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Caitlin Cary

By Alex Teitz and Karen Weis

FEMMUSIC: Can you describe your songwriting technique?

CC: Oh, boy. Well, it's different. I probably have 2 or 3 different ones. The best songwriting technique is to wait to be a lightning rod and have a whole song fall out, which has happened maybe 5 times. (laughs) Those are always the very best songs. They just sort of pop into your head. But barring that, I think I tend to work…well, I don't play guitar or piano so I don't work from the chords out. I always have to start with either a melody or words. And I think it's probably about half and half. Probably more words than melody but if I come up with words, I have to quickly attach a melody to it and then call myself and put it on my answering machine so that I remember it, or write little notes to myself that go "la-di-da-di-da" that I hope I'll be able to interpret later. I can read music, but I don't know how to write music. So that's another way. And then I do, as you can tell probably from looking at the record, I do a lot of co-writing, and that has all kinds of different permutations too.
   Like sometimes I'll just have words and send them off to Mike Daly or someone else, and have them write the music, and then get it back and make some...personalize it a little bit. Or other times I'll have just the chorus and Mike and I will work together on the verses. So I write in a lot of different ways; there's not really any 1 thing that I've struck upon that works every time, for sure. And it's sort of a challenge for me. I have to find a patient soul, once I've got the grain of a song, who's willing to sit there with guitar or keyboard and hash out what the chords are. So I'm always beholden to someone. Even if I write the song myself, they have to sit there and figure out how it goes. (laughs)

FEMMUSIC: What was the biggest challenge making While You Weren't Looking?

CC: In some ways, the biggest challenge was finding the record deal that would allow me to get the money to actually make the record in a real way. For probably anybody's first record, it's kind of like this. You get the idea, and then you have to figure out how to make your idea work. It's like starting a business. I'm sure that everyone's first record is kind of like this, where I was having to work…
   I'm really lucky to have Chris Stamey, who was really interested in the project, and willing to commit time on spec, you know, not getting paid. When he had a hole in his schedule, I'd drive to Chapel Hill and we'd work for a couple days at a time. Sort of the piecemeal thing, and in some ways that was really good cause every couple of days or weeks you'd get good distance on it, and go off, sort of like when you're trying to solve a crossword puzzle and the best thing to do is put it down and you think of the answers, or you come back and it looks new. So in some ways that was a good thing.
   But once I finally had-it took me a good solid year and a half of thinking I had this record deal, or thinking I had a record deal and then it would fall through. So finally we got the Yep Roc deal and got money to go and record the way I wanted to record and the way Chris wanted to record, which was to make it more or less a live record. In other words, the band played all the songs and then you go in and add to it, rather than this kind of piecemeal thing. And I think the record definitely benefited from me being able to do that, having working on it so long from afar, to have 6 days in a real nice studio and a band, to play the songs like they meant it. I think it's a good record, a BETTER record than it would have been if we hadn't been able to do that.

FEMMUSIC: What was the best experience making the album?

CC: Oh gosh, well it's like I said, it stretched over so much time it's kind of hard…certainly the recording part was a treat. The 6 days that I mentioned, we went to place called The Fidelitorium, which is Mitch Easter's studio out in Kernersville, and it's an absolutely beautiful studio. It's sort of small and humble in a way, not as deluxe as some of the places that I had recorded with Whiskeytown, but it's really well designed. A friend of ours designed studios, and it was one of his first projects. So I guess that 6 days, where you get…it feels like your cotillion or something. Maybe that's not a good analogy, but 6 days all about you and your songs, and everybody who's there is there because they're working on your effort. And there's nothing like that, it's really different from playing a show or, you know, getting to do interviews. It's a great honor to get to do that, and have great people and a great place to make a record. So I guess that would have to be my answer to that question.

FEMMUSIC: I was wondering how it was working with Chris and how you found Chris.

