INTERVIEW: Kate Jacobs

- Courtney Muir Wallner

I had the opportunity of meeting with Kate Jacobs. Kate had just returned to Hoboken, New Jersey after a brief tour of the west coast in support of her latest release on Bar/None Records, (What About Regret). She is a muti-talented singer, songwriter, musician and dancer who studied fine arts at Oberlin College (Ohio), where she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts. She is currently embarking on a European tour and is working on several fiction projects, as well as her songwriting. And without further ado, here's a few words with an absolutely engaging performer, Kate Jacobs.

Consumable: What drew you to music? How did you get started?

Kate Jacobs: I was originally a dancer and I was into ballet when I was growing up. I was a ballerina student, and then I came to New York and I was doing a lot of modern dance and choreography performance-work kind of stuff. Then in about 1987, I finally decided to...I'd been sort of making songs up in my head more than actually writing songs. I had melodies and words and I just sang them in my head as I walked around, especially in New York. And then I decided, well, maybe I could actually learn how to play an instrument, play guitar, and tape these songs and put them down so I found someone to help me and he just taught me the three chords that you need to know, because I was writing in a really country vein in the beginning, and started there.

C: What were your influences as a child?

KJ: I had grown up in a family that sang. My Dad knew millions of songs, and I have two sisters and we sang all the time - a lot of old, American folk songs, which was basically what we grew up with and also a lot of music that was part of the civil-rights movement of the sixties. We were living in Washington and we were involved in all the marches in Washington and various movements. And there was great music, a lot of it was gospel, country, you know... Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger, and those people. Much later, in college, I started listening to country music for a friend of mine. She just played me a Loretta Lynn record one day and I was just so thrilled that it, this stuff was so wonderfully simple and great.

C: How did you meet the people that you worked with on (What About Regret)?

KJ: Well, I've had the same band for about three and a half years now who perform on both my albums; my first one was The Calm Comes After It's really through being in Hoboken; it's funny, because I was living here all the years that there was the big hoopla about 'Hoboken sound'. I think it was sort of the early eighties new wave kind-of pop movement that was associated with Hoboken, but I was not (involved with it), I didn't have a clue. I was just dancing and living here. But later, I really benefitted from the type of resources that was available here, Hoboken has these little essential things that are very helpful. So James Macmillan, my bass player was working at Water Music, a studio where I did some recording and I knew him and Dave Schramm also lives down the street, so we were sort of neighbors, and knowing people in common and Charlie Shaw, our drummer, is our Brooklynite. He just wandered into a bar I was playing one night and asked if he could sit in, with his tambourine. I have been incredibly lucky and it has been very easy with the band aspect.

C: Did you write all the music yourself or were there collaborations?

KJ: Well, I write the songs using a melody and I come up with the basic chord structure and then bring it into the band; they go far from there. There is a lot of collaborative work that is done in the arrangement.

C: Do you have a particular 'ritual' when writing a song that you go through?

KJ: It really depends. Some songs come out all of a piece, and some of them, they'll be a chorus or just a line that seems like it's a hook-line or something. Most often it comes from a story as they are very narrative songs. So usually it comes out of just finding a story that seems interesting and if I have a (musical) hook, then I have the makings of a song. And then from there, you go through such changes, just in telling the story, finding the details that tell the story and finding the sparse, concise thing that just really tell what it is. Sometimes I'm telling all these concise stories but then you figure maybe you're neglecting something else. The other day I was on the radio and a guy said to me,"So Kate, I really like your ideas but your songs are too short!" "Oh come on! That's all there is, you know!" I think one of the reasons song writing has been so appealing to me is that I can say things very quickly, I don't have anything to say after I have written three verses, you know. There is not a lot more to it. I like three minute pop songs I am still telling stories in my new songs!

C: The thing that I found really intriguing about your lyrics was that they were so complete. There was a start, a finish and something actually happened in the middle. You didn't have to spell everything out, the lyrics give something to think about. In "George Says" I wrote "Jacobs' speaks of spiritual growth, death and morning..." Was I close? Were you writing about something totally different?

