Photo: Shore Fire Media
Chan Marshall
Chan Marshall
Ever since she started writing songs under the Cat Power moniker 30 years ago, singer-songwriter Chan Marshall has gravitated towards music to inspire, heal, and make sense of life. That musical odyssey includes covering songs made by others. Earlier this year, she released her third album of covers, simply titled Covers.
“Most of us grow up with music being a real solid part of our life experience,” says Marshall during a recent phone interview. “I think that people that aren’t musicians do the same things that musicians do, which is always gravitate back to songs that they love throughout their entire life. Whether they play it on a record player or hum it in their car or just remember it or reminisce when they hear it on the radio or whatnot.
“For me, it just feels really like a normal cycle in a musician’s life, to gravitate back and through songs that have sort of created the temperance of who we are as artists or even people, because I think all people in the world, music is such a huge part of like a map of who we are, individually, in so many ways.”
She gets excited whenever cover crossovers happen, including when Otis Redding played a song by The Rolling Stones or Ray Charles sung one by John Lennon.
“I think crossovers tend to make people more interested because it kind of makes them happy, because it loosens the gap and it reflects society as a whole or moves boundaries,” she says. “And I think that’s why the cover is so special to so many, for so many years.”
The Art of Covers
The art of creating covers is an art form that she feels has lost some of its luster thanks to things such as big labels, MTV, and music videos.
“When MTV came out, it really obliterated the perspective of covers, because MTV created this platform for major record labels to very quickly sell,” Marshall says. “They could have like 20 artists on their roster per record label, and sell, very quickly, 10 to 20 million records every month, because of the platform of videos … That cycle killed the history of the cover normalcy, because producers needed money, record labels needed money, publishing companies needed new hits, record labels needed new stars. The machine kind of killed the music, in a way.
“Not the music but killed the community of music. Because covers, in my opinion, historically, were always pretty community. People were constantly covering each other's songs. Across oceans, with the folk movement and even with jazz, and the standards, crossing color boundaries and things like this, racial boundaries with blues and rock and roll … I think they were a legitimate way to communicate more freely in music.”
When she sets out to make a covers album, it’s either because she’s been playing the songs for many years or because in the moment she feels “inspired to give it a whirl” because she loves the song. The new album features a variety of covers spanning from the ‘40s to current times, including Frank Ocean’s “Bad Religion,” Lana Del Reys’ “White Mustang,” Bob Seger’s “Against the Wind” and Billie Holiday’s “I’ll Be Seeing You.”
“The wide variety is an example of how vast human reflections are,” she says. “It's just a reflection of how all kinds of music makes its way into all of our lives, whether we're musicians, recording artists or not.”
Birth of a New Song
That reflection—and the birth of her son Boaz—led her to covering a new version of her song “Hate” called “Unhate.”
“Hate” was the final song she recorded for her 2006 album The Greatest. At the time, she felt very suicidal during the writing of the album and previous albums. She says she “was struggling with mental health, extreme depression and PTS from childhood.” She never liked to play the song because it was specifically about suicide.
However, she revisited it again on her 2013 and 2014 solo tours. While touring Africa in 2014, she started feeling sick. At first, she thought it might be due to her autoimmune disease. Because of large amounts of stress, she says that “sometimes my body kind of attacks itself.” When she got back, she found she was actually pregnant with her son Boaz.
“I had to do a North American tour, European tour, and a South American tour, alone, with my guitar. And as I started to play these shows, I just stopped singing,” she says. “The framework of the song completely altered when I knew that my son was in my belly, that I was carrying a soul. And that's why that song, I chose to … play it live and record it, because it needs to be recreated, I felt.”
In the past two years, Marshall has had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with her now six-year-old son during pandemic lockdowns, including teaching him to read and write and do math. During the interview, like most typical rumbustious children, he started pestering his mother. She had a loving and somewhat humorous exchange with him, telling him to go to her bedroom to watch a “weird show about the secret mole” and that “you can’t get kids up there” and “no fighting, no adults.”
“It's spring break here, and we are having a difficult time trying to work,” she says afterwards.
Prior to her performance Friday, April 22 at Turner Hall Ballrooom, the Shepherd Express caught up with Marshall to discuss her recent album, new music prospects and a special Wisconsin music connection.
“I'll Be Seeing You” was a very personal song for you to cover. What was your inspiration for that one?
