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Q&A WITH RACHAEL 1: MUSIC AWARENESS & INFLUENCES
Nic: So Rachael, um, you’re not going to give me as hard a time as Tom I hope.
Rachael: Hopefully.
Nic: Rachael just put out a record, um…this month? Did it come out this month?
Rachael: June…June. What are we in now? August
Nic: I think we’re in August. So it came out about six weeks ago, I think.
Rachael: Sounds good.
Nic: It’s a beautiful record called Happenstance. The first music that I heard of Rachael’s was probably at the end of last year, when it was an EP that came out.
Rachael: Um-hum.
Nic: And you were on our program, I don’t know, three four months ago, something like that. I remember when we talked at that time we talked a little bit about your background and the fact that you…you traveled a lot as a kid didn’t you? You sorta went backwards and forwards between DC and Manhattan…
Rachael: New York…sure.
Nic: A lot of music around in the households? What kinda stuff was around you growing up?
Rachael: Um, not not too much. My uh…my dad and my stepmother were big fans of the Beach Boys. So I’ve seen like a thousand concerts on the mall in DC of the Beach Boys. And we took this cross country trip from DC to LA and um we had two tapes in the car: the Muppets and the Beatles. So I know the Muppets pretty well and whatever tape of the Beatles it was. Um, my mom is a big Barbara Streisand fan, she’s kinda a…she believes…she (unintelligible)…Barbara Streisand. So, I know, that kinda thing. But um, it was really just a lot of things that were on the radio that I was listening to through them….That’s what I grew up around.
Nic: When did you know you wanted to play music? Did you sing first or did you want to play music first?
Rachael: Um, I played piano first I think…Well I played flute first, actually.
Nic: Oh that’s right you told me that, like a record kinda thing.
Rachael: I did, like a little…you know, silver…metal thing. But I kept passing out during rehearsals cause I couldn’t get the breath support. So I figured that sucks, so I quit that. So I picked up piano. And um, I had a year of piano in 7th grade and my piano teacher kept saying, “Stop moving around.” Cause I play (moving)…like this. She’s like, “Let it come out through your fingers.” And I’d be like, “I don’t know what you’re telling me.” So I quit that. And um…
Nic: Now what kinda stuff was this you were playing though?
Rachael: Just classical stuff, which is insane. Like the time signatures? No way.
Nic: How old were you?
Rachael: Humm…thirteen…
Nic: Okay.
Rachael: …maybe? No patience for that. So I quit that and then…but still kept playing piano. I always loved to sing so I’d just kinda make up little songs walking down the street and that kinda thing. But I never considered following it as a career writing songs. I’d just do it on the fly and forget them. But I always loved the piano, I always kinda found the piano whenever I was sad or had nothing to do or was feeling lonely…I’ve always played the piano.
Nic: And did you have a portable keyboard that you traveled around with or just have a piano at home?
Rachael: I did. My dad had a piano and my mom—they were divorced—my mom had this um, she bought me like this electric piano with like the worst sounding piano sound and you could you could put a little disk a little cartridge in and record your songs. And so I used that a lot.
Nic: Do you remember when you first started writing songs and actually thinking well maybe this is something that I could do.
Rachael: Um yea. It was when I got kicked out of acting class cause I thought I would be an actress. So…um. That was in college and um they kicked me out so I thought: what should I do now? Literally I found this band in Chicago and I saw them perform and was completely mesmerized by the energy on stage and the chemistry they had with the players and um…I just felt like I needed to be on stage with them doing something…And through that band I learned to write songs and that really captured me in a way that reading a script never had. And that was the point I felt like, maybe I could actually…I didn’t even consider it like maybe I could do it professionally, I just felt like I have to do this regardless of whether it works out or doesn’t work out.
Nic: Were you like Tom (McRae) in so much as by the time you got to make…
Rachael: I’m not like Tom in any way.
Tom: Thank God.
Rachael: Actually…
Nic: In so much as by the time you made your first recordings you had some songs that were older. Did you record anything on the album or on the EP that had been kicking around for awhile?
Rachael: I did, yes. I had a few.
Nic: I’m kinda guiding you somewhere…
Rachael: Oh, so you want me to play one that’s from the early days.
Nic: Yea if you could, yea.
Rachael: All right.
Nic: Is there something that you feel like you could play for us?
Rachael: I’ll try.
Nic: Okay.
Rachael: It’s a two-chord guitar song ‘cause I really don’t play guitar…that’s all I knew at the time. But it was one that I wrote really early on about love lost…which continues to be a theme in my life.
