Amy Helm has released 4 solo records, 4 with her band Ollabelle, and appeared on 8 of her father Levon Helm's records, as well as records by artists as diverse as Rosanne Cash, William Bell, Tracy Bonham, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and a handful of her stepfather Donald Fagan's solo and late Steely Dan records. We talk with Amy about taking care of yourself like an athlete, leaving your family behind to tour for long stretches of time, and music cooperatives, and many of the lessons Levon instilled in her, from being a blue collar worker-type musician to constantly trying to better yourself, your craft, and your knowledge.
Amy Helm has released 4 solo records, 4 with her band Ollabelle, and appeared on 8 of her father Levon Helm's records, as well as records by artists as diverse as Rosanne Cash, William Bell, Tracy Bonham, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and a handful of her stepfather Donald Fagan's solo and late Steely Dan records. We talk with Amy about taking care of yourself like an athlete, leaving your family behind to tour for long stretches of time, and music cooperatives, and many of the lessons Levon instilled in her, from being a blue collar worker-type musician to constantly trying to better yourself, your craft, and your knowledge.
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All music written, performed, and produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
Hey, and welcome to this week's episode of The Other 22 Hours Podcast. I'm your host, Aaron Shafer-Haiss
[00:00:12] Michaela: And I'm your other host, Michaela Anne, and we are in our second year of the podcast. So happy to still be here and so glad that you are with us.
[00:00:20] Aaron: Yeah, because we wouldn't be here.
have a podcast without you guys. so with that, if you've heard an episode before, we like to say that we're for our community from our community. And so we would like to enlist you as our community with a little help to continue to grow this. It's been a great two years so far, and we'd love to keep it going.
so three asks for you simply it's just subscribe. Subscribe to a second thing and then share. So first, the easiest thing is please just subscribe on whatever platform you're listening on right now. Or if you're watching on YouTube, I think I'm supposed to say comment, share, whatever, subscribe.
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we have little discussion topics, go deeper into what we talk about in the shows. It's a living breathing organism that is changing all the time. It's growing all the time. If that interests you, there's a link below in the show notes.
[00:01:32] Michaela: And one of the things we really pride ourselves on with this podcast is that we are not music journalists.
So we are musicians ourselves. we think of these less as interviews and more as It's the type of conversations that we personally have with our friends and peers around the dinner table or at a party. And we feel like we are able
to go to some different places relating on the shared experiences that we all have. That is the honest realities of building a lifelong career around your art.
[00:02:01] Aaron: And as I'm sure you all know, the realities of that. Is that most of the things in this career are outside of our control.
So with that being as anxiety inducing as that can be, we decide to focus on what is within our control. And so we've distilled that down to really being our mindsets, our habits the tools that we found to stay sane and inspired and creative while we build a career around our art. that has boiled down to the thesis statement.
What do you do to create sustainability in your life? So you can sustain your creativity. And today we got to have a wonderful conversation on that topic with Amy Helm.
[00:02:36] Michaela: Amy Helm is an incredible singer songwriter in her own right, but also for those of us who are roots music fans. Kind of Roots music royalty. She is the daughter of Levon Helm from the band She's Woodstock royalty. That's for sure. She now runs Levon Helm studio in Woodstock. She's been putting out records a solo record since 2016 But before that was active in band.
She said she's been on tour basically since she was 20
[00:03:04] Aaron: Yeah, and in band since she was 14.
[00:03:05] Michaela: Yeah, one of most notable bands Olabelle
[00:03:09] Aaron: I think she mentioned she first started singing with her dad around 20 and shares her fear around that, lack of self confidence.
She talks a lot about continuing to learn and continuing to progress, which if you've heard an episode before, I love talking about that kind of stuff.
[00:03:23] Michaela: And we talk a lot about I want to say for lack of a better term, the emotional spiritual aspect of being a musician and committing to this life.
especially in response to the rapidly changing music industry that she points out is very young and has basically been built. to exploit artists since the very beginning. And what she sees as the positive response to it of really retreating into ourselves and our community and building really nourishing, nurturing communities
[00:03:53] Aaron: She talks about her dad's influence with that and how he really just championed the working class. Musician, the idea that like we're all a union whether you're a member of the AFM officially or not we are a union. We are collective and that is just such the ethos of our show, too I think you've heard us say, you know a rising tide raises all ships and that's why we want to share these ideas with you guys One thing to note.
if you hear us say your stepdad, we are talking about Donald Fagan, who just happens to be Amy's stepdad. If having your dad be a member of the band wasn't enough for stepdad, who's also one of the leaders and writers of Steely Dan. What a way to grow up.
So without further ado, here's our conversation with Amy Helm.
Thanks for carving out time to, to sit down with us today.
[00:04:34] Amy: Thank you for having me. This is so cool. what a relief too, from talking about my record and the, it's like when I saw the, theme of it, I was like, Oh, that's great.
[00:04:45] Aaron: Yeah. We had Larry and Teresa on here in the spring, they were in, doing a bunch of these for their cycle stuff. And we're like, congratulations. we're not, You gonna talk about that? It's not really what we talked about. And they
both let out like the biggest sigh of relief.
They're like, Oh, thank God.
[00:05:00] Michaela: So the last time I think that we were in the same place was on Kayamo.
[00:05:06] Amy: Oh God.
[00:05:08] Aaron: Yeah.
And if I remember correctly, you had quite the experience.
[00:05:11] Amy: Oh, I
[00:05:13] Michaela: from
[00:05:14] Amy: broke my wrist.
[00:05:15] Michaela: Oh, your wrist. Okay.
[00:05:16] Amy: my God,
a gust of wind blew a chair against me We were up on one of those decks and I was like, Oh, my mom brain kicked and I was like, this is really dangerous. No one should be on this deck.
on the cruise ships was like 40 to 50 mile per hour gusts of wind. And I went to peel it off for me to get out of there. one more came up and smashed it and it closed like a bear trap on my wrist like a folding chair on my wrist.
[00:05:43] Aaron: no.
[00:05:43] Amy: Oh, man, the first thing I remember immediately I thought of all these stories.
That I had heard from other friends of much worse breaks. Like I have a friend, Sean, who's a great drummer who broke his leg in three places and couldn't play couldn't even what was in a cast for eight months. I got very lucky that I didn't need surgery or anything.
So it did really, truly, I had so much compassion we forget like how painful it is and how
long it takes to heal and just all that.
But I got lucky that I didn't need surgery and it's healed.
[00:06:18] Aaron: Wow. Oh, good. Amazing.
[00:06:20] Amy: yeah, Kayama was experience. I'll never forget. Truly.
[00:06:24] Aaron: What a freak thing to happen, middle of the ocean. What a freak reason to have to
cancel a show.
[00:06:28] Michaela: talking about the other 22 hours, I feel like it's often really overlooked at how precarious it all is for people. touring musicians and
people who play instruments if we get injured, if we get sick, I got COVID on Kayamo and had to skip my last show and be stuck in quarantined in my
tiny room.
it's just like taking care of ourselves is also such an underrated subject of how important it is to stay healthy, to be able to
survive.
[00:06:59] Amy: I really agree with that. The wrist thing was bad timing Do you know, one of my nicknames is Captain Safety. So people were like, You were up on a deck and broke. You were like, I'm very, like, conscious of that stuff, but yeah I think that the thing about being a touring musician is that unless you are on the level of the Rolling Stones are one of these bands. That's like an iconic band. That's flush man, just rolling on like a 10 bus tour with everything that you'd need, every kind of financial support you'd need. There's no infrastructure for creating an environment where we're taking care of ourselves the way athletes do.
And you know, it's funny, my dad always used to say that to me. He said, you have to take care of yourselves. like you're an athlete, these athletes on travel teams and on professional teams, they don't get to go out the night before they don't get to party.
They don't even get to see their girlfriends or boyfriends or their partners the night before a big game or a big event. And there is that thing of the socializing and the networking and the talking to people is so expected of you from the industry standpoint that we forget that we really need space.
We need. physical space. We need psychic space from people, like even the most well meaning person, right? The conversations after a show can really, really drain you. it can take your head out of that. Focus of what's the next song? What's the next gig? What did I want to correct on that verse?
How did I want to approach that chorus? I had this idea for this thing I could do differently with this cord, all that stuff flies out the window when I've overwhelmed myself socially.
So that's part of it too. Right.
[00:08:39] Aaron: absolutely. And you spend. 90, 120 minutes on stage, putting out all of this energy and sending your energy out not having the time to sit and pull it back into yourself before you have to go to sleep, wake up,
[00:08:52] Amy: Yes, that's right.
[00:08:54] Michaela: I'm curious if you had to learn this through experience and age, because I grew up doing musical theater and, choral work and classical music and taking voice lessons.
And I was very strict about if I had a performance or a contest taking care of my voice and sleeping and, and then I got into my twenties and was living in New York city and started playing, three plus hour bar gigs and started booking. Bar shows around the region and all that stuff just went out the window because your access to food is so limited so sometimes you'd be eating, pizza every night and drinking beer and then the culture of the hang then you're drinking all the time and it took me a long time to be like, oh, it's not fun. To do what you need to do to take
care of yourself,
but it's really vital and everyone in your band might not also be doing that If
you're the lead person in singing, it's very different than like the guitarist or the bass player or the drummer and their physical requirements are different.
I'm curious what that journey has been like for you of that push and pull between making decisions and learning how to have discipline to take care of yourself and the pull of. Also the things like the industry and, talking to fans and whatever feels necessary for the progression of my career.
[00:10:12] Amy: Yeah. so I'm 53 now and when I was in my mid thirties or even a little earlier, maybe I didn't get horse quicker than before, but it took me longer to get my voice back. And I ended up on a tour where I got a horse and couldn't recover.
I was kind of only coming back to 65%. talk about feeling anxiety. Then you've got. 10 more dates and you're like at less than half your capacity. that was really hard. And that pushed me into a discipline. I started studying with different teachers When I'm on the road, I'm really disciplined about it because the anxiety is just not worth it for me.
It's no fun at all. So there's no point in me being out there and not being able to do my very best, Cause I'm losing so much money anyway. It better sound good. Otherwise, what's the point?
[00:11:01] Aaron: Yep. So, I did get really disciplined with that and I continue to. Go to different teachers. I'm studying with a new vocal teacher now and I don't talk.
[00:11:11] Amy: I really shut it down. So I stopped going to the merch table, because I had to serve myself physically first to get myself into a quiet place. I warm up, I work out a lot when I'm on the road. I don't talk after the thing. My band knows that as much as I want to joke around.
I really like joke around and talk. I never stop talking. But I shut it down and I do that steamer thing too. That was a trick that I learned from someone who was in musical theater. You probably know about that. And then I don't talk the rest of the night. And I don't even when I'm talking in my sleep. boyfriend or to the kids and I'm calling home and checking in with everybody. I keep it very brief and it's intense. It's a bit lonely, honestly, depending on how long you're out there for.I almost take it like a meditation go deep in and also do a lot of writing.
And I enjoy that because, you know, I'm busy. I've got two boys that are both teenagers now. My younger son just turned 13.
[00:12:07] Michaela: happy
[00:12:08] Amy: was, it was wonderful, but also like, gosh, man, the baby days are gone. so when I'm home, I'm really, busy with the boys and work and you know, the drill.
honestly, when I'm on the road, if I can leap past my guilt about having left the kids, which is getting a bit easier as they're getting a little older, then it's like a little vacation because no one's asking, for a snack. the dog doesn't want to get walked.
