Liz Brasher is a Latina singer/songwriter influenced by Rock, Soul, Funk, and Gospel music whose second album, Baby Damn, is arriving on April 26th. It marks her first release from the label Blue Élan Records and a big departure for Brasher who went from Memphis to LA to record at Sunset Sound with Producer Joe Chiccarelli. Coming out to California infused her completed songwriting with a sense of travel and change and brought a fresh energy to her creative trajectory.
Working with a set of very detailed, if home-grown, demos from Brasher, Chiccarelli enlisted Matt Chamberlain (drums), Sean Hurley (bass), Roger Manning (keys), and David Levita (guitar) to work on the album. The result is a group of songs that cover a wide range of thematic territory but are unified by a reflective mood and a rich sound. They also possess an extra kick due to Brasher’s forthrightness in her lyrics about the darker and lighter aspects of life and her expansive vocal range. I spoke with Liz Brasher about the challenges and hopeful developments that led to Baby Damn.
Hannah Means-Shannon: I understand that this album really represents a lot of change in your life, so for that reason probably contains a lot of differences in terms of ways of thinking, but I think there’s a definite vibe to the album that makes the songs fit together really well.
Liz Brasher: Thank you so much. One of my biggest things setting out to make my second record was knowing that I write in a lot of different styles and genres, but what I really wanted with this record was one cohesive sound. I wanted that sound to be dark, to be evocative, but then to also capture the sounds of traveling. Most of these songs were ones I was writing the lyrics to when I was on tour, or while I was in Scandinavia, or coming to California and seeing the desert. I was seeing Santa Fe, I was seeing all these things for the first time.
I wanted this record to feel like you were traveling, but I also wanted it, sonically, to be cohesive. I wanted the vibe to all fit together. Joe Chiccarelli was the perfect partner to do that because the second I described to him, sonically, what I wanted, he got to work and made that vision a reality.
That idea of movement is so cool. I do feel like there’s something in the rhythm of these songs that brings a feeling of movement. Even with the slower and the softer songs, it’s there. It’s almost like the old sound of a train on a train track. I do see that. Emotionally speaking, that kind of rhythm suggests change and possibilities.
I think that really captures me, in a sense, though it really captures all of us. Nobody ever stays the same, though we may try to. Life is made up of our movements and all these paths intertwining and crossing. Even rhythmically, I’ll write these lyrics about how I’m moving and changing, but when I sit down to create these sounds, I always start with the rhythm first. Rhythm to me is so important. The records that I’m drawn to, rhythm is the heartbeat. That includes a lot of Funk, a lot of Soul, a lot of old Gospel where Funk and Soul were the foundation to what was happening. So it’s always drums and bass first. To me, for this record, I wanted it to either be like you’re walking, in a vehicle moving, or you’re dancing.
And in the “Be in California” video, we have that car and movement. That reminded me of the same feeling. I think, as human beings, being in motion is physically natural, so we have a positive association with that. Maybe we have a sense that if things keep moving, they’ll reach a better place.
Totally. When we don’t have the drive to move anymore, I equate that with there being no life. Having that movement going is like getting up in the face of your struggle, and continuing forward. In this post-Covid world, it made so much sense for that to be a driving factor. We’re not just going to go through the movements, we’re going to take another step forward, even sonically, and see what can be created.
There is a kind of new start feeling to that, too, after a time of stillness. For you, you had a big new start of going out to California to work on this record. Was that a huge transition for you? Had you been out before?
When I was working on the record, I had been out to California a couple of times before. During my first stint of touring, I came to the West Coast, and I was immediately blown away by all the diversity, the food culture, and how different it was. It was so different from what I had seen in the South. I am a Latina, and I was even hit with a different Latino culture out here. Everything was so new and different, including the landscape, and how you can be in three different parts of the world and still be in California.
All my senses were struck by it and it really stuck with me. I had never experienced the desert before, or the Pacific Ocean. I found myself craving those things. When the time came for me to record, we were at Sunset Sound in Hollywood and I was standing there thinking, “What’s going on??” I had been dreaming of this kind of experience since I was a little girl. It was kind of like an out-of-body experience. [Laughs] I was just so thankful for that opportunity.
Working at Sunset Sound is pretty mind-blowing, and might be even for very experienced musicians. Did you have personal associations with Sunset Sound?
I’m a big music history nerd, so just all the sounds and all the artists that have come through those walls, that was really amazing for me. I was also really focused on who the Producer would be, and Joe Chiccarelli was number one on my list. I didn’t think that I’d be able to get to work with him. I was sending over rough, home demos, where I played all the instruments myself. That was what he was hearing, and he was really stoked by what he heard. He chose the perfect musicians for the record.
