This post brings the first of what I hope will be a regular feature on the [tk] review: interviews with some of the very talented female songwriters working today, discussing their music, their lives, and especially their ways with words. Last week I chatted with Alela Diane, a wonderful Portland-based folk musician whose albums include Alela Diane & Wild Divine (2011), To Be Still (2009), and The Pirate’s Gospel (2006). Alela graciously answered some of my questions about the album she’s just started recording; her hometown of Nevada City, California; and the word “stumble.” And she shared some useful advice for late-blooming musicians like myself: “Work with what you can do.”

I feel really lucky to be talking to you this week, because I know you started recording a new album on Tuesday. I did, yeah. Totally.

Are you back in Nevada City for that? No, I’m in Portland.

Oh, that’s interesting. Is this the first album you’ve recorded in Portland? Well, I started recording To Be Still in Portland, but then I did most of it down in Nevada City at my dad’s studio. So this is kind of the first one that I’m really going to be doing here, which is nice.

Is that a really different experience? So far, yeah. I’m liking it because I’m at home and I can just kind of go over there and it’s just not a big ordeal. It’s not like I’m having to really plan two weeks at a time to be down there and be recording. It’s much more leisurely because I live here. And so we’re just going to book some dates here and there and just take it really kind of casual.

When Alela Diane & Wild Divine was released, you said in several interviews that you wanted a bigger sound and you wanted to be the frontwoman in a band. But from the photo you posted on Facebook and from the comments there, it seems like this is going to be more of a return to the minimal sound of you and your guitar. It seems like that’s what’s happening, and it’s always interesting. I did want to be in a band, and I needed to try doing that. And it was awesome, and it was awesome through the last tour, and I really enjoyed doing that. But I started writing new songs, and they weren’t band songs. And there was nothing that I could do about that. And it just became very obvious that the songs were really delicate, and really just wanting to kind of be left alone in a lot of ways. So I think it’s important to recognize that, and just treat the songs that way. It wasn’t really a conscious decision, it was more just like, Oh, OK, well, these songs are really pretty sad. (Laughs.) I wasn’t playing a lot of guitar on the last record, and I just, I don’t know, something happened and I kind of just started getting back to my roots and pushing myself to try new things on the guitar. It’s just what ended up happening and it really took me by surprise, but I think it’s important to just kind of roll with it. And I think that my fans would appreciate that as well. People have kind of gone along with me on my journey to experience different sounds and try new things. But at the same time I’ve gotten a lot of feedback that says people really enjoy my music when it’s really delicate and when it’s just me and the guitar. So there’s something to be said for that.

And how does it feel to get back to the guitar? It’s really nice. I think that I needed some distance from it. It’s been good. Last year when we were touring, I was still playing guitar. We were playing older songs in there. There was a handful of the songs on the last record that were being driven by my guitar-playing. So I was really in practice just from having toured a lot last year. And it was nice to start writing on the guitar again, because most of the last record I worked a lot on the piano, even though I don’t really play piano. But it was more of a tool to kind of find chords. So it’s good to be back on the guitar.

How do working on the piano and the guitar differ? I find different things on each instrument. With the piano, it’s just kind of all laid out. And so all of the notes are just sitting there in front of you and you can kind of figure out where to go based on that. But the guitar is—for me at least—a lot more mysterious. Because I don’t really have a background in music theory. I really don’t know what I’m doing in technical terms. So with the guitar, it’s much more intuitive, or it’s just kind of like stumbling upon things that I think sound nice.

