Edie Carey

In many ways, Edie Carey is like every other singer/songwriter struggling to make it in the music world.  She picked up the guitar in college, began writing songs of heartache and hope, found a supportive music venue to call home, and made some fans along the way.  But when you look at her list of accomplishments, including a nomination for the Independent Music Awards Album of the Year and Campus Awards Female Artist of the Year, you realize that Edie has managed to set herself apart from the rest.  Edie was kind enough to talk on the phone with Way Cool Music in May to talk about her creative process, relationships, and plans for the future.

Way Cool: 

Can you briefly describe your background and how you got involved in the music industry?

Edie
Carey:

It was not something that I planned, which I think is the answer for most people in the industry.  I had been involved with music my whole life, with bands and A Cappella groups and stuff like that.  I started playing guitar right at the beginning of college.  Shortly thereafter I started writing songs, but I certainly wasn't thinking, "Oh!  If I do this then I could be a famous songwriter!"  It was like I finally had an instrument with which I could finally write some songs.  I thought it would be fun and exciting to try.  I had always written really terrible poetry and short stories and I had always been a singer.  I loved words and I love singing, but without an instrument, I couldn't really marry those two things.  So, once I started doing that, as soon as I started playing guitar my freshman year (of college), I was obsessed.  I wouldn't stop!  I thought maybe I had stumbled onto something.  I played a little bit in my room throughout college and then when I went to Bologna, Italy for my junior year abroad, I played constantly.  I played out on the streets and on the main piazza for change and I thought it would be a good place to practice since no one could understand my words.  By the time I got back senior year, I started playing on campus over at Barnard and Columbia.   Then I started playing out.  I think by the time I got back from Italy I was pretty sure I at least wanted to give it a try; to see if I could get a gig.  But I thought I would just get a job and it would something I'd do at night, but it began to snowball and people started to come back and go to shows and it happened organically, I guess.  Certainly I've done a whole lot of work to make it happen, but I just sort of felt moved to make it happen.  Since then, I've just been touring.  A little tiny decision to buy a guitar sort of changed everything for me.

Also during my freshman year at Barnard, I sort of stumbled upon this little club called the Post Crypt.  It's down in the basement of St. Paul's chapel on Columbia's campus.  And one night my friend was like, "Oh, we're going to see this woman named Ani Defranco"  I was like, "Yeah, whatever, I don't know."  I was skeptical that she was going to suck.  I didn't know who she was; I just went because my friends were going.  The place is tiny; it holds at the most 40 people and That's a fire hazard.  I saw her play that night and I completely lost it.  I was crying through the whole thing.  I just had a really strong reaction to her music and after that I was obsessed with Post Crypt.  I went every week.  It was Friday and Saturday night all through the school year.  I went and saw Lisa Loeb.  And I saw people like Ellis Paul and those folks play that room and seeing them made me feel that, "Oh, there's a possibility that you can actually make a living playing the songs that you write!"  Seeing that really made a huge difference and really pushed me to buy a guitar at the end of that year.

WC:

Now you recently spent a month on the road with Melissa Ferrick and got to visit some new markets and cities for you.  What was the reception during that tour for your music?

EC:

It was great!  Touring with her is incredibly fulfilling in that I get to tour with one of my favorite people, favorite musicians, and I learn so much from her.  To able to get to open for her audience, which is already such an incredibly excited audience, they just love this kind of music!  Melissa and I are very different in some ways, so sometimes I'm not sure that I'm going to go over well, or that I don't rock hard enough, but you have to be yourself.  You can't pretend to be more rock than you are.  So, in fact, it's a good way for me to say, "Hey.!  This is who I am."  If they like it, they like it.  If they don't, they don't  But I think people can see through if you're trying to be something you're not just to fit the occasion.  I love playing with her.  Her audiences are amazing and so responsive.  At times it's hard because they do tend to talk a lot at her shows and I play quieter songs, but at times, that sort of helped.  I could use that to my advantage.  I would often time say, "If you guys will be really quiet for 3 minutes during this finger-picked, quiet song, I'll take off my shirt."  I would make jokes.  Obviously, I never did it.  But, it sort of kicks your butt sometimes when you're playing for an audience That's so riled up and you have to try to harness that energy and make it work for you, not against you.

