interview by Amber
written by Fred
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Have you ever met someone who was simply born to play music? You have? Then it’s not impossible that you’ve met Yael Meyer.
Last week the rising singer-songwriter gave us a shout to talk about sudden inspiration; about family, near and far; and what exactly it’s like to sled down a flight of stairs on a twin mattress. Read on:
The Muse In Music: Thanks for taking some time to talk with us today. I’ve been listening to your new EP [Heartbeat] all week long and it’s just lovely.
Yael Meyer: Thank you so much. I love hearing that.
TMIM: I was surprised by the number of instruments that you play. I have to know how you learn to play all these different instruments. How old were you when you started playing?
YM: My first instrument was the piano and I started lessons – when I was about five and a half – at the conservatory. I took lessons for a very long time, like six or seven years. That was my first instrument, but I didn’t really get into it or like it because I was at a conservatory, and my teachers weren’t that great and they always yelled at me [laughs]. So when I was about twelve I didn’t want to play piano anymore and I started to learn to play guitar.
Learning the piano gave me the basis to be able to play anything that has that build, anything that has keys. The glockenspiel has the same build; I already knew how the piano worked so anything that works in a similar way I can kind of know where the notes are, how it sounds, so I can just play with it. And the guitar gave me the same base, so anything that has that build, I know it works in the same way. Some of the fingerings are different or the tuning is different – like on the ukulele – but it’s still very similar. I don’t play cello; I don’t play horn. So I feel like music is a language; I feel like as long as you know the language of music you can play almost anything. I mean, I’m not a virtuoso on any of them but I play them well enough.
TMIM: You play most of the instruments on your new EP, right?
YM: Well not all of the instruments on the album Heartbeat. I play a lot of them, the glockenspiel, the guitar, and the ukulele and keyboards. Like on my first Common Ground album, I recorded that myself, so I played all the instruments. But on Heartbeat there are other musicians as well, like Bill Lefler, the producer; and Joseph Karnes on bass; Fil Krohnengold, guitar and accordion; and Danny Levin on trumpet.
TMIM: “Heartbeat” is one of my favorite songs on the album and I love the descriptive, storytelling lyrics. My favorite part is when you talk about sliding down the stairs on the mattress. [Yael laughs.] Did you pull in childhood memories for that song or is it just straight songwriting?
YM: Well, that is actually something that my sister and I used to do together when we were kids. We lived in this house with two floors and there was a long straight stair, and we had this twin mattress and we would drag it up to the top of the stairs and then slide down; we could just do that for hours and hours. I wrote that song on my birthday. My family is all in Chile and I was really missing my family, and missing spending time with them.
I have a career doing what I love, but my dreams have taken me so far from the people that I love, and I don’t want to waste anytime doing anything but what I came here to do. I’m giving up so much in order to be here, that’s the sentiment of the song.
TMIM: Speaking of family, on one of your Youtube webcasts I see that you have a little girl, and on one the making of your songs she is playing the drums, she is just so cute.
YM: Oh, Thank you. She is much bigger now.
TMIM: How old is she now?
YM: She is two [years] and three months.
TMIM: How has having her affected the way you schedule your day around having a kid and writing music.
YM: A lot!
TMIM: How do you schedule music into your day? Just when inspiration strikes do you just sit down and write, or do you just say “OK, from eight to five mommy is working” and lock yourself away?
YM: Well I do both in different situations. So if I’m writing with another artist, I treat it like a job and I set up a time and we get together and we write. But for me, my music is different because inspiration comes at anytime. Usually it actually comes at, like, five in the morning when I finally am going to sleep.
It’s definitely a struggle, but sometimes there are some songs that come to me at the most random moments, I could just be hanging out with friends and playing my ukulele or my guitar and something will come to me – like the chords, or the riff, or some melody – and when that happens I have to stop whatever it is that I am doing and lock myself up in a room and write whatever is coming out because it is a special moment and I have to be in the moment and grab it, or I lose it. So if my husband happens to be around I just look at him and say, “I gotta go.” So hopefully it happens when he is around so he can give me a hand.