KJ: No, No, certainly spiritual growth and it's a more mundane level of suffering. It's funny how those things sort of criss- cross. There are two songs on this record where I sing about love and death that get mixed up a little bit. One that is actually about getting over a heartache, it's a real traditional beginning which is just some words of solace from a friend who seems to have some other point of view or some spiritual dimension that I don't have and so it's just taking that...something that they have learned.

C: I read in one of the (press) clips that you should go on Letterman and perform the song "Indiana"?

KJ: (laughing) Yeah...that I feel is my only really straight forward love song. I feel like it was the only time I was able to just sit down and write. It is an old song; something that is really sincere about being in love, and so I am fond of it for that reason. Everything seems to get lost in other stories.

C: Did you choose Bar/None because you knew people there? Or because they were in Hoboken?

KJ: Well, my first CD I released by myself, I just put it out and invented my own label. And they were here and I sort of knew them, and they knew me and offered to help me distribute it. That went pretty well and they decided to re-press it and add three tracks and they re- released it as a Bar/None Record and so then it became an official record deal but it started out that they would just help me.

C: Were you nervous when you started performing?

KJ: No - I have always done a lot of performing, ever since I was little. They say that as an artist you want to communicate something and the most obvious, strongest way to do that is through language. When I was downtown, dancing, I was becoming more and more theatrical. Much more speech and song was involved in it because the idea of communicating through something abstract was not for me; my ideas are too specific. Now, of course, I am writing these incredibly literal songs. When I started getting up and singing what I had written and also just talking or just standing up in front of a microphone addressing people, I found it in a way relaxing. It just seemed like there were no barriers; very direct.

C: That's an interesting way of looking at it.

KJ: There is a tension with dancing, that is set up between you and the audience because dances require a particular audience member; someone who loves it, someone who gets it, someone who looks for certain things in it and so there is always that feeling that you are connected to the audience. I just thought, "Why am I doing hand signals to communicate here when I could just speak?" So, it was a huge relief to me.

C: Where have you enjoyed playing?

KJ: We went to Italy when this band first came together about three years ago. We went and played in Venice for two weeks at the Carnival, and it was really fun. That had nothing to do with having a record - we didn't have one. This is the first time I have had a record released in Europe; it came out in Germany at the end of July. Supposedly, you can make money over there and I am hoping that happens. At least you get to go over there and tour. Everyone comes back from there and says the people treat you really well, and you go to clubs and they are glad to see you, they don't pretend, you don't have to feel guilty for being the band, which can really happen here.

C: Do you have any other interests or hobbies that you spend your time doing?

KJ: I still do ballet. I took class today before I met you, (laughing) so I am kind-of raggedy looking. Yeah, and I take tap, I love dancing. As you get older your hobbies change, I recently planted a garden for the first time, a sure sign your getting old!

I have been finding music to be a full-time occupation, especially at this independent level. I have to do almost everything myself so it's a lot of work making phone calls, making sure everything is OK. Bar/None is really good; they are wonderful people! I should spend all day, on the phone trying to promote my record but it gets a little tiresome! (laughing)

C: Are you planning on making a video?

KJ: Well, I am very interested in promoting my record, I'd love to get it out to people who will like it. The problem with videos is that I don't like them. I find them almost always boring and basically distracting and detracting from the song. You don't hear it in the same way. You don't listen. And also I'm just not willing to spend the money on a video. I think when you have limited funds, you think about what you actually want to spend your money on and you want to spend it on making music, not on making videos. But I do have a friend who is working on, possibly, a video of "Indiana." We shot a lot of great black and white (film) and she shot some really beautiful stuff so if she can edit it together in some nice way...it's just very pastural and calm and pretty and nice and if we could put something together that we could use, promotionally, it might be worth it. I said i'm not willing to make a video if it cost more than a few hundred bucks, because they are just outrageous. People can spend on one video more than what I spent on my whole record, recording it, so there is something out of whack.