I had a friend pass away. He was a designer in New York City. I met him in the early ‘90s and his name was Benjamin Cho, and he had passed suddenly, about five years ago. And his sister and a couple of friends asked if I would sing a song or a couple songs with a friend of ours, Matt Sweeney playing guitar, and we came up with a few songs. And the one that I wanted to sing was that one because it's such a classically beautiful song. As sad as it is and as sad as the feelings were at that time, having all the friends together, having all of his friends together in one room and remembering Tompkins Square Park, our neighborhood, East Village, running around with him, and it was difficult. I could barely get most of the notes correctly out because I was sobbing. And that was really difficult.
A few years later, another very dear friend passed, Philippe Zdar, who mixed my album called Sun. And he's like another family member who passed. And with his wife, she asked if I would sing at his funeral in Paris, and so I sang the song to her and I held her hand and sang it to her. She said that’s the one I should do. There were other songs, but she said that that's the one. So then when I was there and I did that in Paris, it was different than Benjamin’s because, at Benjamins, I knew most of the faces. But here, I didn’t know a lot of the faces, I just knew a few, right? I knew his daughter, I knew his wife, I knew his best friend, I knew his sister. I was able to be more triumphant, in a way, I don't know how to describe it.
So, I wanted to put it on the record because everybody goes through that pain, the agony, and it feels nearly impossible to navigate the loss. It’s unspeakable. It’s really difficult to sum that loss, a special loved ones, human’s loss up in words, some words, some quick words. But that song, I feel like it stabilizes the loss enough. It puts its hand down on the loss enough so that you can see the reflection of all the other things about the person’s life, it really has like a prism effect. That song feels like you can see around the corners of memories. And it’s just a really beautiful song and I wanted it to help people … That loss never leaves us. The love is always there. So yeah, that song’s really important to me for many reasons.
What was the most challenging or surprising song to cover?
Cat Power "Covers"
“I Had a Dream Joe.” Good question. No one’s asked that. So, the first day we went to record, my guitar player and drummer, my friends, Alianna, the drummer, and Adeline, the guitar player, they had never recorded with me before on an album, as well as Erik Paparozzi.
So, the first day of recording for the Covers record, for covers, we went to a friend of mine's studio, Rob Snap. And I wanted them to get comfortable like I do. Whenever I go into any studio, I like to sit down every instrument. And I like to set up mics. Fiddle around, get the sounds right, get the amp right, get the correct couple vocal mics. Get the piano, the keyboard or whatever, play on the drums, make sure the right sound, the right tune, the right snare, the right symbol. Set up the mics, go through the EQ on the board, the compression. Make sure everything’s good. So, that's what I did with them. I said, “Come in, sit down, relax, tune your stuff. Play around, let’s see how you feel. We're just going to set up mics, me and Rob.”
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And after a while, they started to feel more like they were ready to record. Then I started, just off the top of my head. I had no idea I was going to do this, but it’s actually naturally what I do every time I record is I just start jamming on something. And I started composing and asking them to play. Started with Erik, keeping a certain tempo. Going double time at some point, then I brought Adeline in. Once Erik had that, asked her to play certain notes, certain style, certain, sustain this and that, and then moved to Alianna. Did the same thing. Went in the vocal booth, made sure we were rolling.
I had no idea what song I was going to cover with this music that I had just composed. I'm very relaxed, in the dark, in the vocal booth. I thought, “Well, maybe I could do, ‘Against the Wind’ by Bob Seger." And that was the first one I did. And then, when we recorded that, I jumped out and I said, “Hey, why don't you try playing this, try playing that, try doing this, try doing that.” And once they were up to speed, I jumped back in the vocal booth, and again, had no idea what song I was going to sing, because it was the Covers record and here’s a cool piece of music, what do I do? Something told me that the murkiness of the vibration made me think of “I Had a Dream, Joe.” So, I just got my smartphone with the lyrics and did that.
And then the last one was, I jumped out, asked Erik to jump on the upright base, had no idea what I was going to do. Got them to play what my brain was hearing. Making it up in my brain and then went into vocal booth. I had no idea and decided to do “Endless Sea” by Iggy Pop.
The most surprised was definitely “I Had a Dream, Joe” because never in a thousand lifetimes, would it ever come to my mind to set out to cover that song.
Have you been writing any new songs lately?
I wish. No. During the pandemic, my son, he didn’t like me to play music, because since he was a baby, he says, “I don't like beautiful music, mom, because it makes me sad,” and so I kind of gravitate to playing records for him more than I gravitated to do it. But there were sometimes when I had some moments to write songs again. But basically, I’ve just been trying to just take this time and all of this time to just really absorb myself into being mom. I wasn’t raised by my mom until I was like five and a half. So, I think there was a lot of that real sweet stuff that I think I ... I think it's important for children to have that closeness relationship with their parents, I mean, if they’re lucky enough to, et cetera.
