Interview: Sara Tindley (part III)

This is the third of a three-part interview with Sara Tindley. In this part Sara talks about the hard work involved in creative pursuit, and whether or not milking cows has anything to do with it.

For part I of this interview, please go here.

For part II, please go here.

So for you, now, having children and a house to run and other things no doubt in your life, where do you fit creativity in?

That can sometimes be tricky. I have a little studio that’s separate to the house and I take myself up there most days – not every day but most days, even if it’s just for an hour or a couple of hours, just to kind of turn up in a sense, turn up to work and just see what comes, and if nothing else comes at least I’ve played my guitar and keep sort of refining what I do, and not all the time that I go up there is productive but it feels good just to go and be there.

Do you believe in the muse, as in you wait for the muse to appear and stimulate you?

No. I think there’s times where I’m definitely more open to whatever might come through, but I feel that to really get a body of work behind me I just need to go up there and work, whether I’m inspired or not. I just need to go up there and do something. And I think sometimes you have to write; maybe I have to write four pretty cruddy songs to get one good one [laughs] so I just keep showing up and hoping that something [laughs] good will come of it.

I think that’s really excellent advice for anyone who is in a creative pursuit, whether it's writing songs, writing books or painting. A lot of people will wait for inspiration and then get frustrated when it doesn’t happen, but that practice of just turning up and being there and working at it, having talent and application I guess.

Yeah. Well, it does – it’s not all just about sort of – a creative moment can happen once every four months [laughs] and if that was all I was doing I’d be hard pressed to come up with an album’s worth of stuff. There’s a lot of hard work involved, in a funny sort of way – not so much in a physical way but in a mental way. You just have to keep applying – I feel like I just have to keep applying myself.

You mentioned sometimes you have to go through four cruddy songs until you get to a good one – do you ever go back to those kind of workman-like songs because they’ve worked through a process and bring them up to the level of the other songs?

No. But sometimes I’ll go back to them and steal a line or a verse or something [laughs]. I find with my work that if it didn’t make the grade, it’s because it really is not good enough, but often there might be a couple of lines in there or it might have a good chorus or something in there that is worth revisiting and stealing for another song.

So when it comes to selecting which songs you record, is it obvious to you which ones are there or do you need to sit down with a list and edit the list?

I have, with each album, gone in with more songs than I needed and pretty much once the process of recording begins there seemed to be almost like a path and some songs just don’t fit into that, for whatever reason – not because they’re necessarily a bad song or they don’t hold up like the other ones did, just in that context they didn’t work as well. So there’s songs that didn’t make it onto this album that possibly will make it onto the next one.

Well, speaking of the next one, do you have plans to record any time soon?

No. Not any time soon. I kind of like a good sort of year or two to let the dust settle from this album and then I’ll probably start. I’ve got a couple of new songs happening now, so I’m hoping that I’ll have a decent collection early next year, but whether I go into the studio with it straightaway, I don’t know yet.

And on a completely different note, I saw on your website in your bio that you’ve milked cows and you’ve been a machinist and a nurse, so I’ve got to ask you about the milking of cows, because I think maybe the discipline of getting up early to milk cows is good for someone to show up every day and write songs.

[Laughs] Yeah, well, I think when I was young I always imagined that I would be a farmer, for some reason. I quite idolised the farming life, having not grown up as a farmer’s daughter or anything. I think I have this romantic view of farming [laughs] and so the little stint – it was a very little stint that I did milking – really brought me back down to earth [laughs]. Yes.

And also you’ve been a nurse and you do a fair bit of training and see a fair few things when you’re a nurse. Do you do any of that anymore?

I have off and on ever since I did my nursing. I don’t particularly like to work in hospitals and stuff, but I like doing home-care type stuff. So at different stages I have done that and I can see that I probably will do that again at some point.

You said you have two daughters. I was wondering if you’d advise either of them to become musicians, if they were called in that direction.

[Laughs] No. Look, I guess I would just hope that whatever they do, they do it wholeheartedly and with passion, and so if it is music, then of course I would say go for it, if that’s really where your heart lies and where your passion lies, go for it. But [laughs] be prepared [laughs].

