MacDirectory magazine is the premiere creative lifestyle magazine for Apple enthusiasts featuring interviews, in-depth tech reviews, Apple news, insights, latest Apple patents, apps, market analysis, entertainment and more.
Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/838
140 MacDirectory INTERVIEW Amy Ray and Emily Saliers met in grade school, but waited a few years before blending their writing, voices, and instruments into the successful folk rock duo that became the Indigo Girls. Sixteen albums and more than 20 years later, the Indigo Girls still create music and perform it around the world. Their new, still- unnamed album will be released in early 2009, Ray is keeping busy with a solo career as well. Her third release, Didn't It Feel Kinder, has already generated positive buzz for its Clash-styled energy balanced against poetic, lyrical sequences. Ray's passionate activism for reaching people through music is a testament to the longevity of this creative duo. MacDirectory > The Indigo Girls are well known for a distinct folk rock sound. What were some of your early influences? Amy Ray > We were heavily influenced by folk, especially as songwriters, but we both listened to the alternative scene. On college radio there was so much freedom. You had Suzanne Vega being played next to next to Tracy Chapman. I went through a Neil Young phase, listening to my older sisters' music, and he's still someone I love. Then came the music that made me passionate about what I wanted to do. I discovered Patty Smyth, the Clash, the Replacements — the stuff more left of center, and thought, 'Oh my God. I feel all this.' MD > Early on, some considered the Indigo Girls punks. Did you play punk clubs or folk bars? AR > If we had come up through Boston or New York, we might have gravitated toward some of the folk bars, but the southern thing in Atlanta affected us. The folk rooms, they tended to be, at that time, narrower, uptight — a little homophobic, maybe. Because we were gay, we were outsiders — we were way outside the box then. Alternative rock — or what was called 'original music' then — those clubs suited us and were part of the college scene, more like community clubs. Everybody, from all walks of life came, and all different kinds of bands played. You all sat in with each other and didn't think about genre. One of the waiters — a drag queen, would read poetry, but also had a punk band on the side. It was all like that — AMY RAY OF THE INDIGO GIRLS INTERVIEW BY ALISON ASHLEY FORMENTO > PHOTO BY JEREMY COWART