So, I think just this whole pandemic and now he’s back in school and I’m getting ready to start tour, and his father's going to be watching him, looking after him while I’m away, when he's always, always, always has been on tour with me around the world. This is the first time where he is not going to be with me. He will at some points. But I think I’m just really focusing on the present, on being there for him and being happy and fulfilled in that way, not in making music at the moment.
Do you have any favorite things to do in Milwaukee?
I love Milwaukee. I love the mall there. There's an African American gallery there in that mall. There’s a really cool Black owned gallery there. It's huge. It looks like it would’ve been at one time like a major brand, like a major clothing brand, like it's tall ceilings, it’s massive. But anyway, amazing work in there from local artists. You should check it out. I don't know the name of the mall, but there's a food court, an escalator and all that kind of stuff. But it was right across the street from the hotel that I stayed at, so that’s why I went there. It was before my son was born. 2012, I guess. Anyway. If you ever happen to go to a mall in Milwaukee, ask if there’s a Black owned art gallery. And if there is, check it out. And the owner is beautiful. Very, very cool moment.
You have a special musical connection with Wisconsin in Judah Bauer. What was it like working with him, and how did he connect you to Wisconsin?
He's amazing person. He's one of my best friends forever. He’s like my brother. He’s been there for me, he saved my life when I was young, with when I was struggling with depression. And through meditation. He's from another time. But he's amazing.
We only played together once though, in his hometown, Appleton. We only got to play there once, the whole time we were together. And I was actually solo at the time, so I flew him in, and we met, and we basically played.
He, for years and years and years, when I was younger, I begged him to play with me and he’d say, “You're not good enough yet. You're not ready yet,” shit like that. It would piss me off, but he was right. I wasn't prepared to ... This is before I got sober, this is before I got therapy and stuff, which really, really, really, literally, saved my life, when The Greatest record had come out. And then I asked him to tour with me then, and it was a life changer playing with him.
And Jim White was the drummer, my old friend from the Dirty Three, from Australia. We had been friends since the ‘90s. I think, just because he and I understand music in a similar way, we were fans of blues. We don't like bullshit stuff. I know that sounds so lame to say, it sounds slightly antagonistic … Playing with him was one of the best times of my life. Probably the first time I'd ever been actually joyous and fulfilled, singing to people, was playing with him. The first time I ever felt that feeling, of feeling safe and joyous and powerful and comfortable, and was the first time, was when I played with him on The Greatest Tour.
Did you learn a lot about Wisconsin through him?
Some things. He was a paper boy, so I learned things about classical Americana from him in that way, because I grew up in the South, lived in different households. Moved around, sometimes three times a year. Just didn’t have a very stable upbringing. So, from him, I learned that sort of classical ... Even though his parents were both incredible artists and writers, philosophy, just very, very brilliant, interesting people, the background was just, from what he’s taught me about, it’s very like Americana, like he was the paper boy, he worked on a farm, he worked as a grave digger. Just a lot of different things that were sort of like the foundational Americana that I didn't actually grow up with. Those kinds of things. He introduced that it's not just from like “The Andy Griffith Show.” There are things like that, that are normal.
But I don’t know if that's all he taught me about Wisconsin. My favorite thing is the way he says Wisconsin. Probably my favorite thing about him is his accent. I can't imitate. It’s because his voice is so low. But it’s like a running joke, how much I love his accent. He’s just a cool dude. He’s the rock and roll sage, that's what they used to call him. And the indie rock people, all the college kids would call him the rock and roll sage.
But he's a purist about music. And it's hard to find somebody who knows what the hell they’re talking about, regarding like music history, American music history, and it’s beautiful. I mean, he really should become a professor, like blues professor, and retire in Wisconsin somewhere, and teach kids who want to learn about the blues. He just knows everything. He gets so excited about it, and not like in an aggressive, masculine ... There’s a lot of college music people, that get involved in real topical sausage party, I know this, I know that. Judah’s not like that. He genuinely wants to have a conversation about it. He doesn't want to quickly proclaim to know more than anybody. And that I find that disgusting, in the sausage party of like male rock fantasy, know it all bullshit, I can't stand it. But that’s also why I love Judah because he's not that kind of fellow. So, that's real amazing to have someone like that in my immediate family.