TMIM: Do you have favorite kids’ shows that you like just for the music? For me the big winner is “Yo Gabba Gabba.” There is always some cool, crazy music on there.
YM: Well, I don’t really know; I speak Spanish and that’s my main language and my mother tongue, and my husband is Hungarian, so we speak to her in different languages, poor girl. So a lot of the shows she watches are usually in either Spanish or Hungarian, because she is going to learn English just by living here, so we (make sure) that any other exposure she has is to those. She listens to children’s music in Hungarian. And the same with Spanish. But mostly she listens to the music that we listen to.
TMIM: I say kids should listen to the music that the parents listen to. For me, there is no way I’m putting in a Dora tape in the car and listening to it while we drive around.
YM: Well right now I’m into Jesca Hoop’s new album so I’m just listening over and over. I think it’s genius. It’s really the only album I’ve been listening to for like a month now. So my daughter – when we’re in the car – she is just singing all those songs.
TMIM: It’s important to give them that broader musical language if they are listening to what you love.
YM: Yeah, I know for me it was important. Both my parents are musical so my parents were playing records all the time. So I grew up listening to Simon and Garfunkel and James Taylor – all that era – and it was a huge influence in my life. And it’s because [my dad] was always playing it around the house. I’m grateful for that.
TMIM: So, in Chile at that time: was it hard to get a hold of American music? Where would he get his music from?
YM: Well, now it isn’t. It’s still expensive so most people don’t buy music – or art for that matter – in Chile. Except for the few people who are all about it and then they are collectors. I think my dad was a little bit like that; he was a collector, he was a DJ. But back in the day it was hard, it was very hard. So what we used to do is – when anybody traveled anywhere – they would be sent with money and a list of things to buy. That is how he started collecting stuff. We still have all his records.
TMIM: How do you think Chilean traditional music influenced you? Or did you mostly listen to what your dad brought home? And do you think that coming from Chile to LA has stifled your creativity in a way? Chile is this beautiful, picturesque place and LA is well … LA. It a busy, congested city that happens to have an ocean.
YM: Oh Chile is just absolutely gorgeous. Well, I grew up in between, so I grew up like three or four days in the city and then three or four days in the countryside. So I had both. You have the very fast-paced, noisy, very dirty, mean people: stressed-out city life. Then: middle of nowhere, like six hours on a dirt road to get there, and being by the lake surrounded by tall eucalyptus and swans and duck and sheep and cows. I just loved wandering off by myself and getting lost in the forest. I’m used to both, but I’m not used to being in the city for a very, very long time. I always had the escape. That is definitely something I miss, being in LA.
I love LA, I love that it’s so sunny and the people are really nice here. You know, the ocean is 15 minutes away, so you can always go sit by the ocean. But, I really miss getting away from all the noise and the traffic. I love being able to get away where it’s quiet and you can get in touch with yourself and with nature, and the cycles of life.
As far as writing goes, I always heard Chilean music growing up but I was never really into it. I think that with age and time I just now realize the richness of the traditional music. But I just grew up listening to Top 40 stuff, like when I came to the US I didn’t even know who Bob Marley was; I was just absolutely clueless about music. I just grew up listening to the radio and what my dad was playing at home, and on the radio it was Michael Jackson and Madonna and that kind of stuff. So, pop and folk music from the 70’s. When I came here I started to explore and listen to all kinds of things, like soul and R&B, to jazz and electronic. So it wasn’t until I came here that I was more open to all kinds of music.
TMIM: So you don’t sing in Spanish on your EP?
YM: No, no I don’t. You know, I grew up mostly listening to music in English so I was just really relating to that when I was growing up. As strange as it sounds, it’s not easy for me to write in Spanish. For me it’s a very complex language to write it. Things can sound cheesy so quickly. It’s very hard to be able to say what you want to say in a way that is poetic – and at the same time it’s understandable – and also not cheesy. I’ve written in Spanish before, I mean, that’s how I grew up. But I find English to be a much more musical language. I’m sure that other people don’t have that problem at all, but for me English is easier.