It was great!  I always sell a ton of CDs and the best part is that you really plant seeds by doing that opener.  In fact, on this next tour I'm about to do out west, I'm going back to Arizona, where I'd never toured before, to Phoenix and Tucson, in the same clubs I played with Melissa.  So, that helps enormously.  You hope that people remember you and come back to support your solo shows.

WC:

Your latest CD, When I Was Made, is receiving a lot of recognition from some impressive people, including the nomination for the Independent Music Awards Album of the Year.  What does it mean for you personally as well as professionally to be "critically acclaimed?"

EC:

I don't really think of myself that way at all.  I wish I did, but I feel like· It feels great that people really like the record because I really like it.  I guess it would make me really sad if I really liked it and everyone else hated it, but at the same time, I think I'd be proud of myself for sticking to my guns, I guess.  I feel like I really had a vision for how I wanted to grow on this album and I feel, in many ways, that this is my first record, even though it's my fourth.  I made my first CD when I was 24 and had just gotten out of college and was just going to make a demo and it turned into a CD.  Not to take away from those CDs, because I think there are some good things on there and if they didn't exist, I wouldn't have the fan base I have now, which is incredibly supportive.  Some of those people like my first record the best and that makes me so happy!  But, I feel like this is the record I listen to when I don't want to jump off a bridge.  Of course, I could listen to this record in a year and be like, "Oh my God!  I can't believe I made that choice."  You're always going to feel that way.  But, for the first time, when I made this CD, I went into it with an idea of what I wanted to do, the sound I wanted to go for, and the kinds of songs I wanted to be on there.  I've done that before in the past, but things always got railroaded in one direction or another because of certain circumstances or money or whatever.  Something happens and it doesn't end up where you wanted it to go.  You might be happy with the final result, but it's still different from what you originally planned.  (With this CD) I felt so pleased because I had an idea in my head and it actually came through into fruition in the way I wanted.

WC:

That's good that you enjoy it as well as the fans.  You spent time in Maine when you were putting the CD together.  Why did you choose Maine?

EC:

I grew up spending my summers up in Tenants Harbor, which is about 2 hours north of Portland.  It's a street that my whole family was on.  My great grandfather bought this bit of land at the turn of the century for a basically a song; he paid nothing for it!  It's just this magical place.  I walk down the street and my third and fourth cousins live on this road.  I don't even know half of them.

There's just something about Maine that makes me want to write.  I think it's also because I associate it with being off a little bit.  I'm not on the road, I'm not touring, I'm not booking, I'm just up there to rest and go to bed at a normal hour and write.  It's a quiet place, very rural.  There's no TV, There's barely radio reception.  Any time I have time off, I just go write and That's where I go.  I try to go on the off-season so There's nobody around I need to be social with.  That's always the place.  So, when I was writing songs for this record, That's where I went.  I was there for about 3 weeks in 2002 and just wrote everyday for hours and hours and hours.

WC:

Maine is my favorite place.

EC:

Really!  Where do you go?

WC:

I go to Portland.  I could spend the rest of my life there and be perfectly content.

EC:

I know.  The winters there sort of suck.  I actually almost moved to Portland.  Before I moved to Atlanta, I was going to leave New York no matter what, and I went and looked at apartments in Portland.  I went during Christmas-time and it was so frickin' cold.  I didn't think I could handle it.  So, I went the opposite direction.  I do love it.  I think a lot of people who go there feel that There's just a sort of magic about it.

WC:

One of my favorite songs off the CD is 'With Our Hands.'  In that song, you make reference to a previous relationship you had with a fellow singer/songwriter.  Beyond 'With Our Hands,' how has that relationships, and others, impacted your songwriting?

EC:

It's an intense thing to be a songwriter and be with a songwriter because you both process things in the same way, but you look to the next song to·songs can be prophetic, which is sort of scary.  He would write a new song, and I'd think, "Oh, what is this one going to say?  What does this mean?"  Or he'd write some beautiful love song and I'd be like, AOL, we're going to be Ok."  Whatever it was.  It was stupid!  It's a very intense thing.  I know just as well as he does that I'm telling the truth in my songs.  It can be kind of scary.  You can have your real life together, but also have this constant subtext of the songs you are writing.  It's odd.  I know people who can do it and have no problem with it, but I think it was definitely hard.

