DOP magazin pop & off kulture

Prema obećanju, na redu je opsežni trodijelni interview s jednom od najljepših i najcjenjenijih američkih mainstream kantautorica Sheryl Crow.

Poglavito je pričala o radu na posljednjem studijskom albumu "Wildflower", ali i drugim stvarima iz života zvijezde u četrdesetima koja je nadasve good looking. Za interview veliki shout out ide djevojkama iz Aquarius Recordsa. Ponovilo se.

* How would you describe the environment- physical, emotional, or spiritual- in which these songs were written?

Well, this record really came about after The Greatest Hits was released. And actually, The Greatest Hits did a lot better than what we thought, because for me, I thought with I-Tunes, why would anyone buy a greatest hits? So, we were all really surprised and we tacked on a tour to The Greatest Hits. And it kind of gave me or allowed me to take some time to figure out what direction I wanted to go in after The Greatest Hits, because I felt like that was the end of a chapter. And it gave me an opportunity to sort of switch gears a little bit. So I knew I wanted to make a quiet record. And around that time, I met Lance and we moved to Europe. And so a lot of what contributed to the vibe on this record was being really alone in a strange place. Kind of being a stranger in a strange place. And he was basically the only person that I knew and I didn't speak Spanish.

So, there were a lot of things that sort of dictated that I faced being alone and quiet. And also, I hadn't intended to write a record, and so a lot of these songs were just written really for-for the joy or for the expression of it. So, that also dictated the feel of the record, which is very intimate. And I think spiritually - or at least content wise - there was a lot going on in the world, as there still is. But watching how it's portrayed in Europe definitely gives you a better feel for how the rest of the world sees Americans. And so, being American in a foreign country also made me feel a little bit like an alien. And I think that really attributed to the aloneness feeling of the record.

* So, when you were writing the songs, was it really just you and an instrument over there?

I started out, uh, with really good intentions. I took uh, Garage Band on my uh, computer and thought well, I'll just do real rough demos. And then, I found that for me, it's just easier to be in the moment and just run a tape recorder. And so, I had a couple of guitars and a base and wound up just sitting in a room that was kind of designated my room for that purpose. And once I'd written a whole collection of songs, which I felt like were an art album and then a pop album, I came home and started sort of sorted through it. And then made almost two complete records completely different.

* When you got back then, how did you choose your players in the production team that worked on the record?

Um, I knew on this record that for the purposes of having an intimate record, I wanted to only use a couple of players. And I've worked wit Jeff Trou for a very long time. In fact, he and I wrote If It Makes You Happy and My Favorite Mistake and I knew I wanted to work with Jeff and I didn't knew I didn't want to produce the album by myself.

*How did you describe to them the sound and the feeling you were trying to capture that you were just talking about? About being overseas?

Well, the record that I wanted to make, what I was calling the art record. The record that I wanted to follow up The Greatest Hits uh, was intended to feel like a switching of gears. I didn't want to continue to do the same stuff, making records that felt like they were concerned with having singles.
I kind of wanted the album just to feel like an album's worth of album cuts. I think the way that I explained to Jeff, as far as the environment of the record, was that I wanted it to feel like a Neil Young record, with really lush strings. And there-there definitely was a Neil Young as well. Like a harvest period as well as an Elton John influence. He had done a movie soundtrack called Friends that had all these really beautiful Paul Buck master string arrangements.

* Speaking of the orchestration, you chose Beck's father, David Campbell, to arrange the strings. And While The Flowers emotional terrain does seem somewhat similar to Beck's Sea Change album in an emotional way. Is that a connection you were aware of? Did it have anything to do with you hiring David?

I definitely, over the course of the last year, while I was writing these songs, I definitely listened to Sea Change a lot. And uh, that's, for me, is just a great record to put on to have going in the house that doesn't require anything of you.

You know, it just-it just basically begs that you be relaxed and enjoy having that music in-in the background. I thought the string arrangements on that and a lot of others things that had done in the pop world were also interesting. And also, he was really great about letting me say okay, I kind of want on this song, you know, I did-I did reference other string arrangements and stuff. And for instance uh, there's a song called Chances Are that I had hoped he would do something kind of Nick Drake on. And he really did uh, take those um, suggestions and-and run with the. David was amazing, because we were really limited on time because I kept having to go back to Spain and so I'd only have a few days here and a few days there. And so, we did a lot of work, as far as um, figuring out what we were going to do through e-mail. And then, I went home and-and basically recorded. I think we recorded eleven tracks on one day and then two tracks on another day.

* How do you think the sound and the feel of one of your records influenced the direction you'll take on the next. What else influences it?

I find that when I go into make a record, I have a pretty good idea of what kind of record I want to make according to some different factors. One of the things is when you play live a lot, you realize that some songs are more fun to play than other songs. And for different reasons. Mid-tempo songs sometimes are not as much fun to play as the really slow or the really fast. And on the Come On Come On record I knew that I wanted to make a record that was just fun. And that reminded me of being like sixteen or seventeen. And the way that that felt, when classic rock was on the radio and every kid knew every song and the melodies really took you somewhere. And big choruses, big kind of macho guitar rifts. And I felt like at that point of making that record, I really missed that kind of music on the radio. It felt like it was all groove oriented and-and that there was nothing that was really the soundtrack for me, for my summers now. And so that was-that was the intent on that record. And-and that followed up a very sort of introspective record, which was The Globe Sessions. I find that more than the last record influencing the next record, it's really sort of a snapshot of where you are when you're writing it. You're life really kind of in-informs your art basically. And with The Greatest Hits, I think the thing that that record provided for this record was that it just gave me the opportunity to say okay, that's kind of the closing of the-of the book from that period. And this is a really great opportunity to say all right, I'm doing something different...

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