This is me. This record is me. Every song is me. You’re going to see who I really am and not what the tabloids say or whatever anyone has to say about me.”
That’s quite a statement for any artist to make, especially on the eve of the release of just her debut album. But when the artist is Lisa Marie Presley, the normal rules don’t apply. Her life has been held up to public scrutiny since day one. “There was press there the day I was born,” she says. Indeed, from being the daughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley, through her role as chairman of the board of Elvis Presley Enterprises and through high-profile romantic involvements, she’s been a very visible figure her entire life.
And yet, other than tabloid sensationalism, what do you really know about her? Through it all, she has managed to maintain a very guarded privacy, rarely giving interviews, rarely revealing her true self.
That all changes with the release of To Whom It May Concern, which marks the emergence of the real Lisa Marie Presley — and the emergence of a new, strong voice in the pop music world, both literally and figuratively.
The singing hits you first: confident and rich, rock solid with a distinctive sense of individuality. Then there’s the music: powerful and personable, steering clear of cliches while burrowing into your consciousness. And then the lyrics strike: Written entirely by Presley, they’re forthright and frank, pulling no punches.
Songs run from the brutal self-analysis of “S.O.B.” with its sinewy rock imprint, to the broken-hearted loss of “Nobody Noticed It,” from the forceful cry for an end to prescribed drugging of children in “To Whom It May Concern” to her unbridled love for her own children in “So Lovely.” And in the dusky textures of “Lights Out,” she hauntedly confronts the dark side of her heritage:
“Someone turned the lights out there in Memphis
That’s where my family’s buried and gone
Last time I was there I noticed a space left
Next to them there in Memphis in the damn back lawn.”
“I never wanted to write a song, ever, about anything indicating my genetic code whatsoever, or my background,” she says. “But if I had to do it, then ‘Lights Out’ would be that song. It’s kind of a darker, odd take on it. It’s not like, ‘Woo! I’m from Memphis and look at my life and it’s so wonderful.’”
Musically, the album bears a distinctive rock edge, crafted by primary producer Eric Rosse (who produced Tori Amos’ first two albums) and on “Lights Out” by Andrew Slater (producer of Fiona Apple, Macy Gray and the Wallflowers, and Capitol Records president since 2001).
Also evident are the stamps of songwriter-musician Danny Keough (Presley’s first husband).
“Danny’s my best friend in the world and we write all the time,” she says. “And he’s a huge part of why I’m singing and writing, so I wasn’t going to have him not be part of this record. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be writing or singing.”
Though music was a constant positive in her life for as long as she can remember, Presley never even sang in front another person until she was 20. Once she did, though, songs flooded from her. But it was still a decade before she had something worth taking public.
“When I had gone through enough shit in my life where I felt like I needed an outlet and I was just going to let it go and let people know who I was through that, then it was the right time,” she says.
She found herself in intense training to learn how to write and record. Songs were written and rewritten, recorded and re-recorded. The arrival of Slater at Capitol and the hiring of Rosse to oversee the project kicked the album into gear.
“By the time I met Eric I was mean ‘I don’t care what you think! I don’t want to talk to you!’” she recalls. “But he was really patient with me and he understood that the songs had been done and redone for four years and I was ready to throw my middle finger up at everybody at that point. And then he started doing things that were really cool, and I was, ‘Oh, We’re actually going to be on the same page.’ We wrote “Indifferent” and I was, ‘Okay, let’s give this vibe to the rest of the record.’”
Slater, too, worked hard to help Presley make not just an album, but a personal statement.
“When I got with Andy, he didn’t push me in any particular pop direction,” she says. “He just wanted it to be cool and he wanted the cred, which is what I wanted.’”
That this startling emergence came at this point in her life is no accident. She’d had many opportunities to make records before. She was offered her first record deal while a teenager, a time at which she hadn’t ever even sung in front of another person, let alone in public.
“I didn’t want to do anything just based on who I am,” she says. “I mean, I was asked to do a bloody movie with Vanilla Ice! The stuff I’ve been offered in my life is insane and I didn’t do any of it because I didn’t care. I was doing this because my heart’s in this. This is what I’m good at doing. I’m good at putting myself in a song. That’s it.”
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