A Conversation with The Civil Wars’ Joy Williams – HuffPost 8.16.13

Mike Ragogna: Joy, you have a new album, The Civil Wars, self-titled, which is your second album. Usually, a group flips that and starts with the self-titled, although it feels like with the first one, the title helped give everybody an idea…

Joy Williams: A context.

MR: Exactly, a context, yeah. So what are your thoughts about this brand new album?

JW: I’m really proud of it. It was born out of some strife and pain, but I feel like in the midst of all of that, it made for an even more raw and, in my opinion, moving body of work than we even did on Barton Hollow. It’s remarkable to me that it seems like the album has really been connecting with people, and that’s all you can really hope for as an artist. You give birth to something and hope that it’s received out in the world, and it seems like that’s what’s happening. That’s maybe some of the good that comes out of the difficulty that John Paul and I have found ourselves in as of late.

MR: It’s pretty much out there that you and John Paul have obviously had a true bump in the relationship.

JW: It was a true bump and it was a series of difficult situations that John Paul and I kept trying to make the best out of and then, at a certain point, the reality is that we’ve always really worked well together professionally. But you spend a lot of time on the road and those hours get long and you’re in close quarters, and friction and tension is bound to happen. It’s as age-old as time, bands having disagreements and finding themselves not on the same page all the time. The reality is we are working with some very real tension and a bit of a breakdown at the moment–and I say “at the moment” intentionally–and it’s something that we’re navigating. I’m proud of our team and the way that we go about it, we’ve gone about it as honestly as we can. This is real life. It’s messy and it’s challenging and it’s difficult. You can’t always control what happens in life. These are the unexpected moments, but in all of this, I still feel like something really beautiful has come out from it. So, in a strange way, I still hold out hope that there’s a possibility that John Paul and I could mend our fences and come back even stronger as a duo.

MR: Well that’s what I was about to say about the artistry of this album. The relationship obviously influenced a lot of the material in the creative process. “I Wish You Were The One That Got Away,” “Devil’s Backbone”…there are topics on here that were probably not even inspired by what you did, but went further because you bothered to keep it honest. It gets a bad rap, but the word is “Confessional.” You made art out of it as opposed to just trying to maintain a business relationship. It became art.

JW: Yeah, thank you. The record is not a ripped out journal page, there’s still a lot of art and metaphor used in the record, but there is also real life woven into it, so it’s all strung throughout and I think you can hear the authenticity within that. I think you can hear the layers and even feel it sort of subconsciously when you press play.

MR: It must have been both a surprise and probably a stress to have that much success with your debut album. I mean, the music certainly deserved it, but to have gotten a couple of Grammys from it, to have suddenly become the biggest “Americana” act at the time had to have been slightly odd.

JW: [laughs] How do you mean, “odd”?

MR: Well, not everybody gets that experience right out of the chute, and it’s a commentary on both the material and The Civil Wars as an entity. It was a validation of what you had done. On the other hand, suddenly, you’re in a position of intense celebrity with huge success. That’s got to have its pressures.

JW: I’ve remained thankful and honestly surprised by how much Barton Hollow connected with so many people so instantly. John Paul and I were both solo artists for over a decade before we linked arms musically, so when things really started taking off, it was a thrill. Individually, we both sort of knew what it was like to beat your head against a wall, so when things started really taking off, all that preparation that John Paul and I had done as artists felt like it was really starting to move in a direction that was really thrilling. I remember when we were in the process of recording it, I had a lot of sleepless nights. I didn’t think about the fact that we’d won Grammys, it’s an amazing honor and I have them proudly festooned on my–I just said “festooned,” who says “festooned?”

MR: Best…word..ever.

JW: I don’t know where that word came from, I must have heard it. I have them on my bookshelf right now, I’m proud of the music that we’ve made, but I remember thinking not so much about, “What are people going to think of this next album?” as much as I was concerned with, “How do we move forward as a duo musically, how do we push through to new sounds and find new territory and new things to write about and new ways to translate this in studios?” I think we’ve really accomplished that on this album. John Paul is playing more electric guitars live on stage from when we finished Barton Hollow and were on the road, so it makes sense to incorporate more of that in the process of recording. I’m very passionate about music and I’m very passionate about finding new ground to trod on. We definitely wanted to not make the same record twice, and I’m proud to say that we didn’t. But I definitely laid awake at night thinking about how we could improve on what we’d already accomplished because so many highlights had happened because of Barton Hollowand I was just determined and sleepless because I wanted to scare out how we could continue to make music that was even more moving and more compelling than before.

MR: Joy, what is the most revealing song on the album to you, personally? What song would you direct someone to for a summation of your emotions?

