What lured you into music?
I have a very early memory that bonded me, not just to music, but to recorded music. I couldn't have been more than four, maybe five. I'm 60 now, and I can still feel it. I had one of those little kid plastic record players that played 45s. I already understood that a song could bring about intense emotions, but then I discovered that songs had specific parts that would captivate me like nothing else in my little kid world could do. In all the chaos of my kid life – there was a lot of fighting, drunk adults, and stupid shit going on – I could not only take that needle, put it back to the top, and the song would play back again and would never let me down. But I also realized I could lift the needle, move it to my favorite part, and that part would play back for me, over and over, without fail. It was a consistency that I could count on. I will still put on Wings' Wings Over America, and the transition between "Rock Show" and "Jet" – those eight measures when they switch – is one of the most exhilarating things in the entire world to me. It's not even a big deal, but there's something about that transition. When we're done with this interview, I'm going to go listen to it. It turns me on, it excites the kid in me, and it ignites everything I used to be. I've imbued it with so much power, and that's just one of probably 500 specific moments in songs that can still do that to me. These moments are transcendent.
We met at New Orleans at the third TapeOpCon in 2004. You said one of my favorite things, "I imagine the band on the meter bridge as tiny figures playing the music when I'm mixing."
Yeah, like army guy toys. I've never forgotten that. I still do it, because that way when I turn it down, it doesn't have to sound quiet. I just have to quiet my mind and imagine that I'm mixing little, tiny people that are playing very loud. But if they're only three inches high, they can only be so loud. [laughter]
I love it.
That's part of the way that I exist inside people's songs while I'm doing what I do. I'm inside their moments. They're not my moments; they belong to the song – they don't even belong to the artist. Again, I brought that forward from my childhood. Once I'm in there, I live mostly inside my head. I rarely socialize. I live in my imagination inside other people’s songs. It entertains me, frankly. Otherwise, it's boring in this room for ten hours a day by myself. Not seeing anybody but my husband, who rarely even comes in. I don't like to be interrupted. He knows, no matter what, if I've got my headphones on, do not tap my shoulder! I'll jump out of my chair.
Your recording career began in New Orleans.
I got to New Orleans in 1990, and I lived there until the day before Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. I didn't go back after Katrina, because I had an infant and I had lost my house. I had lived in the Bywater, which was high ground and did not flood. But after the baby was born, I moved to Gentilly, which flooded terribly. Everything I owned went under water and stayed there for four weeks. I lost $115,000 that I could never recoup. That doesn't seem like a lot of money to some people, but to me it was because I did not have insurance for my gear. That was the point where a lot of engineers and mixers were starting to build studios at home because Pro Tools existed. I lost a lot. I wasn't up for the whole rebuild with an infant in my arms. Grayson [Capps] had lost his house, too. We were a couple, but we weren't living together at that time, so we decided we would move to Nashville. We lived up there for five years.
Where are you living now?
Fairhope, Alabama, near the Gulf of Mexico. We're in an artist community, and we live in a bubble of artists. The Gulf Coast is its own specific culture, whether it’s New Orleans, Pensacola, Mobile, or Biloxi. Lots of blue and purple, and yes, a good bit of red, but we’re blue. When we moved to Nashville, our son was still a baby. My husband, Grayson, was from Fairhope and his mom was down here. She said, "I want to be your nanny." I’d been paying $23,000 a year in Nashville for nannies. No one wants the cheap nanny! I wanted the good nanny caring for my infant while I was at the studio all day. So, we decided to move back down to the coast.
New Orleans is such a special place, obviously. It must have been hard to leave.
Absolutely, but now we’re just two and a half hours from New Orleans. All my best friends are still there. Amtrak finally opened the Mardi Gras line from Mobile to New Orleans, twice a day, morning and night. I get to hop on the train.
I love taking the train.
I used to go to New Orleans several times a year, but now I go practically every other weekend. If I'm not working, I'm rolling over to New Orleans. New Orleans is still what I consider my soul home. My baby was born there, I met Grayson there, and my career happened there.
How did you end up in New Orleans?