Also, when you're a songwriting couple, one of you is always going to feel like, "Oh, am I doing as well as he is?"  Or, "Am I doing as well as she is?"  Or, "He's got that gig and I didn't  We weren't that competitive, but it definitely would come out at times.  I don't know.  Some people can do it, but we couldn't.  The fact that we're still friends and adore each other is a minor miracle.  We've been through a lot, but I just think he's amazing.

WC:

How do you move beyond the angry love songs?  Every songwriter has relationship stories they want to tell, but what inspires you beyond the boyfriend/girlfriend drama?

EC:

I think That's a good question.  I think every songwriter starts from that place and sort of spirals outward.  I definitely write a lot about romantic love, but more than that, I write about human relationships.  I write about my dad, my mom, my sister, and my friends, and things that they are going through.  Sometimes I'll write them from first person because it makes me·whenever I'm listening to other people's music, if It's written from first person, I definitely identify more.  I'm not a big fan of "he, she" "he, she" "he, she" all the time.  I think, "OK, we know the song's about you!  Just write the song from your perspective!"

Basically, songs come from stories that I can't get out of my head.  I have a song on my second album called 'Black Wool Dress' which was inspired by 2 different things.  It was inspired by the JFK Jr. plane crash and I kept thinking that Carolyn Bissett's mom had lost, not one daughter, but two daughters in one day.  I really couldn't get it out of my head.  You hear horrible things on the news every day, so it's interesting to see what actually sticks in your brain.  I was just really haunted by that.

I was thinking about that after it happened, and then a friend of mine had gone to a funeral for a family friend of his, a 15-year old girl who had been killed in a car accident.  He talked about going to her funeral and walking in and seeing the mother surrounded by all these people and she kept on saying, It's just so sad.  It's terrible, isn't it?"  It was almost like it happened to somebody else.  She wasn't acting as though it was her own daughter who died in the car accident.  She was sort of consoling someone else.  It was like that was the only way she could process it.

I kept thinking about this mother who had lost her daughter and what an unnatural thing it is for your child to die before you, and thinking about that mother/daughter bond.  I feel like in many ways that I didn't write that song.  It was somebody else's story.  It came up and kept tugging at my sleeve until finally I wanted to write it.  I don't play it very often.  I have a really hard time singing that song.  It's really emotional.  People who don't know me think that I had a child who died, or·I don't know.  It's really weird.  Songs can be so creepy sometimes.

That's where my songs usually come from.  I think It's really important to write about other things.  For me, because my parents were divorced, love relationships have always been a central theme for me.  I'm always trying to figure them out because I didn't have parents that lived in the same house.  So, I think everyone has their thing That's a central font of pain and, therefore, inspiration.  But, the hope is that you can rise above that and get the bitching and moaning out of the way and then hopefully find some way to transcend that and say, "OK, this really hurt a lot, but what can I do to make this make me stronger."  I think It's important to get through that bitching and moaning.  You're always going to want to bitch and moan, but I think the better songwriter you are usually corresponds to how long you've been able to be out of the bitching and moaning stage.

WC:

Kind of switching gears to touring, you've played some great venues including Club Passim, the Bitter End, and various other places.  What are some of your favorite venues to play?

EC:

I'd say Passim is definitely right up there.  The only reason I would say It's not my favorite has nothing to do with the club.  I've had such amazing experiences playing there that I almost have a heart attack whenever I play shows there because I think I'm going to screw it up; that I'm somehow going to somehow destroy the spell of this club, or I'm going to have a terrible show, or something bad is going to happen.  There is something so magical about that venue and I don't even know what it is.  LFNY often talks about it.  Every time we play there together, there's something about that room that makes people feel so comfortable and responsive and they are so respectful and they really listen, but then they go wild with applause.  I think That's also Boston; It's sort of that environment loves that kind of music.  That's the only reason I would say It's not my favorite venue.  But, Passim is by far the best.

My other favorite is Post Crypt.  I still play there once a year, usually with Teddy.  It's so tiny and hot, but It's the first place that ever gave me a gig when I was a senior.  They used to not let students play there, but I had this friend who was my first official fan.  She was friends with the woman who was booking it at the time.  When I had to do a live audition in her apartment, it was the most nerve-racking thing I've ever done in my whole entire life.  She gave me a gig when I was still a student and it was so exciting!  Obviously, It's very different to play there now. It's been a long time, but It's still magical to me.  Also, it was the place where I fell in love with this kind of music.

