Ellen Rosner 

Middle-classed, liberal, Jewish upbringing, deeply ensconced children in culture. I’m grateful for that. My brothers are six and eight years older than me so I was four when they were taking music lessons. I was like, “I wanna do this!”, and I hated it because I was not disciplined enough. But when I was older…I started taking guitar lessons when I was nine, and quit because I wasn’t the best in the class. ‘Round about age of thirteen for some reason I picked it up again. I don’t know exactly what motivated me….I just was driven. I watched people play, and I remembered how to read chord charts.

Again, the Jewish connection. I was at a Jewish camp and I wanted to be the song leader. I watched her play, and I learned. It grew beyond that. I remember I used to write melodies, and put chords to Hebrew prayers. When I wrote my first real song I went, “Why am I doing that? Oh I like this. I can do this.”

FEMMUSIC: How long have you been playing professionally?

ER: By professionally do you mean in clubs, or being paid? (laugh)

As you know the rest of the world defines playing in clubs as professionally. (laugh) I started playing in clubs when I was sixteen. Quite a long time. Many years. I was much too young to be in them, but somehow they let me in. And I’ve had many different incarnations. In this incarnation, predominately a solo artist, I’ve really only been doing this for three years. Prior to this I had a band called Red Ball, and we were together for a little over three years. Before we disintegrated. Which at the time just felt horrible, but it was the best thing possible. Before that I was in another band. I’ve mostly done solo work, and picked up artists, and become a band.

….I’ve tended to, when I’m in a band, lose myself. I came away from my last band knowing that wasn’t ok anymore. I’m no longer looking for the democratic process in a band. It’s not necessarily a dictatorial process, but it is not democracy. It’s about me. That’s gotta be the focus.

FEMMUSIC: What artists have influenced you the most?

ER: Number of different influences as far as song writing goes. I’d say the biggest influence, and the earliest influence was Joan Armatrading. I remember being fifteen, and somebody giving me a couple of her albums and it opened my head up. I don’t know exactly why, but it spoke to me.

There’s a lot of other influences as far as songwriting. Joni Mitchell is influence in just the sheer volume, and quality of the work she has put out. And Elvis Costello I hold in high regard.

As far as singers, Betty Carter, Ella Fitzgerald, Chaka Kahn. These are people I’ve listened to. When I listen to an artist it’s like going to school. I can’t listen to just listen. It’s like I’m always hearing the different textures. I’m always analyzing it. I don’t mean to, and it’s not a negative thing at all. I can greatly enjoy it. I’m listening to how they’re doing something. How they’re doing something with the dynamics. How they’re doing something with the color of the voice.  Bonnie Raitt. Tracy Nelson. A long, long time ago I heard some Tracy Nelson, and I love that. That deep soulful, bluesy, like this can’t be a white girl.

FEMMUSIC: How do you come up with your songs?

ER: A number of different ways. There’s no one right way to write a song. There’s like a gazillion different ways. What happens is I’ll pick the guitar up with intention of practicing, and I find a groove, and I find a chord progression and I find just something and I just start playing. It tells me what it is. There are some songs that just come through. They’re all gifts. I’m not like a new age kind of person. I hate that stuff, but I don’t, I show up for it. I can’t take full credit for what I do. I can only take credit for the fact that I show up for it. That I’m open to it. That I work hard to afford the ability to do it.

There are some songs that just shoot through me, and all I’ve done is show up. And there are some songs where a nugget will come, and I will have to labor it, intensely. By laboring I sit with whatever groove has come up and play it over and over. I say nonsense words. I get rhythm going with vocals against the rthymn of guitar. A melody. I try to free associate with it. I try not to think a song too hard. That’s usually how they come. Usually the music comes first, and then melody follows, and then the lyrics. Sometimes I’ll get a lyric fully formed. I was woken up one morning, many years ago, by an entire song. It was done. I wrote all the lyrics down, went back to sleep. Woke up again in the morning, picked up my guitar, and it was done. Those are so nice. That freaked me out, but it was nice. It was nice because it enforced the connection with whatever it is that does this with me. It was nice because I didn’t have to work so hard on it.  It seems the longer I do it, the more I do it, the more effort it takes because there’s more skill involved. There’s more to learn.