[Under My Skin]

Nic: How old were you when you wrote that? How old a song was that?
Rachael: How old do you think I am now?
Nic: Thank you. Oh you think I’m going to answer that?
Rachael: I was very young. I was just a child. A wee little girl churning butter and running through the fields. A light came down, write this song Rachael….I was young. Very young. I’m not sure, I can’t remember. Numbers escape me.
Nic: Is it an older song though? Is it something that’s been around for awhile?
Rachael: It’s an old song. It’s probably one of the first ones I ever wrote actually.
Tom: See he thinks you’re lying.
Rachael: You know what?
Tom: Just fess up.
Rachael: What’s your name?
[Nic, Tom & Rachael talking over one another…]
Nic: You know, I’m just trying to figure it out, I’m not sure…
Rachael: Who are you? Tim? You’re Tim right?
Tom: Tim McGay.
Rachael: Todd…We’re really good friends we can do this. Don’t feel uncomfortable. It’s alright.
Nic: They do actually share uh cello players on occasion.
Tom: We do, from time to time. We have the same musicians. She can afford them, I can’t.
Nic: Well it was a beautiful song, thanks for playing it.
Rachael: Thanks.

Q&A WITH RACHAEL 2: THE RECORDING PROCESS
Nic: I want to come back to Rachael then and talk a little about the recording process. You told me when I first met you that you’d written a hundred plus songs, I think, by the time you actually went into the studio?
Rachael: Two hundred.
Nic: Two hundred, well that’s more than a hundred. Two hundred songs by the time you went into the studio to record your first record, right? How did you decide what songs you’re gonna use? How do you synthesize that down to…I mean what is it on a record…twelve, fourteen songs?
Rachael: Um…fourteen I think.
Nic: Right.
Rachael: Um I just gave them…a bunch them out to different sections of people and whoever didn’t fall asleep…I knew that that was the right song to choose. Um it was really hard, actually cause you lose your objectivity about your material after a certain amount of songs and you have a connection to each one but you don’t know quite how they’re registering to someone who’s never heard them before. So it was very difficult. I kind of gave people who I trusted their opinion about and I just gave them a bunch of songs and just kind of seeing which ones seemed to resonate with people across the board. And there were a few that I knew that regardless of what anyone thought that I just wanted on the record. But it was hard it was pretty hard.
Nic: I think you told me when I first asked this question that you know, you knew that some of them weren’t going to make it anyway cause they were older songs and earlier songs and it was kind of like a process of…you know as a songwriter getting to the point where you felt comfortable with the material that you wanted to record. And I’m wondering once you did sit down in the studio, how do songs change when you go into the studio and you start adding a producer, you start adding other musicians.
Rachael: It’s really um…challenging actually. You fall in love with the first like demos that you do yourself on your 8-track or your 4-track or tape record or minidisc or something like that and you get attached to that in the moment freshness that you have when you first wrote a song. Um a lot of time goes in-between you know getting a recording deal and making a record and finding a producer and getting the tune together and actually going and recording it…And with that time and with those other influences, um, you lose some of the freshness of that song when you first wrote it. So it’s very um, it’s difficult to kind of reinvigorate that song. I think that was the biggest challenge that I had, was bringing new people into the picture and trying to energize something that maybe I’d fallen in love with in another form some other time. But on the other hand, it’s really…that’s the exciting part of it...Is that as soon as you give up your expectations about how it’s going to come out you can channel kind of what every one else is bringing to the table and your new mood and that kind of thing. I forgot the question, what did you ask me?
Nic: Uh…I forgot it as well.
Rachael: Kind of like…spacing out…
Nic: I was asking you how things could change once you bring other people in.
Rachael: Oh right, right.
Nic: Cause you sit down maybe with a song that you wrote on a piano or maybe on a guitar…
Rachael: Fresh perspectives, that’s pretty much the short answer. If you trust the person that you’re working with or the people that you’re working with you open up to kind of their perspective on the song whether it’s just a melody line or some tempo or something. Whatever it is you open up to it. And um, uh. And I think that’s how it changes. As long as the goal is to make it seem real and truthful and in the moment, you will succeed. If you try and recreate your demo or recreate the song that got you signed or whatever it is, you’ll get something very flat and stale.
Nic: Kind of like Tom was saying, how he wanted to like get that song back again and…
Rachael: Right.
Nic: …just the first time was the time.
