Q: It’s been almost a decade since you last released a proper solo album. Why such a long time?
A: Yeah. That’s so weird. I had that little Dottie’s Charms record, which was more of a concept album, out in 2014 and I’ve been working on musicals, but I’ve procrastinated so long on making another solo record of new songs. It’s funny, I think maybe LA just got to me. I also think I had a little bit of a depression and I kind of got spooked. You know, the last record didn’t do so well and you just get a little crestfallen. It also coincided with going through a bad breakup. For whatever reason, I needed a break. I needed to start loving music again. I needed to start listening to older stuff, to newer stuff. Eventually I started writing again. It also coincided with getting a couple of theater projects that I had to write for. When you’re on your own and you don’t have a record company saying, “We need that record,” it gets harder. I think about a band like the Beatles, who had people saying to them, “We need another new record in three months!” When you don’t have someone pushing you, sometimes you stall. The good thing is that I was writing for other projects. Being forced to write for my musical projects, having to be a part of a collaborative community, it all nudged me back into writing again. I started loving it. Also, there’s something great for me about being back in New York, where I go out and see music all the time. In LA it just feels so hard to get in your car and drive for 40 minutes. It feels easier here.
You were famously one of the first people to use a crowdfunding platform to raise money to make your own record. This was back in 2008, before things like Kickstarter. Now it’s such a common thing to do. So many artists now even question if they need a label at all, or whether it’s easier to just do everything yourself.
Well, here’s the thing. When I did my jillsnextrecord.com no one really knew if it would work or not. I came up with the various pledging levels over the course of a drunken night with a friend. The donation levels ranged from polished rock to weapons-grade plutonium. Somehow CNN got hold of the story and the whole thing started going totally gangbusters, mostly because there wasn’t anything else like that yet. Eventually I stopped it after raising nearly 100,000 dollars because Perez Hilton—you remember that horrible man?—wrote about greedy Jill Sobule asking fans to give her money. So, I freaked out. Then a few months later everyone is doing projects this way. I remember having meetings with the people from Kickstarter, telling them about what had worked for me and what hadn’t. So, all these years later I used Kickstarter to make my new record. I was afraid it might fail because nowadays there are so many people asking everyone else to donate to things, but in the end I did it and it worked and it was great. Still, I procrastinated forever before doing it. I just finally had to come to a point of thinking: I want to do a record. I’m not gonna get a record deal or an advance, so I’m gonna have to do this on my own. It was out of necessity, really. I had no choice.
It’s an easier thing to do if you already have an existing fanbase, but it’s still hard. You have to be really tenacious about promoting it and coming up with good rewards for people. I think crowdfunding can be hard for people because it still involves asking for help on some level, which can be a hard thing to do.
The way I look at it, you just have to make sure you are giving something back in return. It’s an exchange. You’re not begging people. My recent Kickstarter met its goal times three, and it had done really well within the first two weeks. I was completely taken aback. Some of the levels of sponsorship we created were really just like jokes, things I thought nobody would ever actually do. For 10 grand you will be my personal lord and savior. Very funny, right? Somebody bought it! Joss Whedon bought it. So on my record he gets listed as my personal lord and savior. I also did things like offer to write people their own personal theme song. That was a big ticket item that a lot of people actually went for. So now I’m writing people their theme songs, as promised.
People might now realize how many different kinds of things you’ve done over the years, other than releasing solo records. Did you find that having these outside projects—writing a musical, for example—let you come back to your solo work with renewed energy or a different perspective?
Oh, completely! How boring would it be to just do this? On one hand, with the music industry changing and being so terrible, I mean, who makes a living doing this now? It’s the one percent who actually make a living doing only this. I’m really a part of the other 99%. There used to be such a thing as a middle-class working musician, but now? I mean, we used to complain about the stupidest stuff, and how the record labels were ripping us off, but now? Shit. I’d love an advance, you know? I actually had something called a “tour bus” for a couple of years that we toured in, with all of this nice airbrushing on the side. I will never get that again. I had to explore other options, take on other kinds of projects and collaborations.
I know you worked with Ben Lee on Nostalgia Kills. When you are doing things on your own terms with your own money, do you set up certain parameters for yourself? Did you give yourself specific deadlines?
Not really. Actually, I had written a bunch of songs over the last few years here and there and just kind of stuck them aside. I basically gave everything to Ben and asked him to pick out the songs we should work on, which was a little overwhelming for him because I think there were over 50 songs there. He definitely gravitated towards the songs that were kind of melancholy. I was really interested and surprised by the things he chose, but it also felt nice to hand that part of the process off to a friend who I also trusted. There was definitely a kind of running theme in the songs he picked that might not have been there if I had chosen them. I also wrote some new songs during the process, which felt good.
Everyone’s career has peaks and valleys. Big tours and small tours, hits and misses, going from playing big rooms back to clubs. How do you keep all of that stuff from creeping into the art you make? Was there ever a time when you were sort of like, “Screw this, I’m gonna do something else instead?”
Yeah, absolutely, because it can be heartbreaking. It can all be so wonderful and then also just so crushing. There was a time when I just didn’t want to listen to music. At all. Not just mine. I don’t know if listening to music just reminded me of my own regrets or failures or what, but I just couldn’t do it. At some point I also realized that I have no marketable skills doing anything else. I have a friend who is a very talented artist and musician, but she also has a law degree and a real job and can be organized. Her thing was always, “If I wasn’t a lawyer and didn’t have this job, maybe I could have made it in the arts.” Jane Siberry has a song that’s called something like, “I’d probably be famous now if I wasn’t such a good waitress.” I basically have no skills to do anything else. Sometimes that feels like a curse, but it could also be a kind of blessing. There was nothing else I could do but this.
How has your definition of success changed over the years?
Oh yeah. What is success? I hate how it’s always like you have to be at the very top or somehow you are meaningless. Like, if LeBron James is the greatest of all-time that somehow means Michael Jordan is now a loser. Like, what are you talking about? Does it mean that I’m a loser if I’m not playing Madison Square Garden or if I’m not even selling out the Bowery? I always get people coming up to me and saying things like, “Oh, I loved you! Why aren’t you bigger? Why aren’t you more famous?” I know they mean well and that they mean that as a compliment, but damn. It’s hard to hear things like that over and over. Like, yeah, why aren’t I? I don’t know. But when that happens I have to remind myself of things like… you know, last week I played a show at someone’s house and I was singing, “I Kissed A Girl” in between Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner, who were singing along with me at a party that I was hired to play. In that moment I’m like, you know what? I’m a fucking success. We’re all so fucked up about what success means now.
From: https://thecreativeindependent.com/people/musician-jill-sobule-on-reconfiguring-what-success-means/
