Sophe Lux

A conversation with Gwynneth Haynes

(January 2007)

Interview by Adam McKibbin

Sometimes you can judge an album by its cover, and Sophe Lux’s Waking the Mystics seems to fit into that category, with a cover that provokes thoughts of untethered imagination, peaceful childhoods and—wait a minute, is that bunny going to kill that poor girl?  Expect the unexpected from Sophe Lux and Gwynneth Haynes, who has made the transformation from relative solo artist to full-fledged band leader on Mystics, her second album.  From the cabaret to the theatre to the lit class to the recital hall – and then down the rabbit hole – the record touches on a number of styles, and pulls them all off with panache, thanks in large part to Haynes’ inspired songwriting and versatile vocal dramatics.

What made you decide, in the time in between Plastic Apple [the debut record] and Waking the Mystics, that you wanted to bring in a full and proper band?

Well, when I did Plastic Apple, I was, for all practical purposes, a solo artist.  I was doing shows by myself, with an occasional friend sitting in to accompany me with just one additional instrument.  After doing Plastic Apple, I was starting to work with Larry Crane and other musicians and started to create a fuller sound for the compositions.  That felt totally thrilling and exciting and fulfilling.  I started realizing how rewarding it can be to collaborate with other musicians, and I thought, ‘Wow, I really want to form a band.’  It was a great experience making Plastic Apple with Larry Crane at Jackpot!, but it made me realize that I wanted to work with more people.

Has that made songwriting more collaborative?  Or has it just changed how you’re able to bring your songs to fruition?

I think the first shift is that it’s definitely enhanced the ways in which the songs can be expressed.  It’s given greater dimension and complexity to the reading of a song and the interpretation of a song.  It makes it seem like there’s no limits in terms of what you can do to express something in a song.  The other thing is that it’s become really amazing to work off of other people’s creative ideas; on Waking the Mystics, there are definitely some melodic contributions that were not in my initial songwriting, like for example the work of Twayn Williams, the guitarist, or Kelly Goodwin, the keyboard player.  I have to give them credit for coming up with most of their parts.  That’s an incredible contribution.  That, to me, makes it feel like a collaborative process—and in a way a co-writing process, although I guess I would be considered the primary songwriter for the band on this album. 

Aside from that, were there specific things that you wanted to improve from the first album?  You co-produced that one, you produced this one—were there any specific lessons learned during that first time in the studio?

That’s a great question.  I’m sure you hear this from so many different musicians, but that album definitely represents a time and a place in my life as a songwriter and as a person.  It speaks to my musical awareness and evolution at that particular time.  I feel like I’ve grown as a musicians, mainly by playing with other people more.  When I did Plastic Apple, I was pretty much not an experienced performer; even though I’ve been writing songs since I was pretty young, I wasn’t majorly in the spotlight—I was always sort of the closeted songwriter.  So the difference between Plastic Apple and Waking the Mystics is that I feel like I came more into my own as a performing artist and a writer.

Waking the Mystics is so eclectic in terms of style, and even in terms of lyrical content.  Was it hard to flesh out the arc in track sequencing, or was there always a master plan of how the individual songs fit into the greater puzzle?

I think it was absolutely an artform to determine the track listing for this album—definitely—because of the potentially challenging and eclectic nature of it.  I did try a number of different combinations.  The first draft started with “God Doesn’t Take American Express.”  The wonderful track sequencing that we have now came into order after many, many months of experimentation.  Like you were saying, the eclecticism has to be tempered, so it’s not too freaky.  But, you know, there are artists who have been doing this for years, like Beck or The Beatles.  They’re all about eclecticism and weaving in and out of different styles and genres, which I think is reflective of the human experience.  Life is not always a two-minute pop song.  (laughs)

Well, it does feel like such an album-album, where listening to the tenth song is enhanced by having already heard the second song.  That doesn’t seem like the direction we’re going, obviously, where people listen to whole albums—sequentially, no less.  Do you have any ideas how record companies and musicians can encourage listeners to not lose faith in the album, and to not just rely on cherrypicking singles?

My advice to musicians is to be authentic to yourself—however that translates.  Do your best not to be distracted by the marketplace or what’s cool or what’s hip.  It requires taking risks, and it requires being a revolutionary sometimes.  That’s ultimately what’s going to be rewarded, unless you only want to create product—which is a different pursuit that I don’t really understand.

