Talking To...Madison Violet
Madison Violet, formerly known as Madviolet, are Brenley MacEachern and Lisa MacIsaac. They have just released their third CD, No Fool For Trying and are in the middle of their fourth tour taking the UK by storm, before heading to Europe.
Fatea seized the chance to talk music, touring, fluke meetings, life, and even death, with Brenley and Lisa, who were open, honest, and very funny, before they opened for Sam Baker at The Cluny2 in Newcastle.
LM – Lisa MacIsaac
BM – Brenley MacEachern
HM – Helen Mitchell
HM: Hi Brenley and Lisa, it’s great to meet you.
BM: You, too. Are we good to start?
HM: Yeah, great. Well, the first thing I was thinking was, this must be about your fourth time over in the UK?
BM: Yeah I think...well, the first time we supported The Hothouse Flowers in 2006 around this time, or a little bit later I guess. Then we came back over with Wine, Women and Song about a year later.
HM: Yeah, that was when I saw you.
BM: Okay, great, then we came over with Ron Sexmith and now, yeah, here we are, so you are correct!
LM: (joining us) Hi!
HM: Hi, we were just talking about how many times you’ve been over here. I was saying that I saw you when you opened for Wine, Women and Song at The Sage.
LM: Okay, so you saw us already.
HM: Yeah. I guess that’s a good segue to ask you about a song on the new album, Hallways of The Sage. It’s obviously that Sage! There can’t be many other Sages...
LM: No. That was written when we were touring with The Hothouse Flowers. We were backstage. It was a really challenging tour in the first place because it was....very little time has passed since Brenley’s brother had passed away and we actually weren’t going to do the tour. Brenley was incredibly strong and went out on the tour and that was one of the gigs that was most challenging for us. We were backstage sitting in a stairwell and these lyrics just started coming and it was almost written from the perspective of thinking of life as being a stage and the end of a show being the end of a life. That’s where it came from at The Sage, Gateshead.
HM: That’s actually quite a nice idea...a guess a gig is at least a snapshot of life, a block of time, a moment.
LM: Yeah, it is.
HM: I know you did the first two CDs in London and this new one back in Canada. How did that come about?
BM: Well, our preliminary plans were to record it in London with John and were almost as far as booking our flights, had the studio time all set up and everything then it turned out John was in Barbados, an hour’s flight away in the Caribbean. We called him and said ‘You know, we don’t know if the songwriting on this next album is right.’ What John Reynolds gives to a record is beautiful, amazing and we love his sound but we just didn’t really think it would work with what we were trying to achieve on this third record and we thought that Les Cooper – who ended up producing it – would be the perfect guy to work with. He understood that we didn’t want to do a lot of layering , it wasn’t about.....it’s till rhythm oriented but bluegrass style rhythm.
HM: It’s much more raw I think.
LM: It is. The rhythm is provided by the stringed instruments rather than bass drums.
BM: Yeah and we wanted our band to play on the record and I think it was just important that we stayed home as well; we’d been on the road for so long, we just kinda wanted to be home so we thought ‘Let’s see how well we work together on our own soil and what kind of challenges that might introduce to us.’ You know sometimes when it’s easy it’s not worth doing. With John it’s incredibly easy. I know we’ll work with him again but we needed a new challenge and we got it. (laughs)
HM: it’s good to mix it up sometimes and find different sounds...this CD proves that.
BM: It’s integral to developing yourselves as musicians, as artists, for sure.
HM: Speaking of the new CD it seems a good time to ask, what gives with the name change?
LM: Well, it’s an extension, obviously.
HM: I will keep calling you MadViolet!
LM: I guess most people who discovered us as MadViolet will always call us MadViolet and it’s still the short form of our name. It came about because of several reasons. One, there was a band in the 80s, kind of a psychedelic pop band, called The Madviolets and in the digital age it was getting very confusing because if you went to online retail outlets and typed in Mad Violet that band would come up and ours wouldn’t. We had it as two words joined to make one word. If you went into a record store in Canada and they typed our name in as two words, we wouldn’t come up in the system. Also, the word ‘mad’, other than being over here where it means you’re a bit off your rocker, ‘mad’ in other parts of the world has a bit of a negative connotation to it. People thought we had a bit darker music, maybe a pop band, so we just thought we’d extend it to something a little more positive, a little lighter. So far we’ve had great feedback, it’s been a bit of a transiton but...
HM: So, where did the Madison come from?
