Melissa Ferrick

By Alex Teitz

Melissa Ferrick is a singer-songwriter with a wealth of talent and skill. She has been performing for over ten years, and continues to play packed houses. Her newest release, Freedom, expresses her ability and explores her creativity in ways not seen before. Teaming up with bassist Marika Tjelios, this album was done with a minimal of facilities, as Ferrick will explain.

FEMMUSIC: Freedom is your project. What risks do you think you took, that you wouldn’t have, if the project wasn’t under your control?

MF: Well I know that I didn’t really think I was going to be able to make the record for five thousand dollars. Like I didn’t think you could make a record for five thousand dollars. So that was kind of a difficult part of making this record. I don’t think my artistic control was ever questioned. You know, at the label that I’m with, I know that they trust me, artistically, and I know at this point in my “career” (laugh) ; I know that people kind of get that I know how to make a record. You know what I mean? It wasn’t like, “We don’t think she can do it.” It was more about am I going to be able to do it within this structure of this budget. I mean that was the kind of boundary that I had to find sense of freedom within.

I knew I was going to title the record Freedom as soon as I wrote that song. That was the first song I wrote. So I probably wrote it a year and a half, almost two years ago. So it just seemed so fitting to title the record that especially when I got the very small budget and realized that it was just going to be me making the record. You know, plugging stuff in with my bass player and handing the record in exactly the way I wanted it to be, and exactly the way Marika wanted it to be. It was her and I, but I knew how I wanted it to sound so I’m really glad that I made it that way.

FEMMUSIC: What was your best experience making Freedom?

MF: Oh god, the whole thing. The whole thing was, which I wouldn’t have told you when I was making it. I spent half the time making the record crying, yelling and in sorts of different emotional states which I think probably helped the making of the record. I was in Los Angeles first of all, which is where I used to live. I live in Boston now, but I went to LA to make the record ’cause that’s where Marika lives. She works at a coffees hop there, and we made it in her studio apartment which was just one room and I was sleeping on my friend Laurie’s couch during the making of the record. I was in a LA for six weeks, and it took four weeks, maybe three and a half, four weeks to just get the gear set up in Marika’s studio, you know, finish working out the songs. We actually recorded the record in about two weeks, two and a half weeks. I slept on a couch with my hips below my head for six weeks. Physically, and I’m also  twenty-nine years old , you know, so it’s not like I’m eighteen and I can sleep anywhere and I don’t feel it. I was so, physically, just screwed up. When we were making the record, we working like insane hours. I was sleeping like four hours, five hours a night, maybe. There was a lot of sleep deprivation, a lot of caffeine, a lot of smoking cigarettes and a lot emotional, kind of outbursts. Me calling my manager at all hours of the night just crying, “If I sleep one f-ing night with my hips below my head I’m going to kill somebody. I can’t believe that I…Can’t somebody find me a hotel room?” You know, at the time I was kind of bitching and moaning about it, but now that I look back on it, the whole process was unbelievable. I think that what was the most overwhelming thing was the amount of, just the amount of….  Both Marika and I were just so overwhelmingly, just dug our heels in to make this record. “We were going to do it.” It was never the idea that we were going to hand this over to a producer. That kind of was talked about the whole time. “Well so-and-so will do it.”, “Well if we just find another three grand”, and Marika and I were like, “No. We’re doing this ourselves. After all this, we’re recording it.” I think that was probably the best part.

FEMMUSIC: I think you’ve already answered this but what was your biggest challenge making Freedom?

MF: Oh, the budget. Yeah. Definitely. Definitely the budget and….I’m trying to think if they were any other….You know, the actual recording of it ’cause, like, Marika and I aren’t engineers or anything. (Laugh) We had one mike and a couple of compressors. I don’t mean to kind of, lessen our experience, because Marika is certainly a much more experienced musician than I am, and she’s made more records than I have. She has better ears than I have to. (Laugh) Thank god she was there because she knew more about the way stuff was supposed to sound.

