Sister Seven – Interview

How are you?

Good.

I’ve been trying to get some background, but there is some stuff I’m not certain of. Now, you’ve been together since ’91?

Yep, since the summer of ’91.

Was the first album on your own label?

Yeah, it was kind of our own thing. We just released it on our own and sold it at shows.

How did Arista find out about Sister Seven?

Well, our A&R guy, Pete, was the same A&R guy we had at SBK records, which is a division of EMI. I’m trying to remember how we hooked that up. Man, I wish I had a story. (laughs)

How did you get together? Were you friends previously?

Yeah, we all played in bands around Dallas. All our bands sort of broke up around the same time. We hooked up that way.

I read that you are a huge Beatles fan. I was wondering who else inspired you growing up?

We actually made a list the other day of the albums that all of us have really liked in the past decade and we posted it on our web site. We thought it would be a lot of fun. As far as the ’90’s, we’ve been listening to stuff like Jeff Buckley, Meshell Ndegeocello, Missy Elliot, Radiohead, Foo Fighters. That is the stuff we’ve been listening to recently. A lot of hip-hop as well.

How do you guys write? Is it a group effort?

We’ve tried to explore every possible way of writing, just to see how many different ways we could to write tunes. We’ve written well over a hundred songs over the years. When we come in for an album, we try to have about thirty songs on the table so that we can choose the best ten or so. I’ll discuss some of the ways with you. Sometimes individuals will come in with finished songs, that’s mostly Wayne or Patrice. Sometimes Wayne might bring in a chord progression and we’ll build from that. Sometimes we start with nothing and we say, ‘Hey, let’s try something at this tempo.’ So we’ll just put a click on a certain tempo and mess around and see what we come up with.

Was it a conscious effort to make the album really diverse?

Not so much. I think with some of the earlier stuff we were trying to be eclectic, but now I think we try to focus more. We have groups of songs that fit into styles. Every now and then there will be a song that doesn’t make much sense with the rest, like on this album it would be “Nobody Knows”. On this album we have the rock songs like “Fallen Angel” and “Superman”, then we have good songs, you know, good pop songs like “Under The Radar” and “Only Thing That’s Real”.

What really caught me was Patrice’s vocal range. Was she known for her voice when you met or was she still perfecting it?

When we first got together, we were trying to be eclectic. We were into trying to explore different styles and we weren’t worried about trying to sound like different bands so she was able to explore more of a soul thing on one tune and then more of a country rock thing on another. We were all just working ourselves out as musicians.

Is Patrice just a natural singer?

She had always sung since she was young. She always talks about how before she could even speak very well she would hear a melody and hum it back. Her parents were always impressed about how well she could sing a melody accurately before she could even speak. She started playing violin at an early age and I’m sure that helped her ear a lot. She is a natural singer, and since she was young she’s always wanted to sing.

It must be great to have someone like Patrice, knowing that she can pretty much do anything vocally.

It’s great to have a singer that knows what she is doing. We love it.

I like the fact that you get “Fallen Angel”, and then “Under The Radar”. The diversity is nice.

I know. We were just talking about it. “Fallen Angel” to me sounds like Garbage. And then we get to “Under The Radar”, which is earthy and folky.

The best thing is that it keeps you interested until the end because of the diversity.

Thanks. We used to be real conscious of that. We are trying to be less eclectic, but we can’t help it because that is kind of where we came from.

How has the band’s style changed since the early days?

Well, in the early days we were kind of a hippie bar band. We grew into it in the first few years. It was part of a scene really in Austin and we were playing at the Black Cat where we were the house band and we’d play one night a week every week. We had to play for like three and a half hours without stopping.

So you really got into jamming?

Yeah, we had to. It was our foot in the door and we had to fill three and a half hours and we didn’t have enough songs without extending them a little bit. We became a jam band without that intention. We enjoyed it and did it for a few years. We went on the HORDE tour with Blues Traveler and Dave Matthews. We were kind of associated with that sound early on. So really, as soon as we had the chance, we went back to more structured songwriting.

When you are on the road, do you guys let it go and do some jamming?

Yeah, we do.

All those long sessions had to be amazing for the group chemistry.

Yeah, it was really good. It was a lot of fun.

I can’t believe it. Man, three and a half hours is a long time.

I know. We went from that to now on this album we have a song that is two and a half minutes. That was a real breakthrough. It used to be our songs averaged six minutes long.

Were you doing covers back then?

No. Once in a while we might play one for fun, but it was always original. We always tried to write a lot.

I guess I’m not very sure about how many albums you’ve put out.

Our first album was called Freedom Child and we released that on our own. And then we signed a deal with EMI Records. And we put out a live record. That represents our hippie jamming. That one is out of print. It’s strange. We have five albums, but only two that you can buy. When we were getting ready to go in the studio, SBK fell apart as a label and we walked out of that with a handshake, and then we were on our own again hunting for a new label. While we were hunting for a new label, we had a lot of new songs, so we put an album out on our own.

How long after the group got together did you get signed by SBK?

I think the album we did for SBK came out in ’94.

See, I thought the first album was in like ’97. See what I knew? What is the timeline of the albums?

Freedom Child came out in ’91-’92. The second one came out in ’94, and then the next one came out a year later, which we put out on our own, and then came Arista and This Is The Trip.

I wasn’t sure if the live album was a legit release or bootleg since I read about it on a fan site.

No, we released it. We were hoping to buy the rights to that and then put it out again. But, who knows, that is for the lawyers to discuss.

You’ve toured extensively. What is the longest you’ve been away?

Really, for the first seven years the band was together, we were touring the whole time. So we would have a week off here and there. Sometimes we’d have two weeks off to be home. Otherwise we were touring. We played a lot around Texas, so we weren’t necessarily gone all the time. We were playing about four nights a week for about seven years.

Does anyone in the group have family now?

Yep. I have a wife and kid and our guitar player has a wife and kid.

How important is working on the tour schedule so you have time at home?

We’ve been off so much recently that we’ve had our time at home and I think now, when we go out now, we’ll go for longer stretches.

It’ll be a lot of expensive phone calls and plenty of emails.

Yeah, really. (laughs)

Is the band involved with the official web site?

Yeah. At least three of us participate in the discussion list. We’ve got a thousand or fifteen hundred people that write into this list.

I was trying to read some of the discussions, but it seemed like they were off on some tangents.

Yeah, they become online friends and sometimes they are there and aren’t even talking about us.

We have the same thing going on with our boards. It’s like this little community that if you tried to figure out what was going on, you’d be lost.

(laughs) That’s awesome.

Do fans get to communicate with you and the band?

Sometimes they will ask us questions directly because they know we are watching. Someone might say, “Patrice, please post the lyrics to this song because I can’t figure them out.” And she’ll do it.

Ever get some really weird questions?

Yeah, sometimes. It’s a lot of fun though.

+ charlie craine