What can people who just know Sophe Lux from recordings expect when they come to a show?

Well, it’s exactly that, it’s a show.  We make a point to have a sense of continuity between form content, and performance.  When you come to see a Sophe Lux show, it’s a show; we have costumes and lights and pretty lavish scenery around the band.  It’s meant to be an experience.  It’s meant to be fun, with a discourse between the audience and the musicians that is dynamic and playful.  It’s about bringing a spirit of playfulness and performance back to the show.  It’s not like putting on a Las Vegas show; it’s tongue-in-cheek and avant-garde and a little Dadaist in presentation.

The video for “Target Market” hints at that, then.

Yeah, definitely.  That’s a good calling card for the aesthetic identity of the band. 

Every musician is beset by comparisons, and it seems like if you’re a female, you have about a 50/50 chance of being compared to Cat Power at some point.  Have you read any that make you think “I don’t know where they’re getting that?”  But also, are there comparisons that you think you would be comfortable having follow you around from year to year and album to album?

The Cat Power comparisons were very much related to the Plastic Apple work, which is much more singer-songwriter in nature.  I would be very surprised if I listened to Waking the Mystics and saw a Cat Power comparison.  (laughs)  Maybe the last track, “Fill Me Up With Grace,” has a little bit of that.  That’s sort of an old cut from a radio show that we threw in because it’s a nice recording.  But more recent comparisons have been Kate Bush, David Bowie, Freddie Mercury.  And I love those.  (laughs)  Those are incredibly complimentary.  Those are, of course, primary influences that I can’t deny or resist.  I confess: I used to sleep with a Kate Bush songbook under my pillow.

So that’s a true story!

(laughs)  It’s true.  I think she peaked too early for people to fully appreciate her genius.

Yeah, Kate Bush seems like she gets a lot of respect from other musicians, and she had a successful career, I suppose, but never fully crossed over into mainstream consciousness.  Even Tori Amos is the same way to some extent.  I wonder, then, if that sort of music isn’t palatable to the mainstream, or if a broad audience actually is there if the MTVs and commercial radio stations of the world had taken a chance with it on their playlists.

Yeah, that’s a good question, and I don’t know that I know the answer.  Is it true that they’re just too obscure?  Especially Kate Bush, coming out with an album like The Dreaming in 1982, an incredibly precocious 22-year-old genius doing these unbelievable songs that were almost scary.  A woman with that much power at that time might have been perplexing for people to get around.  This is still pre-Madonna; Madonna got her power and did her thing, but in a totally mainstream and totally safe way.  I think Kate Bush paved the way for people like Bjork to be big.  I don’t think the world was ready to take in her genius.  And then somebody like Tori Amos, she’s probably even bigger than Kate Bush now, but she again seems to have this dedicated cult following that’s international and undying and incredibly loyal.

Changing subjects a bit, you recorded Waking the Mystics at Type Foundry, which is run by Adam Selzer—who we interviewed recently about [his band] Norfolk & Western.  How did you get hooked up with him, and what made that feel like the right home for this production?

I was definitely under a tight budget, and I had to find something that was local and something with good references.  I had worked with Larry Crane at Jackpot! and had an amazing experience, and I was going to go with them again, but it was a little too expensive at the time.  People started telling me about Adam, and I had heard about his work with The Decemberists and M. Ward and then his band Norfolk & Western.  His studio is basically around the corner from my house, so I went and met with him, and I really liked the studio and really liked Adam.  Portland is a small music town that way.  It’s little family clusters here and there.  There was always that comfortable down-home feel.  Adam is very easygoing and very good at what he does.

There are a number of references throughout the album to God and Jesus, most explicitly in “God Doesn’t Take American Express” and “Fill Me Up With Grace.”  But Nietzsche, who inspired your record label name [Zarathustra], was certainly no friend to Christianity.  How does that all reconcile?

Right.  “How do you deal with that contradiction?”  (laughs)  Friedrich Nietzsche, of course, was overly famous for the quote “God is dead,” but he’s basically criticizing how Christianity and organized religion have killed God.  He’s not by any means someone who is an atheist.  If you read his work, he’s actually looking for spiritual meaning outside of the context of organized religion.  It’s like he could almost be a neo-pagan; “I could only believe in a god who would dance.”  (laughs)  That’s something that I identify with.  I’m an agnostic, I don’t really know—but I believe in something.  I identify with that search and that yearning to get at the mystery of life.