Kristin Diable has been on the music scene for several years now, nabbing accolades from notable publications and winning over fans who come to her shows. Not one to focus on covering other people’s songs, not even during her early years when she was singing with her sister, Diable has always been about originality, pulling up her own emotions and experiences and creating a vortex of words to soundtrack that one moment in time. And her latest album, Create Your Own Mythology, is filled to the brim of what makes her music worth sitting down and listening to.
With an opening slot on the main stage coming up at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on May 1st, Diable is celebrating how hard work and determination has helped to bring her talents into an ongoing career. Moving from her hometown of Baton Rouge to New York City as part of a college exchange gave her the opportunity to see firsthand how to be a working singer in one of music’s capital cities. It was an eye opener that she almost expected. But it was when she moved back to her roots in Louisiana, settling in New Orleans, when everything actually came together for her.
After an afternoon of rainstorms and hail, Glide talked to Diable about the progression of her music, her time spent in the Big Apple and how a third grade boy singing a song from The Lion King sealed her fate.
The title of your new CD, Create Your Own Mythology, sounds very confident and very bold. Is that how you’re feeling in your career now?
Yeah, absolutely. I wanted to give it a title that it could grow into and I could grow into as well. It’s a useful concept for me and a lot of people it can resonate with. I wanted to title it something with intention that really made people think and consider that idea.
You’re from Baton Rouge, not exactly a big music city. How did you get started and get heard?
Well, I always knew I wanted to play music. I just knew that was my path and my calling since I was a little kid. And I think if anything, the place where I was brave enough or bold enough or stupid enough, I’m not sure which (laughs), but to actually pursue it was a process. You know Baton Rouge, music being a job isn’t really an idea that is entertained. So I went to New York and lived there for a while and there I saw it was possible. It’s a real job, it’s a real career, just like anything else. You can’t just do it part-time or a little bit and get really good at it. You really have to commit to it to find your voice and to find your place within it. I think getting out of Baton Rouge definitely helped me see the bigger picture and the bigger, broader scope of the world. I lived in New York a while and in New York I had to have a side job because it’s so expensive and difficult to survive there. You don’t really make any money playing music in New York.
When I moved to New Orleans, I think that’s when I started to be able to make a full-time living playing music and playing enough shows and making enough money at shows and CD sales and all that to be really committed to it full time and not be distracted by waiting tables and a hundred other side jobs just to make ends meet. And I think for creative growth that was really tremendous for me cause it allowed me to just fully be in the head space of the songs and ideas and the music.
Did you think that was the way it was going to be in New York or did you have starry eyes that it was going to be easy to actually do something with your music there?
No, I had pretty realistic expectations of moving to New York. I went to school when I first moved there. I didn’t intend to stay there. I was just on an exchange semester in college and I thought I’d just go scope it out. I wanted to go see like the competition and see what people who were making a living at it were like and if I had the goods and the ability to be able to be on that playing field. And I just ended up staying in New York cause I couldn’t go back to Baton Rouge cause I felt like New York was where I needed to be at that time.
What part of New York did you gravitate to?
Downtown. I’m a Downtown girl no matter where I go, it seems (laughs). I lived in the East Village and then I moved to Brooklyn and lived in Greenpoint.
Did you come from a musical household?
My mom appreciated music, she loved music and listened to a good bit of music. But she wasn’t musical in particular, really. I always loved it so much and it always hit me in a profound way from a very, very young age. It was something that I understood really deeply, even as a very young child, and I didn’t really understand anything else. I remember this one memory. I was in elementary school, I don’t know what grade, third grade or so maybe, and we did The Lion King, the choir did The Lion King for some holiday play or something like that. And there was this boy who sang the main part – I forget what song, it wasn’t “Hakuna Matata” – and his voice was just beautiful, so soulful and pure; it just cut through to some other playing field. And it made me cry. It was so beautiful and here I was in third grade and I was like weeping. It was truly like a lost language I had never heard before. It was like my first language being spoken or something. It’s the only thing I can kind of equate it to. It was like this ultimate kind of truth, like, wow, this is it, this is the most important thing I’ve ever experienced. Whatever this is happening now is the game changer. I remember that very vividly, that particular moment. There were many other ones but that was a pretty early one I think.
