Indie Folk Husband-Wife Duo Famous October Talk Touring and Parenting

Hello, Sarah and Rene. How are you? 

We’re hanging in there, having a great time.

I see you came all the way from Switzerland to tour in the US.  What influenced your decision to tour stateside rather than in Europe?  

The music on this record is heavily influenced by the american (and Canadian) songwriters we grew up listening to with our parents, including the songwriters who gravitated towards Woodstock at one time or another- so we recorded the album nearby in Rhinebeck, NY. It only seems right that we take this album across America from the Fillmore West to the Fillmore East, and to all the towns and cities that our favorite songs pay homage to. Also, Rene is Swiss but I’m originally from Iowa and my family is spread out from coast to coast now. Making music is one way I am able to continue seeing them, and for our baby Cecilia to be a part of their lives. 

What would you say is the biggest difference between American audiences and European audiences? 

Heckling! I’m kidding, but in general American audiences are very expressive about their enjoyment and they articulate their experience to us. It’s often a warm fuzzy experience, start to finish. I remember when I first played a concert in Switzerland. The audience was so attentive and quiet, and allowed for a few of those cricket chirping moments after jokes and stories. I thought ‘they hated us.’ Then we sold a ton of merch and spoke face to face with enthusiastic new fans after the show. It dawned on me that they actually loved us. This is more of a Swiss thing than a European thing in general. I find Europeans are very committed fans and often travel great distances to see an artist they love. Live music is an unquestioned part of European culture. 

You each have had success in your individual music careers before deciding to become a duo. How do you influence each other as songwriters and what is your songwriting process typically like? 

Rene brings me American roots music from an outsider’s astonished perspective and helps me to hear things as if for the first time again. I push arrangements through different twists and turns than he would. As of yet there is no ‘typical’ process for us, but I can tell you a story about one song that to this day remains the ‘missing song.’ I’m a fast writer. I fill a page and whittle and whittle until the truest form of the song emerges. Rene doesn’t put words down until they are the right words. So, Rene was carrying around one particularly precious song, and on the day we sent the demos to Todd Sickafoose who produced the record, this track was blank. Assuredly, Rene had the title, and an opening line: ‘Missing Song,’ ‘An empty day, and empty page…’ which was becoming kind of an omen. In time, he came to me and asked for help. The story he had written into the verses remained as our inspiration for what has become perhaps our most exhilarating song of the set. We took this thing, raised it from the ground up, tackled it back down again, and stepped back to find something neither of us would have created, and something we both love.

You also have an interesting personal story.  You’re married and have your one-year-old daughter, Cecilia, on tour with you. Was this tour something you envisioned doing all along? How do you juggle your family time and professional musician life, especially on the road? 

We knew we wanted to have a family, and we both had parents who took us traveling from day one. We agreed that this was a good way to bring a child into the world, rather than create a manageable sub-world at home. That’s not us. Cecilia was always around music and people even in the womb, and interacted with both even then. (Imagine, I play cello…) She shows us every day that she is more at home with lots going on than with little going on. Her endless curiosity and connection to music helps us to relax about this decision. We wouldn’t be able to do this without the help of family, friends, and especially our friend Anna who is along with us to look after her when we’re ‘at work.’ The tour brings us to all the cities where my family lives, coast to coast, and to all of my second homes that I’ve gotten to know on previous tours, so there are good friends at nearly every stop.

You also recently released a new video for your track, “Falling Over,” from your upcoming album, One Day Baby, which comes out in early October. What was the inspiration for the song and video? 

A lot can change in the relationships you’ve had your whole life long when a baby comes into the picture. This song deals with the emotions of that change, or the disconnect that can happen in the process of accepting that the closeness shifts to this child, and the best remedy for any sense of loss in the matter is when the child forms a new closeness with that same person, bridging the gap. My sisters, who I am very close to, inspired me to put these feelings on paper and offer an invitation in the song. 

With both of you having been in the music industry for several years, what have been the biggest changes in the music industry that you’ve experienced over the years? In your opinion, has the Internet made it easier or more challenging overall to find success as a musician? 

In my opinion it’s become much harder. Our jobs have expanded to include daily tasks that, when not careful, can start to interfere with the headspace and way of life that is needed to write songs. There was always a competitive nature to getting heard, but now it isn’t discernible. Prioritizing these tasks is still unclear. I find myself thinking- it’ll all settle down. No need to get on that bandwagon now. But that hurts our visibility. It’s a tough puzzle to solve, and we manage to do the bare minimum. We only have so much time and energy to spare with Cecilia, so she helps us to realize what is important and why we are doing this. Often the potential outlets the internet provides can throw you off that course.

What interesting anecdotes from this tour so far can you share? 

Torrance Stonewall Jackson. We played a show in L.A. and afterward our friend Kenny Lyon (Lemonheads, Spain) said he wanted to introduce us to someone who was just around the corner 50 feet. Intrigued, we followed. He introduced us to Torrance, who stood to his nearly 7′ height, took his hat off, and shook my hand. Kenny was going on about our show, and going on about this man’s unmatchable voice. So he began to sing. This velvety deep bass came roaring out through the words of African American spirituals and slave songs in a medley he was creating on the spot. Standing on Cahuenga Blvd at 10 PM on a Saturday night, we were transported. I only came to when I heard him say ‘ok, now your turn.’ So I looked to Rene and we thought for a second – what? how do we follow that? And we gave him a bit of our closing number, Starting Today. Rene kept the rhythm while I sang. Torrance told me it was something from the heavens, and asked about my background with Gospel music. I was thrilled to tell him I grew up down the street from a church where I’d linger outside to hear the choir. He told me that stuff never leaves you. I feel compelled by his words, and so grateful to Kenny for introducing us.

Tell us about your upcoming album, One Day Baby? 

Imagine two people giddy, nervous, excited and full of questions about our impending life change. We had waited so long for this to be our reality, and we had so much to express about it! Some of the songs were written before we knew, and come from the exciting time of our new marriage. Other songs discuss how the world around us was so new again as we transitioned into parents. They present the love and the promise we had made to each other, and to this unknown child.

What is your live show typically like? 

It’s a roller coaster of emotion from tension to glee with such a personal outpouring that we feel we know each person in the audience by the time we say goodnight. We give everything to them, with comfort and ease. We enjoy what we’re doing so much that I think this is transparent and contagious.

Tell us what you have planned musically after your One Day Baby tour? 

We do this again in Europe! We are venue owners as well as performing artists. This means we will also focus on the collaborations that our musical business endeavor called Pillow Song presents to us. We will continue to tour and to write, there’s no question there. We will likely visit our previous projects again, but Famous October is our home now.