Lily Wilson Interview

The Lily Wilson Street Team caught up with Lily in Atlantic City, New Jersey where she was performing with Melissa Etheridge for a holiday special being taped for HDNet. We asked her about her latest album, The Right Time, and about performing with Melissa Etheridge, and Sanskrit chanting. We asked Lily for some sample vocals, and she did not disappoint.

Lily- So, are you ready?

Kel- Almost.

Lily- I miss Bernie. She sings it too with me.

Kel- OK.

Lily- [singing with the voice of an angel] "Hallelujah"

Kel- Woooow.

Camille- Wow. YAAAAY!!!

Kel and Camille- More! One more!

Lily- [pauses, thinks, then belts out] "RING THE BEEEEEEEEEEEELLS!!!!"

Kel and Camille- Thank you!!

Kel- I love the new album. How is The Right Time doing?

Lily- Thank you! It's doing great! All of the feedback that I've been getting is just awesome. This month, actually, "A Little Life" is featured on American Airlines.

Camille- I'm totally going to fly American Airlines!

Lily- It's so exciting! There's a magazine called Paste that did a partnership with American Airlines for this month and I'm in the magazine! I'm on the airline station- I'm not sure which station it is.

Kel- You get the magazine if you fly American Airlines? Kind of like Sky Mall magazine?

Lily- Yeah. Paste magazine you can also buy at the Newstand.

Kel- P-A-S-T-E?

Camille- "Paste"? Like glue?

Kel- Like what I used to eat in the first grade?

Lily- Yeah exactly.

Kel- We're paste eaters.

Lily- I did try it once. It was good. Elmers. Kind of . . . minty.

Kel- Elmers! You get it, you spread it out on your hand, and you let it dry and then you roll it and then it makes a little ball and then you pop it in- YEAH!

Camille- Did you guys ever make "Booger Balls" out of rubber cement?

Lily- Yeah! I used to paint them on my hands too. It can't be good for you.

Kel- Can you imagine if I ever ate that today?

Camille- I used to drink out of the hose too.

Lily- We all did that, right?

Kel- Yeah.

Camille- So do you want to talk about . . .

Kel- . . . your shows coming up?

Lily- I have a show at Genghis Cohen on the 18th of November. It's going to be really fun. It will be a little more acoustic oriented than the ones at Molly Malone's. We're going to have Nick Kirgo on guitar.

Kel- He's really great. Mark introduced me to him. He is a nice guy.

Lily- Yeah he's a really sweet guy. And Mark will be there, and Dave will be drumming, and I think Kiki Ebsen will be there too.

Kel- At the recent album release party, I was really blown away. You were sick, but I couldn't even believe you were sick. It was such a good energy.

Lily- Thank you! It was a great energy, I know.

Kel- Then when you were singing "Sweet Time" and you set down your guitar and were so into the music- I loved that! That was such a statement right there when you were really involved in what the band was giving you.

Lily- They're such a great band, sometimes I feel like I don't want to play 'cause I just want to listen to them!

Camille- You could walk off stage and sit down with us.

Lily- I honestly want to do that sometimes! I love James' playing so much. He floors me. Did you guys like what you heard tonight (during Sound Check)? Isn't he great?

Kel and Camille- Yeah!

Lily- He's a really different player than Philip. It's so interesting when you take one person out of the band and put another person in. It changes everything. It changes the whole dynamic. And it's not necessarily better or worse, it's just different. Everyone is relating to everything differently.

Camille- I think as fans we are wondering how some of the solos are going to go, like "Oh Night Divine". What I heard during sound check was really good, and James was really taking off when doing some of the solos.

Lily- He brings his own flavor to it. You can never do what Philip did. Philip is one in a million.

Kel- Philip's a shining star. He's incredible. I'm looking forward to the show tonight, to see a different perspective of Melissa again. As long as they're all singing and playing I'm fine. But I am looking forward to that perspective tonight, especially with this CD, even though Philip was "Oh Night Divine". It's going to be great.

Camille- If you keep getting all of Melissa's band members into your band, is Paul Trudeau going to start playing with you?

Lily- [laughs] Well you know Mark referred Paul to Melissa, because Mark has known Paul for a long time, and Paul actually played on "Morning Light" which is on Stargazer. He's the one playing piano on that song. [sings and plays air piano] "Doo doo, doo doo . . ." He's such a great piano player. That's Paul!

Kel- Cool! Can we add that to the interview, can we put that in there like a little chunk of "Paulage"? 'Cause Paulage does have a lot of chunks, and he's very very talented.

Lily- Paul is great and I love his voice too. I'm so happy that he's singing with us. He's very sweet. It's all one big happy family.

Camille- I'm glad that you and Bernie are here tonight. I tried imagining it without you guys, but I think it would be missing something.

Lily- When we first starting singing with Melissa again, she was like "I miss you guys!"
Camille- Awwww!

Kel- Bernie's spirit at The Right Time party- she is just a riot. I think I might have startled her a little bit earlier today.

Camille- Well she wasn't really expecting it. Someone shouting out "BERNIE!"

Kel- I was like "HI BERNIE!! I met you at Molly's . . ." and she was like "What?" ,and I tried to tell her that I do your Street Team to get to the point that I'm not just running around yelling her name. I don't want her to sign anything, I just want to tell her "You're awesome!"

Lily- She is. She's great.

Kel- So the Dream Band with Nick Kirgo at Genghis Cohen is the show on the 18th. Isn't there a show on the 20th?