Nobody's calling me about the barn. Nobody's asking me to come check out an air conditioning unit, I've got nothing coming at me. So it feels like my little mom oasis and I bring like my fairy lights and my candle on the road and like these horrible.
Hampton Inn hotel room start to feel like, you know, I'm in the Four Seasons. And so I just take a trip with it a little bit.
[00:12:58] Aaron: we're sitting in our studio now and I'd spend most of my time in here. But back when I was on the road all the time, that's how I started to be able to handle day after day of driving. I would
use that for like intake.
I would do like a lot of really serious listening to records. I would
read a lot and think of it as I would intake a lot of information. then get home and digest that and
[00:13:17] Amy: Nice.
Yeah.
[00:13:19] Aaron: touring is a suspended reality in essence,
[00:13:21] Amy: Yeah. And if it's not going well, it's a really dangerous suspended reality. If you're missing your kids, if your kids are missing you, if someone's sick at home, if the money sucks, if the ticket count sucks, like man, there's just nothing like to be out there and try to do what you love.
and try to have it feel, that there's purpose to it. there were a couple times where I was like, what the fuck am I doing out here? Like, why am I? in Billings, Montana doing this right now,
it's like a spiritual discipline,
in many ways for sure.
[00:13:58] Aaron: yeah. And it's very easy, when things aren't going very well for all of those questions in the why's and all of that, to really create like a feedback loop we had Edwin McCain on here
He had that hit in the nineties. I'll be, and
[00:14:10] Amy: I'll be better when I'm older.
[00:14:13] Aaron: Yeah. Exactly.
[00:14:14] Amy: that. nice waltz. That's a great melody.
It's
[00:14:17] Aaron: really great.
he was talking about that and talking about called it being a grievance farmer where you're just harvesting all of these grievances and it just keeps
happening and it keeps feeding back.
And it was a
really beautiful way to look at it.
[00:14:29] Michaela: touring can be so up and down. Like One night can be terrible where you're just like, what am I doing with my life? Especially if you have like bigger sacrifices of. Children and
[00:14:39] Amy: Totally. Yeah.
[00:14:40] Michaela: and then the next night can be euphoric And so it's like riding the ups and downs there's so much Psychological training that you need of like I can't ride this wave I have to have some aspect of like healthy detachment while also still being present in the moment to feel things
[00:15:00] Amy: Sure.
[00:15:01] Michaela: we're musicians and communicating, especially as a singer and the songwriter.
But I think when I was younger, I was so much more ruled by that. And,
the older I get, the more I try to work on like, I can't let those dips make me feel like I've just fucked up my entire life. Because I had one bad show.
[00:15:22] Amy: so relate to that. my older son, who's 16, is deeply into music. he'll be in a van within a year and he'll never look back. He's definitely a lifer. He's got this whole community of friends and they're all going to be in band for the next generation. It's pretty cool to watch it and to be around them as they're budding and blossoming into their talent and also their handling and their discovery, how to react to the disappointment. Of a gig that didn't go the way you planned. it's really been incredible at 53. I've been on the road singing in bands since I was 14, maybe on the road since I was 20, let's say. And to have those same dips, Michaela, that you were talking about and have found my own pacing with it and still sometimes have to check myself and write, continue to learn how to hold it all and watching them get into their own version of that now at age 15 and 16.
I'm like, Oh, you know what? It never changes. It's sort of like the seed of it is so present It is so easy for artists to wipe the whole table off to consider the whole thing a sham if it doesn't happen the way that we wanted it to write. There's something about seeing it in these tender hearted young men who are just beginning and being like, okay, it really is less about experience and age and really is part of being a musician. It's part of opening yourself up to trying and. Never really getting it quite where you want it, because when you get it where you want it, there's going to be a new ceiling and there's going to be a new thing that you're reaching for, and a new loop of disappointment that will then be painted in by all of the imagery and the scenes and the challenges of touring.
So anyway, I guess I'm just stating the obvious, but it's just been interesting to watch their generation and their newness at discovering that how to hold it.
Yeah. That's
[00:17:21] Aaron: an amazing perspective to have having been on stage and been doing it as long as you have, and then to see it fresh and notice the same things. I'm wondering what your perspective on that was when you were a kid and seeing your dad and seeing your stepdad and your mom, your mom,
[00:17:37] Michaela: whole parental Everything. Everybody was musicians, right?
[00:17:42] Amy: know. Yeah. You know, I've never thought about it like in direct parallel to now the way that Lee and those guys see me. my stepdad, I didn't see them play till I was in my twenties, but Steely Dan felt like another planet.
they'd get into limos after the gig and stuff. I don't even know what you guys are doing. you're on planes. I don't even know. it was almost impossible to even worry about it. Cause it was so far removed from my experience. My mom didn't perform when I was very little, she did, but it was really, I think, seeing my dad play, that also felt larger than life.
Cause really when you're young and you haven't done it, everything feels larger than life. I
mean, Seeing a friend get up at a bar in New York City and sing a jazz song felt larger than life. I remember being like, Oh my God, Howard, this is incredible. You know, cause it all is. It's all this trying and letting yourself get vulnerable.
But with my dad I actually, it's funny looking back at this, I must've been 20 something. I was still in college. 20 But I felt like I was 11 and he played in Chicago have to find out what the venue was. It must've been assuming a theater, but to me it looked like an arena.
and he invited me to sing with him on stage. This song that we used to sing together and They brought me out on stage and the guy was walking me to the front of the stage and handing me a mic. And I totally backed down said, right here. And so they pulled up, an amp and sit it right next to my dad's drum stool.
And I sat about half a foot from him and held the mic like this. I was so scared. And I sang with him and Rick Danko, you know, it was stay away from me, this old song. And I sang that song. And I remember feeling like I had just, bungee jumped off the grand Canyon. I felt so wild. And truly at the time, I never thought that I could do it. I never did. And I don't think that's true for everybody.