How did songwriting begin for you?
I just always wrote songs as a little girl. I remember being five or six years old and I had a little Playskool recorder, this little plastic handheld recorder that you could put a cassette tape in. You could record and play and I’d fill up the whole thing singing songs that I’d made up. It just was something I always did and felt was important and really connected with at a really young age, for whatever reasons. I remember a big concern was that when I became a little bit more cognizant with the world around me, I’d hear Michael Jackson and Madonna, you know, the super pop stars with the killer pop songs, and I’d listen to that stuff and I’d be deeply concerned that by the time I grew up and I could write songs, that all the great songs would be taken already, that all of them would be written and I’d miss my chance to have the opportunity to write those songs that I knew I wanted to write (laughs). I was like seven and this was a real concern for me. I was truly worried about it.
When did your songs really become important to you?
I think they always were, even when I was a kid, and I didn’t have a lot of perspective or experience necessarily. I think whatever I was writing about WAS important to me at the time, even if it was trite or inconsequential in the grand scheme of life cause I was only like seven and didn’t know anything anyway (laughs). But I think I never really wrote like as a joke or to be funny or to get attention. I always wrote cause it was something that meant something to me or was important to me in some way. I think that has always been that way but obviously as you grow up and you gain some small degree of wisdom your insights and your ability to understand complex emotional situations certainly evolve. I hope (laughs)
Did you always write with an acoustic guitar?
No, I didn’t play an instrument until I was into my teens. I mean, I played around on piano a bit. I used to take piano lessons when I was a lot younger but I didn’t really care so much about playing other instruments. I always thought that my voice was the main instrument that I was most concerned with. Then I figured with being able to write songs, I needed to play an instrument. It was kind of by necessity. So I started playing guitar when I was in my teens. I love guitar and I love playing instruments because it gives me the ability to write but I never really wanted to be like a shredder guitarist. I’d rather somebody else did that and me sing and write the songs. I can play but my focus is really more on the songs and my voice.
Have you ever written a song that was so personal and so raw that you thought twice about releasing it?
Yes, a lot of the songs on the new record actually. Like the song “Deepest Blue.” There are a lot of personal songs on that record and songs that stylistically and otherwise maybe I wouldn’t have released before but with the new music, if it felt honest and it felt compelling and moving, then I put it on the record. I didn’t really censor myself too much. I didn’t think, oh this doesn’t fit into this pocket or whatever. I just allowed the songs to kind of speak for themselves and do whatever it is they want to do.
What was the surprise song on this record?
I kind of knew what was going on the record before. I definitely had that worked out pretty well before we got to the studio. But I think a song that surprised me was the last song on the record called “Honey Leave The Light On.” I wasn’t sure if it was finished or not yet. I loved it, I loved the melody, but I wasn’t quite sure if it was done yet. I sent it to Dave Cobb, who produced the record, and he had the demos and the first day in the studio he was like, “Let’s do this song. It’s great and I really love it.” And I was like, “Oh God, no. I’m not ready for that yet. That’s not ready. I need to sit and figure out the last of the lyrics. That one needs a little more time. Let me have tonight to work on that one and maybe tomorrow we can finish it.” And he’s like, “No, it’s perfect like it is. It’s perfect.” I was like, “Arrgh, okay, fine.” (laughs)
And we did it and he was right. It was done and it was perfect and I love that song and it’s exactly as it should be. I wouldn’t change a thing about it. So it’s great to have that perspective and working with Dave as a producer on the record was really great to me. I mean, I could spend a year trying to get a song perfect and sometimes that’s good, sometimes it does need more time, and sometimes things are just great as they are. You don’t really need to get too contemplative about it cause the truth is already in it. And he really is a great collaborator in that way, for keeping that in perspective and when things are ready to go he just knows it and he can help you move it along.
I read that you wrote “True Devotion” in Morocco.
Yeah, I was on this sort of world adventure traveling all around and I was in Morocco during Ramadan on accident. I didn’t know I was going during Ramadan, it just turned out to be that way, and during Ramadan people all through the day and all through the night they are chanting and praying and nobody really sleeps. I didn’t sleep most of the time I was there cause there was so much of the devotional acts going on and it really struck me in a pretty profound way. I’d never seen devotion like that before. I had never experienced it to that degree to where it was all-encompassing. Every single person there was committed to this one particular thing. I’d had the idea of “True Devotion” for a while and been sitting on the idea and pieces of the melody but it didn’t come to fruition yet. It was still waiting for me to see the insight in it. In Morocco during Ramadan, it finally hit me and the lyrics came out pretty clearly and I felt I finally figured out what that idea was supposed to mean.
Which song on the new record do you think best represents you as a songwriter and as a singer today?
There’re so many but I love “True Devotion.” I think that’s a very special song. I think it’s a simple song, not complicated. Anybody can understand it. It’s simple and it’s honest and I love songs that are simple and honest. You don’t have to make extreme poetry out of everything. The simpler you can say a meaningful thing is the most powerful. And that’s what that song feels like to me. I love it for that reason.
You’re playing at Jazz Fest again this year.
We’re playing the festival on May 1st, opening up the main stage, the Acura stage, which will be really exciting. I’m also doing a couple of venue shows in town and I’m also doing my house concert. I do these house concert receptions at my house around our big Jazz Festival shows every year and it’s really limited, like thirty people, and we do dinner and drinks and I do cocktails and they come over to my house in the Bywater and I tell stories about the songs and play all these songs and it’s a really intimate setting. It’s a really special thing and we’ve done them for the past like four or five years and it’s something I really look forward to every year and we have a lot of fans who come every year and it’s a really special night.
What do you remember most about the first time you played Jazz Fest?
It’s been so long now because we were fortunate the first year I got to New Orleans I got on Jazz Fest and we’ve been back every year since – knock on wood (laughs). This is our first time on the big stage, though. But I remember I was a little bit nervous because it was Jazz Fest and it was a big deal and I had just gotten to New Orleans. I’ve played a lot more festivals now but then I hadn’t done a ton. I love being outside and getting to play for a lot of new people, it’s always a treat, and it’s just a fun, exciting time and a nice sort of rite of passage to be able to be a part of that history with so many artists. It’s an honor to get to be a part of it.
Who is your #1 artist playing this year that you want to see?
There’s a lot of them. I can’t wait to see The Who. I definitely want to see Elton John, of course.
Who was the first real rock star you ever met?
I guess it was Incubus back in the day. Their guitarist Mike Einziger befriended me when I was a young teenager. We met at the record shop when they were in town doing a record signing when I was like fifteen and we became friends. He actually came and recorded our first demo when me and my sister were teenagers. I’d hang out with Incubus when they were at shows and stuff and Brandon Boyd, their lead singer, he was like the bees knees, the ultimate heartthrob (laughs). I had a huge crush on him. In fact, Brandon Boyd heard the demo that Mike had made with us and he told me that he really liked it, that he thought it was really awesome, and that just like made my life. I was beside myself (laughs).
What was the song or album that literally changed your life when you heard it?
Jeff Buckley’s Grace. My friend sent that to me when he worked at Sony. He sent me that record and that record rocked my world. It definitely changed my whole perspective on music and soul and all of that and what it could be.
Who or what do you think is your biggest muse?
The unknown, not knowing what is ahead of you. The open road and the question marks in life is my biggest muse.
What are your plans up through the summer?
We’re doing a handful of dates in town and all the info is on www.kristindiable.com. But I will probably be doing some traveling this summer. I won’t be gone the whole summer on tour but I will be doing a little bit of traveling and writing since I have a bit of time off and probably take the chance to do some creative writing and finding more of those muses to write about and sing about.