CC: Chris was a supporter of Whiskeytown from way, way back. He would record us whenever we were doing demos, he was there. Unfortunately he wasn't there when we made Faithless Street which was absolutely the most haphazard recording. We went out to this crazy place, and recorded with this crazy drug-addled guy, and it was fun and whacky, but…From that point on, Chris was always there when we were trying to demo or whatever, and he helped us a ton with pre-production on all of our records. So that's the answer to that.
   When I finally decided I had worked up the guts to make a solo record, all I had to do was call him and he immediately…even though at that point I didn't really have that many songs, I didn't really have a clear idea of what I wanted. I wanted to make a record, and he was totally game for it. So working with him has been just great. He's fantastic, and committed, and did a ton of stuff for free. He helped me with writing and definitely a lot with arranging. He wouldn't very often make suggestions about lyrics and melodies, but certainly "we need the chorus to comer around again here" or "we definitely need a bridge". He's an amazing vocal coach-vocal coach is the wrong word. I think the hardest thing a producer has to do is put in words, you know, just sort of a dancing to architecture thing. "OK, you're not singing this right," but that doesn't help you very much. And with playing too, telling you in concrete ways how to improve your performance. And he's real nurturing and really frenetic. His energy is fun to pick up on; he's just a ball of energy. I'd go and feel tired and not feel like working, and as soon as you get around him, BAM! You're there. He's an underrated genius, I think.

FEMMUSIC: One thing that sort of struck out for me when I was reading through all the material was that prior to Whiskeytown and everything else, you were looking at pursuing fiction. I was wondering how the change came about and do you still write in that capacity?

CC: The change came about completely by accident, as you I guess have read in the bio. I sort of thought I would have something fun to do on the weekend, and all of a sudden I was riding around in a tour bus. And it all felt like partly like an exciting whirlwind, and partly like I was being drug around by my hair in the sense that I'd never wanted, I'd never had a rock and roll fantasy in my life, but yet was having opportunities that you can't…you know, 'You wanna play on Austin City Limits?' 'Naah, I think I'll go sit in my room and write stories instead.' You can't say no to these things.
   And again this was sort of the carrot of fame that was always in front of Whiskeytown's nose. We were constantly being told that we were the next big thing, which is what they tell everyone. (laughs) I have found out since. I'm a much more jaded little starlet now. (laughs) But to me at that time, it all felt, you know, I wasn't all that young. Compared to Ryan I was this old lady but at 25 and 26, I was still pretty susceptible. Especially since I didn't know anything about it. All this glitz and promises. It was hard not to believe. I think I'm getting off track again. I don't really write stories anymore, and I think graduate school was a big lesson, yet another lesson in what I didn't want to do with my life, which we've all had a few of, I imagine. I learned really quickly that I didn't want to be part of academia. I was a straight A student in all my coursework, and teacher of the year award in my TA-ship and stuff like that, but I always sort of felt like a fraud and that same thing kind of happened with writing stories. It's like something that you have to be so good at, and it's such a competitive…
   I don't know if you've gone through the sending out submissions to literary magazines or whatever, but it's just basically an exercise in rejection, over and over again. And I think I discovered that I wasn't really all that good. It's a sad thing that people have to figure out. But I think you either are or you aren't of that caliber. And I wrote a few really great stories but I didn't really turn out to be an author. And then that's something that's a hard thing to come to terms with. And I think that I might write again in a few years.
   I also felt like I was, often times even if I was fictionalizing I was writing autobiographically, and so about every 5 years I'd go through a spurt of having a lot to write about, and then I'd write all that and there wasn't anything else. So I think songwriting is, I'm sure I use a lot of the tricks or skills or whatever you want to call it that I learned as a story writer, but it feels rally like a different discipline. And in some ways it's just different enough that it doesn't beat me down. It's more like making things than writing is. What I truly am is sort of like a craft person. I like to knit, I embroider things, I draw and paint and pound on things, and I feel somehow that songwriting is more akin to that. It's more of a craft, whereas writing is more of something that I always felt compelled that I have to be perfect at it, and that kind of thing is just too high a calling for me.

FEMMUSIC: What one thing would you like to change about the music industry itself?

CC: I think I would like for the music industry to be more like a regular job. I think that it's structured so that people get made promises to that can't be kept and it's very, very hard to make a living and you don't get health insurance and you don't get a regular paycheck. You get paid when you're on the road maybe, or you get paid when your record comes out and it sells some, but then if it dies down…it needs to be a JOB, and artists need to be treated as valuable employees. It might be sort of a socialist idea, but spread the money around a little bit so this profession can be something that the people who are talented-and that's where it breaks down; it's almost impossible to imagine how that would work--but it certainly seems like its kind of unfair that you're expected to go on tour and give up everything, but you don't get paid and you don't get health insurance. So I guess that's the one thing. I guess that's sort of a selfish artist-centric thing. I should be saying "more great music should be exposed" but from my point of view right now, that's my take on it.