I always wanted to get better at music, but I never had. A clear vision of like, I want that stage. And I have friends who are very successful musicians who did have that, you know, when they were young, they just had a certain ambition and like very clear focus of like they wanted it, they knew what size stage they wanted to be on, they wanted the whole picture, and they got it.
you know, they kind of were driven in a certain way. And I was very shy and. I was naturally gifted with a voice, but I didn't trust it yet, which is probably most of us. And I just wanted to get better. So even that experience for me was like what would it be like if I sang that at the front of the stage?
Would I still be able to see him? Could I hear him? I was figuring it all out, like little pieces of a puzzle more than like wanting to grab it and go. I feel like That's defined maybe some of my growth as an artist, or as a person willing to surrender to being a singer.
I would beat myself up after these times that I would sit in with him or whoever it was, but he was. he was a great teacher.
My dad was a great teacher and he was so anti industry. He hated the music business so much and, was really turned off by fame, including his own. It was not his thing. he didn't want anything to do with the culture around that. And so because of that, we were in a union.
It was like musicians are like any other people were in a union and you do your best job that you can. And if you don't do a good job, you stand up and you dust yourself off and you do it again. So he really taught me that's all right. It doesn't matter.
That's why you take a note of that and sing it through in your head. And then tomorrow night when you get up there. Remember that note and then try to sail that note. He would just had this like very practical, he almost talked like a football coach a little bit, and it was very helpful because he really meant it.
He didn't give a fuck about how big the gig was or if it sounded good or who was there. It was like, did you go for it? Did you get it? Are you going to go for it and try it tomorrow night? You know, It was a very like distilled simple goal and a simple ambition that then became my ambition. Like how do I get better?
How do I go from here to there?
And with every challenge that I had. he was my first phone call. Anytime I was nervous, anytime I was insecure about things or didn't trust myself if it was a bigger gig or something more challenging he was huge.
I wouldn't be singing if it hadn't been for him. Giving me that. So I try to give that to my son and all his friends. I feel like his friends listen to meand maybe he doesn't so much, but I'm not sure, I'm trying to pass that along. Cause it's so important to remember, like, Don't be intimidated by so and so because you think they have a better gig than you they're on a bus and you're in a van or they're on a plane and you're on a bus or whatever the comparisons that we do don't let that muddy the waters of your clear vision to just honor the gift of your talent, Yeah.
[00:23:06] Aaron: Yeah, that's a beautiful way to say it. I love hearing you talk so much about learning and improving and growing and progressing because, that's one thing I like. need to remind myself and also like to, you know, remind artists I work with or, friends if they're having rough patch.
It's like,
[00:23:19] Michaela: know, Or your wife. I saw you reference me.
[00:23:23] Aaron: You're a friend too. We're lucky.
it's so easy to compare to other artists, you know, or peers or whatever it is. And, that's never going to end well, and What can be really valuable is comparing to your past self, Comparing to how you sang it last night or how you sang it last year or new record versus your last record in a sense of did I capture these songs closer to their truest essence,
[00:23:47] Michaela: not based on this the sales or the reception and
[00:23:51] Amy: Oh my God, forget
[00:23:53] Michaela: so hard, but
Listening to everything you were just saying you didn't have like, a clear vision of yourself doing it is really personally comforting because I feel like I was always like that like, I also went to jazz school and, then ended up in this kind of Americana country world, I've always thought of it as such a challenge that I didn't have a clear vision and that maybe I'm not as deserving to do what I do because I, I haven't been like, this is the only thing I want I want to be center stage.
Like I've always had such ambivalence unsureness with it. I think because of everything you were saying, I was like, yes, this is the first
time I've heard someone say this besides me.
[00:24:32] Amy: Yeah. I relate to that feeling. I felt the same way. I felt self conscious about it. Like I had done something wrong And I also took the, do I deserve this a little step further because I did feel like music kept coming back and swooping me in almost like a wave, like a tidal wave. my not ambivalence, but my driftiness about it, I would be broke and I'd be 24 and then someone would offer me a background cause I was quick at harmonies. So then I'd get this gig with this weird bar band in the middle of Coney Island and I'd go do that.
like it kept coming back and sometimes it was just the financial need. And then I thought is there some part of that dynamic that's like sacrilege in a way? that I didn't honor myself enough to like name it, speak it, do it, that it kept having to come find me and tease me back in, which I grappled with for a while.
because music is sacred, right. And it's the closest thing. That we can get to some, I think, divine other thing in us, even for people that aren't musicians, even someone who can't sing, if you're going to sing a song to yourself, you're going to get inside of something that you can't name and can't,
measure.
so this beautiful kind of sacred mystery that it is Meeting it with fear it's not your strongest spiritual response, We don't want to meet it with fear. We want to meet it with curiosity and openness and it takes a while to get there. So I don't know if that makes any sense or if you relate to that, I've struggled with that a little bit through the years too, where I was like did I harm something by staying floaty with it?
Yeah.
now I've realized that was just me overthinking all of it. To some degree.
[00:26:16] Michaela: definitely feel like I've recently been in a place of than being focused on like, music and the way that also a career in music can kind of muddle your mind and
[00:26:29] Amy: Yeah.
[00:26:29] Michaela: you have all these questions, I'm really trying to approach things with just being open to life, and that music is a big part of my life.
That will always Be a part of it, that I don't have a narrow vision of it anymore where before it was so much like a, okay well, if I'm doing this thing and I'm setting out to do this thing in life, then I guess I'm supposed to want it in this way that I see other people wanting it or think of myself in a certain way.
but thinking about what you were talking about. Okay. Bye. If your nearest example was your dad, who was a lifelong musician. And obviously had levels of success, but that his personal attitude was not about stardom and fame. I can imagine that wouldn't for me. And it was interesting to hear you talk about his ethos, which I'm thinking back when we were in our early twenties and we met at jazz school in New York City and Aaron was a very big LeBron fan. Before I really came to it and then I started singing Harmony in a band that Tony Leone played drums in
[00:27:33] Amy: I forgot. We talked about that on Kayama, but I forgot that connection.
