[This article originally appeared on crawdaddy.com in July 2011 in a slightly edited form. –rh]
The intro tape plays as the band members take their places on the stage. Stone-faced behind black sunglasses, bassist Jeremy Kay and drummer Ezra Oaklan seem unaffected by the summer heat, their dark shades lending the bearded rhythm section a cool aloofness. This statuesque calm is best exemplified by tiny guitar goddess Irina Yalkowsky, who is preparing to unleash a barrage of growling blues guitar riffs. With the possible exceptions of Neil Young and the occasional helicopter howling overhead, the unsuspecting crowd will not hear anything like Yalkowsky’s six-string sorcery anywhere else around the festival grounds all weekend long.
The sun beats down on a vast green expanse of Tennessee farmland that has been converted to accommodate 80,000 people at what is now considered the big daddy of all summer music festivals. The sunburned and music-crazed crowd is dispersed in random, undulating, ever-changing contingents that swarm from stage to stage. Stage right behind a towering column of speakers on Bonnaroo’s Other Tent stage, Jersey girl Nicole Atkins hangs her head for one last moment of concentration as her long brown hair with rebel yellow streaks falls over her face. Her brow is momentarily furrowed in concentration then it lifts and her face relaxes into a wide grin. The Morricone intro tape gives way to the band pummeling their instruments to conjure a smashing crescendo that is Atkins’ cue to come bounding out on the stage.
Located on a far corner of the festival grounds, the Other Tent does not garner many curious passers-by. Because of their more central locations in the midst of constant foot traffic, almost all of the other Bonnaroo stages lure in casual listeners. But the Other Tent is a destination stage. So when a crowd gathers around this stage for an afternoon performance by Nicole Atkins & the Black Sea, it is no accident. Atkins appears from the wings and approaches the microphone at center stage and the crowd erupts in a spontaneous roar of recognition at the sight of her. Her face brightens with a bit of bashful red in reaction as she begins the rugged whisper of “Heavy Boots”.
Somber verse builds to rumbling chorus, while Atkins’ voice rises and falls with the music. The lyrics are an invitation to lay down your weary tune and let Miss Nicole take the weight for a while. She pleads her case like an impassioned friend who will not take no for an answer. When Atkins’ calm and assuring tone referring to “all the battles deep inside you” leaps alarmingly into the full-throated upper register threat-promise repetition of “they are no match for me”, it is the stuff of everlasting goosebumps. She may look like the girl next door but when she belts it out like this her voice could level a mountain.
A relaxed and natural performer onstage, Atkins has been tirelessly working on the road since February. The sultry ballad “The Way It Is” is a nightly feature in her set and Atkins invariably eases right into the song’s acapella intro with no cue from the band as to what key the song is in. This type of brain-muscle memory is akin to perfect pitch and it is rare. The song builds to a torchy chorus that spills over into a stunning guitar solo from Yalkowsky that rages like a five-alarm fire. At Bonnaroo, Nicole Atkins & the Black Sea full-tilt sprinted through three sets on three different stages in less than six hours before piling back into the van and heading down the road to the next gig.
Atkins, who now calls Brooklyn home, has been through a lot over the past few years. In spite of the relative success of her Neptune City album from 2007, her label dropped her. She subsequently parted ways with both band and boyfriend and moved back to Jersey for a brief period before starting work with a whole new crew on what would become the Mondo Amore record. The gate keepers do not issue disclaimers or helmets to shield you from the indignities of the music business. But Atkins seems to have rebounded from hard times with thicker skin, greater resolve, and fierce convictions about finally making the record that she wanted to make.
I recently spoke with Atkins, just a few days before her recent Bonnaroo performance. She graciously set aside a few minutes of her day to chat with me while she was en route to a show at Cleveland’s Beachland Ballroom.
* * *
RH: What’s happening? Where are you today?
Nicole Atkins: We’re almost in Cleveland. We’re playing a show at Beachland Ballroom tonight.
RH: You said “Almost”. You must be in transit then?
NA: Yep. I’m in the van.
RH: How is the tour going?
NA: Today’s the first day! Well, the record came out in February and we’ve been on the road pretty steady since then. We did a month and a half of touring and then we were home for a little while. We’ve been out of town a lot, but this is like the first day of our next month out on the road again.
RH: Assuming it’s a fairly wide spectrum, what kind of venues have you been playing?
NA: Yeah, it’s small clubs on up to some bigger places. We just did some shows with the Avett Brothers and they were in like mini-amphitheaters. In a few days we get to play with the Black Keys in Indianapolis in a hall built for like 8,000 people. That’s gonna be nuts. So yeah, it’s anywhere from like a basement shithole (laughs) to big amphitheaters. It all depends if it’s one of our shows or if we are opening for someone. But, you know, we’re getting there.
RH: And you’re scheduled to play a couple sets at Bonnaroo?