FEMMUSIC: What has been your biggest challenge since you’ve been playing professionally?

ER: Fighting my own ego and my own insecurities probably. I’d like to say it’s been, “Struggling as an artist… yada, yada, yada,” but I think the bottom line that creates all the struggles as an artist for me would be whatever tells me, “You’re not good enough. You’re a wannabe.” As I get older , the thing I notice, we all have these insecurities. It’s part of the human condition. Thank God for that, I guess. It keeps me in check. That’s probably been the worst of it, professionally and personally. If I don’t believe in what I do, not with arrogance, but just with belief. That what I do is good enough for me, and therefore has gotta be good enough for other people. If I don’t believe that, I’m not going to do this.

And also envy. I have a lot of successful friends. This is probably the first time in my life that I can look at someone else’s success, and really be genuinely happy for them. Do I wish I had the same? Sure, of course. A friend of mine is playing the Lilith Fair side stage here. I’m really happy for her. She’s really, really good. And my saying that doesn’t diminish me or anything. And I don’t say that with a feeling of…of course I wish I were doing it. This is the first time I really can say I don’t feel like saying, “Oh that bitch!” It’s very freeing. I can genuinely be happy for someone else’s success and have it not mean I’m not successful.

FEMMUSIC: You’re finishing work on your CD, The Perfect Malcontent.

ER: What do you want to know! It’s finally done. Been working on it for a freakin’ year!

FEMMUSIC: What has been your best experience with the CD?

ER: Oh God. There have been so many amazing experiences with this CD! The whole package. I wanted to do this, and I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. Not one experience. There’s been a lot of experiences. The biggest part of it is so many people came together to do this with me.

I have the horn players from Poi Dog on this. I have the bass player who’s been in Poi Dog, and been in Allumnum Group, and is in Frisbee on this. I have two members of the band Mount Pilot performing on this. This has been produced by Lou Carlozo who was staff writer for the Tribune, here in Chicago, and also just an amazingly talented musician and this is basically his major production project. To have him work so diligently, and to get such a wonderful sound. And it was co-produced and engineered by Mike Hagler over at Kingsize who just did the Wilco album. I feel so incredibly fortunate that these people want to work with me. That they like my music. It’s so not about how much or little I’m paying them. I’m around musicians who just want to play. That’s how I am too. I wanna play. The best experience has been being involved with people who’ve wanted to do this project with me.

FEMMUSIC: What has been the biggest challenge in making the CD?

ER: I’ve taken so long doing it. I take a long time with things. It takes me a long time to make something. I digest it. I’m not a quick girl.

Probably the biggest difficulty has been the financial difficulty. I am paying for this. This is a self-release, and I’m paying for the first run. I flipped the bill for the recording. Trying to do that without…I’m not a wealthy girl. I am a civil servant. I work at a university. We don’t make money. That’s been one of the biggest difficulties.

And just finishing it. Just finishing it. Trying to decide, “Is this what I want it to sound like?”, and the order of the songs….Having the confidence to finish it. Also staying on the idea that I’m doing this because I want to do this. Have a plan for it, but not have an expectation.

FEMMUSIC: Tell me a little about “Gal-O-Rama” and how that came about?

ER: There were about four of us a couple of years ago who got together and decided we wanted to do some shows together. Playing together, and have it be fun. Have it be not so heavy handed and hand fisted. We wanted to have a good time. Have it be light, but if people wanted to play heavy stuff, they would, and we wanted to travel. So we got together and started playing shows. It was interchangeable. Played street fairs, did some stuff on the East Coast. It has since gone by the wayside because we’ve all gotten busy in other things. It was very much of a collaborative effort, and it was a lot of fun. The culmination of it was, I was like the last gal left in Gal-O-Rama. I organized a show last summer. I had thirteen performers, and it was just fabulous. It couldn’t have gone better. It was such a great way to end the thing.