[00:27:37] Michaela: I love Tony.
I haven't seen him in years, but he was so Kind to me because I felt just like a baby just starting out. so through Tony I knew Felix McTeague back then and met
Byron and uh, knowing kind of your scene and, of your dad.
And it's interesting because I feel like being fans of leave on, it always felt like he was A champion of working class musician
[00:28:01] Amy: Big time. That was just everything.
[00:28:04] Michaela: And I'm like, was that just,
explicitly said to me or was that just the feeling the energy that he exuded?
Because also from the outside looking in, he was, Grammy nominated, right? And like getting industry recognition and famous to us, but like seemed very inspiring of like, Oh, you're. a working musician. That's the goal,
not
the stardom
[00:28:27] Amy: Totally. Because if we just tried to live up to the stardom stuff, we'd all suck
Yeah,
[00:28:34] Michaela: yeah. And be really unenjoyable people to
[00:28:37] Amy: yeah, we'd be a drag, there'd be no hang and then we wouldn't get hired for anything.
[00:28:42] Aaron: Yeah, exactly.
[00:28:44] Amy: I always say to Lee and his friends, you gotta be cool on the gig. You gotta be easygoing, They're all great kids, but like, just how much that counts, someone's a good hang they're gonna get.
The gig.
[00:28:57] Aaron: Partly where the name for our show came from, but, it's also realization that we came to, I'd say we, when, it's really Michaela hiring people for her band, but came to that realization very early on in the touring years of like, okay, yes, you have to be able to play the parts and, be a great musician, but, we're going to spend eight times as much time in the van as we
[00:29:17] Amy: Right. That's right.
[00:29:19] Aaron: you know, That's equally important.
[00:29:21] Amy: Oh yeah.
[00:29:22] Michaela: Yeah, where I like only want to play with my friends anymore. I'm like the thought of hiring a brand new person for a show I feel like allergic to it now.
I'm like, no, only my best friends.
[00:29:33] Amy: That's a dream.
[00:29:35] Aaron: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
But, on the, being in it for the music and for the hang and rather than for the stardom, I can hear that in your music. I can certainly hear it in your dad's music. It makes it timeless.
[00:29:46] Amy: Right.
[00:29:46] Aaron: people that are writing music and making music
[00:29:49] Amy: Sorry.
[00:29:50] Aaron: has a very short shelf life. It sounds dated very quickly. Whereas somebody that's just trying to Make music that moves people and is real and in integrity that's going to last forever. It's going to always sound fresh
[00:30:05] Amy: industry is really, a hustle, man. It's I don't want to go down the rabbit hole of. Analyzing why we're being destroyed by social media? Because I could spend the rest of our time doing that.
And that's conversation. But, social media is, smoke and mirrors was always the game of press and what we'd have to do to like, you know, people want a story.
want a story and they want to be told something that they can buy into. And that used to be one way to do it. And now with social media, honestly, it's gotten that much harder and that much more stressful and kind of impossible to put things into the world. So I think that's something that is going to come out of that personally.
I think that it is going to force all of us to like, drop down even deeper into what it is we're trying to get better at and what we want to share on stage and share with our friends or other musicians and share in community because the rest of it is just all so full of shit. I mean, none of us can stand Instagram, but we all do it every day.
But it's maddening. I wonder if the silver lining of that will be because of the level of anxiety that it causes, it forces a retreat. back to the music and back to the thing that we're trying to do well, even if it's not. Yeah. Nothing happens with it.
Even if no one thinks it's cool. It's like,
[00:31:30] Michaela: Well,
And I think also I'm so curious about this time because I feel like so many different conversations are starting and maybe it's just where we are in age and our, phase of our career, but I feel like something's shifting with so many more artists also realizing like, Oh wait, okay, all this stuff is so maddening, but maybe the pie is getting smaller, so maybe we don't need so many people taking a piece of the pie and, you know, mindsets around like record label deals earlier it was always like, you got to have a label deal. That's how you get your foot in the door. And that's the only way. And that's the validation. And I feel now I'm in a place in life where so many of my good friends, we've all had label deals and been like, not to disparage the wonderful people that worked at the record labels I've worked with, you and I have both worked with Yep Rock, but in a place now where I'm like, I want to own my music.
I want to make all my decisions. And A label isn't any more like a surefire way to get more attention. so there's pros and cons to everything, but I, hear this conversation so much more of it's actually really empowering to be independent and be in charge of your own creative work and have a hand in your business where before it felt like a.
Badge of honor to be like, oh yeah, I have these people and these people and these people. And it's like, you making any money?
[00:32:55] Amy: Yeah. That's the thing, right? you know, this industry is, young. This has not been around forever. and it was a wild west and the person who could afford a lawyer created the laws and the first generation of blues and jazz artists and gospel artists got completely fucked.
And then it just went on from there. And, now with the streaming thing, this is its own wild west too. I think there's a very exciting independence and autonomy that, like you said, is coming out in artists now. And I think it's going to get more as time goes by. it was interesting. I was just in New Orleans. I brought the kids down there. Lee's friends, the ones who are all musicians, we all took the kids down for spring break and went and heard tons of music and did a little music education trip. It was so cool, man, because we never go to these places when we're not working.
So just to be down there for five nights and go hear a thousand different bands and I went to Prez Hall and it was just. Awesome. a lot of the musicians in New Orleans are starting to buy the clubs, starting to run the clubs, which there was something about hearing that. I was like, okay. I think that the. oversaturation of mass volume of everything that just, you can't keep up with is again, forcing this retreat inward, this retreat back to community, this retreat to where are we playing? Who are we playing for? How do we create that? How do we create a scene here?