Lily- There's a show on the 20th that people can watch online. Kulak's Woodshed.

Kel- You can go to Kulak's to watch the show, or watch online, and donate to them.

Lily- Kulak's is great for people who don't live in LA because they can watch it online. And with Kulak's I don't need as many people there. At Genghis Cohen I really need to pack it.

Kel- I'll promote the crap out of it.

Lily- Cool, thank you. It's a Chinese restaurant. I used to play there all the time. That was my regular gig. It has a little attached music room. It's a great gig and it's really fun. So yeah, that, and then I'm doing some background stuff. I'm actually singing with Kiki at a big benefit for the animal shelters of Los Angeles, and Emmylou Harris is playing at that too.

Kel- Cool! Can I promote that too? Maybe for donations?

Lily- Yes. It's $275 a ticket. It's on my website, there's a link. Then next week, I'm doing an LA Women in Music Showcase; that's two songs. It's fun, they invited me down. Everyone who plays there is really good. And you get dinner with admission!

Camille- Where is that one?

Lily- That's in Hollywood. It's at a place called the M Bar.

Camille- How are the house concerts going?

Lily- We had a lot of fun doing a couple weeks of those. We went up and down the coast. It's always a lot of fun to play house concerts. I love the intimacy, and everyone is very attentive.

Kel- How do you prepare yourself, if you've had a lot of time off, and you're going to go do a concert?

Lily- I can get a little bit lazy about playing guitar. I don't pick it up and play it every time I get home like my husband does, so I have to make myself practice guitar and keep my vocal chords warmed up. Because if you don't sing for awhile it's hard on your voice when you go do a gig. I have warm-up exercises that I do every day.

Kel- I'm incredibly shy. Do you have "shy" issues?

Lily- There's a feeling . . . I don't have a kind of nervousness that is debilitating. I know that some performers do. For me it's a feeling that I've become comfortable with. It's that butterfly feeling. I know I can't eat anything before, for a good two hours. It's a tricky thing because you have to eat to have energy, but then you can't eat too close to playing. I know now the way that nerves show up for me. Everyone has a different way of dealing with it.

Kel- I think I'd be in that classification of "Debilitating".

Camille- Do you get nerves at every show?

Lily- Some shows are more than others. I get nervous with Melissa in a different way, because I don't want to mess up my parts. There are bigger rooms and bigger crowds and that's really exciting. More than nervous, it's really exciting. That butterflies in your stomach kind of feeling. But it's also very invigorating, and I think that's part of the draw of it for performers.

Kel- This Christmas show is a one-time show that is going to be on HDNet. This is huge to be a part of.

Camille- It's going to be commemorated forever!

Lily- I'm really excited that I get Hair and Make-Up.

Camille- Nice! Can I get it too? [laughs]

Lily- It is kind of nerve racking because it took me awhile to figure out what I was going to wear. I will watch this for the rest of my life, and be like "Hey that was me!"

Camille- Do you watch "The Awakening"?

Lily- Yeah! My parents love it, they watch it.

Camille- Of course, you're in it! What are you wearing tonight?

Lily- I'm wearing a vest, and a black top and jeans.

Camille- Do they tell you not to wear white?

Lily- Yes, they do tell you don't wear white, 'cause it's too bright for the lights. It messes up the whole thing.

Kel- You know, I wanted to come tonight, and I told Camille at the very last minute "I'm gonna go!" I had e-mailed you and asked if you are going, and you said yeah, and I'm not your stalker or anything, don't be afraid . . .

Camille- I'm a stalker!

Lily- [laughs] It's always good to see familiar faces.

Kel- We've spoken before about yoga. Can you tell us about yoga, and the chanting?

Lily- The prayers are beautiful prayers and they sound so good and there's a reason why people are still chanting Sanskrit today. It summarizes everything and distills it down to these basic sounds. I take a meditation class, and we'll do a forty-minute chant, the same thing over and over and over. It is sooooo cool. It definitely keeps my voice healthy, and it's all about the tones, and how you get the tones, and what chakras are ignited by the different tones.

Kel- Do you chant with yourself or others? How many are there?

Lily- Blending all together- there are about fifteen of us.

Kel- The vibrations of all of that would be intense. I think my hair would stick straight up without products.

Camille- I wanna go to your class and sit in back!

Lily- It's Kundalini Yoga. There's a lot of chanting in that.

Kel- Is that the same as Ashtanga?

Lily- That's the main one that I do. I do that at home a lot. It's intense. There's a lot of push-ups, it's a pretty vigorous practice. That's different from the Kundalini that I do. Being flexible and being open are really important parts of being a performer and being a singer especially because as a singer your body is your instrument so you really have to take care of it. Yoga is a big part of the puzzle for me.

Kel- How long have you been doing it?

Lily- I've been practicing Ashtanga for twelve years.

Kel- We are looking forward to the show tonight! (At the sound check) Camille cried, and then I didn't wanna cry, then we walked back and were listening against the door, and her eyes welled up, and I was like "I'm not holding it back this time!"

Lily- On "Ring The Bells"?

Camille- Yeah. I wasn't expecting at the end, where they both went off, and Salman was doing the Sanskrit, and then I could hear you . . .

Lily- [sings gently] Ring the bells . . .

Camille- Yeah! That part.

Lily- [sings with everything she's got] RING THE BEEEEEEEELLS!!!!

Camille- [thud]

Kel- Thank you so much!

Lily- You are so welcome!