Something else you said on Facebook was that this album would be a collection of “melancholy songs that reflect on the past decade” and you also just said that these are delicate songs. Is it too early in the album’s life to talk about that, or can you give me a sense of what you were thinking about when you wrote these songs? Well, without going too much into detail, it’s just a time in my life of—basically, I realized I graduated from high school, this will be my ten-year, I think there’s going to be a reunion or something, I doubt I’m gonna go, but it’s like, Whoa, it’s been ten years since I’ve been on my own and kind of been an adult. And I got to thinking about that and I wrote a lot of the lyrics while we were touring. I just started thinking about all these really bizarre things that have happened in my life in the past ten years, and just different weird summers or just little glimpses of moments that are very long gone now, but kind of reflecting on those and writing about them. So half of the songs are kind of that vibe of really digging deep and going back to, like, Oh yeah, that really sucked when my heart got broken the first time. Like, I’m over it now, but, wow, just thinking about that is intense, and, you know, writing about it or whatever. And then, currently in my life, things are definitely in flux and I really have no idea what’s going on. I’ve been writing about that. I’ve been writing about what’s going on currently. And without letting the cat out of the bag completely, ‘cause I really don’t know what’s going on in my life, it’s a really intense, weird time of transition. And so there’s a lot of songs that are kind of just me processing that whole intensity of, like, Wow, I don’t know what the fuck’s going on. OK. (Laughs.) So yeah, the songs are kind of heavy. They’re sad. They’re full of very intimate and confessional and—it’s just kind of putting it all out there. So it’s a little scary, actually. (Laughs.)

That also sounds exciting. Yeah, totally.

Does your music career occupy a big space in these songs, or are they really about change and relationships? Yeah, it’s more personal changes and really taking a good look at myself and my life and what I want in my life and where I’m going. There’s a lot of things that are probably changing, feel like they’re changing. It’s just a transitional time and it’s pretty heart-wrenching. So I’ve been processing all of that through writing songs, which when I first started writing songs that’s what I would do as well. When I was twenty is when I started writing songs and during that time, my parents were getting a divorce and I had moved out on my own for the first time and all of those really intense life changes are what had initially caused me to start writing songs. So it’s a very different time now but it feels very similar to that time of big changes happening and using songwriting as a way to kind of get it off my chest or process it.

That’s really interesting. So you’re sort of going full circle, in some way. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Weird. (Laughs.)

This sort of goes back to what we were talking about before, recording in Portland. I saw in another interview that when you record in your father’s studio in Nevada City you uncover the window to connect with nature and the outdoors. I was wondering what sort of conditions you look for when you’re writing songs, if you have any particular needs or spaces that you like to work in. Well, for me writing usually happens kind of unexpectedly. Like I don’t have some little regimen where I have a place I go and I write, or something. It’s more like I write when something crazy is making me feel crazy and I need to write about it. And I’ve found that I write a lot more while I’m on tour. Not simply because there’s so much weird time when you’re sitting there and there’s nothing to do. I actually write a lot while we’re traveling. While we’re driving in the van I sit in the backseat with my laptop and think about shit. And there’s nothing else to do except look out the window at the world going by and stop at a gas station every hundred and fifty miles or whatever. So I write a lot more when we’re touring and that’s because I’m totally isolated from my life and my distractions as far as what’s going on at home. ‘Cause here I have friends, and I have things to do, and there’s a house that needs to be cleaned, and there’s all of these things that I could be doing. But on tour I’ve just got my suitcase. And obviously, the band has been around in the van, but you can’t just sit and talk to people all day long. People get a little bit introspective and quiet when you’re traveling. ‘Cause there’s just so many hours where you’re just sitting there. So I’ve used that time to write. And it’s kind of nice looking out the window and seeing all these different countries go by. I guess that’s inspiring, just being in motion and being reminded of weird things because of what you see out the window and then kind of seeing where it takes you. So that’s that’s where I wrote most of the words. And I’ve written a handful of the songs, or the words at least, at home. But mostly it was in the tour van. And then I wrote the music and the melodies once I got back home, because on tour there’s not really personal space to go find a sanctuary to be writing a song and singing some weird thing. ‘Cause writing a song, the singing part and the musical part, is a very personal process, and if there’s people around, it just doesn’t happen as easily. So I had all of my words very put together before I got home and once I got here it was like, Oh, wow, I just wrote ten songs in six days. It was really crazy how quickly it happened once I got home. And I think it’s because I put so much energy into the words that they were just dying to come out, and I hadn’t had the opportunity to let that happen until I got home. So it happened pretty quickly.