Do you kind of feel like you don’t have a choice really in that this is kind of what you’ve been called to do, to be a musician, to be a songwriter?

Yes. I do now. I think all the way through I have struggled with that on some level, because it’s financially a very difficult path to take, and so I’ve often thought to myself, oh, should I go back to university – or should I go, not back to university [laughs], should I go to university and do something sensible with my life? But I think now, all these years later, I have just come to terms with the fact that I am just compelled to do this and I just take little casual jobs to kind of pay my way while I work on this less lucrative career.

It is a shame that it is such a struggle in the arts but I do know and I can see it on the faces of everyone at Tamworth and every time I go to a gig that music means so much to people, and so even though it can’t be measured in terms of remuneration all the time, it’s I think what people like you, what you do is really so valuable for other people – for the community. So if that’s any consolation [laughs].

Well, it is. It is. And I think I agree that not everyone can play music just like not everyone can crunch numbers or create fabulous web designs or things like that. So I can see that at some point I had to make a decision that money was not going to drive me and I’ve kind of come to terms with that now [laughs].

Well, as I said, country music in particular, it’s a long career.

[Laughs] That’s right. And there’s always – there’s always sort of little things that happen along the way that really kind of validate what you do as an artist. There’s always some little golden nuggets in there.

Visit Sara Tindley's website at www.saratindley.com and visit her music at Vitamin Records.

Interview: Sara Tindley (part II)

This is the second of a three-part interview with Sara Tindley, whose most recent album is Time (Vitamin Records). The first part of the interview is here.

Sara has recently returned from playing in Nashville and Memphis, so we talked about that, and about whether or not she is really an 'ageing housewife'.

Did you go further afield than Nashville or was that your main destination?

No. I started in Memphis and played at the International Folk Alliance Conference. That was sort of a five-day extravaganza [laughs] of lots of shows and, yeah, a very hectic kind of schedule. And then [I] drove to Nashville and did the dig with Audrey [Auld] at the Bluebird and another gig at a venue called the Twelfth Importer and then went to Alabama and did a gig in Birmingham in Alabama.

And how does one organise a gig in Alabama?

[Laughs] Well, basically it’s a matter of sort of seeing where people are playing that are, I guess, working in a similar independent way and then just contacting those venues and hoping they say yes.

And obviously they did.

Yeah.

I’m really fascinated at the idea of a folk alliance. So is that an organisation in the United States?

It is, and they have this conference every year. This is the first time that I’ve been and basically it’s all run within – this year it was in the Marriot Hotel in Memphis. And so basically there’s two floors of a hotel rooms that are turned into mini venues for five days and there are probably, I don’t know, upwards of 1000 musicians playing and doing their thing. And there’s festival bookers and radio DJs and it’s kind of where the industry, I suppose, meets the artist or something.

So it’s not for the public to come and see you play?

No. No. Not so much. No. It’s more a kind of in-house sort of thing.

Did you feel that you made some good connections and that it was worthwhile going?

Yeah. A lot of people were saying Australians are really bad at selling themselves. When you go there do not – in a sort of humorous way - belittle what you do because the Americans do not get it [laughs]. That is not part of their nature. They’re very good at sort of speaking highly of themselves and believing in what they do and projecting that out, whereas I think, as Australians, we’re much more self-deprecating than that [laughs]. So that was good advice because I’m the world's worst networker so [laughs] it was quite challenging.

Well, from what I heard from Audrey, you should just stick with her because she says she’s quite a forthright person and she probably bowls up to people and says 'Hello' [laughs].

[Laughs] Yeah, she’s incredible in her sort of capacity to just keep pushing it out there, just to keep going hard and keep those gigs coming in, and I’m pretty sure she does it basically single-handedly and it’s incredible – an incredibly gruelling kind of career path to do it that way.

I thinkyou need a lot of time because for all the things that come off you’d be spending a lot more time on things that don’t come off.

Yes. That is exactly what I think.

