A Fine Frenzy

Long a lover of classic literature, Sudol picked the band name A Fine Frenzy from a line in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Her breakout single, “Almost Lover,” came into existence when its composer was 19, and the piece almost didn’t make the record. “I didn’t even remember the song when I had to first start playing it [professionally],” says Sudol. “Someone had heard it years ago and set it in front of Jason Flom [CEO of Virgin at the time]. I kind of remembered the verse and chorus.” After hearing the piece, the executive told her, “You need to know that the next time I see you.” “So I had to figure it out and relearn it,” she says.

Sudol grew up with the music of classic artists like Aretha Franklin and Ella Fitzgerald, as well as her dad’s guitar playing. She moved around a lot and found refuge in books such as C.S.Lewis’ Narnia series, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Prairie books, and E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web. “I loved the ones where there were worlds unto themselves, with fantasy creatures and animals who could talk,” says Sudol, whose lyrics are infused with that sense of imagination and wonder.

Sudol recorded her album on an old Steinway grand, though she’s also partial to Yamaha uprights. “There’s something about an upright that’s a little more organic sounding, like it’s been around the block a few times,” she says. “It’s very florid and it’s easy to get carried away with it.” She also used Rhodes and Wurlitzer on the album, but live she makes do with a Yamaha CP33 custom fitted in a century-old piano shell. Talented bandmate Stephen LeBlanc complements her onstage surrounded by a Stage Rhodes, Nord Stage Compact, Desktop DSI Evolver, and a CME UF5 controller.

Besides being a pleasure to listen to, Sudol is a great example of how reading and a love of language can enrich an artist’s songwriting. She cites artists like Bob Dylan and Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst as inspirations to her. “People still think Dylan’s super-cool today and he’s still relevant. He’s made such an impact on people’s lives,” she says. “And Conor’s been writing since forever. [His popularity] is slowly building, he has absolutely rabid and insane fans, and he’s always going to be making music.” She also looks up to artists like Björk, “who can be completely out of the spotlight, and then step back in and be completely amazing — and still have a normal life! I think as long as I can make music and still be relevant, that will make me happy,” she continues. Judging from the fantastic response to her debut album, she’s well on her way.

WEB-ONLY EXTRAS!

M: How did you begin songwriting?

AS: Early on I wrote by clunking really terribly on the piano with two fingers. I would find two notes to sing around. I was really clueless until I worked with a songwriter on how to arrange songs. Her name is Jolene Bell. She’s a great songwriter and a fantastic piano player. She’s in LA and she’s a really great person and she let me be a writer. I wanted to just be able to write as soon as possible. It was very frustrating at first.

KM: Growing up, what albums and artists made an impression on you?

AS: Growing up we didn’t have very much money at all so I never really even had very many records. I had school. That was where all the money went into. I went to private school. So really a lot of what I was exposed to was on the radio. I listened to K-Earth, which is the oldies station here. My Dad listened to Arrow 93.1 back in the day and then he just made music at the house. He would always be sitting there playing. My dad played guitar and flute as well. That was kind of what was around. We had tapes of a few things like Phantom of the Opera, some old Aretha, some old Ella. I don’t remember much about my childhood from like five to ten. I was a very aware baby and very well adjusted and I have a lot of memories from before my parents’ divorce. We were constantly moving all around LA and I just couldn’t really hang on to anything except for books. That was really the one place I could go that was kind of constant.

KM: What were your first lyrics about?

AS: My early lyric writing was concentrated very much around not belonging. I remember one of my first songs I wrote for a friend of mine. She was this really darling sweet girl and she was always getting beaten down by people. I wrote a song for her about “Don’t give up on yourself, you’re special, I see that you’re great.” And then I discovered boys and it was all about the boys. Just self-discovery. I didn’t think it was very cool to write about the things that I was really interested in. I just thought I was just so uncool and geeky and just didn’t fit in and couldn’t ever say the right thing at the right time and couldn’t ever be one of those people that just had it together. I was good in school and a really wonderful reader and writer and that’s what I had. And everything else I just felt like a spazz. I’m so glad that I had that because I think a lot of other kids didn’t really develop that side of themselves as much because they had a lot of distractions. I took ballet because I had ankle problems when I was baby and they wanted to operate on my ankles. But instead my mom put me in ballet class and that fixed it. It completely changed the way I saw things. I was very interested in art of all forms. Dancing and painting and writing and music were all one to me.

KM: What happened at 19 that caused you to start playing?

AS: I got the piano when I was 17 but I still didn’t play it. I started learning the very basic theory but I couldn’t do anything with it. When I was 19 I wrote the song “Almost Lover” and I had just started to figure out chords. I didn’t really know what I wanted to say before then and I wasn’t confident enough in myself to feel like I had a viewpoint. When I sat down and I wrote that song, I felt like, “This is me, this is what I want to say and this is the start of finding my music,” as opposed to making music just to write songs. This is the start of who I really am as a writer. That kind of spearheaded everything else because I knew that I had to facilitate my writing. I couldn’t rely on anybody else anymore. I wasn’t growing and I needed to grow and I needed to step out. I actually got very sick before I let anyone hear “Almost Lover” and then got over it. I put it out there and people seemed to respond to it.

