Angel Olsen has been talking about herself quite a bit lately. Touring in support of her latest album, “Burn Your Fire For No Witness,” the singer-songwriter has been in the midst of a media storm.
When we talked on the phone a couple weeks ago she was in the middle of an interview marathon. But for the deeply personal musician who holds nothing back in her soft indie-folk music, hearing Angel Olsen talk about Angel Olsen doesn’t sound self-absorbed — it’s therapeutic.
In anticipation of her show at the Larimer Lounge on March 10, we spoke to Olsen about the (de)evolution of country, how she approaches performances and her favorite karaoke song.
What’s the last day been like for you? I know you’ve been on the road.
Well, I talked a lot about myself on the phone today. In front of my bandmates. And they laughed at me. I’m probably gonna do that again in a couple seconds.
It’s true!
It’s okay! Listened to some Nina Simon, just listened to some Johnny Hathaway and Roberta Flack. Played some Fever Ray. Gonna drink a Coca Cola in a minute. (laughs)
You’ve said before how personal your songs are to you. Was it difficult to bring in a band in the studio on the new album?
They had played behind our previous releases, so I’m comfortable sharing stuff with them. It’s always kind of weird to share with someone a really rough demo. When I write something, I make like six or seven demos of the exact same song. I have a few friends that I’ll send demos to, and they’ll get it and be like, ‘Man, I have like 20 different versions of this song in iTunes!’
Are the demos significantly different from one another?
“Stars” started out as a country song but I didn’t really share that version with anyone and changed it to something else. I never really imagined that would be something that had a band in it. When it was recorded it was one of my favorites, the way it turned out. At the same time, it was difficult to imagine before we got in the studio, even having practiced recording and having talked about parts that would be embellishing certain songs. It’s hard to know what something’s going to sound like in the end.
Does the band change the final product in the studio?
I put out “Halfway Home,” and it was a mix of old and new material. By the time that was released, I was writing a lot of different kinds of material, stuff that sounded better with the band. I think that had I been working with a band before on stuff like “Strange Cacti,” the lyrics wouldn’t be dominating it completely. But taught me how to do everything for myself.
I don’t feel like I’ve stopped embracing my writing necessarily, it’s more like I couldn’t get into playing music and space things out and experiment like that for it to not be so completely all about one thing—all just about the words or me performing. But then interacting with other people and hearing what they hear in what I write — that can always be really interesting.
It’s gotta be fun to have people to tour with too.
It’s pretty dumb to tour by yourself. People do it all the time, but I would fu lose my mind. It’s gotta be pretty alienating to do that for a long period of time.
You use this quavering fast vibrato a lot. How’d you develop that?
I experimented with a lot of different kinds of singing and I really became interested in all kinds of singing. People use their voices in totally different ways for different kinds of music. I like all of it. Like, to use your voice as an instrument to reflect a tone with the subject .
I think there’s a lot of really great country songs that are written happily and joyfully, and you read the lyrics and it’s pretty depressing. I like that, and I like when it’s all on the table, and it has little to do with making a big, over-embellished sound. There are different kinds of voices that go with those styles of music.
You take any voice lessons or were you in any high school musicals?
I was in choir for like a year but I didn’t really like it. I didn’t take any lessons but I was obsessed with singing all of my life. Maybe that helped.
Early on, I would sing something on tape and then overdub harmonies over it. I remember being a really small kid and listening to that stuff knowing that at some point, my voice would change and I would sound like a real person.
You ever think about going into any other arts?
I thought I would go into theatre at some point and then I changed my mind. I still feel like there are aspects of that in our performances and in the way that I write. I’m pretty open to changing.
Do you feel like your playing the role of “musician on stage” when you’re performing?
I kind of zone out a lot of the time.
Has your approach changed on stage since you were gigging around coffee shops?
Definitely. But I’ve always had the zone-out situation. Of course, when you’re playing around friends, everyone’s laughing and smiling. It makes it difficult to concentrate and perform like that.
Have you had moments where you’ve “broken”?
All the time. That’s part of the performance too, you know? I don’t think people should go to see a band once and say ‘That’s what they sound like.’
What do you think happened to country music? It used to be so sweet and beautiful, and now it’s all…
I’m not sure. The ’80s changed everything. That’s my answer. The ’80s killed a lot of great music. They also brought some really great music, but killed a lot of stuff that was already doing well that didn’t need the ’80s. Like country music.
Last question: what’s your go-to karaoke song?
(Laughs) Definitely.
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Dylan Owens is Reverb’s all-purpose news blogger and album reviewer. You can read more from him in Relix magazine and the comment sections of WORLDSTARHIPHOP.