FEMMUSIC: As a woman in the music industry, have you been discriminated against?

CC: I think yes, that in the sense that based on my little microcosm model, I think that men have a much easier time getting away with behaving like rock stars and having all their needs catered to. My friend Tonya from Hazeldine always said that the boy bands always got to play the longer set, and the girls were expected to say, "Oh, we don't care. You guys go ahead, fine." So I think that there's definitely, maybe it's not the expectation of people that women will be more sort of responsible and reasonable and flexible and not demanding, you know? It's hard to be bitchy enough and Chris Stamey, actually in that No Depression article, said, "Caitlin oftentimes is not mean enough, as mean as she needs to be in this business. " So maybe it's a failing of women, but maybe it's not, who knows? So that might not be a direct answer to your question but I certainly do feel like, having seen it from the vantage point of having a male lead singer who could just about get away with anything and come out smelling like a rose, I can't imagine that any or many women could get away with that kind of thing. (laughs) Cause we're expected to be pretty responsible. And especially pretty, which is a whole 'nother answer to that question. (laughs) I don't have a bellybutton that will be appearing on a monitor anytime soon.

FEMMUSIC: What advice would you give to someone just starting out?

CC: Read a bunch of books about the music business. Make yourself as educated as you can be. Keep all your receipts. Hire yourself a good accountant and a good lawyer. And set a timeline. I've been thinking a lot about this lately, with my friend Mike Daley, who sometimes gets really frustrated because he's worked so hard and there's no reward. And then I say, we all have to be fatalistic about this. It's such a crapshoot, whether you're going to be actually able to make a living in this business. And starting with making the best music and the most real music that you can, starting there, then set a timeline for how long it is that you can stand to be really poor, and stick with it and give it your best shot. I think people tend to have these expectations. There's good days and there's bad days. One day you'll get all kinds of good news, you know, "Rolling Stone's" doing a feature on you and blah blah blah blah, and the next day, it's your record label doesn't want to pay for a van, and you didn't get added to this radio station, and somebody gave you a bad review. You just have to decide how long you can handle it, and keep your options open for when you decide you can't handle it anymore. And keep the music sort of separate from your desire to have a career in music. Music has to be you and you have to know that you'll keep doing it even if it doesn't pay, you know? That's the Gillian Welch thought. (laughs)

FEMMUSIC: After the Whiskeytown experience, how does it feel finally getting ready to go on tour with your own material?

CC: Oh, it's a thrill, its definitely I'm almost packing my bags, I'm so excited about going. And I'm not somebody who likes to go on tour, I'm a natural born homebody. I hate just about everything about touring except for playing shows, which I love.
   I hate staying in hotels, I hate eating shitty food, I hate hanging out in a bar for 6 hours and trying not to drink too much. It's all just kind of hellish. People romanticize it, and think, "You know, you get to see the whole country!" and I tell them, "You get to see the inside of a van, and some scenery, and the inside of a club and maybe a restaurant." You don't often get to do what you want to do. I remember being on the bus, begging the driver to stop so I could get out and look at the plants in the desert. And it was like, "Nope, no time, can't do it. " (laughs)
   But doing my own songs is basically about…it's not even so much that they're my songs. It's about that I'm in control of whether it's going to be good or not, and I don't have to feel like "Oh god, what if tonight's going to be another of those famous Whiskeytown debacles?" It's not going to be, cause I don't do that. That was never me. I appreciated it sometimes and had fun with it when I could, but most of the time I always felt embarrassed and apologetic to people who had paid to see us and gotten a monitor thrown in their face or whatever it was. So it's very exciting to be up front and it's something I've had to figure out whether I could do. It's really interesting. It's totally again, it's sort of like the difference between being a short story writer and a songwriter. It's again, the difference between being the sideman and the front girl is astonishing. It's something I could have easily failed at. Thank god I didn't, I found out that I could do it. Maybe with not quite the panache that Ryan does, but…(laughs) I do all right. I haven't gotten booed off the stage yet or anything.

©  FEMMUSIC 2002

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