BRENDA:
Where are you from, I mean where did you grow up and how did you
get to NYC?
DEBBY:
I was born in Albany, NY on May 12th, 1962 at 5:10 pm. That makes
me a Taurus, with Libra rising, moon in Virgo (just felt like throwing
that in). I actually grew up in this small town (in the more pejorative
sense of the term "small") called Voorheesville, which is maybe
20 minutes west of Albany. By the time I was 18, I was desperate
to get out of Voorheesville and I had always had NYC on the brain
growing up. I started playing guitar when I was 13 and also started
reading about certain musicians-maybe something off the back of
a Joan Baez album at first, or the Peter, Paul and Mary records
that my parents bought for us to listen to, but NYC kept popping
up as a place to go. Actually NYC, and what a dirty, horrible place
it was becoming, seemed to be THE topic in the news as I grew up
in the 70's. And all these sitcoms took place there, and there is
something very interesting to people about sin and vice and corruption,
and while Albany certainly has it's share, Albany was not being
splashed all over television and the news! So when I graduated from
high school, I spent two years at this very, very upstate SUNY (to
please my parents), but then transferred to SUNY Purchase in my
junior year, chiefly because it's so close to NYC. But I moved to
LA first for 3 months after graduating college, then finally came
to NYC for good in January, 1986.
BRENDA:
Tell me something about the Aquanettas. What was great about that
band? When and why did they break up?
DEBBY:
I actually met Jill Richmond (lead guitarist of the Aquanettas)
when I was in LA, so I felt in retrospect that I was sort of fated
to go there first. She moved to NYC a year after I left LA and we
got right to work writing songs. We were very hard workers-all the
Aquanettas were. We were a very dedicated band. We met for rehearsal
at least three times a week for the 7 years we were together! We
would have band meetings to clarify goals, makes lists, target this
club or that person or company, we were just relentless. I'm still
amazed that we didn't get farther than we did, and that I actually
got signed to a major afterwards because I have never worked that
hard and continuously since then. What's really great about the
Aquanettas is that we're still all friends and still play in combination
with each other. Claudine plays bass with me now, Stephanie is singing
and writing material for her own band called Birdy, and I sing back-ups
with her and she sings back-ups with me. Also, Steph and I sing
back-ups for Jill's new band, The Mike Hunt Band. I mean, the Aquanettas
were a band with four very strong women in it, and so it was inevitable
that we would become antsy after a while. We gradually found that
we were each coming into our own musical ideas very strongly. I
think that it's a very healthy thing to grow, and we did. We outgrew
each other. It's sort of like, when you're in your 20's, you don't
mind having room mates, but eventually you begin to realize that
you like to have things a certain way and do things a certain way
and do them at your own pace, and you finally get a place of your
own to live. I feel like that's what happened to us. Besides that,
we were paying out more money than we were taking in (parking for
the van, the van itself, the PO box, the practice room, etc.). We
were 'on-the-verge-of-making-it' for a little too long, and that
can really wear you down.
BRENDA:
What is the Loser's Lounge? How did it start? Is it still going
on?
DEBBY:
Loser's Lounge is Joe McGinty's brainchild, and it's a revue featuring
the work of composers or musical acts (band or solo) such as Burt
Bacharach, the Beach Boys, Elton John, The Monkees, Henry Mancini,
whatever. The Custard Kings are the pit band, and have become walking
encyclopedias of the pop-music genre at this point. I think the
story is that Joe, who used to be in The Psychedelic Furs towards
the end of the 80's, had not much to do after the band broke up,
so he started noodling around on a piano in this bar or coffee house
on Ludlow street, and people began coming up and asking him if they
could sing with him and then they started bringing songs in, and
that's when Joe got a great idea... By the way, the next show will
be on April 24th-doors at 8:00-at Fez (of course). It's gonna be
Nancy Sinatra/Lee Hazelwood. I'm not sure what I'm singing yet.
BRENDA:
Tell me how you got signed to Mercury. Did you do a lot of touring?
DEBBY:
I was actually signed to "Womanly Hips," which was Joan Osborne's
label. Joan brought me onto Mercury/Womanly Hips. I didn't do a
lot of touring because once the merger with Seagrams went through,
budgets froze, but I did do a lot of radio and area stuff.
BRENDA:
Any good road stories?
DEBBY:
I was really a road-warrior in my Aquanetta days. I can't think
of any "stories" per se, I mean, nothing racy, except the time in
Florida when we were partying with Meat Beat Manifesto's dancers
(who used to dress up in lizard costumes and prowl the stage in
the dry-ice mist, as Meat beat played their Meat Beat music) and
all I have to say about that is be careful when drinking with the
English because they can drink huge volumes of alcohol, and they
also mix liquors, and the next day you might find yourself in the
parking lot of a mall in Florida, where you are expected to play
this bar that keeps blatting out over the loudspeakers that tonight
they have the ALL FEMALE band from NYC, that's right, ALL FEMALE,
and the waitresses are all wearing thongs up the butt and stilletto
heels and belts with shot-glasses and cowboy hats and keep offering
you jello-shots, so you go outside and your friend is standing next
to you as you sit crouched over in the parking lot ready to barf,
if only God would be kind enough to make it happen, telling you
in the most gentle and sensitive way he can manage that your only
choice is to go into that bar and have a shot, because its the only
thing that will ease the pain of a hangover such as the one you
are having right now. Children, I don't care what any bunch of drunk,
English lizard dancers tell you, you must NEVER mix vodka and tequila...
