Photo credit: Tristan Williams
Tell us about your tour vehicle.
We started touring with the band in an old Ford E350 — the classic band van — often with our older kid’s car seat on one bench so she could be read to and entertained by the road nanny while I was in the back next to our infant to take care of him and, from time to time, do an awkward, back-twisting position to nurse him while still buckled in his carseat. Not at all recommended, but sometimes it was necessary to get us another 30 minutes closer to our destination.
In the fall of 2019, we finally upgraded to a new version — the kind you can stand up in — and did one last epic tour with nine of us: Five band members, two kids under 6, a road nanny and a tour manager. When Covid hit and touring grinded to a halt we took out the middle seats and threw down a mattress so we’re able to have some super comfy family campouts now. The shelves we built in the back for instruments and merch now double as bunks for the kids, at least until we get back on the road with the band.
How do you eat cheaply and/or healthy while on tour?
Sardines, sardines, and more sardines. Even the kids love them. Only rule: No eating sardines in the van. Nope. Just don’t even go there. We also have created a pretty delicious road salad which involves taking a box of pre-washed greens, adding easy-to-cut-with-a-plastic-butter-knife veggies (tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers), plus sauerkraut, olives, canned fish, nuts+seeds, and to top it off, a spritz of Braggs amino acid + a squeeze of lemon. This can be made in the back of the van or at a rest stop picnic table.
One very memorable January day we were preparing one of our delicious masterpiece salads at a table in a Wendy’s Gas Station combo rest area in eastern Kentucky at the end of a tour. I was pregnant and we had our toddler with us, who was, I will note, eyeing the sardines (and saying, “mmm!”). We were about to pop open a jar of kimchi to put on top of the salad when the elderly couple next to us leaned over their Wendy’s fries and said, “Excuse me folks, but could we please buy you a meal?” After a very pregnant pause (me, confused at first) we realized how hard-up they must have thought we were and assured them we were doing fine and actually about to enjoy our salad. But, feeling embarrassed, I told David he had to go buy something at the counter to prove we could afford it. He came back with a baked potato but the couple was still not convinced. As they were getting up to go, they turned to us once more and said, “At least can we buy your daughter a Frostee?”
How many strings do you break in a typical year? How much does it cost to replace them?
My main problem is not strings, but bow hairs. I’ve been known to trash a whole bow in a single night, and they cost $75 to rehair, so not an inexpensive habit! Definitely one I’m trying to tame…
Where do you rehearse?
Our rehearsing has mostly included one or two kids under our feet or strapped on our back. But thanks to an incredible turn of events last year, with the help of a benefactor fan and a community fundraising effort, we now have a gorgeous studio barn in our backyard here in Charlottesville, VA. You can read about it and see pictures here.
What was the title and a sample lyric from the first song that you wrote?
The first song I remember writing was for my little brother called “Beautiful Brown-eyed Birthday Boy Baby Brother”. Here’s one of the verses I can recall:
I love you more than deep blue skies
I love you more than cherry pies
I love you more than skinny dipping late at night
And juicy peaches ripe in July
Describe your first gig.
Gosh, that’s a hard one. Do you count the innumerable piano and violin and orchestra concerts? Or the church and school choir performances? Or the funerals and weddings I was asked to play as a kid? What about the county fair fiddling contest? Or busking on the downtown mall while going through my first bouts of mania?
So hard to say — I feel like I’ve been performing my whole life, so there isn’t really a distinct “first gig” memory. I think my first gig with David Wax Museum was at a little joint in Cambridge, MA, called the Lily Pad. I don’t remember much about the gig except thinking it would be cool if I wore my rubber snow boots on stage — playing it casual, I guess!
What was your last day job? What was your favorite day job?
My first, last, and only “real job” was working in the Development Office at McLean Hospital. I had never heard of McLean so literally didn’t know it was a preeminent psychiatric hospital until the day I arrived at my interview. And of course my boss didn’t know, nor did I allude to it, that I had just been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and was only six months into recovery. Because I didn’t know much about manic depression, it was pretty incredible to be in the premiere Harvard research hospital surrounded by doctors studying the illness I was dealing with.
Pretty soon I noticed fliers that said things like, “Do you have Bipolar Disorder?” or “Are you taking lithium or other mood stabilizers? If so, call to participate in our research study.” Well, it turns out I did in fact have Bipolar Disorder and was also taking lithium. So on my lunch breaks I’d sneak into the research buildings to get my brain looked at in the clicking MRI, or answer surveys and questionnaires. And the best part was the $25/hour in cash I’d leave with! Big money for me at that point…That was also my last real day job, which I quit in 2009 when I ran away with David Wax on our first long, legit tour. We borrowed a minivan from my godparents, headed south and never looked back.
How has your music-related income changed over the past 5-10 years? What do you expect it to look like 5-10 years from now?
How has my income changed? It hasn’t really changed. I don’t make a big income. At all. I never have. My life is unbelievably rich, however, with music-making, time with my family, touring experiences from Shanghai to Nome, Alaska, and flexibility. I do have expectations that one of these records we make will really hit the zeitgeist or whatever it is that helps a record “make it big.” Sure, I wish we had a proper savings account, or more saved for our kids and retirement, but I think most people probably wish they had more in their bank account, right? I feel like the luckiest, most privileged person I know to be able to walk this particular path. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
What one thing do you know now that you had wished you knew when you started your career in music?
When I was in college I wrote a big paper about how my peers imagined choosing a career or becoming a mother. I hated that dichotomy, as so many young women did, and in my early twenties decided I would not choose one or the other, but find a way to combine my work and family life. As my music career was coming into focus, I realized a life in music would allow me to have the flexibility to bring my kids with me on the road, and work nights so I’d have time to be with them during the days.
There’s a quote attributed to Madeleine Albright, among others, saying something to the effect of, yes, women can have it all but just not all at the same time. At this point I reject the idea of “having it all,” but I do feel like the fact that my first solo album had to wait until I was 40 was because I was touring internationally for 15 years, half of them while pregnant and/or nursing babies on the road. The idea that somehow I could have also had the emotional space and time to make my own album was just a fantasy. The time at home granted to us from the pandemic shutdown really allowed me to focus on this project, finally, and despite all the incredible challenges and heartache the quarantine brought, I feel very thankful for what it gave me. This is all to say, I wish I’d have known it might take a lot longer than I thought it would — and to be ok with that — but to keep plugging away at it anyway.