Photo credit: Amy Aiello
Chrissy Dzioba Clobes is a member of The Whiskeybelles along with Kimmy Unger and Sara Moilanen.
In a typical summer, country trio The Whiskeybelles would be busy performing at festivals around the Milwaukee area. As we know, this is no typical Summer. Front woman Chrissy Dzioba Clobes opened up about this upside-down season.
How has the lockdown affected your creativity?
“For the first month of lockdown I felt like I had lost all my creativity. My whole routine was turned upside down. I was now working from home at a pay cut, no longer going to rehearsals, let alone gigs, and my social life was now limited to my husband and our two one-year-old husky puppies,” says Dzioba Clobes.
“At 5 p.m. I would turn off my work computer, move to the couch and completely check out of reality while watching Tiger King and playing Candy Crush. Sometimes I would take a break to clean everything in sight or organize a drawer or a closet. This was not me, nor a life that I was used to. I could not pick up my guitar or sit down at the piano for a solid month.”
She adds that her husband, trombonist Michael Clobes, was the opposite and seemed more musically motivated than ever. He had been furloughed, but was making every effort to live stream performances, virtually collaborate with other musicians, and remained creative and active on social media.
“Eventually I was able to stop beating myself up about it once I accepted that I was an example of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,” she says. “The bottom of the pyramid consists of basic needs—food, water, air, shelter, sleep. Once those are met, we climb up to safety and security, then on to psychological needs like love and belonging, and it was not until the top of the ladder that included self-fulfillment needs and creativity. I was at the very bottom. Just trying to pay my bills, exercise, sleep and not get sick.”
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One night, everything changed. She went downstairs to check on Mike and pulled out her Selmer alto sax that had been in storage for the last decade. She was a classical piano major in college, and her secondary instrument was saxophone.
“We played a bunch of Lucky Chops charts together, and to my surprise, I could still sight read like a champ! This sparked my need for performing again, and I decided to throw myself a virtual birthday party by livestreaming a solo show.”
She says that after a few years of flirting with the idea, she and her husband and finally put together an Americana pop duo, Thieves of Hearts.
“The Whiskeybelles also live streamed two shows. I was back in action learning new material and practicing for virtual gigs! More importantly, my heart was in it again!”
Do you have a routine or schedule for staying in practice or working on new material?
“I continue to work from home for my day job, music publisher Hal Leonard. I work out during my lunch break so that I have an energy boost to practice after I am done with work. Lately, I have been working on new music and arrangements for Thieves of Hearts, and we are planning on recording and filming a music video of sorts.”
Dzioba Clobes says The Whiskeybelles are also going to start rehearsals soon now that Wisconsin has opened up and the band is playing out again. “Our plan was to learn a bunch of new material for our summer shows, but it is near impossible to rehearse over Zoom.
“I still need to devise a plan to make time for my own songwriting,” she continues. “I think I have a fear of interpreting my feelings, and so I am waiting for the world, myself included, to be in a better place. This may be the best time to do it because of the uneasiness of the pandemic and social change, but I need to get there in my own time. I’m just not ready to go down that dark path quite yet.”
Are you making plans for when you can resume playing in front of people again?
“We started playing out two weeks ago, and it is wonderful! We have been playing wineries, craft beer gardens and patio bars. I have never seen a more enthusiastic and genuinely happy crowd, and everyone is so thankful to enjoy live music and be around people again!”
She says that for safety measures, the band has blocked off their merch with flowery garland so that they can socially distance and have started selling their own Whiskeybelle hand sanitizer (made by bassist Sara Moilanen) called Cootie Juice.
“Because of COVID, we now have a clause in our contract that we require a private area away from the crowd, as well as our own bathroom if possible. We are also sticking to outside gigs for the time being,” she says.
“There is so much love and support from our friends and fans, and people are craving music and art more than ever. Now is the time for society to come together, even if it is six feet apart.”
To read about how other artists are beating COVID-19, click here.
To read more stories by Blaine Schultz, click here.