And you said you had a laptop. Do you type your songs? Yeah, totally. Because in the van, it’s like, how do you have a steady hand? Also, I find—it’s so modern to do that, it’s really silly—but on the computer, I get very organized, and if I’m writing a song by hand, I’ll have to keep rewriting it every time I change one word. On the computer, every time you change a word, you just delete the word and put the new word in and it’s all very organized and I can see what I have going on. Whereas with a piece of paper it just turns into this chaotic place of crossing stuff out and trying to find the space to write what you actually want to say. So I have been typing because it’s easier to change things along the way and let it become what you really want it to be or work on it until it’s like, Oh, yeah, those are the words I want to use. And it’s just here in front of me and there’s not this record of destruction, or a record of all of the stupid words I said before I said that one. (Laughs.)

I’m also interested in your other creative outlets. I know you do a lot of crafting, like that really beautiful gift-wrapping [of records bought by fans] you did over the holidays. I outdo myself sometimes. I don’t do that that often, you know, things like that. I have it in me, and when I do it, I do enjoy doing it. That project of gift-wrapping those CDs, that took ages. And I was just like, Oh God, how’d I get myself into this, this is crazy. But it’s so nice to be able to do that stuff. I enjoy being able to use my hands in ways that make beautiful things that people will appreciate and put my heart and soul into things. I totally love doing that. And lately, I would say my main creative outlet is really just making house and making this place awesome and decorating and just organizing it—refinishing doors and that sort of thing, just making the space I live in as awesome as it could be, and really valuing that. So most of my visual, kind of crafty handiwork has been going into the house as of late, which is a lot of hard work, but it’s fun.

Do you think that there’s any relation between how you approach the house and building things and making crafts to how you approach writing and creating songs? I think that it all comes from the same kind of thing inside me that makes me want to create. It’s part of my fire, my personality—that’s something that I really value. I like creating beautiful things. I like making the space nice. I think it’s definitely connected. And with my music, once I have a record or whatever, I put a lot of personal energy into the record sleeves and to the visual aspects of what I put out there to the world. I’ve always pretty much designed all of the record covers and done all of that, so I’ve definitely used my artistic stuff to kind of go along with the music, or visually represent the music.

Do you feel like you have a sense of what you want the record cover to look like as you’re coming up with the album? It kind of depends. Sometimes it happens easier. But last time, the record cover didn’t come together until the very last minute. I had this whole other vision of what it was gonna look like and then it became clear that that wasn’t the right idea. And I had this woman come and take photographs and that made everything come together. And then all the other ideas just built off the photographs that we had, and it became clear all of a sudden. And then it was like, Oh, yeah, this was the right choice, because the cover and the whole visual aspect of that new record in a lot of ways also relates to what To Be Still looks like. They all kind of flow together. The aesthetic is consistent enough, I think.

It’s a great photo. Thank you. It was funny because it was just the photo that came out that was the most different than all of the pictures she had taken. And it was a Polaroid, and she just snapped it real quick in my bathroom. And we looked at it and was like, Whoa, that’s a really crazy picture. Think that might be the album cover. So I have the original Polaroid of it, and it was just one of the photos that randomly happened.

You’ve mentioned in other interviews that you don’t read much, but I know, thanks to Twitter, that you were reading on Tuesday before going into the studio. So have you been reading more recently? Kind of one of my new year’s resolutions, actually—I’m like, you know what, I’m kind of sick of stagnation and feeling like I’m not learning anything. I’ve just been in this mode for a few years of not taking in a lot of outside information. And I bought a bunch of classic books, and so I’ve started by reading those. And it’s fun. I’m reading Kurt Vonnegut right now, which I just started. Cat’s Cradle. But it’s funny to try and make time for reading. I should probably just cancel the internet at my house. But we’ll see.

It can be hard. It can, yeah. There’s just so many distractions. And also when I’ve been touring, my dad always brings tons of Louis L’Amour novels, which are these old country western books, which are just like—every one is almost the same. There’s some cowboy character and then there’s some beautiful woman he’s after and he’s riding a horse across the desert and he’s out of water. The plotline of every one of the books is very, very similar, but it’s just someone else’s story, so on tour we would just read tons of those books, because they’re really easy to read. They’re quick reads, and you’re always like, Oh, what’s gonna happen? Are the Indians gonna kill him now? (Laughs.)

