Gretel in the Podsafe Cafe

Hailing from Boston, the trio that makes up Gretel delivers eclectic Americana-folk music full of instrumental surprises that fit together seamlessly. I love the description of the music off of their website: “Gretel’s songs evince an honesty and directness usually reserved for confessionals and bathroom stalls.” In that directness, their songs lyrics paint beautiful pictures and scenes that seduce you to keep their CD’s on repeat. Their latest release, The Dregs, was released June 2, 2009. Reva, the lead singer talked to us about making of the album, being on the road and finding inspiration.

Each song you perform and record is perfectly arranged with sounds that set the song apart from the others while bringing them all together in your own eclectic sound. How much time do you spend crafting each song and what risks did you take on this record?



Recording is a long and involved process for us. We started the recording process over on each song on this record at least twice (after they were well under way), and most of them didn’t start sounding right until after the third attempt. Even just writing the songs takes me a while. I tend to spend at least twenty hours on a song before it’s ready to play for the band, and then it usually goes through many incarnations before we settle into how we want it to sound as an ensemble–harmonies, instrumentation, dynamic changes, and the like.  

Recording is a really terrifying and exciting thing to do when you’re doing it yourself. All the chances you take will fail or succeed based on your own skill sets and vision. It’s very scary to know that if your record sucks, you can’t just say, “Well, the producer thought…” or “The label said we had to…”  If any of our records suck, it’s my fault.  I’m the producer. We’re our own label. There’s no wizard behind our curtain to blame things on, which makes my knees knock.  At the same time, it’s kind of exhilarating. When you have an idea–no matter how farfetched it seems–you can try it and see if it works.  I just make sure that the players I record with (my bandmates Phil and Melissa fall into this category) are really exceptional at what they do, so that I can make a harebrained suggestion and know pretty quickly if it will work or not.  If the idea is a good one, a good player will be able to do what I ask and it will hit in the way I wanted it to.  If an idea sounds bad when a good player plays it, I know my idea was off.

A good example of a successful, sorta weird idea that worked out (in my opinion) is when the cello comes in during the middle of Renegade.  I told Emily Hope Price, the cellist, that I wanted it to sound like our ship was going to go down and she was the storm that was dragging us to the bottom.  I sound like a crazy person when I say things like that, but when a good player listens closely and tries to put into sounds the things described, the idea takes on a real and valid shape.  Her interpretation of my description really worked because she’s a great player and a good listener.  I can’t make records without people like that.

How is The Dregs different from your last two albums?


The Dregs is darker–in terms of theme and soundscape–than our last two records.  I think it’s the best songwriting I’ve done so far, and the arrangements are much more full.  I’m also a better engineer than I was before, so things just sound better at their fundamental wavelength level. The songs are a lot shorter, and they travel a more appropriate distance within themselves and within the record as a whole.  We’re getting better at making things sound like themselves. We’re getting better at making us sound like ourselves. Overall, I think this is the record that shows the band most accurately.

Where do you find inspiration?


Inspiration from a songwriting perspective is something that I think I just bank and wait on until I have the necessary time required to turn out a song. Life is so full of heartbreak and wonder.  My friends’ lives, the world’s chaos and confusion, my own incompetence at being a human being, good books and poems–these things all lend themselves to song.  I also feel inspired by my friends and the musicians around me–to keep working and to keep the quality of the work high. Some of my friends make records with really inventive arrangements.  Some of my friends put on really great, high energy live shows.  Some of my friends can let loose in a song like they’re possessed by the devil. All these things go into the hopper of what is possible and what can be attempted. Art is a peeling back of a cheap veneer to reveal the true grain beneath, and when I see and hear people doing that, or hear of things in their lives that force that upon them – those things are inspiring. Not inspiring in an uplifting gosh-now-I-feel-better way, but in a way that makes me contend with reality anew. Reality – when it gets really specific – is inspiring.

How have you used social media to connect with new fans and promote your music?


We’re trying to do better with this one.  I work a lot to try to pay for things like making records and going on tour, so the time I could be spending on utilizing facebook or twitter as marketing tools doesn’t happen like it does with some acts. For this last record and release, we had some good friends really throw their energy into online promotion, and it worked really well. It’s still something I’m coming around to because I didn’t start making music in order to spend a lot of time on the computer (or for that matter, to work a ton as a waitress to pay for making music), so the thing that I try to make sure I do enough of and do well is the music–writing, arranging, recording and playing out.  Things stack up and don’t get tended to in ways that I’m sure would really help us out, but I don’t want to forego the music in order to do the marketing.  But yes, we do use online social media outlets on a regular basis and hope to expand into using them more.

The personal touch you take to your music with the Deluxe edition of The Meteorite and the hand stitching on your posters is refreshing. What inspires you to go that extra mile?


I think the things I/we do always go back to trying to answer the question: What do we want to make?  If I’m not interested in the thing itself, I don’t know why other people would be. I don’t like mass produced things very much.  I like one-of-a-kind items–from clothes to coffee mugs. If the packaging of a product is specific and unique and one-of-a-kind, I think it says to a potential owner of that product that the thing (in this case, the music) housed inside that packaging is also specific, unique and one-of-a-kind.



I try to make things to sell (or promote us with) that I would be excited to own. For us, the extra mile isn’t really an extra one–it’s part of the mile we’re already trying to walk. It does take more time, that’s true, but it fits within our overall aesthetic. The reason to sew on every flyer is the same as the reason to change the harmonies at the end of a song, or add an extra measure of silence in the middle of another one–it’s to refresh the eye and ear, pull the audience and ourselves in closer; it’s an aiming for the beautiful for no other reason than that it’s beautiful.  It’s a strike against utilitarianism and against a cost/benefit analysis that would trade good art for bad art if it meant the stack of dollars would be higher.  As individuals, we’re after a high quality of life for ourselves and everyone else–the good, the beautiful, the loving and the true. Our music – what it sounds like and looks like – reflects that.

What are your tricks for being on the road for long periods of time in close quarters? What do you listen to on the road?


We actually spend a lot of time on the road in silence.  We do listen to music together (full albums) and podcasts (our two faves are This American Life and Radio Lab). We’ve found that for us, the trick to being on the road is not doing it for over three weeks at a time without a good break.  People weren’t meant to live in cars or vans.  It can be tough, but playing shows every night for people who love to hear us is amazing.

What are you most looking forward to in the coming months now that the CD is released?


We have no idea what our next steps are, but I’m looking forward to writing a bunch of more songs, getting them into the set, trying to get out on the road again, and making another record.  Being in a band–unless you’re content to be a local band only–is kind of like flipping a coin to figure out your next move.  Except, when you don’t have any funding besides what you provide yourself, you have to hustle like mad to find a coin to flip.  What’s next?  More music.



iProng Magazine #42: Black Eyed Peas interview, the iProng 50 and more

iProng Magazine 42: Black Eyed Peas, iPhone 3.0 and 3GS, iProng 50 and more

iProng Magazine has released its 42nd issue featuring a cover story interview with the Black Eyed Peas along with the iProng 50 Awards, hands-on with iPhone 3.0, and reviews of TweetDeck and ooTunes. Also interviewed: Butterfly Boucher, Davy Knowles, Endless Hallway, Gretel, Kingsfoil and more.

Tap here to read this issue