In terms of the self-deprecating thing, I noticed in something I was reading on the Vitamin Records website, you refer to yourself as an 'ageing housewife and I would never have ever thought of you like that until you put the phrase out there. I was thinking, 'What does she mean, "ageing housewife", like she’s just – she’s a musician' [laughs].

[Laughs] Yeah, it’s funny that that’s kind of what has been picked up on it and I probably just said it quite lightly in passing, but at times in the lead-up to this album, I did really feel like that and did feel sort of slightly irrelevant in this youth-focused [laughs] caper of the music industry and I – yeah, I just was feeling kind of irrelevant.

Except when I was at Tamworth this year I saw Harmony James play and I was looking at her band and I thought there was a 20 year old, there was a 38 year old, a 50 year old, probably a 55 year old in the band, and I thought country is the one genre where age doesn’t matter and you can keep having a career until you drop dead, basically, like Slim Dusty. But also it’s a genre where women are really at the forefront and no one bats an eyelid, nothing is made of it, like, 'Oooh, there are so many women putting out albums or leading bands or whatever'. I think the genre is what people are attracted to and then beyond that whoever is there is great and they want to listen to them. So therefore, being an ageing housewife in country music is completely irrelevant.

[Laughs] Great. I’ll take that with me [laughs].

I also think it’s a story-telling genre and people want to hear your stories when you’re a songwriter.

Yes. Well, that’s true and when I was younger I don’t think I was very ... I feel like I’m kind of coming into it. I’m a late bloomer in a sense and I feel like I’m coming into it with much more or less to talk about and much more to say because I have lived a life and am living a life kind of thing, rather than, I don’t know, sort of clutching at straws, trying to find a story that is not resonating with me.

Yeah. And it’s, again, the audiences I find in country, they’re looking for that, it’s like they want to hear stories that can tell them something about their own lives and that they can relate to, and also just other people’s lives they find interesting. Whereas, in pop and rock it’s repetition of that theme of 'That girl doesn’t like me, I think I’m going to walk on a train track or something'. [Laughs] I don’t know.

[Laughs] Yes, all done with a sort of sexy bum wiggle or something [laughs].

In the last part of the interview, to be published very soon, Sara talks about fitting in creativity in everyday life.

www.saratindley.com

Interview: Sara Tindley (part I)

On her most recent album, Time, Sara Tindley teamed up with The Yearlings to produce a wonderful collection of songs that appeal to folk and country audiences alike. I have to admit that it took a while for the album to grow on me, but now that it has I have it on regular rotation. This is my way of explaining why this interview is taking place several months after the album was released!

Before the interview formally commence I asked Sara if her name is pronounced 'Sarah' or 'Sah-ra', as it seems to be different for different people - in case you're curious, it's 'Sah-ra'.

I bought your album last year and I saw you play at the Orphanage Sessions in Parramatta and it was such a lovely gig. It was quite different seeing those songs live to hearing them on the album. To be honest, it took me a while to really love the album and I think it was because The Yearlings were playing on it and it didn’t seem like it was entirely you, and when I saw you play live I was like okay, I get it now.

Well, that’s really interesting because it has been a kind of slow grower, if you like. It seems to have taken people ... people are not instantly engaging with it.

But now that I’ve been listening to it for a while I just love it. There are so many songs on it that really stick in my brain and I find myself hearing them at odd times in my head. It’s always fascinating the way songs can work like that.

Yes. Yes.

I want to ask a little bit about the recording process, because this album was quite different from the album before, in terms of the backing music. There’s definitely a continuity of songwriting and, obviously, of your voice, but I was wondering what it was like to have a set of songs and go into the studio with The Yearlings and sort of have them say, 'Well, here’s how we are going to play with you'.

When I had decided that I wanted to work with The Yearlings, in part it was because of the way that they play and the kind of spare – is that the word? - spare and styling, what they do, and so I went there with complete trust in their ability to treat the songs both with respect, I guess, and beautifully and I feel that they did that well and – what am I saying? [laughs]

Well, they did, The arrangements are lovely.

