Interview: Aimee Mann
By John Wenzel | October 9th, 2009 | No Comments »
Aimee Mann is taking requests from her entire solo catalog on her current, stripped-down tour. Just don’t be surprised if she forgets some of the words.
Grammy-winner and former Til Tuesday singer Aimee Mann has long been known for her literate, subdued folk-pop that occasionally borders on uncomfortably intimate. She’s upping the ante on her current, regional mini-tour, which finds her playing with a duo of keyboard players and nothing else.
We talked to Mann from her L.A. home in advance of her Wednesday show at the Boulder Theater, which Mann promises will span her solo career in its set list. And, as she notes, don’t be afraid to request a song if the feeling strikes you.
Is this the second leg of the tour behind your 2008 album “@#%&*! Smilers”?
Not really. It sort of felt like the “Smilers”-specific touring was all last year and this is a slightly different show because I’m doing a trio. It’s me and my two keyboard players and we kind of trade off instruments between the three of us.
So it’s obviously pretty stripped-down.
It’s actually really fun. I love doing it. It’s not really focused on new material but the songs from all my solo records.
Are you trying to give it a different feel than an album-specific tour?
Actually, what I did was something I never do, which is listen to all my records to kind of make lists of songs that I thought would be interesting or work in this configuration. I also did it just pick songs that, not that I’d forgotten about them, but sometimes you listen to something and go, “Oh, that’s pretty good. I almost forgot about that.” I tend to develop prejudice against certain songs because they’re hard to sing or in a difficult key. So I tried to just listen to them and see if I thought they were good songs, especially songs we haven’t played very much. Obviously there’s the ones that I think people will know but I wanted to hit some songs that weren’t the usual ones that we’ve put into the set.
Where did the idea for this set-up come from?
I’ve just known these guys (Jebin Bruni and Jaime Edwards) for awhile and they’re amazing players. I’ve played live and recorded with those guys. Actually, all last year the “Smilers” tour was two keyboard players and no electric guitar, so I knew that we could come up with something really interesting.
Do you feel like you’re still doing the songs justice?
Well, we also try to double up on some things. We try to use a little percussion and we have a bass. I play bass on a couple of songs, or the guys will play bass. We have keyboards, bass and a little drum machine on a couple things. It’s just to keep it interesting without having a million elements.
It must be fun to get out of the usual arrangements of songs you’ve played hundreds of times before.
It’s more fun that way. And half the show I’ve been doing all requests, so that makes it fun to because there’s no planning for it. I just have to make a decision within five seconds of who’s gong to play what or who knows the songs, because sometimes only one person knows the chords. (laughs) It’s entertaining for us, anyway.
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