Interview: Gretchen Lieberum - Page 2

Absolutely. Most radio stations play the same twenty or so songs, depending on the station’s format. How can anyone else be heard other than on the Internet? You don’t necessarily have to be with a label to get your music heard anymore. Almost every success I’ve had with my music has started from someone hearing me on the Internet. It’s incredible to post a song on a music site, and then get positive emails about your song from all over the world.

Someone who describes themselves as "an earnest and dedicated fan" has been reading and commenting on the articles we ran this month at Blogcritics. They have stated a curiosity about the background of "Avila." Would you tell us a little bit about the song?

Avila is a city in Spain that I traveled to when I was 18, but the song isn’t really specifically about that city. It’s really more about that feeling you get when you are traveling, that you are outside of yourself and your everyday world. It is easy to hide in that space when there is something difficult to face at home. I remember the feeling I had when I was traveling at 18, and having the sense of how vast the world was that lay before me, and how much time I had, how careless I felt. When I’m traveling now, I have such a hard time leaving my worries and responsibilities at home. So the song is really about longing for that feeling of freedom again. Or it’s from the point of view of someone who is afraid to go home and face the music, and is finding comfort in the aimlessness of travel.

You speak in your bio about your writing for Siren Songs being cathartic. Do you always have to go somewhere deep when you create?

It’s hard for me to write about something that isn’t directly related to some experience I am going through. I think my lyrics are pretty narrow in that sense! Sometimes I’ll see a film or read a book that is inspiring creatively and I’ll incorporate some of the ideas into what I’m writing, but only if I can relate it to my own experience in some way. I’m not saying that every song is literally about my life, although some are. Every so often I’ll try to write a song about the about the outside world, like how much I hate George Bush or something, but it always comes out sounding forced and insincere. So I inevitably go back to writing about myself!

Article Author: Connie Phillips

Wife, mother, aspiring novelist, and music editor at BC Magazine, Connie Phillips spends most of her time in a fantasy land of her own creating. In reality, she writes about music, television, and the process of writing, when she's not cheering on her kids at equestrian events. …

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