Photo Credit: Ginger Fierstein
Even before the pandemic hit, Margaret Stutt aka Pezzettino learned some serious life-lessons that she continues to apply to her art and life. Currently residing in Oakland, CA, with a dozen albums to her credit and couniting, she continues to work with Milwaukee producer and multi-instrumentalist Allen Coté. Venus, a 10-inch record was released in May and is sold out, but still available digitally.
How has the lockdown affected your creativity?
Six years ago, I was clinically depressed with suicidal ideation, and felt devastated that I wasn’t writing or playing shows because that had been so central to my identity as Pezzettino.
My therapist at the time responded with a perspective that has stuck with me since: creativity is like farming. It’s not always harvest season. Sometimes there’s a time and place for the land to rest, to go through winter. And then spring will come along, and maybe you'll plant a seed, which might mean reading a book or appreciating art or gardening or experiencing life. Nurturing our soul. We water the fields and care for our craft sometimes obliquely, by engaging with material in ways that's not necessarily output.
So honestly, nine months into the lockdown, I think it’s too soon to know if it has impacted my creativity. With 12 albums under my belt, I know by now that there are periods when I think I’ll never write again and that never turns out to be true. I haven’t been writing much, but that's not necessarily unusual. I feel worse about my work when I force it. So, I'm practicing patience and focusing on the point of music to begin with: What is there to say? What is happening here? What's the point anyway?
Back to that therapist’s couch in 2016: Right after she told me about the farming metaphor, I went home and started writing instrumental music. Before then, I had been working on what could basically be called quirky folk pop. I think changing perspectives and expectations freed me up to do something new. Which in the end, can't be a bad thing. I worked on a few instrumental albums, and then wound up coming back to studio albums, for what I think is by far the best work.
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So, who knows what the result of living through a pandemic will be? I won't be surprised if it changes the sound of things down the road. I won't be surprised if there is more humility, gravity, and minimalism.
Pezzetino - "Home"
Do you have a routine or schedule for staying in practice or working on new material?
Heck no. You know, I tried that.
There seem to be two schools of thought. Structure vs. free form. Speaking of therapists, I once had a couples therapist, ditched the boyfriend but kept on the therapist as a writing coach. She was a published Zen author that taught writing at UC-Berkeley, she had a shiny shaved head and wore all white. Kind of a badass. I wanted to be like her.
But the practice she taught was to sit upright, in a certain position, at the same place, same time of day, and write only quality material. I tried it. I was miserable. I hated the writing, I hated myself. Now this is where it gets a little humorous... because my original therapist—yes, I love therapy, it's kept me alive and then some—said to me “You don't seem to be enjoying yourself. Maybe formal structure isn't your thing, and that’s OK.” So, I dropped the writing guru, but kept the Zen meditation.
This bag of bones may not like a writing schedule, but there does seem to be a trend over time. Typically, I’ll take notes in my phone or write in a journal or on a receipt, then stuff it away again. Then about a year will pass, and someone will say “Have you been writing?” to which I respond, “Not really.” But then a day or two later, or when I’m bored, or when I’m feeling like it would be really fun to record something, I will dig in my files and find all sorts of material that’s just been waiting to be molded into something. I like this extended marination process. It helps me trim the fat and keep the stuff that gets to the core of something. Circa 2010, I used to just write something and instantly make it a song and put it on an album.
Now I appreciate the test of time, to see if the writing still seems relevant to me even after the situation that inspired me passed. Then I'll either call up Allen Cote or some guys in California and say “Hey, wanna record?” and voila—another album is born!
Then the cycle starts over again with rest. Rest is a miracle. Doing nothing for a while, just watching the clouds or trees fade is really undervalued in my opinion.
Are you making plans for when you can resume playing in front of people again?
Heck no. I used to love doing shows, loved the adrenaline of it, loved the interaction and confrontation and conversation. Met some of my closest friends that way, was constantly on the road and pushing limits.
But I wore myself so thin that I had a psychotic break that required hospitalization in 2012. I’ve performed less than five shows since then, and I have to be honest with you, a hermitic lifestyle can be an excellent path for certain individuals. There’s less anxiety, less distraction, more tea, more sleep which translates to stability and a life that is more survivable for easily excitable, sensitive introverts.
It turns out that playing shows and touring is not necessarily the only way to be a respected musician. It’s wild to me that my recent albums have actually had broader reception, charting nationally on radio, being featured by Bob Boilen on NPR, etc., by doing less pavement pounding.
With less focus on shows and more attention on just trying to live a meaningful life day to day, I think there's more substance. When the time is right to write there's more concentrated energy because I'm not running around with my head cut off anymore. I'’ not saying that playing shows is bad as a musician. More power to the people that love it and make it a main priority. But there’s real merit to being homebound and doing less. I think what I'm trying to say is there are many ways to be creative, to be an artist, and it’s OK if your way may look different than others. It’s OK if you’re not being productive today, this week, month or year. Eventually tides change and you’ll be a different person with new perspective and a story to tell. Shout out to all my Emily Dickinsons out there.