NA: Yeah, we have three sets. The first one is our big, like… actual full set. And the second one is a more stripped down, shorter set. And then the third one is another full set, but on a smaller stage. It should be awesome.
RH: Have you ever been to Bonnaroo?
NA: Yeah, I played there in 2008. It’s one of my favorite festivals.
RH: What’s your take on playing festivals?
NA: I actually prefer the smaller, “tent” stages to the bigger stages at any festival. I like anything that’s a little bit more personal and up close.
RH: Do you find you’ll make adjustments to the setlist or the pacing of the show depending on the size of the venue?
NA: I think it’s always a matter of giving back to the crowd what they give you. So, when you’re playing a club with maybe like thirty people there and it’s kinda empty, sometimes it can be kinda hard to really give it everything. But you figure it out. You figure out how to do it. But when you’re playing in front of a couple thousand people you feel like it’s just so easy to pull off anything you want. Like, the first time I played Bonnaroo I kinda felt like a superhero! It was crazy. We’re just trying to take what we put down on the album and really stretch it out and expand it a little more, and kind of jam in certain spots a little more and interact with the crowd more.
RH: I hear something in your new record that strikes me as much more organic and earthy-sounding than a lot of stuff out there these days…
NA: Well, you know, I wanted it to be a mix of grittiness and grandness. So I definitely tried to mix earthy, raw guitar-based songs with moments of orchestral strings like a thick layer of fog.
RH: I’m picking up on a vintage 70s Rock kind of sound to some of the stuff.
NA: Yeah.
RH: “My Baby Don’t Lie” sounds like a song that would be right at home on Led Zeppelin III.
NA: Oh, hell yeah. Thank you! That’s awesome. That’s our new single.
RH: Do I hear echoes of some early blues singers in what you’re doing, like a little Memphis Minnie and maybe even a little bit of Dinah Washington in there? Would you count blues singers like that among your influences?
NA: Well, for this record I guess I was really influenced a lot by Howling Wolf and Mark Lanegan, Nick Cave, Echo & The Bunnymen… The Doors, and a lot of darker stuff. Leadbelly… I was listening to a lot of blues singers at the time and using that as a reference for a lot of the vocal melodies. And then I brought around my guitar player Irina (Yalkowsky), and that’s her specialty, blues slide and psychedelic guitar… Uh, hold on… (Atkins turns to address Irina, who’s also riding in the van) Hey Irina, who are your guitar influences? (garbled muttering in the background) …Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Magic Sam… Freddie King’s a big one. So, the goal was to try to make this record kind of a mix of beautiful, dark Echo & The Bunnymen kind of stuff in contrast with a very southern, Americana rootsy blues sound.
RH: It sounds like you went through a lot in order to get to a place where this record became a reality. You must feel doubly blessed to get a second chance in an industry where a lot of people don’t.
NA: Yeah. I feel very, very relieved that it’s finally out. I can’t even tell you… I just started making this record on my own in my friend Phil Palazzolo’s studio, without a label or any money. We spent many days working on a song like “War Is Hell” trying to get the string arrangement just right, and then hearing it just made me so happy. And then to get a phone call saying we still don’t know who’s gonna put this record out… It was a mix of triumph and trying all the time, and wondering if this record was ever gonna come out. But it finally did.
RH: When you are out on tour do you have a chance to write new material and begin preparing songs for the next record?
NA: Yeah, in fact we were just working on that right before this round of phone interviews. We’re trying to plan the next record now. We might as well, so that when we get off the road we can get in there and get going, and not let that much time pass. I’ve already got so many ideas. I really want to structure the sound of the next one to be a little bit more cohesive on every song. So that we’ll have something where the songs won’t necessarily be more ‘happy’ but it’ll be more beat-driven and upbeat. Because when we play a song like “Baby Don’t Lie” live, to see what that does to the crowd can be so inspiring. So it feels like, “Alright! Let’s do a few more of those!”
RH: How much if any collaborating do you do with your band mates when you’re writing?
NA: You know, there’s a lot of songs that I do on my own. And my guitar player Irina and I have been working on a few ideas together. The band as a whole actually got in the studio - I guess it was a couple weeks ago – and just started jamming to see what we could come up with. This is the first time I’ve ever done that with a band. So we’re just gonna keep playing together and see what comes.
RH: What about your plans for the rest of the year? I guess this leg of the tour just started. Any idea what’s beyond that?
NA: Yeah. Well, we do this tour that takes us down south then back up the east coast. Then we’re home for a few days before we go back out. In August we’re doing a few one-off festivals and then I’m doing a few dates solo, opening for Fountains Of Wayne. Then we’ll probably do another tour in the fall, opening for somebody cool, I hope. And then we’ll get to work on the new record.
RH: Sounds like your dance card is filling up.
NA: Yeah, my dance card is always full. I like keeping busy.
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