Ingrid Michaelson
By James Draper
Staff Writer
Ingrid Michaelson may have started writing songs “out of sheer boredom” rather than any sense of musical destiny or a drive to be a pop star, but it wasn’t long before her music was going places – taking her with it.
The 27-year-old amateur songwriter was still a relative unknown uploading songs to her MySpace page when her quirky anthem “The Way I Am” was picked up for the popular medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy” in 2006.
Four years later, she has three albums on her Cabin 24 label, hundreds of thousands records sold ’round the world and plenty of street cred after her 2009 self-released album “Everybody” topped the iTunes charts.
This summer the indie pop musician and self-described “barefoot guitar player” is on the road with her ukulele and will open for Keane July 25 at Warehouse Live followed by another show July 26 at the House of Blues in Dallas.
Before a soldout show in Omaha July 9 she called the Gladewater Mirror for an exclusive interview.
JD: Is there a particular song by you or someone else that you feel defines you?
IM: Oh, wow. That’s an intense question. One song that I feel whenever I listen to, I don’t know if it defines me, but it destroys me. I feel like this is a song that is part of me now. It’s a song by Imogene Heap called “Hide and Seek.” When I heard it for the first time, I felt like, “Where has this song been all my life?” And I never grow sick of it. It overwhelms me. It’s just such a wonderful piece of music and the words are so interesting. I don’t know if any one song can really define me or anybody, but I know if any one song has affected me, that’s definitely my number one.
JD: What’s your background? What brought you where you are today?
IM: I went to school for musical theater. I studied theater in college, that’s what I wanted to do. I graduated from college and I lived and home and I had a very part-time job and I was auditioning and really not getting anything, and I just started writing music almost out of sheer boredom. There was a piano in the house and I had a lot of time on my hands. I always played piano – I took piano lessons as a child, from when I was four to about 15, and I would write little things as a kid. I don’t know what was the catalyst. I just started writing. And I felt more connected to that than I did to theater, so I kind of shifted my gears and started pursuing a career in music.
JD: Do you remember the first song you wrote?
IM: Ever? My mom and dad used to put me in front of tape player and I would just sing songs and create things right there. The one that I remember writing, sitting down and writing, was a song about the circus, and I was probably about 10. It wasn’t really a passion. Then something inside of me was like, “Let’s try writing music and see what happens.”
JD: How would you classify yourself as an artist right now?
IM: I think that I am a singer-songwriter that borderlines pop writing and pop performance. I think that my live show really is a big part of my career. I love making people feel like they’re part of a show. It’s more than just someone watching me sing songs; it’s more of a performance, I think. That’s who I am.
JD: What can people expect from an Ingrid Michaelson show?
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IM: A lot of humor. We have some dance moves that we pull out every once in a while. A lot of audience participation. I love having audiences sing along. I think it’s boring, at least for me, for my music, to sit there and sing and have people sit in complete silence then clap after each song. It bores me. It’s very self-satisfying. I believe, if an audience isn’t in it, then what’s the point? Instead of just sitting there singing songs for my own glory, I like getting people involved and having them be part of it.
JD: Do you think that goes back a bit to your background in the theater?
IM: It probably does. I taught children’s theater after college for about four years, and I was in an improv troupe in college. I definitely think that my ease in front of a crowd comes from that. I took theater lessons from when I was nine, all the way through college and after college. I’m fairly confident in front of a crowd of people. I’m sure that’s where it came from.
JD: You were discovered on MySpace and went from there to one of your songs being featured on “Grey’s Anatomy.”
IM: They put one of my songs on their show in November of 2006. I remember that was the first one. They’ve used about 10 or 11 since then.
JD: That’s a lot of exposure.
IM: They were one of the first people to really help me get my foot in the door... “The Way I am” was (also) in an Old Navy commercial. “Be OK” was in a Mott’s Apple Juice commercial. It’s been in various commercials all over the world. It’s been in Portugal, Spain, Germany and the U.K. That one gets a lot of play.
JD: Are you still trying to catch up with yourself as fast as your career has moved forward? From picking up the piano out of boredom to...
IM: It hasn’t been such a whirlwind. At first it was, but it’s been a pretty slow and steady progression the past two years. It’s a lot of work. Just because you get a couple of CD placements doesn’t mean you’re Melissa Etheridge. You have to work hard and tour and make impressions on people, and hopefully they’ll come back and bring their friends the next time.
It’s a day-and-age where the record is gone. It’s a singles world, and people are stealing singles. You have to work very hard to keep the attention, too; it’s a very flighty world. So, it’s hard. It’s work, and everybody has to work, you know. I love my work, but it is work.
I don’t feel like I’m running to catch up with anything. I think I’ve been working pretty hard for everything I have so far.
JD: With your last album, “Everybody,” where did the title come from?
IM: One of the songs in the record is called “Everybody” and the idea of my record is that if you love something, let it go. The record is an arc of a relationship. It’s starts off brand new and fresh, and you’re scared but you go into it anyway. Then it sort of spirals down to the end of it, but the last song says if you love it, let it go and if it’s meant to be it will come back to you. That’s the idea of the whole album, and I know that everybody has gone through that. I wanted to bring everybody into the album right way. And also, I know that I’m not writing about anything that people have written about for thousands of years. Right up front I know that.
JD: What is your songwriting process?
IM: It just depends on where I am. I don’t like to designate time to write. If I’m at home and something strikes me, I’ll run over to the piano and sit there for a couple of hours and then I’ll just stop. Then a week will go by and I’ll go back to that song. If I’m on the road, maybe I’ll be in the green room with my ukulele. It sort of depends on where I am. I generally like to be alone. That’s my only prerequisite.
JD: Why did you pick up the ukulele?
IM: I wanted to play a small guitar because my hands have difficulty maneuvering around a larger fretboard. I was at my friend’s house, and he had one of the style of these I’m using sitting in his living room and I started playing. This uke is very special – it’s a tenor uke, so it’s larger than a normal ukulele. It has its bottom string an octave down. I have a deeper, richer tone. When you think of a ukulele, you think of a toy – tinny, out-of-tune kitschy sounds – but this one sounds like a harp. It’s so beautiful. It’s so easy to play, too. I fell in love with it... It’s a mid-range sound that you don’t really get from any other instrument.
JD: The first thing I noticed on your homepage, where it talks about your music, there’s a link to download the sheet music for your songs.
IM: A lot of people are asking. And what the people want, the people get, you know? ... I wouldn’t be anywhere without them. I feel I have really great, loyal fans. We have the Internet, we have Twitter and YouTube, all these great tools to connect with fans, so why not use them? I think there’s a smart way to connect with fans, I don’t think you should be incredibly accessible – I think that gives people the wrong idea and there are some people that might get a little stalker-crazy on you. You have to maintain your privacy but at the same time, there’s ways of communicating with your mains en masse, altogether, and getting everybody excited about a project. That’s what I try to do online.
JD: Do you think there’s a spirit to your music, a prevailing theme?
IM: I write about love for the most part. I don’t write about it like it’s the best thing in the world. I definitely include all the darkness. I like to write about something sweet but include all the bruises and stuff. |
