In a world where indie seems to be more and more mainstream everyday I often wonder what that means for someone playing good old-fashioned radio rock and roll? Not rustic Americana or glossy fake emo. Just rock and roll ya know. Sure Tom Petty can be the safe bet to play halftime at the Superbowl but how many radio stations played his last record? It’s a question that plagues me the handful of times I have seen EmilyEasterly play. She can obviously sing and is loaded with chops on the guitar and comes equipped with charm to spare and the redheaded stage presence that I have a long running weakness for. So why is it so hard to figure out where she fits in? Emily loves early Liz Phair and PJ Harvey but it is her new found affection for Neil Young and long standing devotion to The Beatles that find her music more in the realm of The Pretenders than the next angry young thing. And that’s not a bad place to be at all. Have a listen to some slices of her new disc “Heart Comma Heart” and be sure to catch her around town during her stopovers (past shows at Galaxy Hut, Vermilion, Velvet Lounge and Iota so keep an eye out) between her hometown of Richmond and New York City where she currently resides.
Okay – who wants to listen to me when a sassy redhead is available? Take it away Emily
“Shadows (Oh Honey)”
This was the first track we recorded for the new album, “Heart Comma Heart” and I really think that it came out with the best and most natural vibe to it. The production is very simple with guitar, drums, piano and vocal, but it really came out great. I wrote this songs shortly after I finished reading The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. There was a passage in the book about shadows and I wrote a poem based off of that passage. Later, when I was working on a new song, I used some of the words from the poem and thats how it turned into “Shadows (Oh Honey)”. There is also a music video for the songs up on youtube right now that my friend Kyle Patrick Alvarez directed.
“Neil Young Knows What I’m Talking About”
I had really gotten into listening to Neil Young recently. I came up with the line “Neil Young Knows What I’m Talking About” and thought it was sort of funny and yet could imply so much. I wrote the song while I was visiting friends and family back in Virginia. It came together very quickly, which is how I like it! It includes a lot of Neil Young references like “comes a time” and “tonights the night”, both song titles of his that I incorporated into the lyrics. We recorded the song with just banjo and vocals and a little percussion. I had recently bought a banjo and loved having an excuse to use it on the record.
“Youth On My Side”
I wrote this song about two years ago and played it out live a a lot, but was never totally satisfied with the lyrics. I knew I wanted to record it for the new record, so i rewrote the lyrics before we did. The lyrics are now more in keeping with the theme of “youth on my side”. I listened a lot to David Bowie’s “Young Americans” and “Oh You Pretty Things”. Like those songs, I really wanted this one to show that idea of being young, being cool, feeling like you can do whatever you want as well as the difference in generations and other generations not being able to relate to younger ones. This is definitely one of the “rockers” on the album. A lot of people have told me it reminds them of Nirvana.