We did kind of do one thing that I had forgotten about which was we, actually it was Marika’s idea, we incorporated through the web, through the internet, and engineer out of Nashville who has his own website. I don’t know his name. Marika, I should get his name from Marika, but we would send him questions like, “We’re having trouble with the level of sybalence in Melissa’s vocal. How do we fix this?” And we’d send it, and the next day we’d come in to do another vocal and we’d have a reply from him with this little picture of him. He’s so cute. He wears shorts, and he’s sittin’ by his console, like this huge board. So we knew he was a pro, and he had names like he’d worked with Reba Macintyre and Mary Chapin Carpenter and all these really famous people. He helped us a lot. He was like, “Try turning down 3K so many dbs and all these like really technical terms.” And then Marika and I would be like, “And then what does it say?” And we’d move the buttons and ask him another question. I forgot to thank him on the album to. I never met the guy, but I gotta send him a copy of the record. He helped make it.

So that was kind of cool, It was cool to use the advance technology of the internet to engineer a record on your own. The home recording thing is really just awesome. It’s just amazing to think that anybody could do that. Anybody can ask this guy a question, and he’s probably three grand a day. It’s like free therapy or something. I should do that. Send a question in to a Jungian therapist and fix your life. (Laugh) That would be cool.

FEMMUSIC: Can you describe your songwriting technique?

MF: It’s pretty bizarre. I mean it’s pretty bizarre in that I have no idea of how it happens. I certainly write all the lyrics first. That’s definitely true. There’s so few songs that the music has been written first on like probably .5 % or something. I do a lot of free writing. A lot of diary stuff. A lot of just, “Blah! Here’s what’s going on with me. This is how I feel.” All of my songs usually come out of that. As I’m writing about what’s going on with me, or what I’m pissed off about, or who’s bothering me, or who should change their life for me (Laugh) I start to write a song. It starts with the first line, and I write all the words, and I can kind of hear, in my head, more rhythms of where the lines are gonna fall and where I’m going to go up with my voice, what a chorus is…It’s just kind of I’m certainly not in control of it. It’s certainly comes from another place and I am just a vehicle here. Then I pick up the guitar. It happens very quickly. If I have to work on the guts of a song for more than ten or fifteen minutes it’s not a song. I never finish it. I do work on songs after the skeleton is there which is most all the lyrics, and most all of the music. Then I’ll play it over, and over, and over again until I’ve memorized the words and then sometimes I’ll re-write a couple of words or change the perspective, or come up with a bridge or something. The whole guts of the song probably, usually come even quicker than that probably five minutes, ten minutes tops.

FEMMUSIC: As a woman in the music industry, have you ever been discriminated against?

MF: Not that I’m aware of. (Laugh) Please don’t tell me if I have ’cause I’ll lose it on yah.

No. I’m not aware of being discriminated against because I’m a woman. I was just talking to somebody else about this to. Maybe it’s because I’m just not aware of it, or I choose not to see it because it’s so infuriating to me if that were to be really going on. I go into a room that I’m playing in, or a club that I’m playing in as an equal to everyone that I’m working with, and I treat the people that I work with as equals as well. I think that has helped me gain amazing relationships with promoters, and club owners, and agents, and just the gamut. I feel like I have worked, unknowingly, very hard in the last ten years at creating a damn good reputation for myself as somebody who’s easy to work, shows up on time, and does a good job. I think a lot of that has do with feeling like I’m walking on to the same playing field as everyone else. I’m not into pretension or people who act like rockstars. I’m just not into that. I’m just there to do a job and have a good time. It might just rise me above the whole, “Oh. Well she’s a chick. Girls are like that”, or whatever. I don’t ask for anything special on my rider.

As far as radio airplay stuff like that, there’s always been that question for a long time of…the answer of they play two women for every eight men in an hour. There have always been these rumors about that where they add these three women for every seven men at these formats. In the past five years I’ve really heard a big difference in that and I think that the Lilith Fair has a lot to do with all that. I think Sarah McLachlin, Alanis, and Jewel, and Joan Osborne, I thin that these women have kind of, Melissa Etheridge. She’s been around a lot longer that. As far as radio airplay I think that these women have just bashed that door open…..All these female acts, there’s so many of them now that we can not be denied. You can’t just add three women for every seven men anymore. It’s not about how many male voices an hour you hear, it’s about who has the best records out, and what sounds the coolest on the radio, and who’s spending the most money to get them played. I’m really excited that I hear so many female voices on the radio whatever style music it is. I love hearing, “What a Girl Wants” as I’m driving down the road.

