A Converation with Lindi Ortega – HuffPost 10.14.13

Mike Ragogna: Lindi!

Lindi Ortega: Mike, how are you doing?

MR: All’s swell, how are you?

LO: I’m well. I had a crazy night of karaoke last night but I’m doing good.

MR: Oh, I want to hear all about it! What songs did you sing?

LO: I was doing some of the oldies last night, like “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” and “Be My Baby.”

MR: I imagine you would relate to a lot of the girl groups.

LO: Yeah, I did do a couple of other ones, too. I did “Wild Horses” by Rolling Stones.

MR: So a fun time was had by all and you’ll probably do a karaoke version of Tin Star for people to sing along with, right?

LO: That would be cool. It’d be kind of neat to show up at a karaoke bar and my song is there.

MR: Okay then, let’s at least sing Tin Star’s praises! It seems to contain the concept of the struggle artists have to go through. You wouldn’t know anything about that.

LO: Oh, not me. It’s only taken me a hundred years to get to where I am so I wouldn’t have a clue. [laughs] It’s totally something that I know well and also something, the parallels of a struggling artist living in a city filled with stars, is what Nashville is to me. It’s very interesting being here. It really struck a chord with me, especially because I’m kind of at a level now where things are starting to happen in places, which is lovely, but I can very much relate because I still do have those shows around town. I can very much relate to the struggling artists and the people that are playing for tips and stuff like that, so I thought I would write a song in tribute to the people in this city and anywhere who are out there doing their passion, something creative as a labor of love. They might not get the fame or the glory for it; it’s really about the level of what they do.

MR: Emphasizing that theme, you’re relating the experience to yourself in “All These Cats.”

LO: Yes, that’s right. That one’s a little more sassy than “Tin Star.” It’s kind of in the same vein as a song from my first record called “I’m No Elvis Presley.” When you play shows and showcases and stuff, sometimes you have people that try to intimidate you or stare you down and make you feel like you don’t belong there. That was a song that I wrote just to say, “You know what? I’m here, it took me a while to get here, and I’m not going anywhere.” So that was a sassy little number.

MR: Nice. Lindi, you kind of do put out sassy little albums. Little Red Boots and Cigarettes And Truckstops aren’t exactly, “Hi, I’m a gentle, frail flower.”

LO: [laughs] That’s true.

MR: “Songs About” has an interesting concept behind it. What are your favorite kinds of songs? When you hear something, what moves you?

LO: Gosh, I love all songs. I think music is what helps us, or it helps me, anyway, get through life. Whenever I’m feeling happy, I love to put on a happy song; whenever I’m feeling sad, I put on a sad song and I feel like the songs speak to me and help me through those moments. So that song, “Songs About,” is really about all of those songs that I’ve written and the themes that I’ve written about. I’m just talking about how I’m writing from the soul and how it’s coming from a real place. The last line is, “Songs from the soul, because that’s all I know.” That’s what I’ve been trying to convey to people. It’s not put on, it’s not a show. I’m being me and I’m trying to relate my experiences because I want to show people that are feeling lonely that they’re not the only ones that are feeling like that. People that are feeling sad are not the only ones. It was really just a song to say, “Hey, this is real.”

MR: With “Waiting For My Luck To Change,” you sum up, nicely, the concept of getting over your troubles since “…the sun is shining above the clouds.”

LO: That’s true, yeah, and I actually got the idea for that song while I was flying. I do a lot of flying because I tour all the time and I noticed that every time I get above the clouds, the sun is always shining and I just thought that was a beautiful thing. I think it’s beautiful that you can rise above the clouds like that. Everybody’s encountered moments of bad luck in their life and sometimes people are down and out. I wrote that song for people that are looking to turn their luck around and have a bit of positivity.

MR: In “Lived And Died Alone,” you’re using a concept, which is a little unusual to try to prove a point. Would you go into that, what spurred that on?

