Catching Ray of Indigo

Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls talks about the early years, being an out artist and the group’s latest album
By Casey Bell
PGN Staff Writer
© 2007 Philadelphia Gay News

When Amy Ray and Emily Sailers picked up their guitars 20 years ago, they never imagined that they were about to embark on a musical career that would forever change the face of the lesbian music scene.

Today, with seven Grammy nominations and 12 million album sales under their belts, the Indigo Girls are still generating their signature sound and earning international acclaim.

The pair is currently on tour for their latest album, “Despite Our Differences,” which blends elements of folk, country and pop, resulting in an album that’s both innovative and unmistakably Indigo.

PGN recently caught up with half of the duo, Ray, for a phone interview.

Born and raised in Atlanta, Ray started playing guitar when she was 10.

“I started out listening to a lot of Neil Young and some early hippie music,” she said. “But later on I discovered Patti Smith and got very into punk rock, which had a huge influence on me.”

Ray said she came out gradually in her late teens.

“I had a girlfriend when I was a senior in high school,” she said. “But it was in little steps that I became open about my sexuality. I was out to my family by around 17 or 18, and really out to everyone by about 25.”

Ray and Sailers originally disputed about the best way to publicly handle their orientation once they gained recognition from mainstream press.

“Everything was talked about in the media,” she said. “Emily didn’t really want to talk about it openly at first — she felt like it was more of a personal thing. But things were very different then in terms of how accepting people were. We never really made a decision to come out to the press. It was just sort of reported.”

Ray said being gay is an integral part of her identity as an artist.

“It’s hard to separate your orientation from your art. It’s just sort of an activist kind of place to be if you’re engaged in what’s going on in the world and queer, you have to take it on,” she said. “I don’t think I could ever separate my art and vocabulary and language from that. Sure, it’s affected my career some times more than others, and maybe it’s hurt it more than it’s helped it. It’s difficult to quantify, but there have definitely been times when we weren’t getting any radio play because there could only be one gay person on the scene at a time — like any marginalized group. You just wouldn’t hear k.d. lang and Melissa Etheridge and the Indigo Girls. There could only be one of us in the spotlight.”

But Ray and Sailers held true to their identities over the years, producing 10 studio albums.

Ray said she’s particularly happy with the collaborative process of their latest endeavor, “Despite Our Differences,” released in September.

“We got the chance to work with Mitchell Froom on this album,” she said. “As a producer, he’s just so creative. Every note really matters to him and he has a legacy all his own.”

Froom, who has produced records for artists like Sheryl Crow, Elvis Costello and Paul McCartney, worked with Ray and Sailers to record the album in just over one month in his Santa Monica home studio.

“Despite Our Differences” is also the first record the duo has made with Hollywood Records, which is owned by The Walt Disney Company.

“Emily and I like this label a lot,” Ray said. “It’s been great working with them. But at the same time, it is just a label. In some ways the music industry is interesting — there’s certainly a lot of reinventing that needs to be done. This traditional model doesn’t have very much relevancy anymore. We have to see that, but be able to forgive it. When you look at all the music downloading and YouTube and MySpace — I think all of that was born out of necessity. People weren’t getting what they were looking for from this corporate industry.”

Despite her beef with the ever-increasing corporatization of the music industry, Ray said she and Sailers are happy with the final product and their hard work has paid off.

The two artists typically write separately, then come together to work on arrangements and melodies.

“It usually takes us a month if we work together four days a week,” Ray said. “We’re pretty detail-oriented and we like to take every element apart.”

She said the songs she wrote on this album vary in themes.

“My songs deal a lot with community and a sense of place. I also talk a lot about how to keep one’s own identity, but at the same time recognize other people’s. With Emily, it seems like most of her songs are very human-relationship-oriented on this record.”

“Despite Our Differences” features guest appearances by spunky pop artist Pink and WXPN-acclaimed singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile.

“The guests we brought in were chosen because of the specific things we like about their vocals,” Ray explained. “Pink has this attitude and a way of emoting that’s exactly what we were looking for. She’s also just a really cool person who’s great to be around. She was able to bring exactly what we needed. And Brandi is just so super-talented. She can set a harmony perfectly between me and Emily in a way that’s very special. She has this ability to really morph and work with other voices, but at the same time she can be the glue of a song.”

Ray said this album’s energy and spontaneity set it apart from their previous work.

“We recorded it in a very short time compared to our normal pace,” she said. “I think that allowed us to take some bigger risks.”

After playing music together for 20 years, Ray said she and Sailers have grown as artists and songwriters.

“We’re always trying to evolve as artists,” she said. “That’s one thing that I can look back at and say that we’ve really become better musicians. As artists, the dynamics between us and the way that we arrange songs has shifted and gone through cycles over the years. In the beginning, I really wasn’t writing very many harmonies, but now I write a lot of my own. And Emily has picked up some more instruments and added different textures to our sound. We just expand and evolve — it’s been a long run, though. It’s like trying to watch your hair grow. But when I go back and listen to our earlier music, I can hear how much better we are now. We were 16 when we first started. We were so young and just not that great.”

Ray feels it’s important for all musicians in the public eye to be open about their orientation.

“Some people don’t want to be engaged in the scene at all, and I think that’s a drag,” she said. “I’d never out anyone, but I think people should be out, musicians especially. Right now is a time when you may suffer a little bit, but it’s so important what you can achieve by being out.”

When she’s not on tour, Ray spends time at her Atlanta home with her animals and her partner of four years, who is finishing her filmmaking thesis at Columbia University.

“I have 13 animals right now,” she said. “I rescue them, so I try to spend a lot of time dealing with them one on one. I also like to spend a lot of time writing and working on music or hiking in the woods. I keep pretty busy when I’m not on the road.”

Ray has also been working on solo projects; she released “Stag” in 2001, followed by “Prom” in 2004 and the limited-edition release “Live from Knoxville” in December.

Ray said she and Sailers aren’t together very much during their downtime.

“We live in different towns. And we’ve known each other since we were 10, so we’re like siblings. But we are good friends.”

The group has been on the road for the past eight months.

“It’s been a really great time so far,” Ray said. “The crowds have been wonderful too. We still play a lot of old stuff mixed in with newer songs. We’ve both just had a great run with this tour.”

photos from the article:




source

edit: oh my god, i just caught this. the philadelphia gay news people spelled emily's last name wrong throughout the article. fuckers. :(