Features

Grace Under Fire: Solo Flirtations and The New Nocturnals

JW: So again, going back to the dynamic – and Fleetwood Mac is a perfect example – isn’t it hard to be on stage or in the studio looking at the guy you’re singing about? Does it trigger those heartbreaking emotions or are you so numb to it by this point that you’re just singing?

GP: I’m not going to lie, there’s an element of show business in it. But more than any showmanship, honesty with the audience is the most important thing. Sometimes I’m overly honest. I’m totally the TMI girl. I’m learning how to do that in a more musical way as opposed to just revealing my life story and making people feel like this is some type of Amy Winehouse situation where I’m just telling everybody everything. But I do vibe on the fact that people need to know what’s really going on and making a real connection with somebody. So at [The] Sundance [Film Festival], I told the story of “One Short Night.”

JW: What was the story you told?

GP: That we were sort of in the free love phase of our relationship. He let me go off one night with a different person. The night ended quickly and I came home, but in the meantime, I didn’t know why Matt was so bummed out. I thought we always kind of had this under control and thought we knew this was sort of what was going to happen. Am I sorry? Of course I am, but I didn’t feel like I needed that guilt and he kept making me feel guilty. Then he told me it was his birthday. So that hit home really hard.

JW: That was just a coincidence?

GP: Coincidence, yeah. I had no idea. Not only was there regret – the great thing about it, it was the most reaffirming night of my life. By the way, it wasn’t as bad as it sounds, I didn’t sleep with anybody, but it was very romantic, and it was a moment of connection with a different person. But it really hit home. Why would I ever be with anybody else? I got so spun out on stupid ideas and stupid romantic thoughts that are so fleeting, only to realize that I was forgetting someone who I care about – on his birthday. Which, by the way, I’m a big birthday person, so missing birthdays is like the most devastating thing I could ever do.

JW: Does it sound intentionally like Fleetwood Mac because of the theme?

GP: There’s a song on the record, “Tiny Light” that I think sounds more like Fleetwood Mac and I love Fleetwood Mac, for the record. But, I always think about Dire Straits when I think about “One Short Night.” But the theme of the song is absolutely Fleetwood Mac. I mean, they were so out there in the open with their situations and their personal stories. And I commend them for it, although I think it destroyed them.

JW: It did and it’s poetic irony that it yielded their greatest work of all time.

GP: I think being too open about your private life is really dangerous. I don’t want to withhold things from people or change who I am. In the situation of “One Short Night,” that story is true, but it plays like a movie and I can’t ignore it. I feel like it needs to be told because it’s a big part of who I became over the last five years.

JW: Did part of your songwriting style come out of your filmmaking background in college?

GP: Absolutely, screenwriting was my thing. That was what I wanted to do. So every time I write a song, I’m visualizing everything. Just like the song “Colors” and how I see images, especially certain frozen moments, like a freeze frame or a treatment for a movie. I’m always envisioning what a music video for that song would look like.

JW: Let’s transition into the T-Bone Burnett Album. At the time, you were really excited to work with him. And then, just as the album was recorded, your new band formed.

GP: Right. That was pivotal. I think T-Bone understands that because he’s got musicians behind him who he loves and cares about. He knew when we agreed to work together that my band was sort of in pieces because Brian had just left. When I agreed to work with T-Bone that was an amazing break and an amazing opportunity. But it was so bittersweet. I mean, it was in the same three days that Brian was leaving and T-Bone had decided to work with us.

JW: Why did Brian leave?

GP: It was more something that I felt needed to happen and i presented him with all the variables that I felt were driving me to say the things that I was saying and I felt like maybe this wasn’t the right band for him. After presenting them to him, he took a day, and agreed [to leave the band]. So, I’d like to think that it was an amicable moment where it was his decision to make – I wasn’t telling him to leave. But I do feel like it was my responsibility to accept the fact that I brought it all up. And I said, “I see these growing issues.”

JW: Musically?

GP: No – lifestyle. Certainly, some music stuff. He didn’t agree with a lot of the things I was doing. I mean, the One Tree Hill thing was not his favorite thing I ever did.

JW: He is more a purist rock and roll guy?

GP: Severely. And I saw our Hollywood experience growing and improving. And not just growing in a say- yes-to-everything, say-yes-to-boob-implants kind of way. But, I think the two of us had a hard time understanding the difference between those two things. But there doesn’t have to be a severity. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. There can be something beautiful that’s in the middle, that’s successful and has integrity.