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Edith Frost: A Wonder Wonder of a Voice
interview Page 1
Page 2 of interview
Edith Frost’s finest asset is her voice. No, not the husky, supple one that belts in an alt-country twang with Liz Phair slackness—though that is one of the first things you notice when listening to her music. We’re talking instead about the distinctive perspective that comes across in Frost’s original songwriting (i.e., her writing voice). Frost’s diverse life experiences, including a Texas upbringing, years spent struggling in Brooklyn, and flourishing in windy Chicago, have supplied the singer/songwriter not only with the seeds for good songs, but also with plenty of angles with which to approach that material. The resulting tunes, which appear on two full-length albums, a handful of singles and EPs, and now a stunning new record, Wonder Wonder, have made Frost a critic’s darling and an underground favorite.
Elements of all sorts of music seep into Frost’s tunes, though not in the conspicuous genre-hopping mold of Beck, Ween, or the Beta Band. Her approach is more seamless. Frost’s early adulthood working at Austin, Texas’s finest head shop exposed her to that city’s hallucinogenic music cross-pollination, from Butthole Surfer punk to old time country and western to early ‘80s goth. In New York, Frost worked for a few years at Muze, a large music database, where she spent hours going through huge stacks of discs, cataloging who played trumpet on David Byrne’s third solo album and who engineered the first Mercury Rev record. Beyond overloading the music trivia storage tanks of her brain, the job gave Frost the opportunity to listen to a wide range of music, as well as interact with a creative bunch of future music critics and musicians. That may explain the wisps of Will Oldham’s country dirges, Patsy Cline’s torch songs, or even psychedelic pop in the twelve cuts on Wonder Wonder.
It was while in New York that Frost decided to send an unsolicited package containing some of her four track demos to Drag City Records, mainly because she liked some Palace Brothers records she had heard on the label. Surprisingly, Drag City wrote her back and wanted to work with her. With her marriage coming to an end, and an excellent first record, Calling Over Time, about to be released, Frost took the leap and moved to Chicago, Drag City’s home base. There, she has become an integral part of the scene, appearing on albums by the Mekons, Jon Langford, Kelly Hogan, Songs: Ohia, and Gastr del Sol (who also supported her musically on her first album). She has even become integrated enough into the Second City’s musical history that one of her songs appears in John Cusack’s High Fidelity. In the movie, Frost’s “On Hold” is a song attributed to Lisa Bonet’s character. “I’m the voice of Lisa Bonet!” Edith was happy to tell us. “I was living off that money for six months, so I was glad to let her pretend it was her own.”
Like many talented artists, Frost works hard to make a living as a professional musician. Musictoday caught up with the singer as she was preparing to head out on three week U.S. tour in support of Wonder Wonder.
Musictoday: Are you still doing Web design for a day job?
Edith Frost: No, no. The only HTML I’m doing is my own site. Up until the end of ’98—when I first moved out here [to Chicago]—I had a job at a part time thing, at a Web boutique that did other Web sites. It’s just kind of a pain in the ass.
Mt: So you do everything for your site?
EF: Yeah. Well, I don’t take all the pictures and all, but I do all the coding. Everything that’s changed is by me, you know? I gather material, as far as photos, press materials that other people have written. Nobody touches that thing but me!
Mt: Are you making a living off of being a musician now?
EF: Well, not a very good living. Last year was easier, because High Fidelity came out and I got a chunk of change from that, which made me not want to do shows for a while [Laughs], ‘cause I was able to be at home and work. No, I really don’t [make a good living] at this point. It gets a little better every year in that regard, and the more I tour, the more it helps in every way. It helps in record sales and cash, you know?
Mt: Obviously, the end goal is to become self-sufficient off of that, correct?
EF: Well, s**t yeah!
Mt: What can people expect from your live show, in terms of musicians and such?
EF: I get whomever I can, basically. I just find out where and when I’m playing, and then I know all these people, so I make phone calls. I don’t like going out without at least Ryan Hembrey, who is the bass player. I just pick whoever is available from that point on. I hate…I won’t go out solo.
Mt: You don’t go out solo anymore at all?
EF: I do shows here and there. But it’s just so much easier to play with other people, you know?
Mt: It’s the collaboration?
EF: Yeah, and the moral support. You know? I remember doing the Knitting Factory [in New York] solo—I think it was a CMJ [Music Marathon] thing—and I arrived at the show alone, and I left alone, with my guitar. That’s no fun at all!
Mt: In terms of collaborating, it’s always interesting to see who’s playing on your records, and who you’re playing with on other records. How does that come about?
EF: Luck of the draw.
Mt: Do you just see who’s around as you start a session?
EF: Rian [Murphy] has been the one—at least for the records—who has handled that, except for Telescopic, which was produced by Neil Hagerty [of Royal Trux]. On that one, we had a few extra people—which was mostly Neil’s doing—like the violin player, and Amy [Domingues]. That’s how I met Amy, the cellist. Rian, on the first album, Calling Over Time, he was the one who, you know, rounded up all those guys—the Gastr del Sol guys [David Grubbs and Jim O’Rourke].
Mt: So they were his contacts? He introduced you to them?
EF: Well, I was living in New York. I had no idea who these people were when I [was just getting started with Drag City]. When Drag City first sent me a pile of CDs, that was the first time I had heard Gastr. So, I knew who they were. And it was kind of the same thing with Neil. I had heard Royal Trux. In that case, it was Neil who approached Drag City and said, “I want to do Edith’s second record.”
Mt: With that first album, did you go in with skeletal songs that were then fleshed out?
EF: Yeah, I had had the demos, and at that point, I was living in New York, so it was all by FedEx. Playing songs over the phone. All I really had were these four track demos that were just guitar and voice. And they might have had harmony or maybe a little keyboard part, but nothing fancy at all. I didn’t imagine…I always try to think of the next song and move on to another one.
Mt: Once it’s on tape, you move forward?
EF: Yeah. I don’t know; I feel like I’m not a bass player, so I don’t want to have to be the one to think about what’s going to happen in the area of bass. I know somebody else could do it a lot better, so I don’t worry about it. On the demo, that is.
Mt: So you do leave a lot up to your collaborators once you’re in the studio?
EF: Yeah, it’s pretty obvious. There’s big gaps in the songs and I just say, “Go to town.”
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