The funniest thing is that we used my demos to really build everything off of. The drumbeats that I came up with are what Matt Chamberlain is recreating with his own flair, but staying very true to those demos. The keys and the guitars, too. I work by layering a lot of different things. It was this accumulation of being in this historic place, having this great Producer, having these demos that I believed in, and these hand-chosen musicians. This all together created the record that we hear.
It sounds really validating to create demos by yourself, purely out of your own head, and then see really experienced musicians say, “Yes, that’s what we’re doing!” It suggests that the sound world was really complete.
It blows me away because I wouldn’t call myself a drummer or a bass player, but what I do have is my ear and my huge collection of vinyl records. I think I spent two to three years writing songs, and we narrowed it down from about 200 songs to the ten that you hear on the record.
Wow, that’s a lot of songs!
Yes, it was. It was so validating that every day, no matter what was going on personally, or emotionally, I would get up and write a song. I wouldn’t know whether that song was ever going to be heard again. At the end of the day, today, to hear those songs back based on those demos, it is so validating to say, “Hey, I did that!”
It is remarkable. It can be really hard to get down the demos in a way that communicates to others even if you aren’t necessarily a multi-instrumentalist.
I wanted to have a cohesive sound for this album, so that meant the instrumentation. That’s one thing I felt was lacking from my first record, so it needed to start in the demo process. For these songs, I got myself in the mindset of, “I am going to play everything to the best of my ability to have that sound come through.” When you’re able to play the instruments or have that down in a demo, it’s easier to have that cohesion.
I’m wondering about the vocal choices, since I feel like you make specific and different choices among these songs. Was that something that you did, even on those demos, or more in the studio?
It’s kind of a combination. For each song, even on the demos, my vocal approach is very different. For me, foundationally, the song determines how everybody performs, and plays, and sings. I want that to shine, first and foremost. I think it’s going to sound like me because I’m singing it, no matter what. I also think it’s okay for people to see different sides of my voice on an album. Also, Joe and I worked very closely to capture different vocals and to make different vocal choices based on what the songs needed in the studio. Joe is phenomenal at guiding musicians. He worked with Etta James a lot! Etta needed no coaching.
I feel like the song “When I Stand” might be pretty important to the album, thematically and sonically. Do you think it’s a touchstone?
Absolutely. I agree with that. This record is coming from a time period of mine where I was going through a pity party and victimhood mentality thinking I wasn’t good enough and wasn’t going to get anywhere. And then I wrote, “When I Stand” and it was like an anthem for myself. I said to myself, “When I set my mind to something, there’s nothing that’s going to get in the way of that. I’m in control of what I’m doing.” “When I Stand” was at the forefront of so much and is actually one of the oldest songs on the record. It connects with what we were talking about, about getting up, and moving, and going. That song did that for me. “When I Stand” was like a declaration that I was going to continue and no one was going to be able to stop that.
Something I like about that song is that it’s not an ironclad presentation of yourself. It’s not saying, “I’m wonderful, and perfect, and strong.” There’s a sense of making that transition, there’s some imagery of looking backward, and the night imagery versus sunrise imagery. It shows that it’s not a simple thing, but a definite thing. I think that’s helpful to hear because, as humans, we rarely feel bulletproof. Staying focused on the goal during the doubt makes all the difference.
Yes, absolutely. I think there can be so much smoke and mirrors in the music industry, saying, “I’m so great, and I’m so perfect! I can pull all this off!” For me, it’s always about being real. Things are coming at us all the time, but “When I Stand” is saying that regardless of that, I am going to push forward. I do hope that audiences connect in that way and can relate to it. They may feel, “Whatever my darkness is, is coming at me, but I know what my purpose is in this world and I’m going to strive forward for that.”
I also really appreciated the song “Baby Damn” and the way that it contrasts with the song “Be In California”, where being in California is kind of equated with being in a positive relationship that’s heading in a good direction. “Baby Damn” is more uncertain, almost like an earlier stage in a relationship. There’s an intention of wanting to get to know a person, but it’s not developed yet.
Definitely. “Baby Damn” is like the early stages of a relationship where you’re not sure what’s going on. It may be an acquaintance. It may be a crush. Whatever it looks like, you’re not sure. For me, it’s also about not knowing how it’s going to pan out, and making sure you’re okay with whatever happens. I think the lyric, “I’m happy just to know ya” is the theme. It’s about being content with having known this person and it being okay. For me, a lot of the people I meet in passing in my life influence me in ways that they’ll never know. I may not know how things are going to turn out, but I’m happy that things have influenced me the way that they did. “Baby Damn” is saying, “I’m not going to forget these connections. I’m just going to be glad to know you, and let you know that I’m here if you want to talk again.”
There’s a positivity in recognizing that there are amazing people out there who you might suddenly meet. You can be really struck by someone’s intelligence, or kindness, and it reminds you that the world is better than you may have thought it was before.
Totally. I think the best part about our lives is that we get to have those experiences and our stories get to cross in one way or another.
