In the search for innovative music, I came across Joanne Weaver, a singer asserting her own fresh perspective on fusing genres and a mesmerizing, sultry voice to back it up. I had the opportunity to interview Joanne, learning more about her musical background, “psychedelic” style, and upcoming projects. Joanne’s personality shines through, revealing an artist passionate about her craft and truly interested in connecting with her audience.
Find Joanne Weaver’s interview below and be sure to check out her recently released music video for “Golden Earrings”!
Gadfly Online: Can you provide us with some background? Where are you from? What made you pursue a career in music?
Joanne Weaver: I’m originally from Sunnyvale, CA, in the San Francisco Bay Area. During the time I grew up there, it transformed from a cute little suburb into the heart of the Silicon Valley tech boom. This was before my time, but both Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak went to the same high school I did, and my favorite history teacher told our class the story about how “The Woz” offered him a 2% stake in “his little company” that he was building in his garage, which of course was the very beginnings of Apple computer, in exchange for a $5,000 initial investment. My teacher didn’t take the offer and I’m sure has been kicking himself ever since. I had a very middle class, stable, normal upbringing. To come back to visit is so weird. There’s so much wealth there now.
I basically popped out of the womb singing. I don’t think there was a way for me NOT to pursue music; it was just so in my blood from an early age. Every night before I went to sleep – I couldn’t have been more than about 3 – I used to roll back in forth in bed, singing at the top of my lungs, completely unselfconsciously, and my family just laughed it off as one of my little “quirks.” I started playing piano around the age of 6, and took lessons up through high school and performed in class recitals and that kind of thing. The combination of singing and playing piano was a powerful one for me: I’d play and sing at my piano for hours – the time would just slip by, and I’d be creating and fantasizing in my own little world, convinced I’d be a grand composer when I grew up. I also did community theater at the same time, so I was getting more and more used to being in front of an audience, and letting my creative ya ya’s out, but I stayed a fairly closeted musician until a couple of years ago, actually, when I released my first full-length album in 2012, Interstellar Songbook.
I could never have predicted the path to Interstellar Songbook when I first moved to NYC, in August of 2001. For years, I dipped my toes in the NYC music pool – I did lots of open mics and gigs, and performed with a quartet for almost 2 years, all pretty much in the jazz scene. But while I have great respect and love for so many of these old songs, I grew tired of performing them, and hearing everyone else perform them, in pretty much the same way, and I wanted to modernize them, freshen them up, and put my own stamp on them – ie, dark, romantic, moody, electronica-tinged, and sci-fi-inspired, which is way more “me.” In using these songs as the foundation of my work, I’m paying homage to these incredible songwriters and singers who originally made them famous: Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughn, Nat King Cole, Jacques Brel…and hopefully giving jazzheads the opportunity to hear these songs in a way they’ve never heard them before. And by transforming them into lush, electronic, spacey and mysterious versions of themselves, I wanted to introduce new listeners to these classic songs by making them more accessible and updated, which I think has been successful.
The funny thing is, Interstellar Songbook and the entire journey it’s taken me on was all born out of a rather empty, “wishful thinking” comment – a lesson in recognizing the power of words, and in keeping your dreams alive in language! I met Andre Fratto to produce a wedding song I wrote for some friends getting married at Burningman (enchantingly entitled, “Chickens in Love”), and during that recording session with him, I happened to let it slip that I’d like to make an album of old classic songs done in a “totally f*cked up way” – my exact words. It was a “wouldn’t it be fun if…” moment that I really didn’t expect to materialize. But Andre called me two months later, out of the blue, and very excited about an idea he had around how to kick off the arrangements, and it all seemed rather intimidating and big and over my head, but his enthusiasm was contagious, and there was already a lot of coincidence and good juju around the interactions we had had so far (you can take the girl out of CA…), so I jumped down the rabbit hole with him, and voila, Interstellar Songbook was born. That’s when I went from sticking my toes in the music pool to diving in headfirst into the deep-end. To continue the water metaphor, it’s been a nonstop ride on the back of a psychedelic dancing dolphin ever since.
GO: How would you characterize your music? Do you fit into a stock genre or create a fusion of genres?
JW: The thing I really dig about what I’m doing is that it’s difficult to define because it is so different, and fuses a lot of disparate-seeming genres and influences together: Morcheeba- and Portishead-style trip-hop, the Beatles during their acid years, Floyd’s “Dark Side” album in its long instrumental sections that don’t shy away from really going out-there out-there, classic torch songs and the crooners who sang them, classical music in a more twisted, David Lynch-ian mutation, and movie soundtracks, especially of the sci-fi and spy movie genres. Andre is a film composer first and foremost, which informs the entire thurst of his work on the Interstellar albums. So the sound is really layered and dramatic, and quite orchestral, and I’ve gotten so many comments that “Golden Earrings,” my latest single, sounds to people like it’s straight out of a Bond film.