That's for musicians. by musicians, That's kind of what I have with the barn, which is pretty special and is my intention to keep it as such, you know, I mean, owning a venue and the finances behind a venue, that's its own podcast. So
that's its own tumultuous story. Sometimes just the impossibility of, venues and how they have it and what they have to do.
But anyway, back to a positive. thing to say about it is that I think it's going to become, like you said, Michaela, more musician centric owned by, created by, operated by, produced by musicians.
Which is really the way it should be
[00:35:07] Aaron: I agree with that fully and I see that also or can see that in the recorded video. music realm as well. it seems like the darkest of days with, streaming and arguing over hundreds of a cent, you know.
[00:35:20] Amy: God, so stupid.
[00:35:22] Aaron: but like you said, this industry is very young and, from my viewpoint the medium that we use to release music has continued to evolve in the name of convenience.
it's easier to release it. It's easier to listen to it. And I can't think of anything that's more convenient for the listener than being able to hear anything, anywhere, anytime. My optimistic thinking cap on is that, we've hit bedrock on the medium that we're releasing music.
And so instead of it
changing every 10 years, we're at a point now where the industry can re coalesce around that. solid ground
and we can step into a place that allows some stability,
[00:36:02] Amy: Yeah, that's interesting, right? That's an interesting thing. Also People love discovering something that they can't find anywhere else in any industry exclusivity And things that are boutique and that in time going to see a band play live music that you can't hear anywhere else because it's never been recorded or if it has it's not been put on streaming and it's only available at the show.
There's only a hundred printed vinyl of it or whatever it is. And that's the only time you can hear it. And there's no, it's embedded somehow so that the vinyl can't be transferred to any digital platform. Things like that are going to start to happen. I mean, This might be. I don't know.
This will maybe be when my kids are my age. This is what will happen. Maybe it'll take longer than that, but I could see something like that happening because now that the bedrock, like you said, is this anywhere, anytime, any song ability with these phones and these tools that we have now there's one other thing that we can do.
We can play live and no one can take it away from us. You know, it's like, that's kind of the flip side of it.
Mm That's the other bedrock that will never change that has been monetized to a certain degree, a venue and a band come together and they monetize the event. I think there's a whole other world to be discovered with that in time playing stuff that can't be discovered anywhere else.
For a higher ticket price for a more exclusive thing.
[00:37:33] Aaron: absolutely. I have friend here in Nashville that's been kind of experimenting with that world where he made a new record and Pressed vinyl. He's releasing it himself. maybe he's released two songs now to streaming, but from the day that he released the first song vinyl has been available.
And so people can order it. People can buy it at his shows and all of that, but he has no plans on putting the full thing on streaming. But there is, you know, there's one or two songs so that the public can hear it. And
if they're intrigued, then they
[00:38:03] Amy: And eventually, ideally, there's places like the barn. I'm talking about our
place in Woodstock. There's places like that all over the country. if there are community based centers that are owned by Okay. And managed by musicians, let's say a board of musicians, and they are presenting these different bands throughout the month.
They're curating a thing. And each of these bands is coming with a piece of music that you can't get on streaming. then you don't have people scrambling to try to create their audience and find their audience and get their audience to buy the thing and compete compete, compete.
It's not competitive. it's like a union or it's like a co op, I think that could be a really interesting thing in the future.
[00:38:47] Aaron: absolutely. And then, at least in my experience, having been at, your barn is, it then. Ripples through the community and I'm talking, you know, the
[00:38:55] Amy: Sure.
[00:38:56] Aaron: where having a place like that, that, holds the musicians and the music in such reverence the general public, I guess around there is Oh, this is important.
This is special. This is something worth paying attention to,
something worth investing in. And again, it's that, scarcity, that you were talking about, or that, specialness that, people are like, Oh, this is worth me spending my money and paying attention to the calendar.
[00:39:17] Amy: you know, what's interesting about what you're saying that I just was thinking about when you're talking about it is I think that we forget, or I definitely forget that to support music and musicians. It's just that there's not a wider knowledge of all of this. So again, like you're saying, I don't know if you meant this, but it seems like when we create these places, these venues, these like centers of community, people can get into the ethos of the place.
People are reminded of that. you know, there's a couple of incredible smaller. Grassroots, more hippie festivals. I'm sure we've, played many of the same ones where like, that's kind of the vibe of why people go and why they go buy merch and how they try to support.
And the festival tries to create an atmosphere that's supporting everybody there and. those festivals are always the coolest ones as opposed to being the tastemaker festivals. those are the ones that musicians like to land at. Cause it's like, Oh, this is my people this is cool.
We're all getting a fair shake at something and we're all getting a payday and everybody is acknowledged and honored in the same way That's a very positive thing that will continue, I think, to emerge.
[00:40:33] Michaela: I feel like a music career, there's so much ground to cover.
You're told like, Oh, you got to tour the entire country. We're going to put you on a six week tour where
you're just grinding it out. And
then, then you got to go to Europe and UK and you got to play every single place. And it's counterintuitive because my younger self used to think of it as being a smaller dream
of not needing to cover so much ground or playing the small kind of hippie folksy festivals.
and that kind of seemed less than in my younger mind
of like not succeeding
or even like failing a little bit. And now I'm like, Oh, that's like such a rich life and also
healthier,
instead of trying to cover.
50 cities on your album release tour, maybe you've got like 20 that you have really incredible relationships with your
[00:41:26] Amy: Yeah.
[00:41:27] Michaela: Places like the barn who like you build that ethos but you're also building trust with your community
that the community knows if I go to a show at the barn, I know it's going to be a caliber of musicianship because the people who run it care and it's not just about how do we sell,
[00:41:44] Amy: yeah. Absolutely.
So that more like regional focus now feels to me more of like the dream than going on year long tours and playing Bonnaroo and Coachella. That actually sounds like a nightmare now. I mean,
glad that I will never be booked at Coachella. those
couldn't imagine. But, I mean, I would never go to Coachella, even if it was the greatest band that I wanted to see. I'd rather wait and see them somewhere else, but that's just festivals are, festivals are a lot.