LO: Sometimes I sit and think about things that I’m not sure other people sit and think about, or maybe they do, but I write about them. I was thinking about people who spend their whole lives lonely, people who maybe their parents died when they were young and they didn’t have family and they just spent their whole lives alone and they died alone and nobody came to their funerals and I was just thinking about how sad that was. I just wanted to write a love song for those people to let them know that I’m thinking about them even if they’re no longer here. It was just a love song to all the people who lived and died alone.

MR: You mentioned touring before. What is that like these days and what have you been doing since the last album?

LO: Touring my butt off, playing a lot of festivals. My summer was kind of filled with festivals, which is so great. I do American and Canadian festivals and the Canadian festivals make you do these Songwriter in the Round things with other artists that come to the festival and it’s really cool because you get introduced to the artists and sometimes you get to collaborate with them on stage, so that was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed doing that and I really enjoyed discovering some great new talent at these festivals. Another thing I did was I went to Scandinavia and I played a bunch of shows. I did Norway and Denmark and Sweden, and that was a lot of fun. I got to play some really great places and do some great sightseeing out there. We did some unconventional things. Instead of staying in hotels, we stayed on a boat and we stayed in a cabin in the woods. It was really quite an adventure. I’ve been having a lot of fun touring around and continually writing and being inspired. I bought a piano recently, so I’m writing a bunch of piano songs and re-imagining some cover tunes on the piano and making ballads of them, putting them up on Youtube for people to see. So yeah, I’ve just been having good, creative fun.

MR: How did you approach the songwriting on this album differently from, let’s say, your last album, Cigarettes And Truck Stops?

LO: We had a new producer and a new set of musicians and I think it’s always cool to do that because it breathes new life into the music and the songs. I told you I wrote a couple of songs on the piano that ended up being on the record and I think when you get new instruments, it inspires you to write in different ways. Also, it was really great to work with Dave Koz who’s done Jason Isbell and Secret Sisters and Shooter Jennings. To have him and his way of interpreting my songs, I think made it a little different than the last two records, things like adding strings on “Tin Star,” which gave it a seventies country feel, which is something I wouldn’t have thought of, but he suggested it and we put it on and it made so much sense to me. I think also coming back to talking about being a musician in my life and where I’m at and touring and of course sprinkling that and dispersing that and other themes, which I’ve touched on in my other albums–romance and heartache and love. But I wanted to write again about being an artist–well “artist” is a funny word–being a musician and traveling and what life is like and what it’s like to struggle and to sacrifice for something that you love and what it’s like when you reach those forks in the road, situations that make it a little bit different. You either let it get the better of you or you charge on and it’s about charging on and keeping going.

MR: What do you think of all these rave reviews that are happening? Are you believing it? Are you buying your own press?

LO: [laughs] I don’t know, I just do what I do. I realize music is a very subjective thing, so not everyone is going to love what you do, and I’m very grateful that some people do and some people get it and they enjoy my music and people come to my shows. It’s so nice to see that. When you tour, you can go out there and you can find a market for what you do and you don’t necessarily have to have a hit song on the radio or be super famous for that kind of thing to occur. You just bring your music to the people and you can find an audience for it. I’m so glad that I’ve been able to do that.

MR: Maybe part of the reason is simply because you’re not following the conventional paradigm for “country,” although you’re being accepted by people who love country music, proving your point in that way.

LO: Yeah, thank you. One of my favorite artists is Johnny Cash and I definitely look to him, career-wise, as a beacon for how I would love to come across musically because I feel like his music is respected by all genres, from hip-hop to punk to rock to country, and I think he’s more than just a “country” artist. It’s so great to be transcending like that and I hope that my music can do the same thing.

MR: I think using Johnny Cash is a great example of somebody who did it his way regardless of what the charts were, et cetera. Right on.

LO: Thanks. One of Hank Williams’ most well-known songs was “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” A lot of people might have thought that was a hit for him, but it wasn’t at all during his lifetime. It only ever reached forty-three on the Billboard charts and that wasn’t till a dozen years after his death. I truly feel that everybody seems to be so focused on hits these days but I think it’s beyond that. For me, it’s important to try and reach people and connect with people with my words and what I’m trying to say and evoke some kind of emotion. Hopefully, that transcends and down the road, people might remember my songs and that might happen to me. I don’t know, maybe not in my lifetime, but I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not, but I aim for that.