I really love doing house concerts, too.  There's just no interruption.  So often you play a club, which may be an amazing club with a fantastic reputation, but the sound may be so-so and that gets between you and the audience, or there are too many distracting things going on, or some big chasm between where you're standing and the audience.  I think any setting where you can get the songs across in the least interrupted form is ideal.  Passim is killer at that.

WC:

you've mentioned Live From New York a few times.  Can you describe for our readers the interaction between the four of you?

EC:

LFNY is Teddy Goldstein, Anne Heaton, Andrew Kerr, and me.  Originally it was Sam Shaber, Ina May Wool, who is another NY singer/songwriter, and the 4 of us.  We all met in the open mike, playing our first gig in the New York songwriter scene in the late Î90s.  I guess we all met in '97 or '98.  The whole idea of Live From New York came up because we were all going to this conference, Northeast Regional Folk Alliance Conference, and we thought we'd set up our own showcase.  We thought we'd call it Live From New York.  It made sense; we were all from NY.  It went so well and there was such a synergy that was immediate.  We all knew each other's songs from playing around each other so much.  I think Matt Smith, who books Passim, saw it and said, ãYou guys should play this as a show.  There are such great harmonies and everybody knows each other's stuff.  Why don't you come and play Club Passim?ä  So, we actually did the Living Room in NY first and it went so well that we went and did Club Passim.

People just seemed to respond to the energy between us all.  We all really love each other, which I think is really apparent on stage.  We give each other a lot of shit, but I think you can only do that with people with whom you have a mutual trust and understanding.  There's always been this sense when you're on stage that you're totally safe because if something goes wrong, Andrew will be there to hand you a new chord immediately, or slip you a battery when your guitar dies.  You feel so incredibly supported.  It immediately felt like a team and That's such an appealing thing when you play by yourself all the time.  It's nice to have your buddies around.

That's how it came about and we've been touring around as the four of us, although we're not touring really so much now because of Andrew's baby and Anne's new record coming out, but I'm sure we'll do more shows together.  It just won't be as often; It's just too hard with our four different schedules.

WC:

Is there any co-writing that goes on between the four of you?

EC:

Not officially.  Although, often times if we're on tour together or have a few shows together, and we're working on stuff that we've been working on by ourselves, we'll bring it to the group and say, "Can you help me with this?  I feel this bridge is missing something."  We never have official co-writing sessions.  However, 'Under a Sky' on my new CD, I played it for Anne and she was helpful.  Then I played it for Teddy when I saw him a few days later.  Then I played it for Andrew.  Although they didn't give me any words, they really had such good ideas.  It's so helpful to have people with whom you feel totally safe and comfortable; you can be vulnerable in front of them and say, "Does this totally suck?  What can I do to make this better?"  I think we do that for each other all the time.  We're a little support group.  It's good, though, and we can be honest with each other too.  You know when someone says something is good, you can believe them; they're not just blowing smoke!

WC:

What's your typical day like, as a songwriter and doing the Accidental Poet Productions stuff?  What do you do on a typical day?

EC:

A typical day when I'm at home is getting up at 7:15.  I'm a morning person and get a lot done in the morning.  I do probably four to five hours of email a day.  I still do my own booking, although That's probably going to change soon.  I have a full time manager and have been reluctant to get a booking agent because I'm already giving away a lot of my income.  I do a ton of email, a lot of it is booking, a lot of it is writing fans back who write me to ask questions or see about shows.  Then It's putting together press kits and sending those outs, although Matt, my manager, helps me out.  I just do a lot of administrative stuff; stuff as big as strategizing where I want to be in a year and what steps I need to take to be there to making copies of my email list to send to my email management company.  You're everyone from secretary to CEO for sure.  It's a lot of paper work.

When I'm at home, I think, "OK, I finished that tour and it was great.  Now I have to prepare for the next four months and make sure I have work coming in.ä  Doing my booking is not that hard in that I've been doing it so long that I have some amazing, supportive contacts.  I just have to make a phone call or things just automatically come in.  I also have an amazing college booking agent who's helping me figure some of that stuff out.  That definitely helps to pay the bills.

WC:

How long is your typical tour?  When you talk about going out on the road, are you talking about a month or a couple of weeks?

EC:

Before I moved to Atlanta to be with my boyfriend, Travis, I was single and touring constantly.  Since I was in NY, everything is so close, so I would basically almost tour constantly.  I would come home for 2 or 3 days at a time to refuel and pick up things and do laundry and then leave again.  I didn't really have much of a reason to be at home.  My closest friends, except for a few of them, were musicians who I would see on the road.  My other friends who have more normal lives, I would see in the few days I was home.  I'd have dinner with them and then leave.

