Susan Werner Music Interview

Susan Werner interviewed by Eliot Bronson. 11/18/00 Additional commentary by Paul Iwancio.

BRONSON: I guess the most common sentiment that I hear about you is how you have such a diverse sound that defies categories. Is that something that you have to work on, or does that come naturally for you?

WERNER: The diversity thing makes for a really great show. It also makes for some real challenges in terms of putting a record together. So I've experienced both the up side and the down side of that. At some point you just have to be who you is, you know? And I'm happy to give a show that I know is interesting to people. You know, some people, you go see them and the first song, you kinda know what you're going to get from them for the next hour and a half. And that's certainly not the case with my show, but in terms of grooming a record to be a little more uniform, I think I'm getting a little smarter about how to do that. And the next record will have a coherence that previous ones haven't. And the record after that, I think will be all of a type. It will be all old songs. It will be all standards that I've written. All jazz standards that I've written. So, I'm beginning to group songs together in way to make a product that holds together better.

BRONSON: So, possibly at some point you'll have the jazz album, the folky album, the pop album?

WERNER: Right. You know, I'll still be diverse, but the projects will be more of a piece. The projects themselves, as individuals will be more of a piece.
BRONSON: And you had classical training, correct?

WERNER: Yeah, and what's the use of that? You know, I just wasted six years of my life; what was I thinking? I think that the one thing that was really of benefit was that I studied with a voice teacher in Philadelphia, who was all about words. No matter what you were singing, in German, French, Russian--he knew all of them, too, by the way--he would just catch you and say, "Say it like you're walking down the street." Say it like you're walking down the street, and it makes for performances that connect with people. Because that's what they're really hoping for, that you get up there and make word-sense, like you're talking to people. Yes, there happens to be pitch. Yes, there happens to be dynamic range. Yes, there happens to be rhythm. But, all that is incidental to your communicating with people. If you go from that out, you have an impact like people can't believe. They're stunned at it! Another one of his favorite sayings was, "Don't be musical." I love that one, because you hear people get up in front of an audience or get in from of a microphone and they are listening to themselves. They're making music that is impressive to themselves, they're really deeply moved by what they're doing; isn't that nice. But, again it has no connection with the listening audience. And he would say, "Don't be musical," to counter act that. He basically busted my ass. [laughs] And it was of great benefit.

BRONSON: Did that change in how it applied to when you were doing opera, as opposed to the type of music you're doing now?

WERNER: No, it applies in all genres and with all great singers. All great singers communicate. People say, "Barbara Streisand, what a great voice." What Barbara Streisand is really about is singing the words; that's why it kills you. That's why, if her material is bad, you really feel bad for her; she's such a skilled communicator. Tony Bennett, great communicator. Frank Sinatra, great communicator! Very feel people pay attention to that. People talk about his phrasing, you know, the great voice. He really was making sense of the sentence as it went by. Almost like Tom Brocaw reading the news. The words made sense to you, and that's why it has such impact.

BRONSON: So, there's a difference between having a great voice and being a great singer.

WERNER: Absolutely! To me there is. Absolutely.

BRONSON: You did what to be an opera singer?

WERNER: I wanted to be a recitalist. I wanted to sing recitals. I was never big into opera. I always thought it was a bit much, frankly, with horns and tin bras. But, I liked recitals because it was on a smaller scale. It was a piano, it was you, and the material was more like a very small painting, instead of being so cinematic. Opera was just so overblown to me. And I like tiny things, I like miniatures, I like small things.

BRONSON: So, when did the change come about and why?

WERNER: When I was about twenty-four I took some auditions in the world of classical music, and I just wasn't good enough. Frankly, I just wasn't good enough. And, it was hard and hard to accept, but its like training for the Olympics. I mean, the people who have a career in the world of classical music are so spectacularly talented. It really is like the Olympics. I mean, imagine that you have a talent-- you can swim really fast. Oh, that's great, you can swim really fast. Everybody thinks you're really really great. Then you get to the Olympics trials and you realize that you're... you know... you're nobody.

BRONSON: Yeah, they've been training these people since they were...

WERNER: Training these people since they were wee tiny. And then some of them just have a natural talent. Some people are just born with huge voices. What are you going to do?

BRONSON: Right. So then, what's the biggest difference between that world and the world you're in now?

WERNER: I had a friend from University of Iowa, who went on to sing at the MET, come to my show at Fez in New York last year. I went to see her the night before, sing in the Magic Flute. And she was great. And she came my show, and we talked afterward. And she said, "I wish I was doing what you're doing." And I did not have that to say to her, oddly enough. And she said, "I wish I were doing what you're doing, because you're writing the material. So you always have something fresh to sing." She said, "Magic Flute, well that been set in stone for what now, two hundred years?" You can't change notes, you can't... there's not a lot of room. So it gets dusty fast, in the world of classical music. And no dust collects in my career, because I’m always jettisoning things, and bringing in the thing I just thought of yesterday. And that vitality, I just love that about this career and about my colleagues who are always bringing in new things too.