“Gal-O-Rama” is kind of like Indiegrrl. I heard about Indiegrrl, and I’ve seen the evolution of Indiegrrl, and it’s so very familiar. The whole spirit behind it is sharing the knowledge, sharing the stage.

FEMMUSIC: You’re currently running, “Ellen Plays Well With Others.” Tell me about how that project came about, and about the “others?”

ER: The others are whomever I want them to be. It’s an evening of self-indulgence for all of us. Not just for me, but for all of the musicians involved. It came about as an offshoot of “Gal-O-Rama.” “Gal-O-Rama” was really for women. Men could come and play, but they couldn’t be in the forefront. The idea for “Ellen Plays Well with Others” was so men could be involved, so it could be a little more open, and also, there are very few songwriter things here in Chicago….I used to run a songwriter night many years ago, and I had such a wonderful time with it because I got to meet all these fabulous musicians. I was missing that. When I did it before it was a weekly, and that took way too much time, and focus away from me. I put myself in the background. This time I’m not. And I’m only doing it monthly so I can still focus on my other stuff.

The others include so many different musicians in this city. Rose (Polenzani) has done it. Got a guy coming in named Brady who’s been doing some touring. Stephanie Turner who’s in a band called Cowlilly. They’re going to be huge. Cowlilly is going to be huge. They’re who are doing the Lilith Fair second stage this year. It’s been a really good time. I keep doing it.

FEMMUSIC: What challenges do you run into starting projects like “Gal-O-Rama” & “Ellen Plays Well With Others?”

ER: What challenges? With “Gal-O-Rama” I think the biggest challenge was making sure things went smoothly. Dealing with egos was a big challenge in many ways. Equity. Feeling a sense of equity among the people who founded it. It really wasn’t difficult getting gigs, or even getting press for “Gal-O-Rama.”

As far as challenges with “Ellen Plays Well With Others”, it’s not challenging. It’s not a difficult thing to do. It’s a pleasure to do. I do it because I love doing it. I love working with other musicians. It’s a small scale production. …With any show that I’ve put together the biggest challenge for me has been worrying about, “Can I fill the room?” I don’t worry about that for “Ellen Plays Well With Others.” I do it at a venue that’s a restaurant. There’s people there. I do it because it’s fun to do. I’m not doing it to fill a room.

FEMMUSIC: What has been your best experience since you’ve been playing professionally?

ER: A number of them. Just the fact that I get to do it. That I still get to do it. That I continually learn from it, and love it, and I need it. It’s physical.

One of my best moments was with my old band, playing on the stage at Metro. Which is a fairly large venue here, and playing to a pretty much, full house, with another band. Playing a quiet song, and Metro’s a rock club, and having the entire audience be pin drop quiet listening. Having people sing my songs back to me. I can’t get over that. It’s, my God, they’re listening, my God, they get it. Or having somebody tell me what that song means to them. It’s almost frightening because somebody’s listening.

…I opened for Janis Ian one night. This is when I first started doing the solo stuff again. I opened for Janis Ian, and I had a show right after that, at another venue. I felt like just such a musician.

FEMMUSIC: What challenges have you faced as a woman singer-songwriter?

ER: Probably a lot. I think that because right now especially since there’s a lot of us, or because people are beginning to realize there’s so many of us, it’s almost trendy. I think that because there’s a glut, people get lumped together, and that’s unfortunate. I think the challenges I’ve had as a woman, or even as a lesbian, I get lumped into a certain category. For a while it was that womyn’s music category, and I gotta say, that I’ve never played womyn’s music in my friggin’ life. I’ve never isolated myself into a specific category like that. I never will. I’m not comfortable with that. My music is about music. My music is about me, and my experiences, and it’s so more than being a woman, or being queer, or being Jewish, or being left-handed. I’m all of those things. The challenges I’ve faced as a woman in music are the same challenges anyone else in any industry faces as a woman. We don’t make as much money. We’re the “softer” sex therefore we should sit and be quiet. Or if we are loud and boisterous then we’re being too “butch,” or we’re being annoying. I face the same cultural difficulties that any other women face.