Yeah. And it was basically just – it was different to Lucky the Sun in that it was by and large played live and everything was either done in the first or second take, and that was something that I had really wanted with this album, which was also in part why I chose The Yearlings to do it, with their studio, because they had those limitations, I guess. Because you can put a lot of bells and whistles on songs and there’s a million ways to treat a song, and I guess I just wanted things taken back to their essential nature or something.

And is the idea of recording them live that it is more immediate and it’s also capturing that moment in time, rather than, well, this is what the producer thinks the song should sound like?

Yes. And I think sometimes, too, I’ve never really been in the position where I’ve laboured over songs and done fifty million takes to try and get that perfect take, and I think I would probably drive myself insane if I did [laughs]. I like the idea of just going in there, doing the best work that you can do on that day and calling it done.

The instruments on this one were quite different, because the last one had the more traditional country instruments on it - I think there was a bit of banjo - and so for you, as someone who has slotted into country music but I know you fit in broader categories than that, was it unusual to hear your songs with those different instruments or different instrumentation?

No. I don’t think it was. I don’t think I found it unusual. I did at times feel exposed, because I played the guitar on pretty much all the tracks to this album and I have never been a particularly confident guitar player, and so I did worry that I was going to be there as a kind of a weaker link in the chain, but it didn’t feel like that once I was there. My fears were calmed and put aside, which was great.

Certainly having seen you play live, you seemed pretty comfortable on the guitar, so it seems like you’re okay!

That’s good to hear.

You now live in northern New South Wales but you’re from Victoria, so how did you end up in – I think you’re near Byron Bay or in Byron Bay?

Yeah. Yeah. Though I did spend quite a few years in Byron. I’m further south now, only by about 40, 45 minutes. But, look, I really think by and large it was a climatic thing. The cold in Victoria just became wearing on me and I came up here in search of a more ideal climate.

And you found it?

Hmm. But it does rain a lot [laughts].

Every time I’ve been in Byron Bay it has rained, so I’m convinced that it does rain there a lot!

Yeah. I believe it.

So you’re not thinking of going even further north to Queensland? You’ve stopped in Byron Shire?

Yes [laughs]. I did. I was happy, the countryside here is stunningly beautiful and the beaches are gorgeous and the community that I’ve found myself in has really nurtured my music and my career so far.

Do you get to play locally - are there venues where if you felt like picking up your guitar and playing a couple of sets you could go?

Yes. I haven’t been doing that as much as I used to. I think I’ve felt that I was maybe getting a bit ove exposed up here or something – I was feeling a bit comfortable – and so I’ve spent the last couple of years really trying to push what I do further afield.

In terms of touring round the country?

Yes.

I would imagine, though, that when you have a family [Sara has two children] it’s often hard to coordinate and it’s one of those limitations that often I think when people say, 'Oh, just follow your dreams and be creative', then it’s like, 'Well, I’ve got a house to run'. So do you sort of fit things in around school holidays if you can?

Yes and no. Now that both my girls are at school I feel like it’s easier to juggle now rather than when my littlest was still at home. I don’t really just do school holidays but I try and keep things in kind of three-night runs, so that I will often head off on a Thursday and be back on the Monday or something.

And is that heading to Sydney, heading to Brisbane, or is it getting on planes and try to get further afield?

It’s all of that. I get on the plane, I get in the car. I’ve actually just come back from a trip over to the States which was really exciting. I’m just doing whatever I can. It’s like being a bit of a niche artist in a little country – you can’t play endlessly I guess.

No. And I was talking to Audrey Auld last week. I said something about how there weren’t many venues really in Australia for country artists or even anyone who is country-esque, even though the viewer numbers on CMC in cities are apparently high, and she said something like, 'Look, Australia doesn’t get it' or 'I think the music press don’t get it'.

[Laughs] Yeah. I don’t know whether they don’t get it but it is difficult. And I actually played – Audrey invited myself and The Yearlings to do a gig with her at the Bluebird Café in Nashville, so that was a real treat.

In the next instalment of this interview Sara talks about the Folk Alliance Conference in Memphis - something I'd never heard of before. Stay tuned ...

www.saratindley.com