Deana Carter

(Q)- How have things changed for you over the past few months since your album has been released?

(A)- There is some good and some bad about having a hit record. You gain a whole lot of credibility whenever you’re doing well in this business. At least I’m credible as an artist now. The bad thing is that people get really upset if you don’t do what they expect you to do. It’s like you’re a piece of meat,you’re in the public domain now and a lot of people helped you to get there. So if you say,’Look, I really need Friday to move into my house and paint my dining room,because I have to.’ If I say that, instead of making a telephone call or going to a taping of a TV show,then people go,’OK, so now we have a big ego to deal with.’ That’s ridiculous,the fact is,I’m just giving people the honest truth. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t come to sing at your Christmas party.’ Then it’s like,’What do you mean,you can’t sing at my party?’ So you get a little gray area in your life when you have that credibility.

(Q)-Your music seems to appeal to young girls who otherwise would be listening to Modern Rock radio and buying Alanis Morissette albums.
(A)- (Laughs) I’m young, I grew up in the ’70’s on early Elton John and the Bee Gees,I’m a disco freak. All that really cool music with the multi-layered instrumental tracks and the layered vocals. You know,what really gets me about country music today is the way radio and marketing try to format everything. When I was growing up,there was no different formats of music,because the radio stations played all types of music,because everybody was different. That way I was exposed to all different kinds of music.

(Q)- Did your father try to influence your musical tastes in any way?

(A)- Yeah. My dad was such a genius at his craft,I mean he was a pioneer in Nashville and he brought rock ‘n’ roll sound into country music. He would have music playing in our house everyday. I mean, when we were kids,my brother and I would be sitting there in the living room,just watching cartoons on television,like Bugs Bunny. And my dad would be there playing note for note on his guitar,to the classic country music being played on the record player in the other room. Not everybody grew up with Simon & Garfunkel being right there for you. In my household when I was growing up the writer/singer artists like Roy Orbison, Levon Helm, Bob Dylan and John Anderson were always being played on the record player. Because of that, artists who wrote their own music influenced me very much. I feel like words have their own melody and there’s no reason you have to flower the lyrics up. You need to tell a story with the lyrics.

(Q)- Do you have any favorite story tellers?

(A)- Bruce Springsteen is the king of that. It’s amazing the pictures he can draw with a little bit of imagery. It’s very important to me to draw a story with my music. I feel this way about making an album. Don’t try and pull the wool over people’s eye’s whenever you’re making a product. Don’t try to sugar coat everything and make everyone think they’re going to like the music. I wanted to come into this whole project,which eventually became my album,from an honest place. No matter if it was the songwriting,or the production,it doesn’t sound like everybody’s else’s record.

(Q)- In what way do you feel what you’re doing is different from the other artists in Nashville?

(A)- I really think it’s silly to see these country artists up on-stage who try to choreograph everything and make all these contrived moves on-stage. It’s just takes all the soul out of the music. Country music starting to kind of come around to realize that, but for the most part, it’s pretty much sterilized and everything sounds the same.

(Q)- Do you feel your attitude in part came from your father’s influence?
(A)- My father had high expectations for us and he was very reverent about music and the way it could change our lives. He’d always say to us,’You know,one song can open up the world to you. You’re only one song away from the South of France.’ That saying got me to the South of France when I toured over in Europe a year ago,it really meant a lot to me.

(Q)- In what way?
(A)- I got to go to Canne, and I was staying at a beautiful hotel over there,so I went into the market and bought a bottle of wine and a bread and cheese. When I went back to my room,I sat on the balcony and balled my eyes out, because what my daddy had told me had really come true. My music had actually taken me to the South of France. It was just amazing.