Don't Call Her the `New Norah'
Singer songwriter Rachael Yamagata is climbing the ladder to stardom
By Vanessa Juarez
Newsweek
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6207931/site/newsweek/


Oct. 8 - Whether you're 13 or 30, male or female, a Britney groupie
or a Dylan aficionado, you've probably fantasized about what life
would be like as a rock star. Rachael Yamagata, a piano- and guitar-
playing songstress, isn't there yet. If you've ever heard her live
or listened to her fans scream out her name as they did at a recent
New York City gig, you'd think otherwise.

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The 27-year-old Northwestern graduate and former member of a Chicago
funk band is currently touring to promote "Happenstance," her debut
solo album that's loaded with blistering tracks. "Worn Me Down," a
can't-get-it-out-of-your-head song has been getting frequent radio
rotation as well as time on MTV. Yamagata has also been working the
late-night TV circuit, where she's sometimes compared to Norah
Jones. She spoke to NEWSWEEK's Vanessa Juarez about climbing the
ladder to stardom. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: Hi, Rachael. How are you? What are you up to to­day?
Rachael Yamagata: Wow NEWSWEEK, fancy, fancy. We're hanging on the
tour bus at Iowa University and we have a show here later on so
we're kind of chillin' out before the show.

Where's Iowa University?
You know, good question. I see trees and a lake and there's a big
university. [To a passerby:] Can you tell me what city we're in?
Ames. We're in Ames. [Laughs.] Lord it's getting bad. It's
like "What, where, who?"

Your schedule and hours must be crazy.
It's unreal. You finish a show at 2 and nobody's really asleep until
4. Then if you're driving, you have to be up at 8 o'­clock in the
next city doing a radio perform­ance and you do two of those and then
phoners and then you're straight loading into the next show. Your
personal life goes to hell. And just ba­sic things like making sure
your bills are paid. I have outstanding electric bills from Chicago
from like three years ago. It's in­sane.

Where do you live?
I don't really live anywhere. I've built this kind of hideaway
studio loft. It's really a place above my parents' garage in Wood­
stock, N.Y., so all my stuff is in boxes sitting in that room. It's
been about two years since I had an apartment. I have bathing suits
and winter scarves in the same suit­case.

Things really seem to be happening for you. Do you feel famous yet?
[Laughs.] You know, there are a few ran­dom things that happen.
You'll go to cities where you've never been and people will know the
songs, so that's always trippy. We were in Japan and these
businessmen were waiting in the lobby for my autograph. And I'm
like "Oh my God, you're like my dad. I'll sign this, I don't know
why." So it's like the first touches of being recognized. It's kind
of freaky.

Have you reached stalkerdom yet?
There are a few. Nobody has crossed the line that has made me scared
at all, but I definitely have a few superpassionate fans. It'll be
interesting to see how that goes. [Laughs.] I get how people can be
so emo­tionally attached to a performance that somebody is giving and
the seductiveness of being so intimate with something that you're
watching. It's a tricky thing. I'm tak­ing kickboxing, so I'll fend
for myself.

I love that you have conversations with the audiences at your shows.
The things that come out of my mouth on stage … it's definitely
awkward and real. I was at a college yesterday, and I don't even
know what I was saying … things like, "I wasn't a very good student
and there was this one professor who always hit on the girls, not
that you're dealing with any of that. And it's cool, and don't drink
and be a good person." And people were like, "Shut up, Rachael."

At your New York show, you joked about calling this the "Slit Your
Wrists" tour. Care to elaborate?
I'm always writing seri­ous, heart-wrenching, crazy emotion and weird
love-triangle [songs]. I'm not really the poster child for happy-go-
lucky pop songs by any means.

You've composed more than 200 songs?
Yeah, I don't know if any of them are any good but I've been writing
for a healthy number of years now. It's my way of having
conversations with people.

That's a lot of love triangles.
A lot of them. [Laughs.] But actually, I have lots of songs about
other things. For some reason this album ended up being very heavily
centered on relationships, and they always fascinate me.

How do you do happy songs without sounding cheesy anyway?
Right. The Beatles pull it off, you know what I mean? There is such
a thing as a great, happy song. I'm just not the master of that
particular genre.

When did it occur to you that music's your thing?
I was always playing piano and singing, but I never thought of
pursuing it profes­sionally. I was in [college] and I met this band
from Chicago. I started out as a groupie of sorts. I would see their
shows and go to practices and I knew some people in the band. I
would watch and learn and bring them coffee and donuts. And just by
chance they needed a third harmony and so eventually entered that
band as a backup singer. That was really when that became more of a
focus.

When did you think about going solo?
Music just overtook everything, and I started writing a lot of songs
on my own. The solo career was really kind of a sur­prise. All I
decided to do was play some songs at a coffee shop for my own growth
and to get over my stage fright. I met some­body who brought me to
the scout at Mav­erick Records, which was the first label checking me
out. I didn't really have that much experience or even identify
myself as a solo artistbefore--it [was] all just kind of [a] whirl­
wind.

Did you eventually have that moment of this is what I should be
doing?
Yeah, I think when they offered me the record deal. [Laughs.]
Somewhere around that was when I was like, "Really, you want to pay
me to make music? OK."

What's been your most memorable mo­ment as a musician?
I played this show in Detroit, and it was my first big jump in an
audience. I hadn't had a lot of solo performing experience, and I
opened for David Gray in front of 5,000 people. Nobody knew me
there. I was petrified because I had never played in front of that
many people. And that audi­ence and that night was so warm and recep­
tive. They were dead silent when I was playing and just cheered when
the song was over. It was something about that per­formance that I'll
always remember be­cause I was so deathly afraid of being out there,
and it just worked.

I would love to know the back story to a couple of songs. "Paper
Doll"?
When I got signed, I had a lot of people being very excited about my
potential, per se. You get a lot of people with the best intentions
surrounding you, wanting to help you form your sound or write with
the best people or pick your producer and do all those things.
Everyone wants to get in­volved. "Paper Doll" was one of those songs
that was a particular situation. It's coming to terms with the fact
that the music busi­ness is not an easy business to survive in, and
you have to stand your ground and know your limitations. Otherwise
you'll be­come some sort of doll for people to dress up.

What about "Letter Read"?
Yeah, it was an absolutely personal, spe­cific situation of me
snooping in some­body's journal and finding out information that I
just a.) had no right to know, b.) sus­pected and c.) like you reap
the conse­quences of it. If you're asking questions, you gotta be
ready for the answers.

What do you say to those who compare you to Norah? One publication
has even called you the new Norah.
Oh great, the new Norah? Fantastic. I always give my ex-girlfriend
analogy for that. It's like the guy who you're dating and you're
head over heels for them. You find out that they've had these ex-
girlfriends who happen to be beautiful and talented, and you would
never regret that they dated those people because they've helped to
make this person you're in love with as great as they are. But at
the same time, you're so anxious to get on with your own
relationship with them the last thing you want to do is focus on
their past.

That would be frustrating as an artist because your focus is on your
identity, not somebody else's.
Absolutely, you totally want to be your own voice. I think it's just
something you're up against in this market. People need identifiable
references, so automatically people are going to compare me to the
next-big-thing kind of a buzz. But it's a lot of pressure to work up
to.

Hopefully you'll work your way up to `The new Rachael.'
[Laughs.] Exactly.