JW: I don’t think I could point someone just in one direction for a song, if you’re wanting me to sum up where the band is at this moment. I feel like the whole project itself is the summation where we highlight those emotions that range from loss and regret to loneliness and the desire to be seen and celebration and clarity and the rawnesss of the human experience, which is so often muted. That’s why I probably couldn’t tell you that there’s one particular song that could sum up what it is. Right now, the song “Dust To Dust” is something that I continue to find myself humming in the kitchen when I’m cooking up dinner for my husband and my son. That song really does speak to the fact that everybody has pain and everybody experiences that desire to be seen and to not be forgotten and if we’re all really honest, we’ve all had seasons like that, where we’ve been absolutely lonely even if we’re surrounded by a multitude of people. I’ve said it before, but when John Paul and I wrote that in Birmingham, England, on an off day on the Adele tour that we were on, we intentionally changed the pronoun at the end: “You’re like a mirror, reflecting me/Takes one to know one, so take it from me/You’ve been lonely/You’ve been lonely too long,” and we changed it to “we,” “We’ve been lonely/ We’ve been lonely too long,” to really highlight the fact that everybody goes through this and this is a part of the human experience and the journey that feels like it winds and twists and bends.

MR: Yeah, that’s really true. Is there any wonder why people relate to your music?

JW: [laughs] I’m just glad that they do. It’s been written with a lot of heart. Blood and sweat and tears have gone into this album and to me, just to know that people really are feeling moved by it too, there’s no greater joy than that in an artist.

MR: Joy, I want to ask you a question I asked you a couple years ago given all that’s happened since then. What advice do you have for new artists?

JW: Gosh. I feel like I’m learning so much in this season right now. Look, I’m no sage, I’m trying to figure life out and music out and being a mom and being a wife and all of these things. I don’t feel like I have any sage advice, but I think the thing that I can say I’ve been learning is how important it is to stay connected to yourself and to what truly matters in life as you chase art and chase the muse. Because regardless of what happens with your career, if you keep the core relationships, the people that really love you no matter what, and that it’s not about what you do, it’s about who you are and if you can stay grounded in those kinds of relationships, the twilight zone known as the road can be navigated a little more easily. So as much time as one might spend on the craft, I would say spend time on yourself and becoming the person that you desire to become and that that can only influence your art in a better way and not just your life. But it’s pretty important that it would influence your life as well.

MR: Boy, for someone who wasn’t sure how to answer the question that’s one of the best answers I’ve ever gotten.

JW: Oh, cool! I’m just speaking from the heart. I turned thirty this year, I had a baby, I’ve been married almost a decade to my husband, and I was on the road at a pace that was so exhilarating but was so full of so many opportunities that I sometimes missed the opportunity to stay connected to myself. As painful and as difficult as it was for both John Paul and I to decide to go on hiatus for right now, I will say that this hiatus has really helped me realign and reconnect. That’s been so necessary and I feel like regardless of what happens moving forward, I’m a better person for having experienced the challenges of some of what’s gone on in the band. Again, I believe that anything’s possible. I hold out hope for reconciliation and creating music again with John Paul. He’s a wonderful musician and I look forward to that, but I also won’t let one chapter determine the rest of my life either. I hope to always take the best parts of what I’ve experienced and bring them with me, but now I’m just laughing and rambling.

MR: [laughs] How’s life with baby?

JW: It’s the most exhilarating and exhaustingly wonderful experience. I never knew I could love somebody so fiercely as I do my son. I am just so enjoying changing his diapers and making his food and watching him grow and develop and watching all of those teeth come in one at a time. My husband and I have been teaching Miles how to walk and having family dance parties in the kitchen to Daft Punk. I’m loving this process of being a mom, and I also feel like it’s stretched me. As much as I didn’t know I could love somebody as fiercely as I do, I also feel like it’s been so humbling that there are multiple times a day where I feel like I wonder what the right thing is to do for my son because I want to do right by him. Everybody says parenting doesn’t come with a manual. In some ways, that’s absolutely fabulous and in other ways, that’s absolutely terrifying. So I think Nate and I are just now reviewing the fullness and the chaos of raising a little soul who is so fabulous and sociable and sweet and quirky and fun and is otherwise known as my son. I feel like he teaches me every day. I feel like I learn something from Miles, if only to just be present in the moment and to be content in that. I feel like he teaches me that every day.

MR: God, it seems like all of these answers you’ve been giving are like precursors to new songs.

JW: [laughs] Well, who knows?

MR: Can I ask you a weird question, especially given the circumstances? Where would you like The Civil Wars to be next year?

JW: It’s so hard to forecast the future, so I won’t try to. But I will say that in my heart of hearts, I believe in the power of forgiveness, but it takes two. John Paul and I both burnt the bridges between us, so there’s no finger-pointing in what I’m saying right now. I really do hope there can be a chance to have a dialog that might allow for the band to really reconnect and set about to what we really do best, which is make music. So I would love to see that happen in the next year and in the mean time, I’m still playing my husband’s grandmother’s piano out in the back half of our home and I think being creative will also be a part of my next year, so I can keep that muscle strong. I hope in the next year that my son learns to speak in full sentences and I’ll be chasing him around parks and that my husband and I will be stronger for having gone through another year of living life together and being co-parents together and navigating this adventure known as life together. So I guess what I’m saying is restoration and family. That’s probably what I would say I hope for in the next year.

MR: And only good things can happen from here, I imagine.

JW: Yeah, I hope so. I hope that you’re right and I believe that you are. I think the best is yet to come.

MR: Nice. All right, Joy, it was really sweet talking with you again. It’s always a joy, you might say.

JW: Ha ha.

Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne