Lula Wiles Make A Record: An Interview with Isa Burke

I haven’t been shy in the past about having a major music crush on the trio that is Lula Wiles. The three bandmates manage to take 3 separate parts, 3 parts that on their own stand incredibly strong, and merge and blend those parts together in a way that is greater than the sum of the individual pieces. Their is a strong sense of being able to rely on one another, play off of each other’s voices (vocally and instrumentally) and craft something that is truly special as a result of that letting go and just being “in” the music that they create. They have an innate ability to toss the lead duties on vocals and instruments back and forth to one another in a way that any band should envy…each of them excel at fronting a band both from a writing and performing standpoint. It’s really kind of not fair, but I digress. The gals perform with a delicate balance between fervourous passion but harmonious light and charm and grace. Its organic and raw in a way that is honest and real…its just plain beauty incarnate. Top that all off with the fact the Ellie, Isa and Mali happen to be three incredibly kind and wonderful folks and there, you can just go on ahead and contribute to their Kickstarter campaign right now.

Their live shows are not to be missed and I am even more excited for this debut full length from the band. I caught up with Isa Burke (songwriter, guitarist, fiddler, singer) to talk about the new record, what we can expect, how the sessions were, and fritters from the restaurant across from the studio…mmmm, fritters. Check it.

RLR: There is an energy and vibrancy to your live performances. You guys dance about the stage (figuratively in how your voices intermingle and literally switching instruments and moving around). Do you feel like you have been successful in capturing that feeling and vibe on this record? How did you make that happen if so?

Isa Burke: First of all, thank you! We do try to put out that vibe in our live shows, so it’s great to hear that it comes across. We knew from the beginning, though, that we didn’t necessarily want to make an album that sounded exactly like our live shows, both because it can be difficult to replicate that live energy in the studio, and because we wanted to use the production opportunities that the recording process has to offer. Basically, we wanted to strike a balance between creating studio art, so to speak, and making a record of what this band sounds like onstage right now.

For example, my song “One More Night” is one of five songs on the record that includes our brilliant friend Sean Trischka on drums. We wanted to add drums to make that song rage a bit harder, but then it was also a great opportunity to play around with the production and give the song a sort of vintage Cajun party vibe. Our producer Adam Iredale-Gray and engineer Dan Cardinal cooked up this super cool and gloriously trashy drum sound that I am completely obsessed with, and Sean’s playing is so groovy. At the end of the day, though, it’s all about capturing strong performances of the songs. I would often take a minute before we started recording and try to get into the frame of mind that I feel when I’m onstage. All of those new arrangement and production choices throughout the record made the songs feel new to us again, so that also helped make our performances more vibrant. It helped us get that energy, but via different methods.

Don’t Ask Why / Lula Wiles / FreshGrass 09.20.15 / Traveling Salt Stage from Jason Elon Goodman on Vimeo.

RLR: Take us through a day in the life recording with you all. How was that experience for you?

Isa Burke: It was the best. We were all kind of nervous going into it, because none of us had much recording experience, and we were recording on weekends while we were all in school and working. Because of that, though, we tried to be really well-rehearsed and prepared, which I think served us well. Recording is intense, and it can illuminate both the best and worst of your abilities. We all struggled with that in varying ways, but ultimately we’re happy with our work, and we all learned a lot.

Having Adam and Dan guiding us was a godsend. They’re both total pros and we really love the way they both think about music. We really can’t speak highly enough about both of them. Adam, in his role as producer, had so many brilliant ideas for revamping our arrangements, and he was very conscientious about directing our work. He could really tell when we were able to push through a few more takes and when we needed to stop. Adam was already a very close friend of ours, but we didn’t really know Dan or his assistant engineer, Ariel Bernstein, until we started making the record (although we’d heard great things about Dan’s work for a long time). Fortunately, we all hit it off really well, both musically and personally. The whole process became this really wonderful collaboration between all of us, which was such a great surprise. It was also even more fun than I was expecting. It’s unlike anything else – you spend ten (or fourteen) hours in a windowless room, hyperfocused on doing this thing that you love and care about so much, and the rest of your life just kind of falls away. You can be laughing hysterically one minute and incredibly frustrated the next minute, but there was always a strong current of passion for the work and mutual support and creative energy running through all of our recording sessions.

On a lighter note, I would also like to take this opportunity to mention Aurum Pies, the restaurant across the street from Dimension. We ordered takeout from Aurum literally every day, sometimes twice. If you’re ever in Jamaica Plain, go there and make sure you get a side order of fritters.

 

RLR: They say good things come to those who wait. This is the first full length record as Lula Wiles, and I’m sure people have been asking about a recording for a while now. Did you find waiting and really building on and honing your sound panned out to benefit the record?

Isa Burke: Absolutely. It wasn’t how we planned it, but absolutely. To make a long and unpleasant story short, we planned to put out an EP about a year ago and that didn’t pan out for a number of reasons. At the time, it was frustrating, but I do feel glad that our first release is beginning to take shape as something we can really be proud of. We played a lot of shows in 2015, especially during our summer tour, and I think our sound really came together and tightened up during that time. It would have been nice to have a recording before now, but at the same time, in retrospect, we weren’t really ready to record something that we could be proud of.

RLR: You gals have proven you are able to balance your shows in this delicate way with beautiful, weak –in-the-knees harmonies but also an uptempo and driving dance rhythm when it calls for it. You have even had Sean Trischka on drums for a few runs (that fantastic Lula Wiles play “Trio” show at The Columbus!). What can we expect here on this album? More of that expansive sound? Do you get to experiment at all with some new things?

Isa Burke: Again, thank you, you’re so kind! We tried to balance the record in a similar way, actually. It contains 11 songs that span across a pretty broad range of sounds. While reworking our arrangements with Adam, it became clear that certain songs should stay stripped-down and totally acoustic, like our live shows, and other songs could bear some bigger production choices: drums, electric guitars, lots of harmonies, more fiddles, some cool effects. Most songs are somewhere in between those extremes. We tried to make a record that still felt cohesive and kept the focus on the songs themselves, the lyrics and the vibe. Adam’s arrangement and production ideas really elevated that process, and Dan’s mixing ideas did, too. A lot of those new choices did feel like experiments, and it was a difficult balance to strike– we wanted to stay true to the band’s roots and our live sound, but we also wanted to satisfy some of the urges that had been lurking within these songs. I mean, the live version already exists as its own specific experience, so why not try something else? It’s still us, it’s still our songs and our voices and arrangements. And then hopefully, people who hear the record before seeing us live will also dig the more stripped-down versions of those songs.

RLR: So, give the plug: Why should everyone contribute to this campaign?

Isa Burke: Oh, wow. Well, first of all, we just want to release this thing. We are so, so, so excited to finally have an album out. Our band has hit some roadblocks throughout its life, but we feel so grateful for all of the opportunities we’ve had over the last year. We played at festivals like Grey Fox and Freshgrass and Tweed River Music Festival, we sold out our first headlining show at Club Passim, we played at the Sinclair with Della Mae and Laura Cortese and the Dance Cards, and we were selected as Official Showcase Artists for the 2016 Folk Alliance International Conference. And we did all of that without having an album out. Which means that we really, really, really need to release an album to have a shot at keeping this momentum alive.

Of course, you don’t just have to donate out of the pure goodness of your heart – we also have lots of rewards available for backers, beyond the album itself. You’ll have to visit our campaign to see what they are, but hopefully you’ll find something that interests you. We’re very close to hitting our initial funding goal at this point, and we’re so humbled and grateful for that. However, there are so many things that we can do with any funding that we make after we hit our goal – we can promote the album, help fund our release tour, buy more merch, maybe even release the album on vinyl!

As a fan of music, I love that Kickstarter gives you a kind of backstage pass to an artist’s process, and I hope that people are interested in being part of that process with us. It’s difficult to ask for help sometimes, especially financial help, but the fact is that this is how independent artists make records these days: with help from their community. There’s something so old-school about that, too. It’s very folky. I’ve come to really love it.

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So get on it today folks. The band has just about $1,200 to go on their campaign. Lets get this record made and give the gals of Lula Wiles a little more to promote the heck out of what will inevitably be one of the best of the year.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/elliebuckland/lula-wiles-make-a-record