MUSIC INTERVIEW: k.d. lang

by Frank DeBlase
Rochester City Newspaper
June 15, 2011

K.d. lang's voice hovers in the twilight somewhere between heartache and desire. I pointed this out to her on the phone when she called for an interview a few weeks ago. I threw out words like lonesome, longing, and mournful before settling on ethereal. Yeah, ethereal. That's it. Lang (who prefers her name to be represented in all lowercase) finally chimed in.

"I'm kind of glad you sorted that out," she said. "Because people always say 'lonesome,' and to me it's not lonesome at all. To me, it's a kind of openness, an understanding of impermanence. I guess people just misread my music as lonesome and longing, and it's really just about sort of a reality and openness... very positive." Despite what the artist says, there still is a little bitter in the sweet to tug at the strings. After all, let's not forget her monster hit, "Constant Craving."

K.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang has a new CD out called "Sing It Loud." This is the first time since her revved-up country days with the Reclines that lang has worked with her own band.

"When I put this band together in the studio we recorded eight songs in three days," she says. "It just became apparent that their sound was so much a part of this record that I had to call it 'k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang.'" The Siss Boom Bang is lang's road band as well.

Lang began as a honky-tonk upstart in Alberta, Canada, playing twang-tastic classic country and revved-up honky-tonk with an unbridled enthusiasm. She released her first album, "A Truly Western Experience," in 1984. Deemed irreverent by country fans, lang's take was in reality more country than anything on the radio at the time. Perhaps they took issue with the whole lesbian-vegetarian thing, or her music's punk-ish, cocky stance. But there was no denying those pipes.

At the heart of the hoedown hijinks was lang's voice, with its elastic range, creamy tone, power, and seduction. Once listeners got past the fringe and the androgyny and gave her a chance, they were treated to what has become one of the finest crooners of this generation. A testament to this is "Shadowland," her 1988 collaboration with countrypolitan studio wizard, Owen Bradley. "Shadowland" is an absolutely exquisite collection steeped in that aforementioned lonesome sound. I mean, ethereal. Whatever, it's beautiful. The following album, "Absolute Torch And Twang," went on to earn lang a Grammy in 1989.

Over the years, after more than a dozen records to her credit, lang has drifted from country, and could be considered out of the genre's loop entirely were it not for the steel guitar.

"I guess that would depend upon who's listening," she says. "If a real country fan is listening they would think I've never made a return to country or that I've abandoned country. And then some people think I'm too country... I don't know. I think country music is definitely a part of my DNA, and I think it's always in there. My favorite instrument is the steel guitar. I always put steel guitar in, even if I'm doing jazz."

She has flirted with pop and jazz, and has also tackled iconic standards like Roy Orbison's "Crying" and Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," virtually branding them as her own. She makes it look easy, but lang admits it can be a bit harrowing.

"Yeah it's always daunting," she says. "Even if it's not a song of great magnitude, any sort of interpretive work is daunting. It's about really examining why the song means something to you, creating its own vignette or cinematic imagery in your mind, or subtext in your mind. I think it has to stem from a real relationship, a real chemical reaction to the song. And if you have a relationship, a purpose, a clear motivation, it makes it easier." Except when tackling Joni Mitchell.

"I think Joni Mitchell is the hardest person to cover. Because I think that her lyrics and her melodies are so intrinsically aligned. Just the way Joni delivers the lyric and the melody that she chooses, that it's almost impossible to deconstruct it...and you end up sounding like Joni without changing the melody drastically."

Lang and the band wrote all the tunes on the new CD. Though the material is fresh and sticks its fingers in different pies, it's still textbook k.d. lang. She is aware that musicians who enter the studio with her may already have a notion of her sound: flat-out country rockers and ballads that Roy Orbison never wrote on one hand, and that certain earthy, gentle magic that is usually reserved for lullabies on the other.

"Hopefully they bring in a lot of themselves," lang says. "But maybe it's a combination of things, maybe I attract certain musicians, or maybe my music extrudes that out of musicians. The writing just came together. I mean, I had a vision of how I wanted the record to feel and the essence of it, and we just carved it out over a period of time."

"It really was so easy to make this record," she says. "I think just the convergence of the people and the conditions, the musicians... we were all on the same page. We have a collective mindset and energy and positivity; love and respect for the music and each other. I mean, it happens, but in my 28 years in the music business I have to say this is the most creative and magical experience I've had. It was way beyond my expectations."

Simply put, the new album is a rock record. And lang refers to this period in her career as her "rock phase."

"For the last 10 years," she says. "I was really studying my vocal approach and the emotional subtleties of the voice, and the crooning style. Before that it was pop. And before that it was my torch and twang days. I would have to say this is a more rock period...or Americana."

But not lonesome.

"No," she says. "Unpretentious, soulful, and uplifting."