Woman at Work
Liz Berlin
Why Sleep?

The musicians seated around Liz Berlin are not those of Rusted  Root, the band she co-founded in the early 1990s, nor are they those who performed on Berlin’s solo debut, AudioBioGraphical. No, Berlin’s companions today are of a decidedly different ilk: The teenaged members of a punk band, they are four of the students at Berlin’s Real Life Music Camp, at which the singer attempts to teach budding musicians some of what she’s learned about navigating the music biz since Rusted Root’s platinum-selling major-label debut, When I Woke.

The camp is just one of the heads on the hydra of Berlin’s Pittsburghbased Creative Life Support empire, which includes the label on which AudioBioGraphical has recently found national release. But the launch of her own label and solo career has also helped reconnect Berlin to her original band. 

“At a stressful moment, a producer once told us, ‘You know, this isn’t  the only music you’ll ever create,’” says Berlin. “That was when I knew I had to get serious about my solo music, and find the role meant for me in Rusted Root. That role is whatever I can rise to within the group’s context. And what I’ve found is, the more I rise in that light, the more they’ll have.”

Berlin’s plan is to use AudioBioGraphical as something of a test run, utilizing her established name to do the legwork of a brand-new label. Then, Creative Life Support Records will become part of a sort of musical apprenticeship program: From the camp, to the Pittsburgh recording studios she co-owns with husband Mike Speranzo, to a release on the label.

“We’ll follow [AudioBioGraphical] up with Pittsburgh bands that have come  up through our studios,” says Berlin. “I can develop the label’s foundation, and then use it for other groups.”

With a budding solo career and record label to run—not to mention an  infant son—Rusted Root’s ramped-up touring schedule has become the closest thing Berlin gets to a break these days. But in between Rusted Root gigs and the occasional strawberry margarita, she’s still found time on the band’s off days for solo gigs and interviews.

“Otherwise, I’d just be sleeping,” she says, “and why sleep when you can  do something else?”

www.lizberlin.com .

Photo Rick Szymanski