LM: I have a niece, Madison and we wanted it to be something with name recognition.
BM: It could have been ‘Madame Violet’ but we decided on ‘Madison.’
HM: Well, technically that would have had to be ‘Madames Violet’ I guess, with an s.
BM: Yeah I guess......I like the name Madison though.
LM: As our music got rootsier I think our name needed to fit.
HM: Can I ask about The Woodshop, Brenley? I know that was very personal.
BM: Yeah. Well, my brother died 3 years ago September 22nd. It was a very tragic loss in that he was murdered in Toronto. He was Tornoto’s 52nd homicide of the year.
HM: Ashes 52.....
BM: Right. I get quite a few emails asking about that, what ‘ashes 52’ means. People wonder if that was his age, but then think, well how would I have a brother of that age. That just seems a little too old I guess. Yeah, my father had this beautiful piece of wood that he’d had for almost 20 years. A really good friend of his had given it to him as he as a hobby loves to build cabinets for my mom and model ships and things like that. He kept this piece of wood for some reason, he doesn’t know why. In the end we were in the funeral parlour looking at urns for my brother and my Dad remembered this piece of wood. He said I don’t want to buy this, I want to make it for him. The day of the funeral he finished it.
HM: Isn’t that strange...almost like it was meant to be, somehow.
BM: Yeah. It was hard really.
HM: I suppose that was more personal for him aswell, that he made it.
BM: Yeah, I think so.
HM: I suppose there’s always a question there too of what could have been.
BM: Yeah, absolutely.
HM: Crying...I think that’s about your brother, too?
BM: Yeah. He was six years older than me and in all the time I knew him, growing up with him, I never saw him cry. I think crying is good for the soul.
HM: Okay, I’m going to bring it back up a little bit.
BM: Yeah....
HM: Haight Ashbury from the first CD is one of my favourites..well that was actually the first song of yours I heard! I don’t know if I have just made this up but I seem to think it is a street in San Francisco?
BM: Yeah. That song came about....it’s funny because it’s one of the first songs we ever recorded for Worry the Jury. I have a habit when I have a melody in my head I just mumble. It’s like a phonetic melody - the words come out not as words but as tones and Lisa will hear something that I’ve said.. In this instance I was taking a melody – a guitar chord progression that Lisa had come up with which sort of had a melody on it. I had a first verse then our old landlord heard me sing ‘Haight Ashbury.’ But I hadn’t heard it. He rest of it came so easily. It’s a story of when Lisa and I first met and how.....what’s the word..?
LM: Serendipitous?
BM: Serendipitous it was, thankyou... and Haight Ashbury was a place of opportunity back in the 60s, where the hippies would congregate. I thought of it as an opportunity of two people meeting and what they could do together if they united. Oddly enough, two days after Lis and I met she went to San Fransisco but the song was written about two years later.
Madison Violet, formerly known as Madviolet, are Brenley MacEachern and Lisa MacIsaac. They have just released their third CD, No Fool For Trying and are in the middle of their fourth tour taking the UK by storm, before heading to Europe.
Fatea seized the chance to talk music, touring, fluke meetings, life, and even death, with Brenley and Lisa, who were open, honest, and very funny, before they opened for Sam Baker at The Cluny2 in Newcastle.
LM – Lisa MacIsaac
BM – Brenley MacEachern
HM – Helen Mitchell
HM: I can’t quite remember, but didn’t you meet in a bar that had a colour in the name?
LM/BM: The Green Room!
HM: I had blue or green in my head.
LM: It’s very appropriate that being artists we met in a place called The Green Room. It was quite chance meeting. I was in a conversation with someone and Brenley overheard me say my last name, MacIsaac. MacIsaac is not a common name in Canada but it’s quite a famous name as my brother is a musician who has quite a reputation across the country. We’re from Cape Breton Island on the east Coast and Brenley’s father grew up about a mile down the road from where I grew up. So she walked over and introduced herself and asked if I was a MacIsaac from Cape Breton, obviously I said I was, we struck up a conversation and lo and behold I knew more of her relatives than she did! Shortly thereafter I joined Brenley’s band – kind of an ambient pop band called Joey Fish and we found out that our fathers had sat next to each other at high school.
HM: (lauighing) For a moment there I would have sworn you said your fathers had sex!
BM: (laughing) It did sound like it didn’t it?!
LM: (laughing) No, our fathers had sad – they did not have sex! It’s the accent.
BM: You never know though!