MR: Hey, it’s time for the traditional question. What advice do you have for new artists?

LO: For new artists? Gosh. I’d just say be you. Be you. Always be you and believe in you. That’s what I say. Be you, be the best you you can be. [laughs]

MR: Is that what Lindi Ortega did?

LO: Yeah, I do my best to be myself. The music that I make is inspired by the music that I love and it comes from my heart and it comes from me. So I would hope that the new artists out there are writing from their heart as well because I think that’s the best music.

MR: So what’s your prediction for Lindi Ortega’s 2014?

LO: What happens? I wish I was a fortune teller and I could tell you. I can only say this: I am perpetually inspired and I am always writing and I have so many ideas for projects and things that I want to do for projects that I hope will come to fruition in the next few years. I would love to do a duet album with a bunch of artists and co-write duets or do some covers or something like that. That’s one plan I’d love to do. I think there are a couple of music videos in the future for this record. I’m actually pretty sure that there’s one for “Tin Star,” I know because I just shot it, so it will come out soon. I can predict that with accuracy. You know what? I bet you there’s going to be another record coming up here because I cannot stop writing songs. I’m kind of addicted to it.

MR: At what point do you want to do the live album? Are you looking at that down the road, too?

LO: Yeah, I was discussing that with my team about trying to get people to come out and record the live shows and sort of do a span of the three albums that I have out now and maybe throw some covers in on that, too. So that’s definitely something I would very much love to do and I hope that I get to do that soon.

MR: Anything we need to know about Lindi Ortega that we haven’t discovered in our last three interviews?

LO: Anything you need to know?

MR: You know, your secret passion for Gummi Bears and Circus Peanuts.

LO: [laughs] My secret passion is storm chasing. I want to be a storm chaser! There’s this guy named Reed Timmer who’s a known storm chaser and I’ve been harrassing him on Twitter to let me go storm chasing with him in his car called “The Dominator” that he can drive into a tornado. I said if I had my version of “The Dominator” it would be called “The Dominatrix” and it would slap those tornadoes back into the sky.

MR: And of course you’d have your big red boot emblem on the back.

LO: Exactly! And I kind of want to dress like a super hero when I’m doing it as a storm chaser in my dominatrix car. I think I should do a tornado alley tour and just do songs about storms and all the proceeds from that tour and the album would go to helping victims of tornadoes.

MR: Oh, look at that! You mentioned storm chasing, The Dominatrix and superheroes, which has to lead us so to what the heck are you dressing up as this Halloween?

LO: What I go as every Halloween, which is a Dia De Los Muertos character. I just dress like a skeleton. If you couldn’t tell by my song “Lived And Died Alone,” I’m obsessed with skeletons and skulls and cemeteries. I’ve kind of got this weird morbid fascination with things like that.

MR: So you see every Tim Burton movie, I’d imagine?

LO: Yeah, I love Tim Burton, I think he’s great. I love him a lot.

MR: Tim Burton…Lindi Ortega. You’ve gotta check out her music, dude. I’ve said too much. Lindi, it’s always great to talk with you and I appreciate the time. All the best with the new album and your tour and your Dia De Los Muertos costume.

LO: Are you doing well? Nobody ever asks you, I bet.

MR: [laughs] Yeah, I know. What’s up with that. Thank you for asking, Lindi! I’m doing very well. I’m about to go on a smooth jazz cruise to Mexico.

LO: Wow, that sounds amazing! I want to go on a music cruise, especially to Mexico! Tell all the Mexicans I say, “Hello,” because I feel like I’m related to them. My dad’s Mexican, so every time I see a Mexican person, I want to hug them. I feel like they’re my brothers and sisters. So tell them that their sister says hello.

MR: Each and every one, you got it. Lindi! All the best with everything.

LO: You too, take care, Mike.

Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne