At a recent show at the Tractor Tavern, Jamie Spiess—the young
woman who performs under the name Husbands, Love Your
Wives—arrived just moments before her set was scheduled to start,
spent its first few minutes tuning up onstage in front of the small
crowd, and then introduced her first songs thusly: “I’ve never played
this song in public before, but I’m sure you’ve all had a similar
experience…. The last time I played the Tractor, I had just gotten
out of the hospital.” The room shifted from polite to nervous silence.
“And last night, I just got out again. So… cheers. You can buy me a
drink later.”
Between songs, Spiess—who sometimes performs solo, other times
flanked by best friend Damien Jurado on guitar and Steve Norman on
pedal steel—observed that the wallflower crowd was “kind of
awkward,” she twice asked audience members if they had “any questions
about anything” and was answered each time with several beats of
silence, she said she “was so sad” when she heard she had missed seeing
the previous day’s snowfall, and she recalled a recent reviewer who
wrote that he wanted to “take the stage and take away my guitar.” She
added, “If any of you are having those thoughts, please do it—I
would give it up gladly; this would be the best day to do it.”
The shrinking (or slightly unstable) violet isn’t exactly a novel
stage persona in semipopular music. Countless indie-rock bands eschew
eye contact and banter in favor of withdrawn shoe-gazing. XTC’s Andy
Partridge retired from performing due to stage fright; Nick Drake’s
distaste for doing shows and interviews hindered his career during his
lifetime as much as it’s added to his legend. Cat Power’s Chan
Marshall—pre–rehab and Chanel modeling—held a
notorious reputation for painfully borderline performances.
Spiess fits firmly within this hallowed and awkward tradition. You
almost wonder why any person so delicate would subject herself to the
stage and the spotlight, but her emotional rawness seems genuine
enough.
“I had a really rough year,” says Spiess, sipping rose tea and
smoking half a cigarette at home in the small, daintily decorated
Capitol Hill studio apartment where she does all her recording alone.
Spiess seems far more comfortable here than onstage, though her voice
and hands still tremble faintly at times. “Since I moved to Seattle,
eight people I grew up with who are my age died, and all from suicides
and heroin overdoses and horrible accidents,” she says. (She also
recently lost her favorite childhood horse, which broke its neck trying
to jump a fence. And last week, one of her two Persian cats died in an
accident.) “It’s been just really bizarre and intense. And this year,
it was too much, finally, and I kind of just cracked.”
Spiess grew up in the tiny town of Woodland, in southwest
Washington. She moved to Seattle five years ago and began making music
in 2006 while living in Germany and working as a nanny. Upon returning
from abroad, she hooked up with Baskerville Hill Records and recorded a
batch of songs with Throw Me the Statue’s Scott Reitherman at an Oregon
Coast beach house. “It was going to be my record,” says Spiess. “But
it’s been so long, and everything’s changed so much—it was just
when I was starting out—and so we scrapped those songs, and I’ve
just been waiting till I felt like it now.”
Spiess’s early efforts also attracted the patronage of veteran
musician Jurado, who found her via her MySpace page; he now regularly
performs with Husbands, Love Your Wives. He’s recorded a cover of
Spiess’s song “Put the Hatchet Down,” and he’s also written songs for
her. He seems to be something of a rock when Spiess needs something to
hold on to.
The culmination of Spiess’s rough year was a two-week hospital stay
in the fall of 2008 to treat what she describes as “major depression
and extreme post-traumatic stress disorder.” Spiess had been set to
begin another attempt at recording a full-length this winter, but those
plans were put on hold. Instead, while in the hospital, she and Jurado
corresponded by sending each other songs (“I could only write the words
while I was there,” says Spiess), resulting in the limited-edition EP
A Tender Story of Songs Between Tender Friends, which was
for sale by donation at a recent benefit show to help cover Spiess’s
medical bills.
Like any confessional artist, there’s some amount of
self-mythologizing at work here. (Perhaps tellingly, Spiess has a copy
of Phil Elverum’s new diary, Dawn, whose preface begins, “Hello.
I’m a self-mythologizer. That’s just how it is.”)
As much as Spiess shies away from talking about her recent
depression and hospitalization (although, she notes, “I’m not
embarrassed—I think depression is a serious issue”), she’s also
publicized the fact with the benefit show and EP. Her songs are without
a doubt sincere, but they also seem smartly self-aware. On one song,
she sings, “And I won’t sing about all my friends who are dead
anymore/I know how that annoys you/So I will sing about all of my
friends who are living.” On another, she sings, “My friend Jenny
says/Jamie, all your moons will align/And your friends won’t die.”
Spiess’s songs, on the EP and elsewhere, all share a simple sonic
formula: a few chords slowly, gently strummed on an acoustic guitar,
her voice singing a halting melody, all recorded to a single mic with
plenty of ambient hiss and hum.
“I don’t even consider myself a musician,” demurs Spiess, adding
that she’s “pretty terrified” of the music scene. “I just bought a
guitar, and somebody showed me three chords—pretty much the same
three chords I use on every song.”
Spiess says her songs are more “like little tales,” and while
there’s nothing wrong with her guitar playing or her winsome voice, her
lyrics are by far their most arresting feature. Her stark songs are
teeming with ghosts—of her friends, of her horse, of imagined and
yearned for babies—and image-rich details: walnut shells, apple
trees, blackberries, bassinets, cold hands, empty apartments, selfish
mouths, lifted skirts.
Spiess says she might leave Seattle soon, maybe for Europe again,
maybe for a slow-food school in Italy, but she’d like to record an
album first, Jurado’s schedule permitting.
“The music is changing,” she says. “The stories are changing, and I
can’t really explain how. But the mood is different, which is good. I
have kind of a new mindset about things, which is basically that you
can make your own choices. You can choose your happiness, or you can
choose your sadness…” she trails off, “sometimes.” 
she may be batshit crazy but she is also HOT!
Seems like coming up with false pretenses to interview someone in their home (to talk about home recording, supposedly) and then writing a full-page article is not only shitty journalism, but just plain shitty. Are you in the running for “Designing a Nervous Breakdown, Part Two”, Grandy?
Woah, there, “friend.” First of all, there were no false pretenses; I wanted to get the fullest possible picture of Spiess’ life and music, and she suggested that seeing where she does all her recording might be helpful (and we did talk about home recording—it’s in the full interview). Secondly, the details described in the story aren’t being used for or against anyone, they’re just part of that picture (like her choice of tea or cigarette).
Oh, and the title is a reference to the album of the same name by the Anniversary and meant to allude to the tension between honest confession and self-mythologizing that exists in any such personal artistry.
hey everyone.
this is jamie. i’m thankful for the honest article by grandy, and hoping it will help close the book on that hard chapter of my life, i know that it would be easy for someone to take that interview in a far different direction that wouldn’t have been ideal. . . although i disagree with the “batshit crazy” comment, yes, it has been a crazy period in my life….but i can tell you i know a lot of people who are going through similar experiences and i would rather have gone through this now so that i can have a better future and learn from the jolts life can throw, and use it as material in music to separate myself from it, and also gain appreciation for the many many GOOD thing in my life. i hope that people will just see that i am a regular person who is a bit sensitive, writing songs about my life, for myself, and if it can help you or if it resonates with a chapter in your life, then i am thankful for that.
other than that, i’m just doing the best i can guys, and i hope you are doing the best you can at living your life and making what you make.
uh oh! did my comment get lost? shoot, it was long.
anyways, i was just saying that the article was a nice honest portrayal of a hard chapter in my life, and i am thankful grandy approached it with respect and delicacy. our interview was nice, candid, and lengthy. i am hoping this article will help closing these last few months and laying things to rest, and helping people understand that i am not “batshit crazy”, it has just been a difficult time…and i have used HLYW as an outlet to separate these experiences from myself, putting them into songs and out of my body.
i am doing the best i can, and i hope you are doing the best you an at your life and what you create, without laying too much judgement on other peoples writing or music or whatever it is people find to lay their hands on that isn’t theirs.
after all, i’d rather be sensitive then abrasive.
nope, forgive me, now i have commented twice.
sorry. not smart with the internet world.
haha you’re the best.
let’s get pho soon.
Jamie Spiess is one of the most unspeakably talented musicians I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing. Her lyrics are extremely thought provoking and her vocals are more soulfully saturated with true emotion than nearly anything you’ll hear on mainstream radio in today’s shallow market.
To people who don’t understand the deepness and the beauty of Jamie’s music, or this article, it’s your own loss.. but don’t come on to comment boards and be asses about it like this just because you have nothing better to do with your time. And you certainly shouldn’t expect the real fans to sit back politely and take it.
Grow the hell up already.
Kindly,
Serena Matthews
Nashville, TN.
No More GRANDY
if anything, Grandy’s article was TOO respectful. Jamie is by all accounts a nice lady, but her music is astoundingly banal, full of insipid gestures like singing the last verse acapella for “dramatic effect”, yet ultimately ineffective because of the songs’ lack of substance musically & lyrically. It’s great if it helps her through her hard times, and I wish her all the best, but there’s no reason for the rest of us to endure it out of sympathy.
This is the best profile I’ve read on one of the most intriguing artists we have making music in Seattle. Bless you, Damien (once more), for helping Jamie, and bless you, Eric, for bringing us as deeply into HLYW’s world as much as her songs do.
It sounds like Jamie yearns for the normal life of Woodland as opposed to the heroin addicted schizoid crowd she’s used to being around in Seattle for the past 5 years. Good luck Jamie, you won’t find happiness in this city.
Phil Mickelson just sunk the putt on 18 to win it all. That reminded me of Grandy.
Grandy is like Phil Mickelson. A winner.
Go Grandy! Woot Woot!
it’s honestly sad that society has conditioned us to the point where a phrase like “batshit crazy” is automatically interpreted as a pejorative.
I’d love to meet you some day Jamie. I thought the article was beautiful and really made me feel something. I hope to hear your music sometime as well. I’ve written songs as therapy before, I get that. Not a hint of crazy to me. jml is a wonderful soul. I’m glad your paths have crossed
Thanks for the honest article Grandy
Life is substance. Keep pouring your life out through your heart Jamie, some of us need to hear it. Miss buying bread from you though.
My jury is still out about her. I saw her once when she used to play on 15th street w/ Throw me the statue. All the songs were about how she wanted to break up with her ex, but was too passive to do it. I’m pretty sure the dude was in the room. Pretty bizarre considering the name of the project.
It kind of reminded me of that old SNL sketch where a guy with a harmonica asks a guitar player if he could jam with him. As he starts to, the guitar player starts singing about how he wished the harmonica player would just go away. When the harmonica player says he could leave if the guitar player wanted, the strummer says “Oh no, that was just art. We have good chemistry. Let’s keep playing!” So they do, and the guitar player starts singing about how he hates the harmonica, and wishes the guy would just go away, how the song is not a joke, and is even thinking murderous thoughts about him.
Jamie’s songs remind me of that sketch. Is it art? Eh…..mmmmmaybe.
I’m probably too old, and still resent the Eliot Smith formula since his suicide.
From my perspective the crowd really warmed up to Jamie the time I saw her at Q, you could feel the resonance building. My experience was marred only by an ex trailing me there uninvited, wtf. Funny that someone here mentioned Elliot Smith. Jamie’s voice makes me think of his in a way, and as a harmonica player I have to thank her for turning me on to him. I know from DL Bakery she’s an awesome baker but I hope she keeps writing and singing… Go Jamie!
songs about wanting to break up? that is funny, have you ever heard any of my songs? i have never written a song about breaking up…….and i have never played on 15th?
nice try though, asshole.