I love that song anyway. Amazing voice that girl.

FEMMUSIC: What would you like to see changed most about the music industry?

MF: I really think there needs to be some reform in the area of radio. I think that there’s a lot of very thinly veiled payola going on that’s really upsetting to me. You know how much money your record label spends buying advertising time demands how many of their acts get added….I think that’s like we might as well still be giving away drugs in album covers, and weekends in our families’ vacation homes. The way it was in the Sixties and Seventies. There was so much payola going on then, and now it’s Big Boy payola. Now it’s just I’ll buy this many spots on your station if you…I want you to add these five acts ’cause these are the five acts that we want to break. It makes it really difficult for independent artists to get played, and it makes it really difficult for any real unknown talent to come through, and that means even on major labels. I think it lessens the idea that people that work in radio don’t have ears. I think that they do….I think that doing it this way just doesn’t validate a music director’s or program director’s ears. That’s why they got into to radio because they love music. Right? That’s why we’re in the music industry. I think it’s kind of important to get back to the space of, “I’m Mr. Guy.” Whatever. “I choose what to play on my radio station because I think that this is a good record, and I would like to hear this on the radio.” I think that’s the only area where I’ve really run into walls with, and it’s really solely been because of a lack of funds, not because of a lack of singles.

FEMMUSIC: What advice would you give to an emerging artist?

MF: There’s a couple of things that made a big difference for me that I just kind of learned by asking other people to. One was, absolutely have a demo. By any means make something even if it’s just you sitting in front of one of those old boomboxes that has a microphone on it. Also, the less production on your songs the better because the bearer of the song is, the more your talent can shine. The more someone who is a musician or a producer or a manager, the more that allows that person to hear production around it and to say, “This could be like The Counting Crows”, or , “If I got this girl to work with so-and-so, Mitchell Froom, it could sound like Elvis Costello.” That allows them to be the artist as well. You always want to leave room for people to feel like they’re a part of what you’ve done. That’s really important. That goes back to what I was saying before…everybody who works in the music industry wants to be a musician, or wanted to be, or probably is.

Absolutely always walk around with a tape on you. I can’t tell you how many times I have met musicians that have come backstage after shows and I shake hands, and I sign a record for ’em, and they tell me that they’re a musician and the next thing I say is, “Do you have a demo?”, and they say, “No.” Then I say, “You’ve gotta have your demo with you because I could have taken that from you and next time I come into town you could have opened for me.” That’s how I got slots. I handed stuff over. So definitely always have a demo with you, and always put your phone number on the actual cassette itself because I lose cassette covers all the time. So it’s always really important to have a phone number, and your real phone number.

Definitely do not sign anything. Do not sign anything until you have a real valid person within the music industry. The management thing is the thing that scares me the most. Young, inexperienced people who want you to sign management contracts. Don’t sign anything especially without a lawyer who’s going to cost you at least three hundred dollars and hour. Then you can sign it.

I think also playing live. I think for the kind of music that I do, and the kind of music that I respect, and the kind of musicians that I respect can perform live, and I think that’s the kind of musician that I’m talking to right now. Not a pop act because certainly there’s a lot of validity for that kind of stuff too. Dance music. That’s a whole other realm though. But with what I do, if you can’t play live, it just bums me out. If I buy a band’s record, like I haven’t seen Train live yet, and I just bought their record. You know it would really bum me out if I saw Train live and they sucked, that would they suck, and I wouldn’t like their record anymore. I’ve gotta love somebody live.