I’ve been really lucky, and this is what is fucked up. I consider myself lucky ’cause I I have not faced huge discrimination. I’ve not been sexually assaulted. I’ve not been verbally abused, as a woman, and I consider that lucky. Like somehow that’s not the norm.

FEMMUSIC: What advice would you give to an artist just starting out?

ER: Go out and hear a lot of music. Get to know fellow musicians. Practice your ass off. Get involved. Learn your instrument. Be confident, not arrogant. You’ve got to be willing to suck to be good.

FEMMUSIC: What is your opinion of the Chicago music scene?

ER: I love it here. …It’s so incredibly diverse, and so ever-changing. It’s like the weather. If you don’t like it, give it ten minutes.

The music scene here has so much going for it. There are so many wonderful musicians, so many bands, so much talent. So many venues. What’s exciting to me, and what’s starting to change and really grow is there seems to be more of an acoustic scene happening. For a very long time, and until very recently, Chicago’s been a band town. Not a town for solo singer-songwriter’s. Door’s seem to be opening. I know I’ve been working really hard with a lot of people to create space for that. If nobody else is doing it; I need opportunities. If nobody else is going to create them then I’ll create them for myself. There’s other people who are doing that too….

I’m also part of a thing called C.H.A.T. which stands for Chicago Harmony and Truth. While I hate the name, I love the organization. It’s a music resourcing group where we actually share information with each other. We share contacts, and it’s a great thing. We meet monthly. We have workshops. We trade secrets. ….There seems to be an attitude here of there’s room enough for all of us. Let’s help one another. I’ll share as long as it’s not a hindrance to me, because I’ve got to watch out for myself. I won’t give away the bank anymore. I used to, but I had to learn not to. I think most of the people I hang with are the same way. There’s a lot of good stuff here. It’s a great town.

FEMMUSIC: What else would you like to say about any of the topics we’ve touched on?

ER: I want to keep doing this until I freakin’ die, and I hope for the opportunities. There’s so much good going on in the music with me and I’m so happy to be doing it, and be a part of it, and I want to stay happy with it. Have a lot of hope for what I’m doing. One of my hopes is to be able to continue.

I had the opportunity at the Folk Alliance this year to meet a woman who’s in her sixties, and she’s just starting out again. She had done this, and she had a career before. I looked at her and it was just so wonderful because she’s vibrant and amazing and just starting again. It’s okay.

I met another woman. I did a show last Mother’s Day with a woman named Penny Lang out of Canada, and Penny, I also believe, is in her sixties. Fifties or sixties. Probably sixties, and she stopped doing music to raise a family. She just started doing it again. I have to admit that I was feeling somewhat ageist when I met her, and thinking, “Oh, she couldn’t possibly rock.” This woman kicked my ass. She freakin’ kicked my ass. Me and Rose did the show with her and both of us were kind of like, “Yeah, whatever.” Mouths, our mouths were hanging open because this woman, she sat. I can’t sit and play. I can’t do it. I physically need to stand. I have to stand otherwise the energy doesn’t go. She sat, and she had such power. It was just amazing. It was amazing just to experience that. And it was a gift to me to see it is possible. I don’t need to be in People magazine every week. I don’t need to be on the cover of Rolling Stone. If any of these things happened you’d best believe I’d be a happy girl. I would love to play Letterman. I would love huge success, but more than anything I want longevity. I want to know that I can keep doing this. That I can keep getting better at it, and seeing people like Penny Lang, and this woman Alice Stewart; It is such a gift for me to see that because it made me look and think and you know what, “If they can do this, maybe I can.”