INTERVIEWS PRINT

INTERVIEW: Lady Lazarus embraces simplicity & positivity in music

Jake Craney
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Lady Lazarus is the solo project of Melissa Ann Sweat, a singer-songwriter, artist, and creative writer from San Jose, Calif. currently living in the Mojave Desert in Joshua Tree. Since her first release, Mantic in 2011, Lady Lazarus has received significant attention for her singular brand of spirited and enchanting, “American dream folk” composed for mainly voice and keyboard/piano. GroundSounds recently caught up with Lady Lazarus to chat about her move to the desert, her critically acclaimed album All My Love In Half Light, and what she is currently working on. If you’re in Austin, TX, be sure to check her out tomorrow (10/22) at Mohawk.

 

Tell us about your background and how you got started in music.

Prior to age 25, I had no background in making music. That year, I bought a terribly rough and tiny Casio keyboard and started writing my first songs, which I turned into an EP called Home Recordings. I sold a few on CD Baby and sent it out to a few small publications for reviews. I kept writing and began putting songs up on MySpace, and I obtained a slightly better and larger Yamaha keyboard (that I still use today). One of my brothers took the liberty to send my MySpace page to Brian Howe of Pitchfork, saying it sounded something like Beach House. Brian reviewed one of my songs, “The Eye in the Eye of the Storm” while I was working on my first full-length album, and that was really quite surprising and amazing to me. The following year I self-released Mantic, and the project took off a bit from there.

 

What was the first song you ever wrote (if you can remember)? What did it sound like?

The first song I wrote was called “Emily Dickinson.” I used a Casio pre-programmed drum beat in it (and it was the last time I ever did that). One of the lines went, “I tried so hard to be good / now I’d rather be misunderstood.” Another early song I wrote was “Master & Servant,” maybe the second song, and it has a snippet of an interview I did with a veteran I met in Phoenix named Modified Joe. You can listen to the song here.

 

What made you decide to move from LA to the Joshua Tree area? I’m fascinated by the area myself and I imagine that is a huge culture/lifestyle shift. What is your typical day like now compared to life in LA?

I moved out here for the cost of living, the peace and simplicity, and to be able to focus as much as possible on creative work. The people here are friendly, mostly no-nonsense, and there’s a good sense of community. It’s given me a lot of peace living out here, working and allowing me plenty of space to just be. I don’t like my day-to-day life to be too complicated… probably because my emotional and creative life is quite complicated and interesting enough. A typical day is healthy, productive, and quiet. But then, there’s a flipside because you can also be pretty loud out here if you want to, as you often can’t be in the city with apartment neighbors. So in our house we can be pretty free and silly and loud and dancing all around, too.

 

Tell us a little bit about All My Love In Half Light. What was your goal for the sound/style of the album? Do you have a song in particular that stands out as particularly special?

“Eventide” I think stands out as representative for the album both in theme and style. I’ve been leaning more and more from my experimental self-taught keyboard style to letting more traditional structures and choices creep in. I vamp a bit in this song, there’s repetition and a steady groove, but there’s also an almost pop-like melody in the chorus. I like that combination of experimentation with something more familiar. It gives it a slant and edge, I think, while still being delightful and pretty. I think beautiful and edgy might describe the album well. The lyrics also for “Eventide” express much of the theme for the album, namely returning to myself and a good, strong, healthy self-love, and saying no to negative romantic relationships and people: “If life is for wanting / and I am for wanting, / then I want for nothing tonight.”

 

What are you currently working on?

Well, you know how I just said I was saying no to negative relationships? Well, I really believe that making that choice opened me up for having a good one come into my life. I feel truly grateful and blessed for the love I have now and it’s definitely inspired some new songs in me and a good direction. I’ll be happy to share more about it soon, I hope.

 

What is one thing you love to do when you aren’t writing or performing music?

I’m so busy with music it seems all the time lately that the one thing I love to do when I can is nothing. …Nothing like drinking wine on the porch, hanging out at the local saloon or Pappy & Harriet’s, playing marbles, going for a walk and just looking around at the mountains and desert life… nothing for me lately is a luxury that might be nice to have more of. But then again, I’m really grateful for what’s going on lately with music, so no complaining.

 

 

Where is the best place to stay updated with you online?

My website, and perhaps Facebook.

 

Lady Lazarus – “Argosy”