BRONSON: How then does this classical background, and your some jazz background, consciously affect the way you write your songs. Or is it conscious?

WERNER: I can't say it consciously affects it. And anymore, I'm trying to get more and more unconscious.

BRONSON: Do you have some type of a process though, for writing?

WERNER: I have a routine. I'll unplug the phone even before I go to bed at night. Then when I get up in the morning I'll just write for the first four or five hours of the day. Make coffee and just write and write and write. Walk around if I get stuck. Throw a super ball against a wall. Chain smoke. You know, whatever it takes.

BRONSON: Everyday?

WERNER: When I'm home. I try to give myself a weekend. Like Monday, I won't work on Monday. Because, as a touring musician you work on weekends a lot. So, Monday is your day off. And I try to honor that or else you go crazy and you hate your job. You become a workaholic. Everybody has to find ways of honoring that in their career. So, I don't work Mondays. Tuesday I'll get up and I'll write for the first few hours of the day. Then once I put in the phone, if I'm going to talk to my manager or at three or three-thirty, that's the end of it, then its over. Once I talk to somebody the spell's broken. And, I'm not telling you its such a magic trance, you all should be songwriters, but I am saying that once you talk to somebody, you've sort of taken the impulse to write away, because now you're talking, now you're just giving it away, instead of making yourself form it into a song.

BRONSON: But you can sit down, and allot yourself this time to write and you can shut your internal critic off?

WERNER: Right, its work. Because I know I'm going to be done at three. It wont last forever. It won’t last forever, and just you say, "At three o'clock I'm going to stop." You put on the coffee and you drink coffee and you... whatever you have to do, you just do it.

BRONSON: So it’s a discipline, like anything else?

WERNER: Right, but I wouldn't say I chain myself to the chair. Some people do that, I would not do that. I mean, I'll get up and go to the porch if I'm stuck. But I just don't talk to people. That's the big one. Don't talk to people.

BRONSON: It’s as simple as that.

WERNER: Yeah. It really helps not to talk to people.

BRONSON: I can see why. And having your own space where you feel comfortable creating in.

WERNER: Yeah, and in my case I feel like I have to go really fast. And it’s hard to come out of that. That's the hard thing, when you want to talk to people and be a human being. That's hard, it takes a little while to come out of that.

BRONSON: Do you do this instrument in hand? Guitar, piano, whatever it might be?

WERNER: Yeah, I have the guitar in the kitchen and if I need to go use the piano, I'll go in the office and use the piano. Mostly I have a typewriter. I sit at the typewriter, just type out lyrics. I mean sheets of failed lyrics.

BRONSON: And not a computer, a typewriter?

WERNER: No, a typewriter. I like it because it clicks loud. And just sheaves of paper. I'm a one woman wrecking crew for north of Wisconsin.

BRONSON: As far as the types of songs you write. I'd say you have at least a few songs that are of social conscience. I wonder, when you write those types of songs, how do you find the balance between staying true to your conscience and hitting people over the head, or being too preachy.

WERNER: That's a good question because right now I'm writing a song that I think rides that line. Its important to let the song finish itself, and not hurry to complete a song. Something telling me right now that this song is a little too much. So I have to just let the song sit.

BRONSON: So, I guess you won't be playing it tonight?

WERNER: I won’t be playing it tonight, and I wanted to. I stayed up late last night trying to finish it. I really wanted to do this song tonight, and it’s just not ready. And, you just have to wait. You kind of have a sense, if you listen to yourself, you have a sense. You know, you know where the lines are. Like, " Oh, this is going to be too much for people."

BRONSON: Are there ever times when you just don't care and you want to deliberately cross the line?

WERNER: Shock people?

BRONSON: Well, maybe just make a statement that you think will definitely offend some people, but that's OK?

WERNER: Yeah, there are songs already that I do. Especially a funny song. Because I know there'll be some line that I'm going to get some nasty mail about. So, that fringy 1%, I can't help them. I can't help them. I don't need to help them. In terms of trying to shock people... maybe I should shock people more. But, that's not my big assignment in life I have to tell you. I know other people have been given that assignment.

BRONSON: Some people HAVE been given that assignment. [everyone laughs]

WERNER: I have not so far received that assignment. Offend... sure, offend by accident. Offend by intent... some of that, you know, you're just trying to get the spotlight to turn to you.

BRONSON: But, if you're staying true to what you believe then maybe its not a question of offending, but just being honest?

WERNER: Right... Do you want ask another question about exactly that? Why don't you rephrase that because there is something you want to ask. Or there is something you're asking me that I want to talk about, but I can't figure out what it is.

BRONSON: Ok. Well, it seems like you have a definite message that is important, and people should hear. But, you write some songs in such a way that you start out with a great melody and you hook people in, and they aren't sure where you're going with it. Then a few lines into it you start hitting them with a couple really important issues, that they should think about.

WERNER: Little jabbers.

BRONSON: I think that that is tough for a lot of artists. Some people just go right off the cuff and say, "the world is messed up and... bla bla bla." Or they don't at all. And I think that that line is really powerful place to be when you can kind of put the medicine in with the apple sauce, so to speak.

