Interview: Elin Palmer
After years of lending her violin playing and her intoxicating vocals to the live shows of artists like 16 Horsepower, DeVotchKa, Crooked Fingers, The Fray, and Munly and The Lee Lewis Harlots, Elin Palmer is finally taking her place at center stage. This month sees the release of her first solo album, Postcard. The new disc (out October 17th) dreamy collection of songs that take as much inspiration from the worlds of folk and pop as it does from classical and traditional sounds from her native Sweden. Palmer spoke with The Voice Of Energy from her home in Denver about the new album and how the years on the road with other musicians and her dual citizenship helped shape its sound and direction.
What inspired your interest in music when you were growing up?
I have two fathers, which is a complex yet musical situation in that they both play Swedish violin music. This inspired me. Also, my grandmother is a horse-loving psychopath that plays the church organ.
How did you end up moving from Sweden to Denver?
My mother moved me to Denver because of a dashing American scientist who was doing neuropharmacological research at the University of Colorado.
What kept you there instead of moving somewhere else to pursue your music career?
I’m actually moving to Nashville, or rather to New York via Nashville for more music stuff. But, Denver has a really great scene. There’s a really supportive diverse group of musicians and a thriving musical community. So, what’s made me stick around is really the people and the music.
Why Nashville and New York?
Just to kind of relocate and to be in a new environment to work on music. I’m working on my next record in Nashville with Blake Chancey who did the Dixie Chicks’ albums. I’ll still be working and corresponding and working with people in Denver though.
I was amazed to learn that this is your first solo album. Have you been playing your own material this whole time and never recorded it or did you get get started with this album?
I just started. I had my own band where I was the singer and guitar player when I was 18 and I wrote my own material for that. I have been working a lot on other people’s material. Within the last year and a half, I starting working on my own stuff. A lot of it came from touring with Eric Bachmann and doing his solo tour. Watching him play, it inspired me a little bit to try my own thing.
The music on your album has a very ornate quality, as if it was painstakingly constructed and written – is that true or did it come together more naturally than that?
Some of the music did flow naturally and other sections were constructed with calculation and effort. A few of the more painstaking songs did not make it onto this record because they are still in construction and will take more time to come together for the next album.
Your lyrics also feel very abstract and poetic – are they referring to people or things from your own life or are they fictional?
The lyrics are often based around whatever rhythmical concept is being portrayed throughout the piece. I often draw lyrical inspiration from conversations or observations from my own surroundings.
One of my favorites on the album is the song “Paint”. What can you tell me about the inspiration behind that song?
It’s about a friend I have who is kind of an amazing fellow who changed from being a criminal to focusing on his art. A while ago, my violin was smashed by a flying electric guitar, which was devastating because I love my violin. I went to all the violin makers in Denver and none of them were able to put it together for a price that I could afford. So I thought I was just going to try to glue it together and hang it on the wall. But my friend who is a guitar builder and hadn’t worked on violins much before said he would try to work on it. And he put it together and it sounded better than it did before I broke it. The song is inspired entirely from a story that [he] told me about his life. He should for many reasons be dead or in jail. The thrills of his previous identity as a thief and gangster sent shivers down my spine. His narrow escape from doom and the abundantly creative life he has chosen, is a triumph of art.
One of the more direct songs on the album is “House” – where did that song come from; from something happening in your life or your family’s life?
A mixture. But mostly it’s based on a girl I know going through a divorce and talking with her and feeling what she was going through. And seeing her strength as she got out of this relationship as she got out of this phase in her life and the desperate feeling of being stuck in that situation and as she discovers herself anew.
What is it like to be a citizen of two countries? Does that affect your music at all?
Being from two countries feels like you’re from neither country. Whenever I’m in Sweden, I feel very American, and when I’m here, I feel very Swedish. As for the music, it depends on what country I’m in and what language I’m thinking in and what i’m reading. So whatever song that I’m creating will usually be in that language. Sometimes it will be deliberate, that a phrase would sound better in one language than the other.
So what inspired you to sing the songs on your album that are in Swedish?
The songs are a little bit more personal for me because Swedish is more of a personal language. I speak it at home with my family, who are now mostly living in the U.S. For both of the songs on the record, they are about a romantic relationship, a new one. And, they are a little dirtier to be honest, so I thought I might as well sing them in Swedish.
You said before that you were inspired by watching and playing music with Eric Bachmann. Were you inspired by other people that you have toured with?
From a musical perspective, I am inspired by little elements of many different projects that I’ve worked with. For example, playing with DeVotchKa, I learned some new violin techniques playing with Tom [Hagerman] and really liking everything that he creates. Mostly from anyone that I’ve played with I’ve been inspired by the music and inspired to being creating my own thing and to have the courage for it.