LM: Yeah, it was just very fateful, us meeting.
HM: It’s a small world, really, isn’t? Isn’t it the six degrees of separation?
BM: Yeah, absolutely.
HM: In fact, I know someone in Ontario you know.... I know her through Tia.
BM: Oh, okay, there you go! We just saw her the other day.
HM: if you had to pick a favourite of the songs you’ve recorded, which would it be and why? Maybe a hard question...
LM: I think mine changes daily. I think right now if I was to choose one I would say The Ransom.
BM: Me too and you know the reason why - we probably have different reasons for that – I was so p*****d off when I recorded that song, at the producer; we were not having a good day together, and I recorded that one time from top to bottom – the vocal – and I never sang it again on that record. Lisa ended up singing over it, she didn’t record it at the same time - we usually do our vocals together – and I’m really happy with the vocal on it and I’m never happy with the vocal on a record but with that one I’m happy with it.
HM: Well, Lisa, maybe you need rig it so she gets mad at producers more often!
LM: Yeah, or I can just p*** her off!
BM: (laughs) Right.
LM: (laughing) I think for me, it’s just the thought of the struggle of being an artist and there have been moments, as of late, when I have contemplated how challenging it is to be a musician and be on the road; even though I feel very privileged and very blessed to be on the road as much as we are, it can be quite challenging. I think that’s why it’s my favourite right now.
BM: It was written at a time when we really did want to go home.
HM: It feels like the idea of it is that the ransom is the price you pay for doing what you do.
BM: Absolutely. Especially when we’re out on the road so much, nine months or so of the year. I’ve given up counting, it scares me when I count! It’s nice to be out on the road, but it’s nice to be home and we want to start looking at other ways of making money with our music too, like film and tv. That again, takes a lot of time and energy to pursue.
HM: yeah I guess you don’t want the touring to become a chore, rather than you enjoying it.
LM: Yeah, we have taken some breaks recently which I think were much needed because we were feeling drained and if you can’t put that energy forth on stage to the audience, they won’t give it back. If you can’t give it to the audience, they can’t give it back and there’s no point being on stage if that’s happening.
HM: I like that you see it as a two way thing between you and the audience. Lots of artists appear to see it differently.
LM: No, it’s a relationship when you’re on stage and if you don’t develop a relationship or a rapport with the audience, then you’re not doing your job. The audience might as well listen the CD. You want to get a piece of the artist’s personality when you’re at a show.
HM: Co-writers – you don’t seem to have many? It’s nearly always just the two of you, isn’t it?
LM: On Caravan we had three co-writes with Ron Sexsmith, who’s a friend of ours and an amazing, incredibly talented songwriter . I felt quite privileged having the honour of doing some writing with him. On the new album, there’s only one co-write and it was the song LauraLee. It was with two friends of ours, in different locations as well, that both came from completely different musical backgrounds, but both brought something to the table which enabled us to finish the song
(at this point we all laughed as Sam Baker walked in, interrupted to say hi and check he was in the right place...)
HM: I’ve lost the thread now...
LM: Co-writers
HM: Oh, yes. Do you find it harder writing with other people, or do you enjoy it?
BM: I enjoy it. It’s never the same, though. There’s certain people that you’ll sit down and write and it’s just not coming, like there’s nerves getting in the way, or insecurities...you know you’re afraid to spit it out. Then there’s other people, like with Ron, and he’s such a great writer, you’d think you’d be insecure a little bit. He’s notorious for his lyrics, I mean, Paul McCartney talks about him and so does Elvis Costello, but for some reason it’s really easy to just throw out your ideas and we had a lot of fun. All three of us would throw out the most ridiculous ideas, knowing they’d never, stay, just a s a joke.
LM: He has a similar sense of humour to us, which is why I think it worked so well.
BM: Right. Then we’ve had other situations with other people where it just wasn’t natural at all.
LM: Like pulling teeth. It’s a challenge.
BM: It’s fun but quite challenging. Even we have to be careful sometimes. You know, Lisa might say a line that I really like but there’s one word in it and I have to think how important it is for me or for the song – do I need the change for me or the song, and I have to ponder that for a while. Most of the time if I suggest not using this word, she’s already thought that she doesn’t want that word either, but just didn’t know a better word. So it’s very organic, the way we write.
HM: I don’t know how people do it or where it comes from – it’s such a gift. I know a friend write a song which came from something I said a couple years ago – that’s probably the closest I’ll ever get to songwriting!