KM: Do you still feel that way about other people listening?

AS: I can’t read reviews. Sometimes when people are trying to be nice they’ll accidentally say something that’s really not what you want to hear. Some compliments turn into daggers if they’re worded the wrong way. I’ve lost sleep over one-sentence reviews.

KM: It’s so easy for people who don’t create art to be critics. So you think at some point you’ll be able to release yourself from that?

AS: Of course everyone’s going to have an opinion. Even some of my favorite artists, sometimes I’ll see something that they do and I’ll be like, “Why did they do that?” But just because I can say that it shouldn’t bother me and say that I’m impervious doesn’t mean that I am. It still gets under my skin.

KM: Do you think that sometimes we have to pretend we believe it before we fully believe it?

AS: I’m still in the pretending phase. I do care what people think. At the end of the day I’m really not tough and I don’t want to get tough. Part of why I can write is because I’m not tough, because I’m not closed off to things, because I’m not hardened and I don’t want to get that way. It’s so easy to let your skin get thick and be jaded. I felt it happening for a period of time and I had to go back to being more innocent and being able to receive things, even if sometimes it means that I hurt more. It’s like people who can’t fall in love because they won’t let themselves and then they are miserable because they can’t feel something for someone because they can’t let themselves. It’s like sort of a self-made trap. I’ve been in that situation too. It’s all about the decisions that you make and how you live your life.

KM: How do you feel you’ll develop as an artist?

AS: A lot of it is about surrounding yourself with really great people that you trust that protect you. It’s also about being able to recover from things. Just because somebody hurts you doesn’t mean that everyone is going to hurt you. Just because somebody says something mean doesn’t mean that’s the way that everyone feels. It’s making that differentiation between one instance and everything. I would go crazy if I didn’t have people around me that I could trust. It’s also about staying honest as a person. You also have to really watch out because there are people out there that don’t have your best interest in mind. And then there are people that are kind and good. That’s life and I know that life is not easy. There wouldn’t be great art without a bit of conflict. I have plenty of songs on the record that are inspired by bad situations. You just take it and you either get bitter or you are productive and try to find a different way to look at it.

KM: Tell us about making the record. What piano and keyboards did you use?

AS: I recorded the record on a Steinway grand piano. It was a very old grand piano and it had this great feel to it. It was one of those pianos where you sit down and you just can’t stop playing it. There’s some Rhodes and Wurly on it, too.

KM: What does your bandmate Stephen LeBlanc use on stage?

AS: He has a Stage Rhodes, a Nord Stage Compact, a Desktop DSI Evolver Analog synth, and a CME UF5 controller.

I play a Yamaha CP33. I’ve also played a P250 but it was just too heavy to constantly be carting around. It’s kind of exposing my trickery, but I have a 100-year-old piano shell that’s totally gutted and we put the keyboard in there. I love the action of a Yamaha. There’s something about a piano with strings or a Rhodes or a Wurly where you can feel the actual vibrations of the tines and hammers. I was very picky and the CP33 has really good action. You can control the action and it has weighted keys, like the P250. It’s very sensitive so if I really want to bang it, it will actually sound like I’m banging it and if I’m playing very sensitively, it will react like a piano. The internal sounds are good. I have a controller as backup that I haven’t even brought out of the box yet because I haven’t needed to use it. I’m a Yamaha endorsed artist and they’ve been great. They’ve been providing grands for live performances. They gave me a grand for Leno and one for Carson Daly. Whenever I need something they’re right there. The piano sound on the CP33 is probably the best piano sound I’ve heard in a keyboard. It’s really authentic and it has a nice warm tone and sounds kind of like an older, well-worn piano. I actually prefer Yamaha uprights if I can request anything. There’s something about an upright that’s just a little more organic sounding, like it’s been around the block a few times. It’s very florid and easy to get carried away with it. I just love pianos that have been kicked around and used forever!

KM: Who do you listen to that’s contemporary?

AS: Rufus Wainwright — he’s just spectacular! Brandi Carlile, Dustin O’Halloran, Cinematic Orchestra, Camera Obscura, Bright Eyes, Death Cab for Cutie, Sigur Ros, and Bjork — her new album is crazy. She’s on the edge. She’s very inspirational to me.

KM: Do you forsee yourself being experimental? Do you have a vision for how your music will progress?

AS: I definitely have a vision. I’ve been listening to a lot of folk music and I’m also starting to play guitar so it’s going to be a little bit more indie and folk inspired. There’s going to be a lot more freedom on this record because I kind of understand music better this time around. Then there’s a part of me that wants to make a crazy experimental modern record like something that Brian Eno would do where it’s still music, but it’s kind of off-center. And then there are times where I want to make a completely acoustic record as stripped down as possible. It’s going to be very difficult to narrow it down. I almost feel like I might end up going the Bright Eyes route and have two simultaneous albums of completely different material just because I can’t decide.

KM: It’s got to be hard having more material than you can use or more directions that you want to go in than you’re allowed to, so to speak.

