9 questions to… Breanna Barbara
Breanna Barbara, by Lauren Silberman
(Lire la version traduite en français ici)
Breanna Barbara is an American singer and songwriter and she’s been living in New York for a few years now. She published her first album Mirage Dreams in 2016 and has just finished touring a few days ago. We thought this would be the perfect time to discover her a little more, while listening to her music that she describes as « occult » blues.
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Some years ago, the book 1001 albums you must hear before you die was published with lots of albums and artists missing. What would be the albums or artists that in your opinion everyone should have listened to in their life ?
Breanna Barbara : Ah, music to me is so subjective. I don’t think anyone should listen to anything but what they like. My taste is a bit different than those of the critics I imagine.
But some of my all time favorite records that have saved me include Melanie ‘Live At Carnegie Hall’, Neil Young ‘Dead Man’ & ‘Harvest Moon’, Jessie Mae Hemphill ‘Get Right Blues’, Jefferson Airplane ‘Surrealistic Pillow’, Grace Slick, The Great Society, Link Wray ‘Rumble’, Aretha Franklin ‘I Never Loved A Man The Way I Loved You’, The Stooges,, & the entire discogs of Nina Simone, Bessie Smith, Hank Williams Sr., Leadbelly…
I could go on and on!
What music, artists or albums have inspired or inspire you ?
BB : Read above (wide smile!)
What books, films did you love reading, watching and could have inspired or influenced you in your life ?
BB : ‘Letters To A Young Poet’ by Rilke is my bible. I moved to New York to pursue acting and that was the first book our teacher had us read. We also studied Chekhov which I fell in love with. Joan Didion is very inspiring to me too.
Some of my all time favorite films are ‘Wings Of Desire’, ‘Biutiful’ (Or really any Iñaritu film, he is my favorite director), ‘Almost Famous’ is a classic, and ones that will always make me smile are ‘Serendipity’ & ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’. Can you tell I am a romantic?
Haha…
Also, forgot ‘Before Sunrise’, ‘Before Sunset’, ‘Before Midnight’ trilogy by Linklater, and ‘Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind’ for my favorite films!
What living artists (literature, cinema, painting, etc.) influence you ?
BB : I really love Neil Krug’s photos, I dream to work with him one day.
Iñaritu & Almodóvar are some of my favorite directors that I would love to work with as well…
And though he is not living anymore, Ed Van Der Elsken and his work with Vali Myers are some of my favorite photos of all time.
What country, city or just place in the world is inspiring or essential to you ?
BB : The Mediterranean Sea. It’s been my dream since I was a little girl to get a house there one day. I recently went to the Amalfi coast this past summer and fell in love with it.
What music have you been listening to recently ?
BB : Angel Olsen, Astrud Gilberto, Lhasa, Aldous Harding.
Among all your work, what song(s) would you like to mention in particular ?
BB : The songs “Daddy dear” & “Wood demon” are some of my favorites on my record. They are most personal to me.
What do you think of yourself as a female artist ? For instance, what do you think of this question, since no one would ever ask this to a male artist ?
BB : We played the same festival together in France this summer. My drummer hit it off with him and he asked to hear a song, next thing we did a song together and then I came on his American tour. Yes, why not!
Oscar Wilde ended his Preface to Dorian Gray with the sentence »All art is quite useless’’. What do you think about its meaning today, considering it came from a man who was essentially, if not only, an artist ?
BB : All art is useless. It goes back to what Rilke says in one of his letters. The object to make art is not for others, it is because you must. I don’t make songs for other people, it’s because some nights I am called to pick up a guitar and sing something. Whether people enjoy it afterwards is not up to me.
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Interview with Breanna Barbara for heepro.wordpress.com, 13th December 2017
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