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Interview
by SaschaS
23-4-2003
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| Maria McKee: beautiful freedom, big art |
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Goddess of a Lost Highway
Maria McKee’s back “cooking sensual” feasts
Maria McKee has always been an enigma with musical output to match – a regular erratic delight. But, her new album, ‘High Dive’, takes it further, embraces myriad styles (with added passion of a long-term denial) that yield a song range of schizophonic proportions… The album is all about liberation, artistic freedom to express self without any considerations but own conscience, heartbeat, and fervour. And, it comes out on own label, Viewfinder Records, set up and run with her producer, mixer, bass player, arranger, occasional co-composer and husband, Jim Akin.
McKee’s gone indie after years invested in recording for major labels, whether with the alt-country-punk band Lone Justice (1984-1987) or her subsequent solo career that saw her last album, ‘Life Is Sweet’, appear in the distant 1996; its title track bridges the gap with a different version appearing on the new CD. Her songs also graced the ‘Pulp Fiction’ soundtrack, ‘Songcatcher’ and the 2003 Grammy-nominated ‘Evangeline Made’ (two tracks) albums. If all these sound like she’s knocking on a bit, Mrs McKee is only 39.
“I never actually intended to take such a long time off,” McKee explains with gusto of an artist having a new ‘baby’ to proudly show off, “and feel that I’ve been working pretty much steadily all the time although it may not have been at the pace that’s as ambitious as it used to be in the past. It took a very long time to record the album, I was making it with my husband, and we had to piece it together. My husband produced it, and then mixed it, which he had not done before. Then, as we don’t read music, using a computer to score before bringing in a string quartet to record, takes time...”
Intrepid manoeuvres
Any magnitude takes a lot of nurturing and McKee had started early, encouraged by her stepbrother, Bryan MacLean, co-founder of psychedelic-legends Love who, sadly, died on Christmas Day 1998 (suspected heart attack). He, The Byrds’ roadie originally, had been the one who planted her on stage at the age of 8 and encouraged her to pursue music career. But, it all petered out after the ‘Life Is Sweet’ disc and McKee only toured once since, four years ago.
Listening to the album one can’t help but face independence in its grooves and the feeling is that this disc could have only been issued off-mainstream music industry. The impression is that she defiantly goes against the grain of any targeted-mart demands that, one suspects, would neither be tolerated nor supported by the ‘big boys’ due to simply not ‘doing the biz’.
“I love the way you put it – defiantly…” McKee rings out with infectious laughter. “We didn’t set out to be ‘free-spirited’ but you are right, there is not a lot of room for people to take risks, musically, because the major labels are business concerns. I’ve got nothing against them because I used them as a young artist to establish myself. What I’m doing is still wanting to take risks, creatively stretch to where I want to go because it is what I do, what I need to do.”
“There is a lot of work to do,” she comments on label running, “the business stuff and it’s not easy. The reward is getting out there and playing live but there is so much stuff to happen beforehand. When we finished the album we knew we weren’t going to go with a major label because we didn’t want to give up ownership of the recordings. They usually ask you to re-record the album you’ve just made, give you advice about songs, looks, everything… Business operates on one set of rules while music making has none… I often compare my record making with my cooking, you just get down and add a dash of this and a dash of that until it tastes right. It is not really conceptual but it is sensual.”
The beautiful occupation
‘High Dive’ encompasses a plethora of styles, including Kate Bush-as-Alice in the P-Funk wonderland on ‘Be My Joy’ (written after watching ‘Boogie Nights’ movie, apparently), gospel-meets-musical on ‘Love Doesn’t Love’, mini-operatic ‘Non Religious Building’, meditative, tone-poem ‘Worry You’… Songs that emo-connect, evoke/create memories and cause brain strain. This lady knows how to spell idiosyncrasy – backwards, and blindfolded!
“Acting,” McKee doesn’t hesitate to name her greatest sacrifice to music. “I was on my way to Broadway when my brother stopped me and told me not to waste time but start doing music because ‘Pop music was great’, he said. In a long run I may have to say he was right, because if I did theatre and then tried to do music, I wouldn’t have been taken seriously. But, you can do it the other way around, you can be a musician and move into acting; you may not score points with the theatre people but, at least, you have Rock’n’Roll cred. I hope to pursue it eventually and it makes me sad occasionally, when I think about the ambitions that I had. But, that’s neither here nor there…”
“I don’t regret it, I love what I do… I’m just disillusioned with Rock’n’Roll because I don’t really think it is progressing in any way that can hold my interest anymore. I still love music, maybe not Rock’n’Roll but I feel very fortunate to be able to get onstage and perform my music, write it, sing it, interpret it.”
Maria McKee is a ‘Goddess of a Lost Highway’, the nymph-like saviour of our lost animae on the road to perdition.
SaschaS
23-4-2003
Maria McKee’s album ‘High Dive’ is released 21 April 2003 on Viewfinder Records
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