TMIM: So you have written a song for a film [El Brindis] called “Aqui.” When you’re writing for a movie do they come to you and ask for the song to be written, or did you already have one and they just chose it?
YM: Yes, it’s the only song I have been commissioned to write. It was because the director knew my music from my first record Common Ground. He wanted to use a song from the record, but also have me write one just for the film. The film was in Spanish so I knew the song had to be in Spanish. So we met, and he told me what the film was about and in what part of the movie he wanted to put the song, and also what emotion he wanted to evoke from people. I went home thinking about it. We had a meeting a couple of days later, and I really wanted to come back to the meeting with something to show him, so the morning of the meeting I woke up with the song in my head. The song just wrote itself. I just came to the meeting and said, “I think I have the song for the film.” I played it for him, and everyone in the room was like, “Yeah, that is the song.” They loved it, except for the director. [Laughs.]
TMIM: Oh no! [Laughs.]
YM: He was just like, “I don’t know if I’m feeling the song.” But everyone else was telling him it was great, so it took a while for him to see what we were all seeing. The editor of the movie put the song in the beginning credits instead of at the ending credits, because there was some confusion. But, the director didn’t love it.
TMIM: Will you start touring soon for the EP?
YM: Yes, I’m currently going to start doing a California tour in the fall and it’ll be a college tour. And we will expand that at the end of fall to other states.
TMIM: As far as selling records goes do you get a lot of sales from your home country Chile?
YM: Not Heartbeat, but my first record was released there. I was very lucky because I had a very good manager at the time and he did a really good job at getting PR for me. So I had a lot of press coverage and I got played at almost every radio station — and interviewed by every radio station — and I played on TV. So there was a very big outreach for people to know me, and know my name and my music. I did sell a lot of records. But the system there of record sales is really bad, so it was very hard to track and very messy.
Honestly I’m starting to think that – whether you’re a big artist or a little artist – the money has never really been in record sales. I mean, you’re signed to a label and you see very, very little of the money from the record sales. Most of the money goes straight to the label. Even if you look at big artists, most of their income comes from touring and merchandising. And in relation to each other, for every dollar they make on record sales they make ten on a live show. And live has a value that recorded doesn’t. I mean, when you’re playing live it can never be repeated, and the people there are part of the experience, and they are willing to pay more just for the experience. You know every live show is going to be different. On record, you buy it once and it’s done. I’d rather make my music tangible and accessible for more people.
TMIM: For me the song “Favorite Two,” is so happy: just destined to be an iPod ad.
YM: Oh, thank you. Hopefully the ad exec from Apple will read this interview when it comes out.
TMIM: Oh, we’ll make sure we include that in there for when he reads this. [Laughs.]
YM: Yeah, I’m totally open to it. For a lot of artists, that has been a great source of exposure for them to connect to the public, and to people who appreciate them and want to be involved with their career. You know, I want to do this for many years to come, so I just want to get the music out there.
TMIM: Yeah, this is a great avenue for new artists, especially since people don’t really buy a whole album any more.
YM: Yeah, people just buy songs, and I don’t have a problem with that at all. It just means you (as an artist) have to be more creative and accepting. Ten dollars for a record really doesn’t represent the amount of work that goes into the making of an album. So it’s really more like a symbolic price. If we really charged for how much work it takes to make a record, people just wouldn’t pay that.
TMIM: Who does the photography on your website? It is just beautiful.
YM: Oh thank you, the picture on the front was taken by a photographer named Naomi Solomon and the illustration was done by a girl named Molly Strohl. A few, my sister took.
TMIM: I have so enjoyed talking to you today. It’s been lovely.
YM: Oh, me too.
TMIM: Well, if you come through Dallas, I’ll be there. So hopefully you’ll come through.
YM: Oh, yes, we plan to be there. Thank you so much, it was a pleasure for me. And thanks for being interested in my music.
TMIM: Well, keep it up. I know you will, because I don’t think you can help it.
YM: I can’t. I actually quit music for a little bit, because I got a little burned out. But I realized that it wasn’t something that I could stop, so I just accept now that it is part of my life. So I’m in for the long haul!