That’s kind of perfect for your music, though. Yeah, it’s true. I think that’s why I kind of have always had a place in my heart for western stuff. I think it’s because of the town I grew up in. It’s just a gold mining town and I’m always really fascinated by American history and the pioneers and all of that stuff. That’s why I like old western novels.

Well, actually, I know you get asked about Nevada City a lot, but I have to ask about it because I grew up in Sacramento [about an hour away]. I’m curious what kind of distinct identity Nevada City has for you, and how you think about it in relation to the rest of California. Are your songs—these songs that are sort of explicitly about the hills and the rivers—are they about Nevada City or do you think they’re about California in a bigger way? I think Nevada City. A lot of things that I’ve written about are comparisons to nature, and that sort of thing, I think, is rooted in Nevada City specifically, and that part of California, because that’s my place. That’s what I grew up knowing. And so those are the visual things I think of. But there’s definitely a place in my heart for greater California, for the whole thing that California is. But at the same time, I’m really glad I moved to Portland. So, I don’t know. But I do think that growing up in Nevada City—it was just a really interesting, bizarre place to be raised—the schools, and the people in the community, there was just a lot of support for the arts. I think so many kids who were raised there were kind of raised up believing you could just pursue art, you could do this thing that you loved and try and make it doing that—‘cause the community was supportive of that, and everyone had musician parents. I think a lot of other places in the world, children don’t think that they can do that. They’re bred to think that they have to go to college and become a businessman or whatever. (Laughs.) But that’s not what I got growing up. So I think that that has definitely influenced my choices, and what I’ve chosen to do, and just influenced what the songs sound like, and what I sing about.

Right. Last Christmas I went up to Rough and Ready to the Fruit Jar Pickers’ bluegrass singalong. Have you been there? Well, I’ve been to Rough and Ready. But it was a festival, is that what you said?

It’s like a bluegrass breakdown-singalong that they do I think once a month. Oh, that’s awesome.

Are there a lot of opportunities like that in Nevada City? Well, it’s funny you mention that bluegrass scene, because that was something that was definitely a part of my childhood. Both my parents were in a bluegrass band when I was really little, and they played music with my friend Mariee [Sioux]’s dad, and he was in the bluegrass band, and that was just a very regular part of growing up with bluegrass music, and going to the bluegrass festival, and hearing that kind of old-timey music on the local radio station. That musical community is very alive in that area. And I definitely have a place in my heart for it.

I know you started songwriting and learning to play guitar when you were about nineteen. I started learning to play guitar at twenty-four, a few years ago, so I’m curious what advice you have for late-blooming musicians, especially those starting to write songs. Well, just keep doing it, because it does get easier. And even still, in the studio the other night I was just like, Oh God, I wish I was a better guitar player, this is frustrating because I’ll mess up or I can’t get a good take of a song. It’s like, I know I can play it, but I can’t necessarily play it perfectly. (Laughs.) And it’s just muscle memory. It’s practice. It’s super-frustrating when you are a late-bloomer, because there are so many people who have been playing since they were fourteen or something, and they’re really, really good guitar players. Just work with what you can do. And it’s OK to write really simple songs. It’s OK to play really basic stuff. It’s mostly the emotion you put into it and your conviction that matter, because there’s a lot of really good music where the guitar playing isn’t technical and isn’t really fancy or anything. So I always just try to keep that in mind, because I’m really not a very good guitar player. I can do a few things, but I can’t jam. I can’t join a group of people that’s playing a song and know how to play it. Yeah right. I can’t play a lead. But it doesn’t really matter. I guess just keep working at it and have friends teach you things, just show you things you don’t know and then practice that. And I think you just kind of keep getting better if you put time into it. That’s the idea, I guess.

That is reassuring. Yeah.

Listen to Alela Diane’s music on Spotify.