After attending an excellent recent live show at Smith's Olde bar featuring Laura Reed and the ultra talented Deep Pocket, I was anxious to hear some of her thoughts on music, life and the creative process in general.
GIG VAULT: What are some of your early influences?
Laura: Ray Charles, James Brown and all of that. Soul Music you know what I’m saying? I listened to a lot of OJays, Delfonics, Stylistics, Shirley Brown.
GIG VAULT: So a lot of old soul?
Laura: Old Soul! I love that, I mean that is definitely my heart. I can listen to that and Reggae. Reggae music as I started getting older. Bob Marley is probably who inspired me to play my music out. You know, take it out of my bedroom. And just because I had seen the impact he was able to make with his music. I was trying to put a positive message out there. You know, one love stuff music, healing kind of stuff that people could empathize with. That’s what had saved me, music that I was able to relate to and all of a sudden be able to connect on a human level. It takes you out to a different place. It takes you from this kind of realm of reality to this other world where you can see your situations more clearly because it’s in this realm of art. I definitely wanted to share my songs because of that. And there’s definitely a lots of cats that will hear something in my live shows or they hear the CD. I get messages all the time like yes, I went through something similar or your words helped me understand my situation better.
.
GIG VAULT: That’s what it’s all about, connecting with people.
Laura: That’s what it’s ALL about! There’s enough apathy in the world. I’m all about some empathy. That’s my trip right now.
GIG VAULT: What are some of the influences of the other band members?
Laura: Our drummer mainly listens to World Grooves and Metal! You know like he throws in a double bass pedal with R&B! (laughs) Our bassist listens to Hip-Hop and Funk all day and my organ player listens to Jazz and some of the more progressive stuff like Emerson, Lake and Palmer. So it is interesting when we put our heads together, what we come up with.
GIG VAULT: So what are you currently listening to?
Laura: Currently well, I can’t wait to listen to Erika Badu’s new album. I listen to a lot of Zap Mamma. I listen to a lot of Simphewe Dana. She’s a Xhosa singer from South Africa. You should definitely look her up, she’s an amazing, amazing vocalist doing like a South African R&B/Jazz thing. I listen to a lot of Marvin Gaye. I listen to like a lot of underground hip-hop.
GIG VAULT: Like whom?
Laura: Like a lot of the stuff that Peanut Butter Wolf’s been coming out with. All that kind of shit. A little bit of everything I listen to old blues a lot of times. You know like Muddy Waters, Robert Petway.
GIG VAULT: Oh you’re a Muddy Waters fan?
Laura: Of course! I play harp you know so definitely you feel that. A lotta funk, I’ve always listened to Parliament you know, Earth Wind and Fire, a lot of Fiona Apple. I’ve really been feeling Regina Spektor lately. I really can’t think of anything I don’t specifically like. I’ve been turned on to some music from the UK recently, this band called The Gossip. It’s kind of like this soul punk kind of thing.
GIG VAULT: Ok
Laura: Yeah so a little bit of everything. You know if it’s got feeling behind it and I can groove to it, I’m listening!
GIG VAULT: That’s my criteria as well. Basically if it is sincere and the artist was feeling it when they created it, I will always appreciate it on that level even if it is a style that I don’t usually listen to.
Laura: Yeah definitely.
GIG VAULT: What are some of your sources of inspiration for writing songs?
Laura: A lot of it is storytelling based on experiences. Most recently, I just got out of a crazy breakup where I was supposed to get married last summer and I wrote like six songs in the last month based on all that wild shit that went down. You want to know what’s going on in my life? Come to my show! The album “Soul Music” is pretty much the last four years of my life.
A lot of songs are based off the travels that I did. I traveled around Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize for about six months. I wrote a lot about it. The song “One World” I wrote there. “Omm Lei Lei” I wrote on the road when I was in LA for a while. I was living in California for a little bit. A lot of these things made their way to the album.
Some of them kind of fall out of the air. Ryan Burns who plays keys and organ with me will play a progression. I’ll hear it and they will conjure this whole story. The whole song will drop pretty much.
Songs on the album like “Forces at Play”, “Chains of Temptation” are songs that I don’t even know where they came from! You know I heard this progression and this whole concept came to me. Sometimes I feel like I ‘m just a hollow bone and it just comes through to me. Sometimes I’m actually putting together a song, I want to say something.
I can only take so much credit for the music that is coming out of us with the intention being to serve. I feel like if you’re not serving, like your music doesn’t have a higher purpose like trying to connect with other human beings, you’re not an artist. You’re just a creative cat that’s real confused or something.(laughs) You got to have some kind of higher purpose to it in my opinion. Our music is trying to connect.
GIG VAULT: Where are you originally from?
Laura: Originally from Johannesburg, South Africa then I moved to Chatham County North Carolina in the early nineties.
GIG VAULT: Right now you are in Asheville, NC?
Laura: Asheville, NC. West Asheville.
GIG VAULT: How is the scene in Asheville?
Laura: I love it. I think it's very progressive. It still is underrated. There is a lot of good stuff coming out of it.
GIG VAULT: It is an artist community isn’t it?
Laura: It is a huge artist community, not just music huge artist collectives and they run that town. We have huge art festivals that are really well received. It is a saturated market in terms of musicians for such a small city. Everyone’s a musician you know, it’s great. Cool projects happening every day of the week.
GIG VAULT: You primarily focused on the east coast during your last tour. Where do you plan to tour next?
Laura: Europe, South Africa, Australia, South America. We’re selling records in Japan so I’m like shit, lets go to Japan! The west coast, we’re looking for regional promoters to work with when we do set off on these tours. Going up north, definitely trying to hit Philly, DC, NY and everything. Creating a buzz and trying to create a name for ourselves.
It’s a big world out there and so we’re definitely trying to spread it. I’m trying to sing to as many people willing to listen.
