The Suzanne Vallie Interview
When and where were born? What was your childhood like growing up? When did you first begin to fall in love with music and poetry? Was this something that was relevant around your household growing up?
I’m from the state of South Dakota in the north-central USA. I grew up near the Missouri River on the Great Plains, a mostly rural landscape with small communities between fields and pastures. It is beautiful to my eyes, but travelers often say it is stark, even “too flat.” It is a place where you check the weather report, dangerous heat and cold, violent winds, thunder storms, tornadoes, and blizzards. Between extremes though, it is a paradise if you like quiet and big skies. My parents showed me how to enjoy and respect books, art, and music, encouraging me to sing and learn instruments. We had a stereo in every room. Nearly any genre was a go. Although I am the only one who appreciates country western music. It was just born into me I guess.
What would you do for fun growing up? Who were some of your earliest influences in your more formative years? When and where did you see your first concert and when did you realize you wanted to spend your time pursuing music?
As a kid, I made a lot of my own fun. My friends and I would take days crafting music mixes to impress each other and to play in the car while driving backroads. There were aimless walks, sipping gas station sodas. I spent a lot of time in the woods by myself daydreaming, which I still do. By the time I left home, there were many artists I admired. But I remember the first time I thought I could join in on singing and writing songs was when a friend introduced me to Will Oldham’s album Joya. His voice was wonderful, but not in the usual ways. And his songs were beautiful with humor, but again, they were not like other artists I’d heard. It all came together with an excellence I usually only trust to nature, needing no varnish. Back then, I had felt my voice was too delicate, sleepy, and a bit dusky. I was unsure I could endure explaining myself, and my strangeness, to the world. Then there was Will Oldham, apologizing to nobody. During my years in California, I commited a great deal of time to writing poems and songs, trying to refine, but playing out rarely. When I did, my live performances included more and more lyrics improvised on the spot. This is how “High With You” came to be. The chorus was delivered in a dream. Then the rest I would make up on stage. “Morro Bay” also started improvised, a fun afternoon with Carly Bond (Meerna) trying to channel the same ghosts that visit Bruce Springsteen.
Did you participate in any groups prior to releasing your groundbreaking debut LP “ LLWRD” back in 2020? What was the overall vision and approach to this material? When and where did recording begin and how did you want to go about writing and reading this wonderful album? Have you been up to anything more recently?
In 2019, Native Cat Records offered me a contract for an EP, but I knew we could make it a full album. It was a good deal, very fair, and allowed me to work with fantastic people. Rob Shelton produced and coordinated the players and studio. We set our timeline for 10 days in the fall of 2019. That summer before, nearly all I did with my spare hours was write songs. Work, songs, sleep. Most of the musicians who were to play during the fall sessions lived in Los Angeles or San Francisco, far outside of my home in Big Sur. However, my buddy and guitarist, Blake Kennedy, lived in a redwood canyon not too much of a drive from my place on a high ridge. So, I would write a song, then drive down to Blake’s place. We'd feel out the music. I'd cool off by the river. He always added magic, and kept me steady. I was in a particular mood the summer before we recorded Love Lives Where Rules Die. I’d had a terrible heartbreak that winter. For a while I was displaced, living with family and friends. There were some devastating suicides that happened that June and July.
Still, all around me were caring people offering what they could, a little attention, meals, words of stability. I wanted to transfer their kindness forward into the songs, give it my all. Since Love Lives Where Rules Die was released (after moving from Native Cat to Night Bloom Records) in 2020, I have kept on writing songs and poems. In fact, they have sustained me. Much has happened. Wildfires. Covid. More loss. More moving. I returned to South Dakota to care for my father. He passed, and I have remained here. Going through our barn, I found my dad's old Panasonic tape cassette recorder. As a way to connect with his memory, I repaired it and started putting down my back-log of songs. I call these recordings Analog Séance. Sharing them online as videos has been a way to reach out to folks who support me. I’ll release them on cassette and digitally soon. Using one-track (vocals and piano) on magnetic tape with old circuits and a small, built-in microphone creates a ghostly, time machine quality. People tell me they like it. I do too.
Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?
With good fortune, I hope to fund another live-tracked studio album. Many of my collaborators on Love Lives Where Rules Die have opened Altamira Studios in LA, which is such a competent, comfortable room with pretty sound. There’s an amazing bloom of masterful, soulful players in LA too. Though I'd go most anywhere in the world happily. Till then, it feels like a miracle, no matter my troubles, I can share my songs somehow.
