Jennifer O'Connor

Listen to "Here With Me" by Jennifer O'Connor from Here With Me

Reveille: You made Here With Me in 12 days, recording mostly live. Is this the first record you made so quickly? What inspired that choice?

O’Connor: This is the quickest I’ve ever made a record and it was mostly out of necessity. The producer I wanted to work with [John Agnello] was kind of doing us a favor by even working with us because of how small budget we had, so we needed to move quickly. It was also the nicest studio I’ve ever recorded in so that added to the expense and limited the time. Having to work quickly ended up being kind of a blessing in disguise I think. There wasn’t a lot of time to second guess any choices.

Reveille: Were there any harried looking at the clock moments where you got worried about running out of time?

O’Connor: It went really smoothly for the most part. We had rehearsed a lot before going in so we were really prepared. The only times it got a little bit weird was I had problems getting my vocal take down because I was playing guitar at the same time, but that only happened a couple of times. For the most part I think we had a winning combination of having practiced and being really lucky [Laughs].

Reveille: One of the things I really enjoyed about Over the Mountain, Across the Valley and Back to the Stars was the balance between stripped down solo acoustic songwriter fare and more rocking band material. This album strikes the same balance. How intentionally do you ensure both those flavors are represented on the records? Do you usually know one way or another when your writing a song in which direction it will break?

O’Connor: The record’s end up being that way because I’m a fan of both kinds of music, I like quiet stuff and rock music. Both kinds of songs start the same way though, me writing alone on an acoustic guitar. I can usually tell right away what direction it’s going in, how I’d want to record it - although I’ve been wrong a few times. I can generally tell by the type of chord progression or style of playing how it will end up though. I like having that diversity in records because that’s what I enjoy as a fan. If I did the same thing all the time I would probably get bored.

Listen to "Valley Road '86" from Here With Me 

Reveille: Pretty much every review of your last album had to at least mention the presence of Britt Daniel singing back up on a few tracks or James McNew playing bass. I imagine it’s great having friends in high profile acts willing to lend a helping hand but is it ever frustrating when the press feels the need to incessantly mention their presence as one of the reasons to check out your records?

O’Connor: When I made the last record I didn’t really have a steady band other than my drummer. I just knew James from various things over the years and we were friends - and he’s a great bass player who wanted to do it. It’s a plus to have friends like that because people who might not otherwise even give your music a chance are more willing to check it out just because he’s playing on the record. I’m hugely appreciative of it. As far as Britt that was just an amazing experience for me because I’ve been a huge fan of his for so long. The reality of music journalism is that people generally all start from a few different talking points – that’s kind of impossible to avoid so I don’t really worry about it. It could be worse. I’m not too upset about it. Obviously in my ideal universe people would be running around saying, ‘This is the best thing I’ve ever heard because of you!’ [Laughs.] But it’s also cool to have other great musicians on there helping get your music some attention.

Reveille: You’re on the road right now, and have been touring pretty extensively the last few years. Is touring something you enjoy doing or just the work you have to put in order to keep making more records?

O’Connor: Depends on the day, in general I like touring. It can definitely be tiring, but for the most part I like it. Touring and traveling ends up informing a lot of my songwriting. I don’t really write songs on the road at all but I definitely come up with a lot of my initial ideas there, I jot things down quite a bit. I usually end up writing a lot of songs right when I get off of a tour. When I can finally stop and process all the ideas.

Reveille: We’re chatting about a month before the release of Here With Me, the moment before the starting gun finally goes off. Is it still a bit of an anxious butterflies in the stomach moment for you even though Here With Me is your fourth record?

O’Connor: It’s still a big moment. Every record release feels like a big moment. There’s always a lot of time leading up to the actual release. You go through a lot of different emotions - excitement, nervousness, fear. It’s exciting mostly, you finish a record and then it doesn’t really come out for about five months or so after that so you’re just kind of sitting and waiting. It hasn’t gotten any less exciting for me. There’s always that butterflies moment a little bit because you of course want people to like it and hope it does a little better than the last one so that’s the goal. I’m definitely looking ahead to next month.