Then, when I started seeing Travis, I thought, ãOh!  There's a reason to be home.  I don't need to be playing all the time.ä  I actually set a goal for myself that I would go from playing 28 days a month to more like two weeks.  So, basically I try to be out two to three weeks a month.  I try to keep it down to two, but sometimes It's just not possible because you're out in the middle of the country and you have to drive home; two days out and two days back.  That's my goal.  I'd really like to get down to 10 days a month.  I've been doing this for five years and I haven't been home for more than a month since 1999 and I'm tired!  I love it and I'm so energized from playing and the fact that It's growing makes me feel great, that people are coming back and bringing friends.  I think that the fact that I'm still making a living from this is great and makes me so happy.

My priorities are definitely shifting.  I'm turning 30 this year and want to be home with my friends and Travis and have a life and work on my house.  I didn't have that stuff before, so I didn't really care.  I thought, ãI'm 27, 28, I should be touring as much as I possibly can.ä  So, things have shifted slightly for sure, but I can't imagine not ever doing this; cutting this out all together, there's just no way.  I think if I didn't sing, I'd go nutty.

WC:

So, with shifting priorities, where do you see yourself in the next five years?  When you think ahead, what do you see yourself doing?

EC:

I hope that I'll still be doing this, but I think in a more compact fashion in that my career would be running itself more.  I'll probably hire a booking agent in the next year, for sure, which would make things a lot easier.  What I'd like to do is to be touring less.  About a year ago, I made a conscious decision not to play gigs that were really going to make me feel sad, even if the money was decent.  It just wasn't worth it.  That's made a huge difference.  It just wasn't worth it to do those gigs anymore.  For so long, It's feast or famine and you think, ãI should just take the gig because is $200 I wouldn't otherwise have.ä  You start to realize that money doesn't cover it if It's going to make you exhausted or wear out your voice or you're going to be fighting with loud drunk people.  It's just not worth it.

I would like to make my tours shorter and more effective.  I think the idea is that if you're making more money per gig, you should play less gigs.  I would definitely like to go out for a while and then be home for a while.  So, rather than going out every month, going out for two months straight, then coming home for two months straight.  That would be so much more ideal.  What I'd like to do is take six months off all together and regroup.  That would give me time to plan my tour with enough leeway.  I think I could do it that way.  But, you have to stop long enough in order to plan a tour that large.

Do that and just keep making CDs.  I love being independent, but at this point, after five years of doing it by myself, I'm not totally against the idea of being with a small indie label if it were with the absolute right label.  In fact, we got offered a deal for the new record, but when we did the math, it wasn't really worth it.  I'm making so much more money on my own.  This label didn't really have a great track record for knowing how to promote an album, so I thought I could do a better job doing my own publicity and radio.  It was great that they wanted to do it, but it made me realize that being independent can be better.  All a big label does for you is give you money to promote it.  That's great if they chose to promote it, but they could put it on a shelf and never look at it again.  They have every right to do that.  It's kind of scary!  So, I'm not against signing with a small indie label if It's the right deal, but That's down the road.  It's not something I'm actively seeking out.  I just want to keep doing what I'm doing and get better at it.

WC:

Beyond music, what do you like to do?  How do you like to spend your time?

EC:

Oh!   I like camping a lot.  I actually just got done renovating my office over the weekend.  I really like doing home things.  My boyfriend and I are totally into that kind of stuff.  It's funny because he likes decorating more than I do.  It's great!  We both really enjoy doing stuff like that.

I try to go on trips that have nothing to do with music.  I'm going to Italy this fall with my best friend who I met when I was living in Bologna.  We're going there for a friend's wedding and then we're going on a girl's trip, traveling around together and going to places we never went to when we lived there.  Just doing stuff that has nothing to do with music is so important because then when you come back, you feel renewed and you're excited about it.  But, It's hard to let go of sometimes.  It's a lot of work and you worry about it and you want it to go the right way and sometimes they don't.  Walking away from it and doing something else sometimes is really good.

WC:

Our final set of questions is called 7 questions.  It's top-of-mind, no follow up.

To find out more information about Edie Carey, visit her website at www.ediecarey.com.