In harmony here
Rachael Yamagata tells why it's taken so long to put out her second album and why she moved to Philly, which she deems "very sweet."
You've probably heard the music of singer/songwriter Rachael Yamagata even if you're not aware of it.
Her elegant, lilting pop songs have been used in a host of TV shows including
ER
,
The O.C.
,
Nip/Tuck
,
Brothers & Sisters
,
Men in Trees
and
How I Met Your Mother
. Likewise movies such as
In Her Shoes
and
Definitely, Maybe
.
Yamagata's debut album, 2004's
Happenstance
, drew comparsions to Norah Jones and Fiona Apple. The follow-up,
Elephants . . . Teeth Sinking Into Heart
, which comes out in two weeks, is a dramatic double departure for the Philadelphia resident.
Accurately subtitled "A Record in Two Parts," it begins with nine emotional, notably intimate tracks. The last five songs shift startlingly into raucous electrified rock.
"The first half is very vulnerable, very open. It's dark with lots of lush arrangements," Yamagata says. "The second side is different on a lot of levels. The lyrics are very biting and the sound textures are raw. It's more PJ Harvey-esque or Tom Waits-esque."
The real challenge for the singer, who turns 31 today, lies in fashioning a live set that encompasses this disparate material while reprising familiar favorites like "Be Be Your Love" and "Worn Me Down."
She has a national tour that begins Saturday in Asbury Park, N.J., but fans will get a preview when Yamagata plays a sold-out show tomorrow night at Johnny Brenda's.
"I want to show a mix, but I think people will totally get it," she says. "Everyone has that mixture of energy in them."
According to Yamagata,
Elephants . . . Teeth Sinking Into Heart
has an overall unifying theme: It traces a complicated romance from its first stirrings to its angry aftermath.
The topic, if not the musical style, sounds familiar. Over two albums, the songwriter has established herself as the poet of breakups.
Yet in person, the heartbreak kid is surprisingly buoyant. "I'm pretty happy-go-lucky," she says, smiling as she sits at a sidewalk table outside a cafe on North Third Street.
If Yamagata seems at home in Old City, she should be. The singer moved here 15 months ago, after two creatively prolific years in Woodstock, N.Y. During her time in bucolic Ulster County, she wrote 160 songs, 14 of which made it onto the new album.
After two years of touring in support of the acclaimed
Happenstance
, she says, "Woodstock was a nice hideaway, until I realized I couldn't speak with human beings anymore. I was in nature so much, I lost the ability to even have a conversation.
"After living in New York and Washington, D.C., and Chicago and Venice Beach, California, Philly seemed like the next greatest gig.
"I love Philly," she says, "because it's very sweet and laid back and yet metropolitan. And the music scene here is very cool and interesting."
Still, with that vast storehouse of songs at her disposal, why did it take so long to release another album?
It's a byzantine tale of label interference and wholesale personnel changes.
Elephants . . .
was actually completed two years ago, produced by Mike Mogis of Bright Eyes.
"We went into Mike's studio in Nebraska in August [2006] where he mixed the record," she says. "His studio was right in the middle of a couple of rehab centers and a chicken farm. It was 105 [degrees] and you smelled dead chickens 24 hours a day."
Yamagata's label, RCA, wasn't happy with the finished product. "They said, 'We want you to go back in the studio. We don't think you have a mass-appeal single.' "
She tried to comply, but her resistance to reshaping the album in a more commercial direction gained the upper hand.
"I listened to the record and thought, 'I'm standing behind it 100 percent. It's dark but it's beautiful.' "
RCA dropped her. "I was broke," she says of the period that followed. "I had to get creative about life in general and keep my chin up about this record.
"I took a tour with Mandy Moore for a month. I became my own manager, tour manager and business manager. The whole thing took forever."
Anyone who knows Yamagata would expect artistic integrity to win out over sales considerations.
She was born in Arlington, Va., to a Japanese father and German-Italian mother. They divorced when she was 2, and Rachael split her time between her parents and their new spouses. Eventually both sides settled in suburban Maryland, where she lived through high school.
Remarkably, given her fluency on piano, she is largely self-taught.
"I had one year of lessons, but I kept moving when I was playing," she says, exhibiting a spasmodic rocking motion. "I kept getting in trouble [for that]. I got frustrated and quit but I kept playing."
She studied French at Northwestern, transferred to Vassar and then back to Northwestern for the theater program. But not for long.
"I was terrible at stupid things, like showing up on time for classes," she says. "It didn't fly and it shouldn't have."
At this same time, she discovered a funky Chicago-based band named Bumpus. Yamagata was smitten with their sound and basically stalked the group for months. "I would buy them coffee and cigarettes," she says. "They rehearsed in a big loft and I would sit on the roof [of the building] and sing along."
Her persistence wore them down, and Bumpus finally let her on stage - but only to beat on a tambourine. When a backup singer left, she took that slot, and stayed with band for five years.
During this period she was writing her own songs. With her abundant talent and exotic looks ("I've been told I look like Björk; I've gotten Valerie Bertinelli and even Liv Tyler when I didn't have bangs"), Rachael was a star waiting to happen. That seemed to be happening with the rapturously reviewed
Happenstance
.
"She worked on all levels," says Kevin Salem, her longtime studio guitarist. "She was young, gorgeous and talented. There wasn't anything she's lacking in that corporate formula."
Except perhaps a willingness to play the game.
With
Elephants . . .
she is pushing off in a daring new direction. Umm, make that directions.
"For this second record, she went into an honest artistic space," says Salem. "She was motivated to challenge herself and find her own boundaries. This record is Rachael squared."
It's been a tumultuous few years. But with the tour starting and the record about to drop, Yamagata is confident it was all worth it.
"I'm very energized," she says. "Things are coming together in a way that feels right. I feel like I'm on the cusp of something."