Rachael: Well… (Trying to add more)…
Nic: Um…the great thing about the format that we’ve got tonight of course is that you’re just sitting here with you know acoustic guitars and a piano. And I’m wondering if you could pick a song for us perhaps that is on the album that you knew when you whittled all those songs down that this was one that actually had to be on the album. Is there something in particular that you can think of on the CD that you knew going into the studio this is definitely one that’s going to be on.
Rachael: Humm…that’s a good question
Nic: Or not.
Rachael: I’ll try. There’s one that actually no one quite believed in. One that I did an EP and the album and the producer of the EP had a really hard time even tracking it because he wasn’t uh…he didn’t have a vision for it per se. And even the record label wasn’t sure about that particular song. And for me it wasn’t necessarily one song that I lived and died for but it was something that I felt had a shot at kind of reaching the masses or what not. And it turned out to become the first single on this record, so I did have to fight for it. We have kind of a rock version on the record and since I have no rock band I will play the piano version.
Nic: Okay. Wonderful.
Rachael: Alright, let’s see. I’ve had too much wine so forgive me if I miss a few chords.
[Worn Me Down]

Q&A WITH RACHAEL 3: SONGWRITING PROCESS
Nic: I’m wondering Rachael, um, we started talking a little bit about you growing up and moving around a lot, travelling a lot as a kid and that’s something that you’re reliving now with this record out. You’re sort of on the treadmill now, aren’t you?
Rachael: Literally.
Nic: Yea. I saw you…I was in Boulder for a conference last Friday night very quickly I had to be over there. And I saw you there in Boulder didn’t know you were going to be there and you were very briefly and you told me you’d just come back from Japan. This is what happens when a record comes out…hopefully.
Rachael: Right.
Nic: You get a record label that will give you the opportunity to go out and promote it. Um, there’s two questions that are gonna come out of this. I guess the first one is how do you deal with that travel and that treadmill that you’re on? Because it’s like you’ve got to be at this radio station tomorrow, you’ve got to be at this press corp. in the afternoon, you’ve got to do these interviews and then you’ve got to go and play music as well. So the first question is how do you deal with that aspect of being a musician and a songwriter and the second question that comes out of that is you know…(pauses) It’s okay. I’ll remember.
Tom: How many questions?
(Nic and Rachael laughing)
Rachael: I won’t, you take notes.
Tom: I’ll take notes. It’s okay
Rachael: You get the second one, I’ll get the first.
Nic: And the second question that comes out of that is actually do you write while you’re on the road. While you’re travelling. Come on it wasn’t that so bad.
Rachael: Second question first. Yes, absolutely. Always writing. For me writing is my kind of my outlet. For any songwriter I think it’s like you can’t not have an experience and not want to have the urge to write about it. It’s just in their blood, it’s like their way of communicating whether it’s to themselves or to the rest of the world. It’s their way of kind of living through an experience and getting it out. Um so absolutely, yea. I continue to write on the road, I have to. It’s like um…it’s just a um, kind of a therapeutic muscle that always has to be engaged or else you feel like something’s missing. If I don’t write something feels wrong. I don’t know what it is until a few days later and I pick up a guitar or piano and I’m like, “Okay. All right. Right. I got it. I haven’t been writing.” You just need it, it’s that kind of thing. And um…
Nic: Are you able to write in hotel rooms? I mean…
Rachael: Definitely. Yea. Yea, I wrote a lot the songs that that kind of got me started in hotel rooms. And um…ah…you just need a tape recorder and an instrument and not even sometimes. And um…ah…But yea, you write all the time. You watch other people, you hear conversations you think of ideas, you hear other music and you get inspiration all over the place. But I think I think writers always kind of feel the urge to write constantly.
Nic: Do you save stuff? Do you like write snippets down and then sort of collect that stuff back?
Rachael: Definitely. Yea I have things on napkins, I have things on paper, things on my arm, I have things kind of scribbled all over the place. And my problem is the discipline to actually go back and revisit them and make a song out of them. But yea your sources are kind of around you all the time and you steal lines from conversations that you hear. Tom and I play a game. We’ll hear somebody say the best line ever like the waiter will come up and say like, “Life is like candy box.” You know, they’ll say like the perfect thing and like you’ll just both sit there and the first person who writes it down is the one that gets the line. (Audience laughs) That’s the game. Um, but it’s all around. You just have to open your eyes and grab it. But yea. Definitely writing all the time.
Nic: So will you do that if you’re in a restaurant and you’ll hear somebody else’s conversation on the other side? You’ll hear a snippet…
Rachael: Absolutely. Pen out on the arm.
Nic: Do you do the same Tom?
Tom: You should hear her next album…
Rachael: He has a little book.
Tom: Can I have the check please?
