Laura Veirs Finds Strength and Permanence

By Andres Jauregui

Photos by Autumn de Wilde

On the phone from her new home in Portland, Laura Veirs describes a life of pastoral simplicity, brightened with the urbane elements of her creative side, but for the most part designed around comfort and serenity. It’s her season of recovery, a time to relax and to heal. Despite the crowded schedule of her artistic pursuits, the world-traveling indie rock frontwoman finds time for exercise and for friends. She attempts short stories, new songs and cooking dinner. Nestled with her books and her music within the bright space of a freshly painted house, trimmed with green gardens and newly laid hardscaping, she retreats from the pressures of a life wrought for the past year with transience and tumult.

The end of a long relationship, the beginning of a new one, and the departure from her community in Seattle were just a few things that influenced Veirs to seek what she describes as “a quiet kind of life.” However, it was these same events that provided the impetus for Saltbreakers — her most sophisticated, passionate work to date.

“I drew more from personal experience on this record,” Veirs says. “It’s not overly direct. It’s not sappy or sentimentally confessional, but it does have some personal vulnerability that I don’t think you see on some of my other records.”

It’s a rock ‘n’ roll rule of thumb that hard times make for great tunes, and on Saltbreakers, Veirs is unafraid to train the lens on herself. From the onset of the album’s first track, the shimmering “Pink Light,” Veirs acknowledges her potential to harm as much as be harmed in a tone-setting moment of grace and humility: “Sorry I was cruel / I was protecting myself / Drifting along with my swords out flying / Tattering my own sails / Then I tattered yours, too.”

While Veirs displays this type of honesty right from the beginning, one should not gather that the album is built on laments. Drawing influences from literature and life alike, Veirs paints an impression of herself through magical allegories and rich sonic textures that exude, above all, hope and strength. The refrain of the autumnal “Wrecking” bears a silver lining: “We can do some wrecking here / And find something to love / In this broken place.” Likewise, the climax of the rocking album version of “Cast a Hook in Me” alludes to A.S. Byatt’s novel Possession with an image of vibrant resilience: “Like a fallen leaf who keeps her green / I’m turning bright in the sea.”

“The fallen leaf line is a symbol of hope for me, of being able to survive through difficult times,” says Veirs. “There’s something about strength and permanence there, rather than transience.”

The term “saltbreakers” is slang for waves, and the overarching themes on the album are, appropriately, waves and salt — the salt in tears, the cleansing quality of water, and the dichotomy of the ocean’s nurturing and destructive natures.

“I found the sea and salt to be fruitful, rich places for me to explore,” Veirs explains.

In addition to her thematic exploration, Veirs broke new ground musically on Saltbreakers; some compositions were so different to her at first that she was unable to sing and play them at the same time.

“On ‘Wrecking’ — it’s kind of an unusual pattern for me. It’s one of those mysterious things where you just come up with something. It’s always a good sign when that happens for me because it means I’m pushing myself and it feels like I’m growing and changing,” Veirs says.

Some songs on the album feature exotic rhythms and arrangements. The guitar parts on “To the Country,” an airy ballad featuring the eight-member Cedar Hill Choir (of O Brother, Where Art Thou? fame), were influenced by music from the West African nation of Mali.

“I think that the African guitar style is really fascinating. Their approach to the guitar is really different,” Veirs says. “I try not to listen too closely during a writing phase because I’m afraid of being overly influenced. But in this case I think it was neat. It changed my approach. The song writing — it was just like a river. The guitar part, kind of like how I think of it — it’s just a deep, slow moving river, and there’s all this other stuff happening above it ... I’d love to find a teacher in Portland that could work with that [African] style.”

The recording of “To the Country” proved to be a special treat for Veirs and her band. Through drummer/producer Tucker Martine’s connections in his native Nashville, Veirs was able to record at the Cash Cabin Studio. Located on the property of the late Johnny Cash and June Carter, the cabin has hosted a slew of musical luminaries over the years. Many notables signed their names on the mantle. On the completion of their recording, Veirs and her band were asked to add their signatures.

“We were so honored,” says Veirs. “You could feel the history. You could feel that those people had been there, and that real music had been played. Those are some of our idols, and they’d been there in that room making music, and you could feel it. It was wonderful.”

Formerly known as The Tortured Souls, Veirs’ band recently changed their name to Saltbreakers for practical purposes. The line-up has remained consistent since Carbon Glacier, Veirs’ third album and Nonesuch Records debut: Veirs on guitar and vocals, Martine on drums, bassist Karl Blau, and keyboardist Steve Moore. Saltbreakers recorded most of their eponymous album — Veirs’ sixth — in Seattle and plan to tour as a full band through Europe and the United States in support of it.

“I feel like I’m on tour a lot, but at the same time, when I get to go to a new place, that’s really exciting. Tucker and I got to go to Portugal last December, and that was great. It was really great to tour Spain and Portugal in December and then tour Australia in January, because Northwest winters are really bleak, and I’m getting sick of them. So to get out of the rain was perfect. It was really smart. So we’re going to try and do that again next year.”

But for now, Veirs is happy just to settle in.

“A life of music is really very unstable. It’s the life I’ve chosen, but it comes with that cost and it’s hard over time to feel stabilized,” Veirs explains. “I think about having a family some day. I’m not going to just give it all up and be a homemaker, but I do feel those types of nesting tendencies. And part of it comes from just being gone so much ... I’d like to find some ways to do film [music] and things like that so I don’t have to go out all the time.”

Despite her sedentary mood, Veirs never seems to be too far from adventure. With a glimmer of ambition, Veirs recently issued a challenge to herself on her Wikipedia page: “The band plans to tour China in 2007.”

“I put that in there because I want it to happen,” says Veirs. “I want to do it just for the adventure.”

www.lauraveirs.com