Last paragraph is a little inaccurate, but all in all, good job
Outlaw heart
Local Gold
[Comment Below]By Reyan Ali
Lydia
Loveless began making music because when you grow up in "the middle of
nowhere," that's pretty much all there is to do. Where is the middle of
nowhere for her?
"I'm from Warsaw," she said. "Or better yet, Newcastle."
Warsaw
is a village in Coshocton County with a website that's barely
functional. Search for "Newcastle" and the first Google result you'll
receive comes from ePodunk.com. More evidence of Newcastle's diminutive
size comes from its lack of things to do.
"There is a restaurant, a strip club, and a church," said Loveless.
However,
while these locales might be unfamiliar to even people well acquainted
with Ohio, rural towns provide an excellent source of inspiration for
Loveless. It's what led to her interest in outlaw country music (think
of the work made by Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, and other hard up, hard
working souls) and where she'd like to be living right now.
"But it takes a lot of money to do that," she said.
Loveless
grew up in a music-friendly household, and she got her start by playing
with other family members. She tried the piano, but moved away from
that when she didn't feel much attachment to it. After that, she
temporarily ditched instruments to strengthen her voice. When she
decided that she wanted to write music herself, she got into guitar.
"Pretty
much everyone in my family [plays an instrument] except my Mom," she
says. Loveless took up bass duties in Carson Drew, a new wave-esque
band composed of her two sisters and her dad, who still plays drums for
her.
"I'm used to it by now," she attests. "It used to be
weird. You want to mouth off to the drummer about something and you
can't because it's your Dad. But yeah, it's not that bad. He pretty
much does what I say. It's nice: I've never had to worry about where
I'm going to find a drummer because I don't really like drummers. I
think they are kind of arrogant so it's nice not to have to meet them
too often."
Before she became enamored with the outlaw country aesthetic, she was interested in pop music-namely, Britney Spears.
"I
think that's what made me want to play music in the first place," she
adds with a laugh. As she began experimenting with composing music as a
15 year-old, she would practice her vocal abilities by singing along to
what was in the CD player ("Ace of Base or something") and tried to
write "pretty songs on the piano but I never got good enough at it."
What
she did become good at was crafting country songs that benefit from a
stripped-down sensibility. Armed with an ardent cry, colored with both
a slight Southern accent and a tinge of sadness, she overpowers her
guitar, vigorously cutting through strings and letting loose tales of
redemption and sorrow.
"I didn't really have any time writing music before I started doing this," she mentions.
Her
writing process is based on taking some cues from other everyday
problems ("It's usually other people's concerns that inspire me the
most"), looking for some seclusion (lots of ideas come when she is in
the shower), and occasionally getting a little liquored up ("Sometimes,
getting drunk helps because you think of funnier things you wouldn't
normally say or melodies come easily"). There is always a lot of give
and take, though.
"I try to make songs a certain way but they
never really end up that way," she reveals. "If I'm trying to make a
song fast, it gets darker. If I try to make a song dark, it gets
peppier than it should have been. Sometimes, something dead-set in my
head gets written; sometimes, I have to work on a line for months."
Loveless
ended up in Columbus after she and her family moved out of the rural
setting in which she grew up. She frequently circuits a range of local
venues, (she's often found at Bernie's, but Rumba Café is her favorite
spot) yet she doesn't feel any deep, abiding love for Ohio's capital.
"It's
an all right place but it's definitely not where I feel my heart is,"
she admits. "I'd rather live in the middle of nowhere." After all, the
rural town or village is the source of her preferred style of music,
not the city. "That's where country music is made: anywhere where there
is nothing to do but think and write."
As of right now,
Loveless is in the process of wrapping up a new record, one that she
likens to the work of Conor Oberst and describes as "a little slower, a
little folkier." She wants to give rock and pop music another go even
if it's not linked to her current material. "With my music, I'd like to
dominate everybody and be famous," she says with a little chuckle.
"Hopefully, that can happen."
Lydia Loveless will perform at
Hal and Al's (1297 Parsons Ave.) on October 17. For more information,
visit myspace.com/lydialoveless.