey’s newest album I love, and Michael Jackson Off The Wall I’ve been listening to that.
Thank you, likewise.