Somewhere between the crossroads of classical Celtic tones and Americana folk lies the sweetness of Weyes Blood– the solo project of songstress Natalie Mering who will be playing the Echo in L.A. on December 15th. Having lived everywhere from Portland to LA and the East Coast, Mering’s eclectic and diverse background led her to find solace and rebellion in music. Weyes Blood’s dreamy, melodic concoctions have their pillars anchored in a classically based foundation that is layered with constellations of fuzzy psychedelic and sonically rich harmonies that ebb and flow freely.
With the romanticism of Joni Mitchell and Karen Carpenter, and a warm vocal quality that is evocative of Neko Case, Weyes Blood adds light to intricate melancholy tunes that sound like something from a past life. Mering’s latest release Front Row Seat to Earth provides a lyrically raw and uninhibited perspective on all things life and love, with tracks like “Seven Words” and “Generation Why” providing an ode to looking ahead and contemplating the uneasy world we live in. Tender and delicate vibrato lines float over panoramic and linear moody guitar rhythms that pair with cascading synth chords, leaving a resonant and haunting after-glow. In a recent interview with Weyes Blood, Mering provided an insight into everything from her interesting childhood to the inner workings of her latest album.
You’ve been touring quite a bit this year, how is everything going?
Everything is going great. Our tour is going to be quite a long jaunt and I’m looking forward to it.
You’ve been working on new material this past year.
Yeah, there’s been a lot of buildup with this release. It’s the most amount of videos that I’ve done and I’m just really excited to play it for people. I’ve been stepping away from some of the promo stuff and just performing which is my favorite thing to do.
It must be refreshing to get out of the studio and be able to share the new material with your audience.
It’s the most rewarding and the most connected you can get with people. It’s been really great to be able to play with a band because I usually play alone. There’s a lot of pressure when you’re doing everything yourself, so having musicians to play with on stage is something that I get really excited about. When you work with a band, you have other people singing the harmonies and it can bring the richness that you hear on the recording into a live setting. I couldn’t play the record entirely by myself on stage and even though some people like to use pre-recorded backing tracks, I don’t like to use too much of that. Having the band allows me to focus on just singing and being able to do the things that I do best.
How did you end up meeting your bandmates?
One of the guys was from this band called Delicate Steve and I had heard from a lot of people that he was an amazing drummer. When I invited him to play on my record, he really made the songs come alive. He did exactly what I wanted and what I heard in my head- it’s pretty rare to find someone that can recreate your imagination. I felt really blessed when he was like “Yeah, I really like this, let’s do a tour.” He’s incredibly talented and I feel really lucky to be able to play with him. My bassist and my keyboardist were roommates that live in LA and were just total music guys and they’re on the level in terms of harmony and improvisation. It’s really cool to have a band that can just jam and we can go on a tangent and be pretty secure. They don’t need to know what exactly is going on. They can just feel it and sound great.
What shaped your singing style?
I always had kind of a low voice. It had a lot of personality, so I used to sing kind of old school music growing up. I used to sing a lot of Judy Garland, Patsy Cline, Joni Mitchell, and Linda Ronstadt. I was in a lot of choirs in high school and that really helped me develop my sense of harmony and my ability to stay in tune. When you’re touring you are singing almost every night, and you gain this almost athleticism with your voice. You can do whatever you really want with it and have a more controlled and powerful style of singing.
How did you get your start in music? Did you grow up in a pretty musical household?
Yeah, both my parents played music and my dad was especially musical. He had bands before he became religious. My parents became born again Christians. They were religious during my childhood- if anything, they’re a little less religious now. There was always a piano in the house and guitars. Though there was no virtuosity- like I was never forced to practice or anything, but I was definitely encouraged to be creative.
Did you ever feel like music served as a form of rebellion for you during your childhood?
Definitely. My music as a teenager was way darker- my parents didn’t really want me to pursue music. They’ve always thought I had a decent voice but didn’t think my music was that great. It took a really long time for them to come around. They’ve only very recently come around and now they’re very encouraging. There were years that they were really bummed that I didn’t have anything real going on.
How did your relationship start with Mexican Summer?
I did a house show with Quilt, and Shane really liked my stuff and introduced it to Mexican Summer. They heard demos that I had made and were like “Yeah, let’s put this out”. It was really casual- nothing big, no pressure. It was actually like a really low key thing. In the beginning I had a lot of really tough learning curves with adding other people into the mix as up to that point I was doing everything by myself. I had a very specific thing going on, and bringing other people on board was very confusing at the start.
What did you grow up listening to?
There was this golden age of the internet that was around 2005 and 2006 where you could listen to any record that ever existed. I was really into weird kind of stuff, like outsider music at that time. I was constantly looking for things that nobody had heard of.
Your music has a diversity of styles you incorporate. Where do you draw your inspiration from?
Trying to reconcile styles that don’t always seem compatible is a goal of mine. It’s kind of like alchemy. I like bringing together different sounds that you wouldn’t think went together.
Your whimsical video for Seven Words is a paradox to the heaviness of this song. Can you talk about that?
The song is about having to leave a situation, just like in the video where a sea creature has to return to the sea. I made that video with a woman named Charles who is like a twenty-year-old savant director. She had a lot of wonderful ideas. While we were making it, I thought she was totally crazy, but it turned out great. I almost drowned in the mermaid tail- it was really epic. The whole time I was working with Charles I couldn’t tell if she knew what she was doing, but she’s actually quite brilliant. It’s a testament to her director style that while we were making it I didn’t really know what was going to happen. She was making magic happen.
So you were working with Ariel Pink for a little bit. How did that collaboration come about?
That was really fun. That was through Mexican Summer. Ariel and I did a week long residency and recorded four songs together. It was a ridiculously fun and a super wild experience. It was long hours in the studio and endless and crazy Ariel anecdotes. We were in this really strange desert town that was in the middle of nowhere and it turned out to be a pretty interesting time. Ariel only eats Chinese food, so they had to drive thirty minutes away to get him Chinese food while we were recording. He’s a really funny guy. He’s both a handful and a total genius. Working with him in the studio, he would have the whole song we were working on mapped out harmonically in his head. He’s a savant when it comes to harmonies and arrangement. He’s really brilliant.
With everything that’s out there right now, your music is really different and refreshing in terms of song composition and lyrics. What would you like your audience to take away from this latest album?
I guess I would like to see themselves reflected in it and kind of have a personal experience with it. There’s a lot of symbolism on the record about the relationship between the micro and the macro and how the personal subjective experience is very similar to the macro global experience.
WEYES BLOOD TOUR DATES:
Thu. Dec. 15 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo
Thu. Feb. 16 – San Diego, CA @ Soda Bar
Fri. Feb. 17 – Pomona, CA @ Acerogami
Sat. Feb. 18 – Costa Mesa, CA @ The Wayfarer
Mon. Feb. 20 – Santa Cruz, CA @ The Crepe Place
Tue. Feb. 21 – San Francisco, CA @ Swedish American Hall (Noise Pop)
Wed. Feb. 22 – Arcata, CA @ The Miniplex
Thu. Feb. 23 – Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
Fri. Feb. 24 – Seattle, WA @ Sunset Tavern
Sat. Feb. 25 – Vancouver, BC @ The Cobalt
Thu. Mar. 9–Sun. Mar. 12 – Marfa, TX @ Marfa Myths
Thu. Mar. 30 – Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg
