Amy Ray

Amy Ray
a.k.a. Amy Elizabeth Ray

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TEENAGE RIOT
Indigo Girl Amy Ray Goes Back to the Prom
As one half of the Indigo Girls, Amy Ray has crafted some of the most eloquent folk-pop albums of the past decade and a half, discs that are rife with crystalline harmonies and socially conscious musings. She has also, however, maintained a secret identity of sorts -- that of the unreconstructed punk rocker who rears her head on solo offerings like Prom, her second such foray. True to her DIY roots, Ray releases her own albums -- as well as those by many kindred spirits from her native South -- on her Daemon label, an imprint that's feisty and iconoclastic enough to encompass both guttural rock and high-lonesome Smokey Mountain country rock. Prom falls much closer to the former, thanks in part to appearances by former members of Team Dresch and Luscious Jackson, and, more important, to Ray's fiery remembrances of her coming-of-age. Amy paused from preparing for a run of solo dates to let Barnes & Noble.com's David Sprague accompany her to the Prom.

Barnes & Noble.com: How do you decide when it's time to do a solo record?

Amy Ray: I look into the distance to see when I'm gonna have time to record and tour between Indigo Girls things. When I see the lay of the land for the next year or so, I start working -- it's like having a deadline. I knew I was gonna do a second record, and as soon as the songs started coming together, I started recording.

B&N.com: Do you keep the solo things separate from the Indigo Girls things, or do songs ever migrate from one to the other?

AR: The Indigo Girls could do any of these songs and it would sound good, because the band we have is so amazing, but I try to keep things really separate. Emily [Saliers] can pretty much play anything, but there are lyrical reasons that make me keep certain things for myself. Emily and I both have really strong personalities, and whenever one of us sings the other one's songs, it really changes the meaning.

B&N.com: You deal a lot with adolescent themes on this album. Was it hard to reconnect with the feelings of that time in life?

AR: It just started happening. "Put It Out for Good" was the first song I wrote, and it set the trajectory for the record. I was trying to get in touch with where the wellspring of my activism and identity came from -- where did it start? Looking back, it was definitely high school. My greatest, most informative experiences came then, which includes figuring out how I feel about my body, all the way through activism and rebellion and what kind of friends I wanted to have. It was partly sentimental, and I started to worry that I was living in the past. But I realized that it's what got me where I am.

B&N.com: You don't paint the experiences in black and white, though. There are positive and negative songs on the album.

AR: I was really involved in high school. I was class president and involved in projects and independent study. But I was also an outsider. I had my first girlfriend my senior year, and I was chastised relentlessly for it and felt like a loser. But at the same time, I used that outsider mentality to look at things from a different perspective. It was a totally mixed bag for me -- desperately lonely part of the time and totally happy the rest of the time, discovering rock 'n' roll, alcohol, pot, boys, girls...[laughs] I still always go to my reunions, though.

B&N.com: You've said that playing the more aggressive songs on your solo records is an expression of the male part of your psyche. How so?

AR: In my own gender, I have a very strong male voice. What I noticed when I was coming up and [I'd] listen to music and picture myself covering someone's songs, and even in my folk music, the protagonist is the male part of myself. It's not because I have a lack of female role models -- I listen to Joan Jett and Patti Smith and Joni Mitchell and the Distillers -- but my own voice feels more male to me. It's complex as to why that is. Is it because on the spectrum, I'm more male identified? It's a big question in the queer community, but I'm very comfortable with who I am.

B&N.com: It could be just as much of a question in the straight community.

AR: Totally. Your gender isn't who you sleep with. I know plenty of straight men who are more female identified, and plenty of straight women who are male identified. They find a partner that fits them and their life and the spirituality of your own makeup.

B&N.com: You and Emily do a lot of activist work, which must be interesting in the current climate. Do you think that bad times -- politically or otherwise -- lead to good art?

AR: I do think that during bad times, things get polarized and artists feel the need to take a stance in opposition to what's going on. I don't look at it as a trade-off, though. I don't think we need bad times in order to have good art. We'll never really know what it's like to be inspired by a world that's all good, though, because that's not the nature of the world.

April 2005