MP3: Erase Errata - 'Tax Dollar' ('Nightlife', Kill Rock Stars)

DIRTY caught up with Jenny Hoyston, singer/guitarist and trumpet player of the no-wave/punk all-girl band, Erase Errata on the last date of her solo tour in support of her latest album, 'Isle Of'.

Okay, so this is the last date of your solo UK tour - how’s it been so far?

Yeah, I’m enjoying it. The shows have been good, I really enjoyed myself in Leeds last night and in Oxford the day before...

(Jenny’s drummer comes into the van to tell Jenny that she’s loaded some Britney Spears video. “There’s this great bit” she says, “where she goes, “I really believe there’s, like, some people that are just ‘ahead of us’"...!”)

Why did you decide to release your latest record, ‘Isle Of’ under your own name instead of your Paradise Island moniker?

Umm, no reason really!

You’ve collaborated with lots of artists in the past as well as on ‘Isle of’ and you’re really involved in this kind of music and art community, have you found working with other people to help you personally, beyond just having say, someone adding drums to your guitar and vocal tracks?

Yeah, I’ve done a lot of recording projects with other people where I’ve worked with Vice Cooler (Hawnay Troof/Xbxrx) and doing the duets with William Elliott Whitmore and even just collaborating with the other women in Erase Errata. I find it very stimulating playing with other people and definitely a lot of fun to play with people who I admire and think are good and not only do I learn from them but if I’m playing with someone who I feel is good, I push myself creatively and try to push limits I had previously set for myself.

Right now I have a project that I’ve just started with Tara Jane O’Neal and another woman where it’s really rewarding to play with people and to try and write with people that I admire musically and I feel like I can still push myself.

How did you meet William Elliott Whitmore?

Will lived in my house in Southern California - he was in Club Hott for a summer, we’re mutual friends and he was in town.

Oh yeah, do you still have that place [Club Hott]?

Not any more, no. It was a warehouse I got over in Oakland and I had for six years. I put on all-ages shows on the weekends and took in people who were re-locating to the Bay Area from other places. Like the kids from XBXRX wanted to leave Alabama and other people who wanted to move to the Bay Area because we wanted to start a scene there and put on shows.

I know you had that “Let’s Be Active” tour, but, even just as a phrase I quite like that. The spirit and motivation behind it...

Yeah, it’s kind of a lifestyle of living actively as opposed to passively and if you find things that you wish were happening around you, you should make them happen. And if you find yourself wishing you could do something you should try and make steps to achieving it. It’s kind of this whole... ‘Create your own ideal world’ thing. It’s got political elements, certainly, like just trying to be involved...

But that little ‘collective’, or whatever you want to call it, was very much about a circle of friends who all kind of influence each other and stimulate each other creatively. We made plans to be able to be around each other and create “happenings” or whatever. But that tour, that DVD, was kind of an opportunity for all of us to play on each other’s songs for a few nights in a row and hang out for a few nights, because honestly Will and I are both on the road so much I never get to see him. He’s one of my favourite people in the world, y’know, so we run into each other like “oh you’re playing in DC that night and I’m playing in DC that night... So if we meet each other in the middle of town after our soundchecks”... Things like that - to be active and meet up and create space for our friends.

What’s some of the differences you feel, as an artist, from performing and writing solo to performing and writing in Erase Errata?

Um, mostly it’s me writing a song so the music is a little bit different - it’s not as much of a collaborative effort. I’ve been travelling with the drummer on this tour so it doesn’t feel as solitary as some tours I’ve done by myself and that’s a pretty big difference.

So when you write for Erase Errata, I know you guys kind of had this ‘ready-set-go’ approach where you improvised in practices a lot and came up with lyrics off the top of your head... Spontaneity was a big part of creating the songs. Did you keep hold of that style over the years and is there a more considered and learned approach when you’re recording solo?

Well with Erase Errata we’re not actively writing right now but it would be exactly the same if we were to get together; that’s just how we were. That’s the only way we’ve ever worked. There’s never been an intentional song in that band. With my solo stuff it’s actually pretty similar. I write as I record, so I guess it’s kind of a similar approach. I take a 4-track recorder and start layering song parts together when I’m writing.

How’s things with Erase Errata anyway; last I knew was that Ellie had injured her arm...?

Yeah, she had an arm injury and we’ve been doing smaller tours and we’re not doing big tours because of that so it’s kind of slowed us down a little bit. We put out a 7” last year with Tomlab in Germany and yeah, that’s about all we’ve done recently.

You’ve released quite a few records on some really great independent labels, like Tomlab, Southern, Troubleman Unlimited, Kill Rock Stars, etc... What do you think are the differences between independent and major labels?

Well I guess, ideally, there’s a little less emphasis, when it comes to an independent label, on marketing and seeing the artist as a commodity. Sure, an independent label is trying to sell some records too and they are in business but most have a more different approach to dealing with artists. I know when I’ve done work for major labels I’ve kind of felt as if I could be anyone and that they could work me until I died! It’s a pretty impersonal situation.

They’re actually pretty similar, in certain ways, but it’s even more obvious that the artist is viewed as a kind of disposable commodity and a replaceable commodity to majors.

Easy one, I guess - who are your main influences?

Um, actually it’s really hard to say, I think that the music that stimulates me and the music that I listen to aren’t easily heard in the music I write. But certainly, I spend a lot of time listening to old folk music and carnival/country music...

Then a lot of music that was older that I kind of felt was pushing boundaries from other eras. Be it from when jazz started freeing up a bit with John Coltrane and Miles Davis - definitely really interested in that era of music - and I enjoy some English prog-rock from the early seventies... Like; Yes, Caravan, The Soft Machine... Really stimulated by that stuff.

Also, the kind of early/mid-70s and beyond, music that had the tape delay machines and any kind of music using early synthesisers and drum machines.

Is there any advice you’d give to bands or solo artists starting out?

Gosh. Well, I think the main thing... I don’t know if it’s advice but it’s what I wish for aspiring artists, I like it when people are trying to path their own way. I find myself listening to a lot of different artists who are playing all kinds of genres but as long as it sounds like it’s their own and it’s fresh and new. I think people enjoy it and they pick up on authenticity.

I think that’s the best thing for one to do for themselves and for others; to tap into their own true creative potential.

Could you recommend a few bands that we might not have got hold of over here?

I think people in the UK are going to hopefully hear from the New Bloods who are a Portland trio that Kill Rock Stars are going to release this year. Three women - violin, bass and drums. They’ve got a really good spirit and I’m sure they’ll be touring over here soon so people should watch out for them.

Hmm, I can’t really think of anyone else. I like to see my friends playing but I don’t think they’ve got any big scale releases or are going to be touring much...

Ha, erm, gosh... I can’t think... I don’t know!

Any last words?

Oh, I’m really long-winded!