(Audience laughing)
Rachael: He has a book…
Tom: Great Album.
Rachael: You know…And you’ll be the waiter at the restaurant…I’ll feature you on my cover.
Tom: You have heard my next album.
(Audience laughing)
Rachael: You’re so British. What happened to you? Where were you born?
Nic: He’s born there.
Rachael: I don’t understand you. You’re blond…it doesn’t make any sense to me. Anyways. (Whispering) You’re dark. You’re dark Tom. And the first question was…?
Nic: And the first question was how are you dealing with this you know…this…
Rachael: Oh I’m not. Absolutely not.
(Nic laughing)
Rachael: It’s like a little bit of a…it’s like a wave. You rise to the occasion when you have to perform and when you have to…You have a goal, you want to reach that goal and you do the steps necessary to reach that goal. And you pull everything together to make it worthwhile and you do your best. And then on the moments when nobody’s around you kind of crumble and uh let it all out. I think it’s just fluctuating for everybody. It’s such a—forgive my cursing—it’s a mindfuck. The whole process, everything is very up and down and you get the best and the worst each day at the same time. And the travelling and the good and the bad…it really it really all comes hand in and you just have to center yourself and kind of believe in what you’re doing and believe in your destiny…kind of a wave of the world and how your life works and believe that there’s a purpose for it and that you’re living up to your potential and what’s good and that gets you through. But it’s um…You never…I don’t think you ever get a handle on it. I don’t. I’m just swimming along trying not to be eaten by the sharks…
Nic: Well it’s interesting for those…for those people who don’t know, I mean, Rachael’s record is at a place right now where it’s…there’s a really good buzz on this record—I hate to use the lingo…
Rachael: I love the word buzz
Nic: But there is, there is. And um…
Rachael: It’s the buzz album. She’s the “it” girl. She’s the next big thing.
Nic: Well you’re you’re in that place where people…
Rachael: The new Norah Jones.
Nic: I haven’t heard that one. That would be sad if people said that.
Rachael: Get a gun.
Nic: I’m sorry people are saying that.
Rachael: I mean I love her, but c’mon.
Nic: Yea exactly. But um…but it’s true. You’re in that place where um, you know, you really are having to go out and work a lot and I’m sure there are times when it’s difficult. Ah, I’m sure there are times when you do go back to the hotel room and you’re like, “Oh my god what’s going on? I need I need a drink.” Or…
(Rachael and Nic laughing)
Nic: Or “I need to write a song.” I don’t know. Um, but could you play another song for us? If you could pick something from the album maybe, you could play something on piano or guitar? Whatever works for you.
Rachael: Just…just anything?
Nic: Yea anything. We’re sort of like letting it all go now. The structure is going out of the window here…not that there was any real structure. Except for Tom.
Rachael: An album song…
Tom: Yea for me I had…I was totally prescribed. What I could play or couldn’t play. (Audience laughing) What was the first song you ever wrote? Or the song from your first album…or this? Or a song inspired by LA.
(Rachael and Tom talking over one another)
Rachael: I can choose whatever is on the album.
Tom: These fuckers, they get anything! I’m sensing a male-female divide right now.
Abba: Well you’re a white male so you have an advantage so we’re…it’s just kinda…
Tom: Yea, we rule the world. Okay.
Abba: …evening the play fields here.
Rachael: Awww…
Tom: Yea, go. Be happy.
Abba: Yea.
Tom: Be happy.
Rachael: Cool
Tom: I’ll be with Nic. We’ll be washing up.
(Audience laughing)
Rachael: All right. Something from the album. You want to hear a sad song or a really sad song? What do you want to hear about? I’ll play you a song about cheating and how it’s a bad thing to do. And how I’ve never done it because I’m Pollyanna innocent. Um actually that’s not true. And that rhymed too. (laughs). All right. This song goes out to Tom. Just cause you’re sitting there and you’re British and all that kind of thing.
Nic: Hey hello.
Tom: She means you.
[Even So]

RACHAEL’S LAST SONG
Nic: Rachael pick a song to wrap things up with. Anything you feel like playing.
Rachael: Oh…okay.
From female audience: Collide.
From male audience: I’ll Find a Way.
Rachael: How do you know those songs? Two people who bought my record. No I have to play…Um, this is a song about when nobody kind of gets what you’re seeing, your perspective and um…you’ll never be able to…you’ll never be able to tell them, you won’t be able to have the voice to tell them but…um. You’ll always know why something happened or why something failed or succeeded even if nobody else gets it. And…um…it’s for Katherine.
[Reason Why]