So I started jamming with myself on a four track, and that was the beginning of Weyes Blood. In high school I really wanted to be in band, but I couldn’t. I always wanted musical communal relationships, but it never happened.Īnd through that not working out you discovered more about yourself and your own music? By the time I joined it was kind of a different season for the band, and we did improvisatory music that was fun, but I actually quit in the middle of the tour. My time in Jackie-O was very short, and I was never really jazzed or satisfied with how the band went down. I’ll be honest with you, I’ve kind of always been a loner. Have you learned anything from communal relationships? Then some years later you go and join Jackie-O-Motherfucker, which is funny to me because I remember getting Flags of the Sacred Harp in college and just listening to that record day in and day out. This juxtaposition between characters that you’re describing is interesting to me, too, because your parents became very religious but still kept the West Coast hippie vibe, as you explained it in the past. Though we talked about everything from the cultural factors informing astrology to the joy of growing up by the ocean, the connecting thread between all of it turned out to be same thread running through Mering’s work-an investigation of what it truly means to be present with things, to see them for what they truly are, and then use that power to hold a mirror to the world. Our conversation taught me a lot about how this extreme empath rides her own waves, too. Her sense of humor makes much of this possible, whether it finds Mering dressing up as a mermaid or a mustachioed man in her videos, or opening her favorite song on the album with an auto-tuned choir chanting “YOLO,” repurposing the phrase to reflect the grim surrender of personal responsibility. “We’re still riding that wave, and modernity is a long, drawn-out thing.” Such heavy environmental subtext would come off as preachy in lesser hands, but it’s a testament to Mering’s command of song that she’s able to use a juxtaposition between the now and the then to show us they are, in fact, part of the same trajectory. Performing as Weyes Blood, Mering has known how to sound both timeless and modern for years, but Front Row Seat To Earth channels that gift into pointed ruminations on the waves of nature, how we threaten them and how they persevere still.
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