(and I was not kissing any guy in any swimming pool either, Claudine
made that up to torment me).
BRENDA:
What do you think is the best and worst thing about being a woman
in this industry?
DEBBY:
Well, right now, it seems like a great time to be a female artist,
but I know from being in an all-female band that there can't be
more than one in the market at a time. It's sort of like when you
have one female Senator it's called progress, and if you have two,
women are gaining a majority, but if you start getting three and
four, then women are taking over the Senate (which, I believe, is
comprised of 50 or 60 reps, remember). As far as the marketing managers
are concerned, the market cannot support more than one female band
at a time because all female bands are still seen as "novelty acts,"
just like all African-American rock bands. I think that entities
like MTV have screwed it up for us in a way, too, because now we
have to look like models for the camera, or at least be body concious
looking. I'm not a thin girl, and I've always been paranoid that
my "weight" might be holding me back, which in return makes me feel
ornery and want to eat more. We, as artists, are all seen as commodities
in this business, and women are still judged largely by their looks-
I just wrote a song with the line "youth confused with beauty/age
confused with time" - that's not going to change overnight. In fact,
we've lost ground in a small sense, because the voices I hear on
the radio are largely breathy, young, "innocent" sounding voices
. The older female performers are there too, of course, but not
in the same numbers. It reminds me of that era at the end of the
1950's when grittier, more "dangerous" performers like Elvis, Jerry
Lee Lewis, and Little Richard were phased out and the "nicer" performers
like Dion and Fabian who were a lot less threatening and more teen
idol-ish were phased in. I hear a lot of women on the radio right
now, but no one very threatening. Not to sound like sour grapes,
but there's a big difference between Natalie Imbruglia and Courtney
Love, and I'm hearing an awful lot of the former on the pop stations!
BRENDA:
Does the politics of being female come into your writing?
DEBBY:
I would say yes, indirectly. I don't consciously strive to be political,
because it invariably comes out sounding insincere. The best writing
comes from the heart. I mean, in a way, if you're female, you're
living the politics of being female everyday, as men live the politics
of being men, Afro-Americans and homosexuals live and are their
politics, I mean, we brand and categorize each other and are then
forced to live with and through the effects (to varying degrees-notice
my tendency to qualify my statements to death)!
BRENDA:
Give me the names of some of the people who have been most supportive
in working with you as a guitarist and singer. (Producers, label
people, co-writers?)
DEBBY:
Joan Osborne, for giving me the chance to record, James Mastro (producer/guitarist/Big
Brother) for his continued support... the Aquanettas, the Loser's
Lounge people, Andy Gilchrist and Stevie B. of Mia Mind Music for
the radio promotion, Claudine (Aquanetta bass player who still plays
with me), John Bellon (my drummer), Dan Macassey (my lead guitarist),
Kris Yiegnst and Meg Ritchell from Mercury who really went all out
for me.
BRENDA:
Tell me something about the recent merger that took over your label.
What was your goal in being signed to a major label?
DEBBY:
I didn't actually want to be signed to a major label! The appealing
thing about Womanly Hips was that it was a small label through a
big label, and so I thought that I would have the best of both worlds,
you know, like living in a small town near a big city. What happened
in retrospect I think, was that Mercury wanted to make me part of
the promotional package for Joan's 2nd album, and when she didn't
deliver the album on time, rather than hold up the release of my
own CD, Joan lobbied to get me onto Mercury proper. She was really
trying to help me out, but I had a bad feeling about being put onto
the "major" label from the get-go. I simply do not belong on a major
label, nor do I desire to be on one. Frankly most of the big people
at major labels like to talk to hear themselves talk and will say
anything to an artist to get a smile out of them. I think we become
their mirrors! Our eagerness/gratefulness makes them feel good about
themselves, as if they're finally fitting into that special dress
they've always wanted to wear. Of course, once they're away from
the mirror, it's out of sight, out of mind. They're full of shit,
most of them, and like people on drugs, you must never turn your
back on them. Anyhow, my goal was simply to tour and record. I can
do that whether I'm on a major label or not. I don't feel the need
to be big, I mean, what's that? You have to stop living for other
people's approval eventually, or you'll burn out.
BRENDA:
What is your goal now?
DEBBY:
My goal is to not have a goal. I mean, to paraphrase the 12-steps
ideology, Just for today, I'd like to live for this day only. I'd
like to not feel an urgency about getting ahead, I'd like to dump
the anxious thoughts, just write songs, play shows, record. I'd
like to do what I've been doing all along, only without the onus
of a major label deal, and all that the deal demands of me, hanging
over my head. I want to relax. Those last three weeks before I was
finally dropped were pretty bad. My stomach was in a constant tensed-up
knot and I was just so TIRED. Now I feel like I've finally gotten
my life back, and I'm not going to let anyone run me around!
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