AS: Yeah. And then there’s also just keeping things in a line because people know who you are as an artist from one album and they want to be listening to the same person with the same viewpoint. The way that this album is, there are a lot of songs that definitely roll into the next album quite nicely. But you also don’t want to recycle yourself or make the same album twice.

KM: How do you grow and develop without changing so much that people don’t recognize you from the first record?

AS: The thing that this album has is it’s very organic. It’s got a lot of elements to it but at the end of the day it’s about the songs. I’m the same writer. The melodies and my voice are the same. It’ll have the same feeling. I still want to transport people and make music that’s beautiful. I want to expand upon what I’ve started out on but it’s not going to be radically different. I think it’s just going to grow.

KM: How important is it to set a mood with a song?

AS: For me, the way that I write is so dependent upon the melody. The melody and lyrics come at the same time. A chord will set a mood; once you have the chords, melody, and lyrics, you’ve got sort of a world set up. But it’s very bare unless you’re doing a completely acoustic version of it. Every instrument that you add to it just needs to lend to that mood. If it’s an extremely sad song, a well-placed wail sound on the guitar could make you cry. By the same token, if you put a bongo in there, it might be like, “What the hell?” Everything has to be aligned. We’re very specific about instrumentation and arrangement. Throughout the whole album I was telling Joey Waronker or Daxx Nielsen or Jimmy Paxson, “Could you make it not sound like drums?” Like, I need it to sound like a heartbeat so that you’re not even aware that it’s instruments but it just sounds kind of like an experience.

KM: Was the producer helpful in accomplishing your vision?

AS: It was very much a collaborative process. I’d been working with Lucas Burton and Hal Cragin and we co-produced the album together. We’d been working together for so long that I really didn’t have to say what I wanted most of the time. We just knew.

They were fantastic. Hal is this incredible bass player. He played with Rufus, with Iggy Pop, Sarah McLachlan and a lot of people and he’s just a great musician. Lucas is this brilliant person and he really had a vision that was very well aligned with mine. I definitely could not have done it myself by any stretch of the imagination. As long as it was right I didn’t have to step in. Sometimes I would get very detail oriented and sometimes I would just give a note like, “Can you play guitar to sound like you’re an old man in Louisiana on your porch and your guitar is missing a string?” and then the musician would work with it.

KM: Do you get comparisons to artists like Tori Amos or Kate Bush because you’re female and play piano? If so, does that bother you?

AS: Well, I think if you’re gonna get stereotyped, there are a lot worse things to get stereotyped as! Tori Amos or Kate Bush are very well loved and well-respected brilliant writers and singers. They’re so themselves and they so created an incredible body of work. To be linked in with them is a compliment. I don’t sit around and listen to Kate Bush records or listen to Tori Amos records but the fact that somebody who might love Kate Bush might appreciate my music is huge. Of all the people to get compared to! It’s great.

KM: You’ve been quoted as being very into reading, which is great. What are you reading these days?

AS: I’ve been in a super literary mood and I’ve been reading Jane Austin obsessively for a while. Just as long as people are reading in general, even if it’s a keyboard manual, at least you’re having your mind work. There’s so much music out there that is coming out that is more literary. I think it’s fantastic that people support it. It definitely was not hip a few years ago to be into lit-rock. I don’t even know if we’re considered that. I don’t know if we have a genre.

KM: Do you consider A Fine Frenzy to be lit-rock?

AS: I think lit-rock is its own scene and I don’t think we’re part of any scene. I think we’re just making music that’s its own thing. It would have been really nice to be part of a scene or a movement. I was never one of those kids in school who was in a group of people that was included so I don’t expect to grow up and be that way. A lot of artists that I love are also loners like that. It’s hard to stick them into a category and not have bits and pieces pop out into other places. We have the privilege of playing with different artists. Brandi Carlile and Rufus Wainwright are very different. There are similarities within us that work with both of them but they might not necessarily work with each other. It’s an interesting thing and it’s nice.

KM: Is it harder to fit in radio or in the marketplace when you’re not part of a genre?

AS: It’s slower going but that’s not anything I’ve ever minded. It’s not something my label seems to mind either. They’re behind it. We have a four-minute drumless ballad as a single in the middle of summer and people are into it. It might take longer than a super-summer surfy splash, but music is music. Jimi Hendrix wasn’t like anybody else when he came out and people didn’t even know what to do with him. He set his guitar on fire! Like, something’s wrong with this man’s guitar? We just do our own thing and as long as people listen, then that’s all that really matters.

KM: If nobody ever listened, would you still do it for the love of it?

AS: Yeah, of course. I wrote songs and no one heard them except for my dog and my parents and a couple of friends every now and then. That’s the joy for me, the writing and the creation, and then you share it with people.

KM: Do you feel different as a writer knowing that people are listening now?

AS: Yes and no. I think it’s scarier on the one hand because people did listen and I kinda don’t know what exactly people responded to, except for the honesty. On the second record, it’s the same thing. You just never know if someone’s gonna like a song or not. You just have to go with your own instincts and try to stay honest. That’s really what matters and that’s what people listen to our kind of music for, to feel something. As long as I can make people feel something, I’m not really worried about it.