WERNER: That's well put. All you should do as a songwriter is present that kind of material as you would present it if you were talking with a friend. Would you hurry right in and say, "Hi, how are you tonight, Paul; by the way I think the Republican National Convention is really fucked up?" Do you know what I mean? Would that be your opening line? Probably not. It wouldn't be mine. We'd come to it some other way. Be consistent with who you would be if you were talking.

BRONSON: Of course you are going to temper some of your comments to strangers as opposed to your close friends.

WERNER: Maybe, but part of what we hope for when we go see an artist is, we hope that they're going to talk to us like someone who's in their circle. Otherwise, we don't go see them.

IWANCIO: It’s like the whole conversational way of approaching singing or songwriting.

WERNER: Some people are much more stylized. When I write the standards I'm a little more stylized. And that's interesting to me to do that. I can't deny that’s interesting to me to do that. There are a couple different Suzzies at work actually, I guess in a show. I hope that's OK with y'all.

BRONSON: Well, how about when you write a funny song? Do you have to get into a different place than you would to write a really heartbreak song?

WERNER: I'm trying to think... I wrote a less than completely serious song yesterday, and how did that happen? You have to be willing to be amused. You have to be willing to be amused, yourself. You have to be willing to crack yourself up. You know how you're friends will say to you, "You're cracking yourself up." Well, you have to be willing to do that. I mean, be a little crazy. And you sit there and you make yourself laugh. If someone would see you writing, they would think you were nuts. And that's OK, you have to be willing to be a little nuts.

BRONSON: Do you set out with the intention of writing a certain type of song?

WERNER: I do have a general direction I'm trying to go with this next record, so I am trying to write songs that are somewhere within the realm of... somehow on target. There is a general sense of a target. I'm trying to write within range of that. If I go too far afield from that... it either has to be a standard that's going to fit another project, or I just let it die on the vine anymore. So, I am to some extent, trying to steer the machine.

BRONSON: So, you obviously put a lot of work into writing. You seem to have a great stage presence, a great show. Do you put as much effort into the actual performance, as you would into each song?

WERNER: I think about what I'm going to sing. And I think about what order I want to sing the songs in. I've had a lot of training as a performer. So, at this point a lot of that comes together just from habit. Its like an athlete or something... and I would never say that's me. But, something about having just trained these skills. At this point in the show, I'm now going to execute these skills. Ok, I know I can call on myself to do it and it will work out fine.

BRONSON: Are you moved in certain directions by feeling the mood of the audience?

WERNER: I may make some substitutions, as the show goes on, but anymore I'm learning something-- and I've learned this from Janis Ian, I've learned this from a couple other people. The show really comes from you out, not the audience in. The show has to be the things I want to say tonight. I'm learning to be a little stronger in that regard. This is what Suzzie has to say tonight. Not necessarily what will please you all. You know, I could do that. I could win doing that too. Do you know what I mean? I could win, but it would be an easy win. Its tougher to come from you out and say what it is you have to say.

BRONSON: So you take a bigger chance, and you can gain more that way too?

WERNER: If it works, everybody really feels like we really went somewhere. You did something. You took a risk. And people know the difference too.

BRONSON: So are you working on something new? You're writing all these new songs. Do you have a project coming out?

WERNER: We're waiting for the green light from the record company, and mostly we're waiting for the record company to get organized. They're going through a buy right now. So, the delay isn't so much on my end anymore. We'll see how long it takes them to get in order.

BRONSON: So, no projected dates yet.

WERNER: I'd like to say soon. Hopefully sooner than later. No one could be more tired of waiting than me.

BRONSON: What artists are you listening to these days?

WERNER: ...I just bought the Harry Smith folk anthology... I've be listening to that... what else? Mingus. I'm going through a Mingus phase... and what else? ...that’s it.

BRONSON: Can you imagine what you might be doing, if you weren't doing music?

WERNER: Medicine.

BRONSON: Any particular type?

WERNER: I'm not sure, but medicine is where its at. The sciences are where it's at.
IWANCIO: Do you read a lot?

WERNER: I do. I'm actually reading, for the first time in my life, I'm reading some Virginia Woolf. Can you believe that, I'm thirty-five and I've never read Virginia Woolf.

BRONSON: Ok, last question. Any advice for our songwriters back in Baltimore.

WERNER: [laughing] And across the globe... our listening audience. Yes. Put yourself at risk. I'm trying to think who was it who said... Robert Frost, did he say, "Make the poem save you." Make the song save you. Put yourself at risk, and that's where all the big rewards come from. Put yourself at risk musically. Do things that scare you. Do things you can't really do. And put yourself at risk emotionally. Just stay scared. Stay scared.

	Time Between Trains ~ Susan Werner
	Last of the Good Straight Girls ~ Susan Werner
	Live At The Iron Horse Vol. One [LIVE] ~ Susan Werner, plus various artists

Visit Susan's personal page at - http://songs.com/susan