[00:42:21] Aaron: Those bigger production festivals, it still feels that way backstage. You know, Even if there's a large artist area, it still feels like a big production. It still feels like you're at work, whereas some of these like smaller festivals that you were referencing, it just feels spiritual, it feels nurturing.
It feels like a little bit of a rest
[00:42:37] Amy: you guys ever play the Kate Wolf Festival?
know.
[00:42:41] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:42:42] Amy: the best one. They stopped doing it after COVID.
That was the best one that there was. It was in Northern California, like four hours North of San Francisco, three
hours North. It was beautiful.
[00:42:56] Aaron: Finally, there's a stopover date between San Francisco and Portland.
[00:42:59] Michaela: Yeah. personally, I'm selfishly curious about your relationship to allowing yourself to really enjoy your time on tour and your aspects of your career that take you away from your family.
And how that shifted when you became a mother
[00:43:18] Amy: having one child, I've really struggled with the anxiety when I go away, or even when they come with me and I'll do solo tours where they just come and Erin takes care of our daughter and just the guilt.
[00:43:31] Michaela: only recently have I like, Switched it in my mind of being like, this is really dumb. we've made the decision as a family that I'm going to go and do these things. So why do I feel bad the whole time? Cause it's not like he's guilting me.
[00:43:44] Amy: I
[00:43:45] Michaela: well like really enjoy this.
[00:43:48] Amy: I know.
[00:43:49] Michaela: so I'm curious what that, process has been for you, especially having two.
[00:43:54] Amy: I could talk about that for hours and hours
and by the way, never hesitate to reach out. You can always text me and sometimes that's really helpful. Just checking in with other moms who tour just like, you know what? I'm outside of Boston and the gig sucked and I miss my kids so much and I feel like shit and I just need to tell somebody, you know, like sometimes that's just like what it is.
But when I had to, after I had Huey, my youngest, who's 13 yesterday, as I said When they were little, I would feel bad, but then I discover that like I'd get to sound check and then like it would be over and we'd have an hour and a half. And maybe I'd have my own green room. Like If it was a lucky gig and I'd sit there and take a long time, like put on some mascara and I'm putting on, I'm like exhaling and like sipping a water and like, I realized that these times away from the kids was like I said before, a little bit of a four seasons experience, right? You have to take it like a spa day. And yeah. You know, I'm not going to lie.
I don't think there's an easy answer for it. I think that we do feel guilty. We are going to miss, some of their school concerts and some things. And I still remember facetiming Huey when he was, Three, he never got a lot of colds when he was little and then he got his first fever that he had ever had because he just wasn't a very, he didn't have a lot of, he didn't get sick a lot.
And he was with a nanny and I just saw his little face laying on the pillow on the couch and saw that he had his first fever and it like seared me, but. This is what I can say now that they're older and looking back at all that time is that I felt a real calling to try my hand at being a solo artist, right?
Because I sang in bands my whole life. And then I was 44 when I put my first solo record out. So that was like a new thing for me, a different step. And it didn't feel like An ego dream. It felt really deep down. Like no matter what this looks like and however, this is going to go, I have to, I know I have to like find what these songs are, maybe get better at writing some songs and figure out how to take this energy and deliver it and honor it.
I just knew that I had to. And. I think that it's made me a better mom. I gotta be honest. Has it been selfish at times? Yes, but also I think I would have been stuck. I think something in me was getting healed and getting recalibrated by doing it. And I think it made me more patient and more connected to them in the long run.
as much as I ran around. It seemed like I was touring all the fucking time, but I didn't leave for longer than two weeks was the longest I would go. So that did add stress to my thing. So I would go out for 10 days. Then I'd pop home for five and like feather the nest and get the Mac and cheese together and make a pot of meatballs do the laundry and fix their drawers and get the whole thing.
And then I'd jump out again. Also, I brought them with me every summer I just surrendered to it's going to be crazy and it's going to be fun. And they adapt.
the aspect of,
[00:47:18] Michaela: very interesting to me, especially as it pertains to mothers versus fathers. And I'm curious how Aaron feels about this because like Aaron doesn't really tour that much anymore all. He's now very committed to just being a producer and staying home.
So if he tours it's with me, with Georgia otherwise it's me going away. I talked to my mom about this years ago because my dad was a submarine captain. he was gone for six months out of the year with no communication. And my mom was raising two kids in a brand new town cause we were always stationed in a new place
[00:47:54] Amy: no community and little community.
Wow. What a trip,
But was never questioned because was a man and it was military, it was duty, it was work, but music career, there's all these other accusations around
[00:48:14] Michaela: it of
And I remember years ago before. We were even thinking about kids talking about this and my mom was like who's to say that a mother Isn't a better mother by getting to do what they feel like doing is there purpose in life where my mom didn't get to do that
because she sacrificed
that to be a stay at home mom because she was like their dad's gone.
I'm not gonna have them feel doubly abandoned. And she was like, and also who's to say that what your dad chose to do in life Wasn't selfish. And this wasn't to disparage my dad. Like my parents are still married. they have a strong relationship, but she was just like, it's framed in such interesting ways.
And she was like, sure. He's out there supposedly risking his life in the Navy, but he was having fun.
Like he loved
going out to sea and said it was like summer camp with a hundred of his best friends.
[00:49:07] Amy: Well, right. Cause we're answering that calling.
I agree with you. You know, And also the other thing with the mom thing and, mom who's a touring musician, something that made me also feel better about it was talking to other moms that were working moms that were at home, but they were having the same level of guilt.
And conversations with their kids as I was my friend who's a nurse and my friend who's a teacher. I was like, Oh, these conversations are exactly the same, even though I've been in Indiana, there is that too like, yes, there's a lot put on to us is it selfish? I mean, We're working, right?
