introducing jo gabriel

voice on the verge #10: jo gabriel

listen to Jo on Myspace

It’s not often Wears The Trousers only discovers an artist when they’re seven albums into their career, but better late to the party than stuck in a perpetual ditch, eh? And what a party it is! Jo Gabriel’s latest opus may stick closer to the 1970s singer-songwriter tradition in its overall tone than the gothic-tinted esoterica of previous releases, but her wonderfully mercurial voice remains the focal point, at times rivalling even the Protean raptures of early Kate Bush. Fools & Orphans is as elegantly restrained as a masked ball set in a meadow under milkwood, at dusk, most likely on the vernal equinox. Not a shrieking mandrake or unexpected clatter in earshot, just the soft footfalls of kaleidoscopic maidens gracefully dancing to sad, diaphanous melodies. Flowery, then, but gorgeously poetic, bursting with imagination and, just like its creator, a fascinating find. As soon as my eMusic subscription renews I’m downloading some more of Jo’s back catalogue – I’ve got some serious catching up to do! Meanwhile, the lady herself can fill in some of the blanks…

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What’s your earliest memory?
I can recall lying awake in my crib as an infant and still have the blissful sensory impression of how the curtains of my bedroom window puffed in and out from the calm breath of the night air. There was a perfume of a night-veiled mystery. The fragrance of the beginning of my life~ the air was rich with possibility. Even as a tiny little thing laying there, it felt so profound to me this feeling of the unexplored air moving about my room.

If you could star in any TV show, past or current, which would it be and what kind of character would you play?
I would love to be a sympathetic murderer on ‘Columbo’. Some of my most favourite episodes were where he not only liked his suspect prey but truly respected the person and the game of cat and mouse that would ensue. It would be fabulous to have the opportunity to spend time with Lieutenant Columbo trying to elude him, throw him off the scent and listen to the little tiny details that torment him like an incessant marble banging around inside his head. “Oh just one more thing!”

What was the last good book you read and how did it affect you?
‘My Cousin Rachel’ by Daphne Du Maurier. Aside from the fact that Du Maurier is one of the most descriptive and compelling storytellers, she, much like myself, had spent a good deal of her writing purging the ghost of her heart that was her muse. The unrequited love of her life, which manifested itself in many incarnations/characters throughout her work. In particular, ‘My Cousin Rachel’ really leaves you wondering if Rachel was a murderous or just a compulsive personality with a spending problem, who happened to know intimately her way around poisonous herbs. The outcome was still the same, in the end, love dies a painfully drawn out death.

And, like Daphne and myself, we’re at the mercy of the duality of love and of never truly knowing the truth or having that love fully realised. Much like my own experience. I, too, have a muse who has haunted my music through out my creative process. Also, as synchronicity would have it, reading ‘My Cousin Rachel’ coincides with having just finished Fools & Orphans which deals with many of the same themes that ‘My Cousin Rachel’ does. Madness, obsession, longing, unrequited love, that spiralling out of control feeling. 

Although I have never chosen to kill off my muse in any of my songs, I think both Du Maurier and I systematically exorcise the demons of our hearts in quite the same manner.

What is your most loved item of clothing and why is it so treasured?
My brown leather Grinder boots with the inner steel tips. I would sleep in them if I could. Oddly enough whenever I’ve chosen to walk around without them, I’ve broken my toes. I dropped a weighted keyboard on my foot a few years ago the day before my performance at Café Vivaldi in NYC and it was me’ Grinders that prevented my entire foot from being completely crushed. I only broke a few toes instead! I love them…!

What’s your tipple?
To me coffee is the nectar of the gods, but since we’re talking spirits here, I’d have to say that the Belgian beer Chimay sends me off into the ether like nothing else!

What’s your favourite quote?
“I am myself Heaven and Hell” ~ Rubyat.
We are whatever we create for ourselves after all!

What’s the biggest guilty pleasure in your record collection?
The Carpenters and plenty of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musicals!

What did you want to be until you decided to become a musician…if you ever did ‘decide’ that is!
True, I think that it had been chosen for me to follow a musical pathway, I had originally started out wanting to be an artist. I used to paint and draw very well as a child. I used to draw things so well that the drawing look like a photograph and I would often copy comic book superheroes perfectly. I would have a fortune today if I had held onto my original collection of DC and Marvel comics, instead of having systematically sold them off on my neighbourhood street corner for 25 cents a copy! But once my love of playing piano and creating music was awakened, it would eventually set free all the real passion and authentic satisfaction in my soul, and so I abandoned my art for songwriting. It’s been a very sacred avatar in my life.

What would you be if you weren’t a musician?
A professional boxer. I think boxing is a very beautiful art form~
I have a speed bag named Bertha~!

Tell us about your favourite instrument…
My very first piano, which I still have. It’s an upright Kawai. She still has the most resonant sound. My parents gave it to me on my 8th birthday, her name is Kwi and I often refer to her as my ‘dear machine’ in Italian: ‘caramacchioni’.