BM: (laughs) There’s your moment.
HM: Okay, I’m going to ask you to do something for me.....Can you describe each other in three words?
LM: Tall, blonde, bimbo, nahhhh just kidding! (laughs)
HM: i suppose I walked into that for you didn’t I really?
BM: (laughs) You did, Yeah. Okay, beautiful, courageous, stubborn.
LM: Patient, considerate, talented. I mean, you’re hot, too but I’ve only got three words....
HM: I prefer the other three.
LM: Yeah.
BM: We’ve never been asked that question before.
HM: I’ve not interviewed a duo before, so thought it would be interesting to see what words you came up with. I do it with children at work and wondered if it works with musicians, too! I guess it’s not something you often think about, is it.
LM: No
BM: No, not three words. We usually have about twenty words.
LM: What did you just call me?
BM: Beautiful...
LM: Stubborn....
BM: And courageous
LM: Hmm, good, I’ll take it.
LM – Lisa MacIsaac
BM – Brenley MacEachern
HM – Helen Mitchell
HM: What CDs are you listening to at the moment?
BM: MGMT - I just got it – it’s really, really good.
LM: I’ve been listening to the Lily Allen album.
BM: (laughs)
HM: Well, that’s your street cred. ruined!
LM: You know, I think the production is amazing. There’s one song with banjo all over it, so I was drawn to the album because of that one track. You asked, and I told ya!
BM: It’s cool you can get away with singing ‘Thank you very much...’ It’s a fun album. You know, 99% of the time I’m listening to Nick Lowe, or...
LM: Brilliant lyrics, heartfelt songs, and this just is a light album for me, when I need to get away.
HM: Ok, so what’s your favourite album?
BM: (without pausing) Neil Young’s Harvest. Always has been, since I was about ten.
LM: This is gonna sound very funny; my favourite album that I’ve played to death and will never get sick of, is Saint Germain – Tourist, it’s called and it just makes me feel good. It’s not a lyrical album at all, it’s just about feeling good.
HM: I couldn’t pick my favourite.
LM: Well, you put us on the spot!
HM: I could maybe have guessed one of you would say Neil Young but I wouldn’t have guessed yours, Lisa.
LM: Oh, I’m an unpredictable girl!
HM: There you go, there’s a fourth word!
BM: There ya go, Lisa....what were mine again...
HM: How would you describe yourselves in three words?
BM: Aw, geez, that’s hard. Impatient?
LM: I was talking about you in general, not you as of late!
BM (laughs) generous, indecisive.
LM: I would say, forgetful, indecisive
HM: I think that shouldn’t count as she used your word, Brenley.
LM: How would I describe myself? Scattered would probably be my first one right now.
HM: As in, all over the place?
LM: ALL over the place.. I don’t know how to describe myself, though. That’s a tough one.
BM: Well, say one positive thing at least.
HM: Yeah, they’re all quite negative.
LM: Okay...it’s hard to say stuff like that about yourself...I’d call me loving.
HM: There you go. Loving is good. It is hard to do, isn’t it. That’s interesting, as that’s not a million miles away from what she said about you.
BM: Yeah, you’re right. You get to know someone well in nine years.
HM: Has it been that long?
BM: Yeah, it’ll be ten years next month, Hallowe’en.
HM: Hallowe’en – that explains a lot!
LM: Hey!
HM: So, in nearly ten years, have you ever wanted to ...you know...
LM: Kill each other? Yeah, many, many, many times. That was three times many!
BM: Even maybe yesterday. Before we left on this tour I’d said that we get so angry with each other when we’re driving, we’ll end up driving into oncoming traffic. Then I forgot we’re driving on the wrong side of the road, so there’s a good chance we’ll end up driving into oncoming traffic and I was thinking back home, they’re gonna think we did it on purpose, not just sheer accident! Now you have it in print...
HM: Okay, I’m going to let you go, and get sorted....that was really great, thankyou.
BM/ LM: Thankyou.
LM: How about I change....wait...I would say, Forgetful, loving and fiddly.
HM: Okay..like fidgety?
BM: Fidgety?
LM: No, I’m not fidgety, I’m fiddly.
BM: What does fiddly mean?
LM: That doesn’t matter – I’m just fiddly!
HM: She’s making up words now!
LM: You never said I couldn’t! Can’t change the rules half through the game.
BM: Are you coming to the show?
HM: Yeah..can’t wait!
BM: Okay, we’ll see you there!
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