We're working.
[00:49:44] Aaron: my thought in having these conversations is I wonder how much the subliminal cultural mantra of chasing music or following music or following art as a chosen career path is like a little self serving and it's not the safe route or whatever it is, I wonder if that kind of subliminally weighs on us as being a frivolous choice or a pie in the sky kind of thing
[00:50:06] Amy: Definitely. Look at our world, right?
The world we live in, music industry is barely has any infrastructure to support or hold artists in any way, shape, or form. Including Americana, including South by Southwest, including these organizations that are meant to do that. it's too big of a rewrite to do it.
it's too big of a restructuring to make it happen. So I think that's also the reason that a lot of people who are deep music fans aren't really hip to the fact we work so hard and that streaming has done X, Y, and Z and that they have to support in different ways. I think that it's all, related,
people look at touring musicians. Like we've said, I'm a poet. Oh, that's a nice thing. You're going to be a poet. And like, it kind of has the same, projections and unspoken accusations is what I think, how you put it, Michaela, which is really well said.
[00:50:58] Aaron: Yeah.
I also can't help but bring up what Layla McAuliffe said about doing this as a mom and touring as a mom. It's, and I'm paraphrasing, I'm not going to say it nearly as beautifully as she said it, but basically it's like it's a way to subvert capitalism in a way that you're demonstrating to your children an alternate way of.
Living your life and existing in this world besides, go to high school, go to college, get a nine to five, work until you have your pension or your 401k and then retire. And then,
[00:51:26] Amy: Then pursue your dreams when you're retired and you've done. Yeah. that's what I was saying. Like that, I. think I'm a better mom for it.
[00:51:33] Michaela: Layla said it's, also a form of social activism. Yeah. To choose to have children as an artist and try and raise good humans, modeling this. Alternative Lifestyle that I thought was really beautiful and I never thought about it that way. 'cause it, I do feel like in the kind of scene and culture that we're around, I still feel like, really you guys are having kids?
even like being pregnant with a second. I've already been asked are you still going to be able to tour? I'm like, this is what we do. Yeah.
[00:52:01] Amy: are, we're always afraid of what we don't know. They're just afraid. They just don't know what it is. It's like a landscape no one's seen before,
[00:52:10] Michaela: And that's why I feel really passionate about any musician who comes on this podcast that is a parent, whether it's a male or a female, or always like it always It just becomes a topic to talk about because I was terrified of it because I didn't know detailed examples of it.
You grew up with musician parents, but like for a lot of people, it is especially for other women that I still had in my mind Oh, this is so much harder and it's career suicide. And there are examples and I've had my own, discriminatory experiences since becoming a mother and it is very real.
Oh yeah my booking agent basically stopped talking to me when I told him I was pregnant. we were on zoom and he literally went, there goes the whole summer. That was his first thing he said to me when I told him I was pregnant.
[00:52:56] Amy: Oh God, you got to tell me who he
was. You can tell me when we're not recording if you want to.
[00:53:01] Michaela: and then he sighed and said, Oh, Michaela, this is going to be so hard.
[00:53:07] Aaron: And then you guys didn't talk for two years. And
[00:53:08] Michaela: then he didn't speak to me for two years.
[00:53:12] Amy: I think I was just saying the I really feel passionate about the importance of sharing experiences as parent artists and like supporting each other in
Yeah, we have to do it and we have to stay in touch with each other and laugh about the stuff that's not working. A good sense of humor is the only way, it's the only way
[00:53:31] Aaron: it is. Absolutely. And
[00:53:33] Michaela: I think the freedom is realizing that the community that is amongst musicians and we have a lot more power than we think we do
your dad's lead of saying, fuck the music industry.
[00:53:44] Amy: Yeah, absolutely. That's how he started the rambles. He literally That's how he started it. He was like, I'm not going out and fucking touring. I'll start a concert here. People can come. There were like 15 people at the first one of those for like a
year. There was always under 50 people at those rambles.
Amazing.
And he kept jacking the price of the ticket the less tickets he'd sell, he'd keep jacking the price and everybody thought he was crazy and he had a vision
Yeah.
nope, if they want to come into my home and do this, let's do it like this, cause he was coming back from obscurity
He didn't have any selling power.
you know, but he just stuck to his guns about it. It was pretty cool.
What a badass. I like
Yeah.
He was a bad ass with
[00:54:26] Aaron: You are a badass as well. Thank you so much
[00:54:29] Amy: Thanks
you guys.
[00:54:30] Aaron: giving us your time and
[00:54:32] Amy: Thank you.
[00:54:33] Aaron: insights and your experiences.
[00:54:34] Michaela: Yeah, and hopefully we'll get to see each other in person again sometime with no broken bones and no COVID
[00:54:40] Amy: broken wrists and no COVID and lots of conversations to pick up on
[00:54:45] Aaron: Oh, yes.
[00:54:46] Amy: Exactly.
[00:54:53] Michaela: Yes. I, everybody who knows me intimately knows that I'm very, very kind, but I do love to talk shit. So when it's called for, so I'm in that.
[00:55:03] Amy: All right. Let's do it.
[00:55:05] Amy: We never talked about my fortnight headphones.
I wonder if I should. Yeah.
[00:55:10] Aaron: And they sound great too.
[00:55:11] Amy: Res me. That's what you guys are. You guys don't have kids old enough to know that, little shout out right there, but any fortnight parents out there will appreciate my imitation of that moment.
[00:55:24] Aaron: This might be the crossover audience we need.
[00:55:26] Amy: We might be, yeah, let's get this through. Like, We'll be like Travis Scott getting into that
fortnight. Yeah.
Yeah.
[00:55:32] Aaron: All right, Amy, thank you so much for carving out time for us.
[00:55:36] Amy: Thanks you guys. I enjoyed it. Have a great night. Bye.