Interview: My Brightest Diamond
Shara Worden talks Schubas’ photo booth, superhero identities and neutering bunnies. A little music, too.
Formally the head of Sufjan Steven’s band, the Illinoisemakers - Shara Worden now makes quite the name for herself as My Brightest Diamond. Shara took time out of her preparation for touring (and having a tree cut down in her backyard) to talk to HEAVE.
HEAVE: Your mom played organ at your chuch and your dad was a world champion accordion player. What kind of childhood did that lead to?
My Brightest Diamond: It just led to a very musical childhood for me. Everybody in my family was musical, uncles, cousins, dogs, and birds. Music is something that was pretty normal in our family, so I think it just provided a certain education by taking lessons. I learned that music was something you really had to work for and it being very hard work. I think that was part of the dynamic in the house, and also that you could tons of different kinds of music. It was just really nice having a lack of judgment about style. I certainly feel that was something that they taught me.
HEAVE: I read that you had your first song recorded at the age of three.
MBD: Yeah, three years old.
HEAVE: How has your inspiration changed since then?
MBD: (Laughs) My first song was about Jesus and about how I didn’t know about why he was coming. I don’t know if I’ve ever stopped asking why. Why does this happen? Why does that happen? What are the repercussions of this and that, an activity or an event? That’s funny; nobody has ever asked me that before. Maybe I’m still just a three year old asking why all the time. Maybe I never lost that.
HEAVE: What do you think the highlight of your career has been so far?
MBD: The highlight of my career is getting to play with people that I love and that I respect. There are these moments that happen in music that are very rare and sometimes that gets disappointing because you want it to happen all the time. For me, there have been some really memorable moments musically where I felt completely connected to who I was playing with. Those things are very fleeting; it’s not like winning an award or seeing Mt. Everest or something. They don’t seem monumental; they just seem like passing moments that fade so quickly and in a kind of unremarkable way. (Laughs) I know that’s a terrible answer to your question, but what I consider a highlight isn’t really a measurable thing.
HEAVE: You look at it from an emotional level and not an award level.
MBD: Yeah it’s about the music. It’s not about achieving anything special.
HEAVE: You bring such energy to your live performance. How do you bring that to your studio recording, or do you try to create two totally different sounds?
MBD: I think of them as very different, but they relate to each other in that I try to limit the amount of vocal takes that I do over and over again. I try to capture the performance. On Pro Tools you can cut and paste everything. A lot of the stuff that we have recorded has been in one take, and we do as much of it live as we can, but we want to change the up the live performance and not try to achieve so much perfection on stage.
HEAVE: You have been involved in the Yellow Bird Project for over a year now. Can you tell us about the charity you chose and what you were trying to convey with your t-shirt design?
MBD: I’ve been friends with the guys who run it and have been for a really long time. I just believe in them and what they are doing. I think that they are really brilliant people in a really wonderful way. They are trying to provide for people who are looking for support to get away from their addictions to drugs and alcohol. I wasn’t really trying to convey anything really in my design. It was more of an abstract thing for me. I wasn’t giving a message of any kind.
HEAVE: You’ll be playing Chicago on November 11th. What do you like to do in Chicago?
MBD: I love taking the photo booth pictures at Schubas. When I’m in Chicago and not playing Schubas, I still find time to make it over there and get pictures. I have this collection of photo booth pictures from Chicago that is really cool because they have chronicled my times there. The Decemberists were at a show, and we have photo booth pictures of them. The guys from Pedestrian were playing in my band so we have some. We did another tour in December and I had a different band. It’s kind of cool because this time it will be guys I’ve been playing with for a really long time. It’s kind of a dorky thing – but it’s been a way to chronicle everything. It’s been a blast for me.
HEAVE: You often cite Radiohead as a huge influence. What makes Radiohead so great to you?
MBD: I love them for so many different reasons. They are so incredibly musical and intuitive and their sounds are just gorgeous. The sound quality for them is just so great. They have this perfect balance between the spacy, ambient, epic sound in conjunction with a punk rock attitude. They maintain the organic quality and the kind of freak-outness spirit of their music. That’s the really big thing for me. How they can combine those two things. It’s just beautiful to me.
HEAVE: Are you enjoying In Rainbows so far?
MBD: Yeah, I love it. It’s really beautiful.
HEAVE: Speaking of Radiohead, how do you feel about the music industry as a whole? Where do you see it being three to five years from now?
MBD: Woo, that is a very interesting and difficult question. I certainly think that that major labels are crumbling. I know they are crumbling, that isn’t something we have to speculate about too much. They are not adopting and adjusting their model. Radiohead putting out their album the way they have has pushed it. M.I.A. put her whole album out for $7.99. It’s a full-length album, so you see people are acknowledging that people are downloading records and not buying them. The artist is trying to figure out how they can work with this. You can pay what you want, or we are going to give you this super awesome extra bonus package that’s really expensive. Artists are experimenting with how they can make this work.
There is an abundance of resource in this universe. It’s not like people aren’t going to make records anymore because people aren’t buying them. There is this idea that people are entitled to have music without paying for it. We have always done that. We’ve always made mix tapes. Music is different; it isn’t like an art piece. In the early days a record was an object. Music has ceased to become an object. It’s more accessible and easy to duplicate. I know it seems obvious, but the accessibility has changed the way people think about it. I love being able to find rare recordings that I would not have been able to find years ago.
The American blog has a tremendous amount of power. It can be such an amazing format of people sharing their ideas and being more personal and having a longer format for discussing something when done really well. It makes people so much more involved in the music and we see communities being created around music. All of these things are really new and exciting. It’s creating an environment where people are being involved in music that would be otherwise. It’s exciting.
The only thing is that music costs money to make. If people don’t buy records then that makes it really hard on me. It’s a very real thing. A string quartet costs money, you know? That is a very real thing. You know, I don’t know. I know that I’m making a record right now and really enjoying it.
I’m sorry, that was a really long answer.
HEAVE: Well, it’s a question that can’t really be answered in three or four sentences.
MBD It is truly very exciting. I was just in Europe for three weeks and the way the Internet is there is different then it is in the States. Since we are one country there is a difference in the mentality, in Europe there isn’t a big one like Pitchfork or the Stereogums or whoever else. It’s more specific to the country in Europe. It’s just very different and I think that’s super cool.
HEAVE: Well, shifting gears a tad…The video for the Gold Chains remix of “Freak Out? is one of the best I’ve watched. When do we see the return of the Unstoppable Diamond Girl?
MBD: Diamond Girl has been running around the world and trying to put out a lot of fires and take care of some situations. She was seen in Brooklyn recently buying things at the Brooklyn Superhero supply store. Someone was there to document some of that, so there might be some footage.
HEAVE: Any movie companies biting on a screenplay yet?
MBD: That is all top secret information.
HEAVE: You have a new bunny in your home. How is that working out?
MBD: It’s going awesome, but he really needs to get the snip because his hormones are going bazonkers. We have to keep the bunnies separated, but they can smell each other through the little barrier we have up. It’s been really fun. He goes to the doctor next week, so hopefully he will be a bit less hormonal. Right now he is just trying to hump everything in sight.
Posted by Wes Soltis on Oct 22, 2007 @ 12:00 am