Like I was on tour with Weezer, and it was so unbelievable. I wasn’t even a Weezer fan until I was on tour with them. I know their song and everything, but when I saw they, it was like, “God! These guys are great!” And they were so cool, and so nice, and so giving to the audience…those are the kind of things that make a difference. Be a nice person. Stay right sized. Don’t get a big head. Don’t go around that people are supposed to just give stuff to you because it’s not how it works.

You just have to work your ass off, and you have to always, always, always be doing five jobs and that’s just way it is, and if you’re gonna complain about it, then don’t bother doing it. You’re gonna have to book your own shows. You’re gonna have to check back. You’re gonna have to order your own merchandise. You’re gonna have to record your own stuff. You’re gonna have to pay for your own tapes. You’re gonna have to hand them out at shows. You’re gonna have to make the callbacks. You have to do it. Nobody’s gonna do that stuff for you, and if you’re too tired there’s five acts, and fifty acts out there who aren’t that tired, and somebody else will take your place. There’s just too many fabulous musicians and too many young talents out there. You gotta want more than anything else in the world. You have to stay on top of it. It’s persistence. I mean anybody who’s made ten records you know who they are. So if you keep putting music out sooner or later you’ll be able to make a living as touring artist.

I mean last year was the first year that I actually made money as a touring act. I’ve never made money off record sales, but last year was the first year that just by touring, I actually didn’t have to have a second job and I actually paid all my bills, and had a little bit of money at the end of year that I actually had to, like pay taxes on. That’s since ’88.

So it takes a long time sometimes. Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you get lucky, and you have a really big, huge record. That’s a whole other thing. I think people who work a really long time, and work really hard for it they have a certain look in their eyes.

I know I went to school with Paula Cole. Her first record taking off like that to a lot of people that was an overnight success. I know that Paula had been working for a long time in Boston. It was so overwhelming for me to feel like I saw her “hit.” I was so happy for her. It’s so great when you know somebody worked for a long time.

Shawn Mullens had a big hit a couple years ago. Shawn put out records on his own for years out of his house in Atlanta with his girlfriend. To hear that song be such a huge radio hit. I mean every time I heard it, I was like, “Yeah! One for the underdogs!” To be an underdog and win, and to be in the trenches with the rest of us. With the Marty Sextons, and the Jill Sobules, and you know…This is where it’s at. We’re the real troopers out there, and we’re in the trenches together and there is a sense of camaraderie as well that I don’t think you can even put a dollar sign on. You know the kind of friendships that I have, and the support that I have from other musicians is just unbelievable.

It’s only because we’re all in this together. If one of us wins, we all win, and that’s really just been, in the last two years, just been the most kind of moving thing for me. It’s sitting at the Boston Music Awards, Ellis Paul, and Marty Sexton and me and just being in it together. It wasn’t about who won. We all won because we were all sitting there. It was like isn’t this unbelievable. Marty gave me my first gig when I was seventeen. It’s nice to have friendships like that.

It’s also really fun to talk to, especially Marty, because I love him so much and I talk to him a lot. It’s fun to talk to him and he’s getting ready to make a new record, and he has a big budget, and he’s on a big, major label and it’s just really fun to talk to him and he’s going to be out in Bearsville, and he’s all excited. It’s just really cool that we talk about stuff like that. He’s got this big budget and he’s trying to get his label let him produce his own album, and I had five thousand dollars and nobody cared who produced my album. As much as I bitch and moan about this artistic freedom that I have, and then I get Marty going, “God I just wish that they let me produce.”

God six months ago I was complaining about how I wasn’t on Atlantic anymore…There’s pluses and minuses to both. There’s pluses about being on a major, and minuses just as well as there are indies. I think the core has to be the music. It sounds really cheesy but that has to be enough. The songs have to be enough, and all this industry crap is crap. It can’t matter to the musician. You have to be above it, and you have to learn, and kind of navigate your way to exist within it, and to smile, and show up, and have a good time. Everybody’s trying to do that. Even the people who work at the record labels. Everybody’s just trying to let the music shine. Everybody is, and everybody wants it to work. Nobody’s out there trying to not let me break. When you think everybody’s against you, it’s just yourself that’s against you.