“For me, it was the perfect move,” said singer-songwriter Rachael Yamagata about the DIY approach she took to releasing her third LP, Chesapeake. After releasing two LPs with major labels, 2004’s
Happenstance on BMG, a division of Sony, and 2008’s two-disc set
Elephants…Teeth Sinking into Hearton Warner Brothers, her third album, Chesapeake, was released on her own label in September.In a telephone interview, she explained, “I had split with Warner Brothers earlier in the year and then just did everything on our own, really. We just released it independently on my independent label, Frankenfish Records. The whole thing was self-financed through our
Pledge Music campaign, but every flight was booked by us for all of the musicians, all of the details were handled by us. It was quite a hands-on experience.”
As a singer, Yamagata has one of the most alluring voices you’ll likely hear. As a songwriter, she writes mostly from a personal point of view, usually dealing with relationships, positively or negatively and often in a manner that listeners can easily empathize with. It’s been a consistent theme throughout her music. As she told me, “I think every lyric that I write starts with something in my world, or that I observed. I’m connecting with that universal thread that runs through lots of different experiences, but they all primarily start with something that touches me and my heart. I certainly start from there and then weave in storylines from other things that I observe, but the core emotion is something that has to start with my own heart.”
My favorite song on Chesapeakemay be “The Way it Seems to Go,” one of the more upbeat songs, musically, at least. In it, she explores some of her own contradictions, like singing in one verse, “most days I drink like a fish and tend to get too flirty; I am a perfectionist, but only when things get dirty; I cannot stand small talk but I’m great at being wordy.” She said, “That was me just kind of trying to have a writing experiment with myself to express a sense of humor that I have in my personal life but hasn’t made it into my writing yet. It’s very straight-up autobiographical, so it’s in some ways my most blatantly personal song to date because every line is very much based off of my experiences.”
The song that follows it on Chesapeake is one that many listeners could find familiarities with in their own lives. It is called “I Don’t Want to be Your Mother,” which she co-wrote with Mike Viola (who is opening for Yamagata on this tour, including Tuesday’s show at the Crocodile). She explained, “I had literally just gotten off of a phone call and felt exasperated and made a joke saying ‘can we make a song called ‘I Don’t Want to be Your Mother?’’ It started off as me just feeling like I couldn’t get through to this other person. I was such a caretaker in this relationship. It just started with the title and we went from there. Once we decided to go for it, the ideas for it started flowing very quickly. I think a lot of people could relate to being a caretaker in relationships, sometimes playing that role.”
Like ridding herself of a needy partner, no longer being represented by a major label is much to her liking. She told me, “I had some issues with labels before, having to go through several levels of approval to do something every step of the way. That got very frustrating very quickly, so it was liberating to call the shots in this way. It was certainly a lot of work, but there’s so much freedom involved in it.” Yamagata also thinks she’ll be much more prolific by releasing her albums through her own label. She says of releasing just three full-length albums over seven years and being hampered with label changes and delays, “That was one of my biggest frustrations. the delays. I always write and have plenty of material to put something out. I would love to put out at least a record a year, if not more, that would be dreamy.”
{Rachael Yamagata plays at the Crocodile on Tuesday, November 22 with Mike Viola; 21+, 9pm, $14 ADV tickets, available here.}
About the author
Chris Burlingame is the editor of Another Rainy Saturday.
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