Do you have an instrument you’d still like to learn? What’s stopping you?
I’d love to play the harmonium. But I want to find the right one with the perfect sound. I am waiting for it to find me.

If you had to pick one song from your repertoire to represent your entire body of work, which one would you choose and why?
I consider ‘Give It Back’ to be my personal anthem of a sort~ there is a line from that song, “I am clenching both my fists, waving them to heaven”…it sums up how I am forever on my knees metaphorically looking upward at that unknown place where heaven might be, and paying reverence to the things in my life that I am blessed with, either cursed or kissed~ both have given me wisdom and my strength.

What kind of person would have sex to your music?
Well let’s see, off the top of my head I think~ belly dancers, snake charmers, Magus’s and High Priestess’ lion trainers, ghost hunters, beekeepers, sheep and goat herds, ventriloquists, aging movie starlets, fortune tellers~ sunflower farmers, hypnotists, costume designers, bread makers, heretic nuns and monks, glass blowers, painters, hookers/loomers of rugs and tapestry, puppet makers, whirling dervishes, tree huggers, method actors, volcanologists (they call it the “eye of the furnace”, love that!), moon and star gazers, people who were raised by wolves, film noir characters, carnival folk, torch singers, fiddlers, gypsies (since I have it in my blood as well) and, of course, cat worshippers.

Anyone kind and/or creative, exquisitely tormented or unique in their own way.

How would you describe your new album in 10 words or less?
Fools & Orphans is: Madness, longing, obsession, torment, bewilderment, requiem, melodramatic, intoxicating, whimsical, awakening.

What’s been the best moment of your career so far?
Recently Lisa Germano wrote back to me after listening to Fools & Orphans and told me that she thinks I’m wonderful and that ‘How The Devil Falls In Love’ and ‘Firefly’ made her cry. Somehow knowing this makes me feel like I’ve conquered the realm!

Which artist would you most like to work with – your dream collaboration?
Most of all, Lisa Germano. She is one of the most original, brilliant, gracious and gentle souls. I would die to do a project with her. I’d also like to do an album with Tom Waits and I would love to work/sing with Eddie Vedder.

What’s your biggest fear?
Flying, deathly afraid of getting back on an airplane. I can’t even be inside an airport without having a panic. I sometimes dream of crashing~ it’s awful.
And also fire. I have a horrid fear of fire~ I think I might have been burned as a witch in a past life~ I’ve been told that by a psychic as well.

If you chanced upon Aladdin’s lamp what three things would you wish for?
(1) To be able to communicate with all animals and insects
(2) To have the power to heal and protect
(3) To always be able to manifest what is needed at the time, like the episode of ‘The Twilight Zone’ where that adorable old man and his odd little suitcase which seemed to hold anything that someone might need at any given moment~ like Felix’s magic bag of tricks!

What’s your top household tip?
Seeing that I cleaned houses professionally for years I could talk about a lot of things. In particular, always use natural-based cleansers and keeping nothing toxic in the house. But, as a cat person, one tip that I would share vehemently in keeping the house more dust free, better on your respiratory system, as well as being better for the health of your cat, try to use corn-based cat litter. It’s perhaps a little more costly but you use less than the conventional crystal or clay litter and, in the end, the money you save not taking your beloved feline to the vet because of kidney and liver problems associated with long-term exposure to the toxins in those commercial litters, outweighs the extra money spent.

Also~ Watch BBC’s Kim and Aggy’s ‘How Clean is Your House?’. It’s fabulous viewing. Those gals are a hoot!

Do you have a tattoo?
I have several. The moon on my left shoulder and the sun on my right. I have a few runes on my fingers, a Celtic bracelet on my right wrist and a sort of primal doodle that I designed as an arm band on my left forearm~

But I plan on adding a dragonfly this year, across my breastbone, and on my right calf I would like to have a Magus holding an open jar in one hand and a firefly in the other, as testament that my heart and soul shall never be put in a bottle again~! By no one or nothing.

If you were the answer to a crossword puzzle, what would be your clue?
A Crazy Cat Lady who is best known for her nickname ‘Monster Girl’?

Would you rather see a ghost or simply have a piece of toast and watch the evening news?
I’d like to share a piece of toast with a ghost! Strawberry and apricot jam on toast, with coffee. An afternoon’s foray into trading old creepy stories, me there sitting with the ghosts of Boris Karloff and Vincent Price~ while they regale me with sinister and ghostly tales of the macabre in their inimitable style! Delicious!

Tick tock, tick tock. What you waiting, what you waiting for?
A streetcar named desire! Of course~

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Alan Pedder

Written by: Wears The Trousers magazine

Tags: alan pedder, interview, jo gabriel

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 4:05 am and is filed under feature, voices on the verge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.