This difficulty in defining it is, of course, frustrating from the music industry perspective – it’s harder to get traction in an industry that wants to pigeonhole you into a neat tidy box so they know how to spoon-feed you to listeners out there – but I’m making music for me, and for the people who are drawn to it and get something out of it, and not for massive appeal or fame. Although of course I hope more people discover it and DO find the universal message contained within it, and if someone can be healed, or transported, or comforted, or entertained, or put in a thoughtful mood because of it – hell, if they have it on in the background and even though they’re not really paying attention to it but it’s contributing to them having an awesome time doing whatever it is they’re doing in the moment – I’m happy, and it’s served its purpose – to provide value to society.
If I had to classify it, I’d say it sounds like Cole Porter met David Bowie, downed some quaaludes with him, and blasted off into outer space for a dreamy trip together, while a sexy female space voice (that’s me) purrs over the intercom, telling them to buckle their seatbelts and enjoy the ride.
GO: Who would you cite as your musical influence?
JW: Funnily enough, my musical influences stem as much from film and TV as they do from music itself. I’m a super visual person, and am very affected by story arc and narrative and character development.
So, on the musical side, I’m influenced by the triphop greats: Morcheeba, Portishead, Supreme Beings of Leisure, Goldfrapp… the experimental wackiness of Mike Patton… Robyn & Royskopp, Florence + The Machine, Lana Del Rey, as well as the classic, classy crooners: Harry Connick Jr, Julie London, Sarah Vaughn, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole.
And cinematically, I’m influenced by David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks” and “Blue Velvet” and pretty much everything he’s ever done, and I love his musical collaboration with Julee Cruise and Angelo Badalamenti. Also, tech noir films like Blade Runner and Dark City make a huge impact on my sound and my imagery. And who could ever forget Rita Hayworth and Marilyn Monroe singing and dancing and sashaying those seductive, womanly hips on the silver screen? They were goddesses on earth. I love the idea of the modern day goddess – I think every woman has her own goddess inside of her, in various stages of reveal to the outside world, and the point of view that I’m singing from in my Interstellar Songbook albums is an all-seeing, all-knowing, intergalactic space goddess who’s been put on earth to experience the human trials and tribulations necessary for spiritual evolution.
GO: What project are you promoting right now? How does this fit into your overall career arc?
JW: I’m in the midst of releasing my follow-up album, Interstellar Songbook II, piecemeal, single by single. It’s in the same spirit of the first album, in that it’s made to be listened to from start to finish, except this time around, the sound is more upbeat and optimistic. I released one single from it already, “Golden Earrings,” and my video for it premiered last month, directed by John Byrne (Florence + The Machine, Mariah Carey, Daphne Guinness), and it’s been gaining a nice amount of traction, a lot of it from the far reaches of the world, which is fascinating! I’m really seeing firsthand through YouTube and Facebook how intensely all-connected we are around the world, and how impossible it is to predict where your music is going to take off and who is going to connect with it. It’s fun to see it all play out on a global scale.
I’ll be releasing a new single soon, with probably another music video to come, and then the whole album this fall or winter. Meanwhile, I’m working on a secret theatrical project that relates to this project, which honestly may never see the light of day but it’s a labor of love, and I’m in the very early baby steps of writing my own original songs and nailing down my own sound.
GO: What do you hope to communicate to listeners through your music? What does music mean to you?
JW: I want to communicate love. Full stop. I want people to know they are loved, and that even amidst a personal crisis, or feelings of hopelessness and disconnection, you are not alone, and that we are all connected. I think listening to dreamy and sad music can help someone through that time – it’s like they understand that someone else “gets them” and relates to their experience. I went through a really dark time in my own life in my mid 20s, and it was really painful. I felt so alone and disconnected from my family, my closest friends, and most unbearably, myself. It wasn’t until I had a vision in a dream, of a loving “source” which we all came from, that wanted me to see how beautiful my own life was and that it was worth living, that I was able to start turning all of that around, and I’m so grateful for that gift. I guess that’s what I hope my music can be for people: a gift that serves as a reminder that we’re all connected.
GO: What can we expect from you in the future?
JW: I’d like to release at least one or two original songs before the end of the year. New videos for sure – I love the video making process: the creative ideation sessions, the dressing up, the makeup, inhabiting a character, being a ham. My inner little girl just LOVES it. There might be some dancing in the next one? That’d be fun. And a new single is coming soon, perhaps two, before my entire new album is released… and hell, maybe a trip to Thailand is in my future, as my music video seems to have some interesting traction going on over there! Any excuse for a global adventure, I say… and the rest is TBD, by both me and the rest of the world! But you can pretty much rest assured it’s going to be sultry and sexy, otherworldly, mysterious, and infused with lots of love and passion.
For more info on Joanne Weaver:
Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | SoundCloud
Wonderful interview! I loved your in-depth replies and learned a lot about you that I did not know.
Keep up the great work and good luck with this journey.
I love the description of her music in which she describes Cole Porter and David Bowie going to the moon with some chemical assistance. And she is the flight attendant. Communicating love is sooo important in music. Thanks you for sharing it!