Erin McKeown will soon wave a temporary goodbye to her rural western MA home: She’s heading out on a 25-date tour that takes her overseas to the UK, Europe and Scandinavia, where she’ll be the special opening act for live performances of the popular podcast Welcome to Night Vale.
But before the flights, it’s van-on-the-highway time. McKeown and her trusty Ford Transit Connect will make their third cross-country trip together for a string of U.S. gigs, one of which is at The Parlor Room in Northampton on Saturday, September 9 at 7 p.m. The Cabin Project starts off the night.
McKeown’s latest record is the six-song EP “Mirrors Break Back,” and it combines some of her most groovy music with lyrics that shine a light on the dark side of things, both personal and political.
The lead-off track, the slinky and funky “Pretty Little Cemetery,” has an insanely catchy hook and a memorable rhyme — “It’s where I go when I’ve got s*** to bury,” McKeown sings with careful enunciation. Clubland spoke with the singer/songwriter/producer/activist last week.
Clubland: You’ve described the new EP as “A meditation on self-hate.” I know of which you speak. What inspired you to dedicate a whole record to that subject?
McKeown: I’m glad that you openly say “I know of which you speak,” because I think everybody does, but people are loathe to admit that they have those voices.
Last year I made an EP (“According to Us”) that ended up being this declaration of identity and confidence, and the theme of it was “Love us as we are, we are who we say we are.” And then the election happened, and it felt like I needed to understand my own self-hatred, my own dark side, especially if our country was going to be given permission for its dark side to come out.
I started to pay attention to the voices that we all have — I mean, I’ll just speak for myself — the voices that I have, that say, “I’m not as successful as I would want to be, and it’s my fault for these five reasons.” Or I look in the mirror and have a critique of my appearance. Just the sort of fights that happen in our heads. And I thought, why not write a small group of songs from those voices and just see what happens? My therapist was like, “Why are you doing this? Why are you spending time on these dark impulses?” I thought it was ultimately fruitful for me, because I think saying them out loud certainly gave them less power. And I really like the songs that came out of it.
Clubland: On the title track, “Mirrors Break Back,” there’s the line, “Slide step into the negative,” and suddenly other voices muscle in with the words, “the president.” There’s hardly a moment in a day when the current president and the surrounding horror isn’t weighing heavily on me in some way.
McKeown: I feel the same way. I keep coming back to the debate where Donald Trump was physically looming and following [Hillary Clinton]. I can’t get that image out of my head. That to me is what his presidency feels like. This looming just-behind-your-shoulder darkness. It made these songs very easy to write.
Having written the record and brought these thoughts and impulses into the light, for me, I feel a little more free of them, and I feel energized again to engage in the resistance. I had a really hard time the first few months that he was elected, which was the time that I was writing this record. I’ve slowly been coming back to life, and resistance, and engagement, and action. For me that’s a direct result of processing this stuff, getting it out, singing it, and being able to move on.
Clubland: Communication and engaging with a crowd is obviously important to you on stage — the way you perform is not with eyes closed or looking at the floor, but head held high, clear, direct, present. What do you get out of a live show? What’s important to you?
McKeown: Definitely connecting and feeling like there’s an elevated co-created space with an audience. I’m a little bit old-school in the sense that I want to be an entertainer like Judy Garland. I want to wear some clothes that I didn’t wear during the day, I want to open my eyes, I want to see the people that are watching me. There’s something quiet and calm, actually — which is maybe strange to say in the middle of a rock show that is loud and people are moving — but I feel a sense of quiet and calm and connection in the middle of that. Like being on a team with people. It feels like we are on the same level.
You asked me what I get out of it … I find it incredibly inspiring and energizing and fulfilling and it gives me so much energy to keep going. The morning after a show, I always wake up with a spring in my step, more available to the world.
Clubland: Your Northampton show is the season-opening concert at the Parlor Room, run by Signature Sounds, a label with which you’ve had a relationship since at least 2000, when they put out your second album, “Distillation.”
McKeown: Signature Sounds have always felt like family to me. I’ve had a wonderful, honest, clear relationship with Jim [Olsen, co-founder of the label] and he’s been supportive of me from the beginning. I feel really comfortable at places he builds, whether they are labels, or festivals, or rooms. And I love The Parlor Room ’cause there’s pie. BYOB, and then buy pie. That just works for me.