Dar Williams performs at the Vic Theatre Sept. 29.
Dar Williams fans, already a considerable legion, have been in on the "Dar thing" for years. Great songs, beautiful and distinctive vocals, humor and sadness. On her fourth album, The Green World ( Razor & Tie ) , Williams' current fans, and the multitude who are sure to be won over by this amazing album, are in for a real treat. An upbeat love song, "What Do You Love More Than Love," finds Williams at her most persuasive. The personal "Spring Street" offers fans new insight into the self-described "traveler." "I Won't Be Your Yoko Ono" ranks among her best songs, displaying her sense of humor with one eyebrow raised.
Gregg Shapiro: I'd like to begin by asking you about the "limited edition, Internet-only version" of The Green World. What can you tell me about it?
DW: I think that was something that came up in a meeting with my manager. The Internet was natural way to do it, but it wasn't specifically geared to the Internet. It was sort of an extra bigger package for people who were wanting a bigger package. We had decided that I'd come to a place where I had enough of that kind of core crowd that would want that special collector's thing as well as the conventional thing. That's just a recognition of those people who might actually have posters of me ( laughs ) …the fact that we have enough people who might have tangible memorabilia that's a little different from the norm.
GS: Speaking of the Internet, I went to your site. Are you finding it to be a useful tool for you?
DW: We ran into some technical stuff with the person that we were doing it with, and so the site hasn't been updated. That's kind of a testament to how far your career can go without an updated website ( laughs ) . But, in terms of the guest book and the "Dar List," the "Dar List" in particular, really not the website, is a real force. They're the ones who tell stories about how they've turned their friends on to various songs. And then they talk about each other. They have a social thing. There are two "Dar List" marriages and three or four, I think, "Dar List" couples ( laughs ) . As a social force that's slightly politicized by the fact that they are supporting a non-major-label artist, they've been quite an army. That's been really huge. The website is just a really nice thing that a lot people fill in the colors and contours.
GS: That's wonderful. One more website related question. Is Tofu Tollbooth, on which you collaborated and which is also available on the website, a vegetarian cookbook?
DW: It's actually not a cookbook, it's a directory of natural food stores. So, that's the link; because I'm a traveler. And, actually, I'm a terrible cook. I mean, a really bad cook. So, it would be kind of funny if people ( laughs ) thought it was a cookbook. They probably imagine me in an Indian print skirt over a pot of lentils. I am so the grab-and-go kind of bad eater. There are these rats that were eating poison, but somehow they were thriving. It turns out that the scientist who was feeding them the poison named them all and would take them out of their cages and pet them all the time. It totally messed with the experiment because they turned the poison into love. So, basically I take all of my sugar and starchy foods and feel love in my heart and hope that the nutritional transformation is happening. That said, I really support alternative networks, organic farming, local produce, locally made things, hemp, non-petroleum products and stuff like that. I believe in getting some power back into the hands of communities.
GS: Would you consider your song "I Won't Be Your Yoko Ono" to be a response to Barenaked Ladies' song "Be My Yoko Ono"?
DW: No. As I was starting to write it, it was ringing a bell. I thought, after one verse, somebody wrote "Be My Yoko Ono," and I thought that it was kind of a one-off band, and then I thought it was Barenaked Ladies, and I thought, "Oh, shit. Then it's not gonna go away ( laughs ) , because they're excellent. So, we'll see what kind of trouble I get myself into with that ( laughs ) . It was a very pure response to a scene in a movie that I was supposed to write a song for. I went off the assignment of what I was asked to do because the muse stuck up her very opinionated head, "What's this trashing of Yoko Ono?" Because the scene in the movie says that she broke up the Beatles. I went to Wesleyan in Connecticut, which is a very performance art oriented college, and it's far enough away from the city that it was attractive to certain people, that they could commute back and forth. John Cage was there. Yoko Ono did one of her groundbreaking performances there in the sixties. We had a great group of experimental musicians at Wesleyan who had been there since the sixties still there. So, I had this proud moment of realizing that performance art and that the idea of scissors cutting paper is music had really permeated my sensibility. I really wanted to give her that due, as an artist in her own right. That male-centered, "women are there as the stepping stones of a male career" was contestable to me.
GS: Have you ever had the chance to meet Yoko?
DW: No. And I don't think I will ( laughs ) . Which is fine. It's speaking as much for off- the-beaten-track genres of music and art, as anything, and I am of an off-the-beaten-track genre of art. It's just voicing the strength of alternative art that has integrity.
GS: You've made reference a couple of times to being "non-major label artist." And yet you have the huge following that continues to grow. Have you been approached by major-labels who are also aware of that?
DW: They've been really enthusiastic about introducing themselves and making themselves available. It's always hard to know if they would follow that through to the final contract. I've actually met a lot of nice from major labels and have put it to Razor & Tie to sometimes rise to the occasion by using more innovation or giving us more money for this or that, and they've always risen to that. They are like family at this point. They took a chance on me and I took a chance on them and I don't think we've let each other down. We've worked hard for each other. It's kind of great. A lot of things happened - radio formats loosened up when the first album came out, which allowed a lot of my music through a window that has since shut. Ani DiFranco has created a huge wave of interest independent music that gets kids out and listening to live music off the radio or on alternative stations, whether it's commercial or noncommercial. It's so cool ( laughs ) . I'm a very lucky surfer. I've gotten some amazing waves to ride. Razor & Tie and I are both thrilled that we've been able to do it. They saw the Internet as a place to do things that, what my manager calls the "bought and sold media," would never let me enter.
GS: There are songs on all three of your Razor & Tie albums that have commercial potential, if radio was willing to take a chance.
DW: You know what's really nice is that now, more than ever, with all the Internet streaming and the fact that both Razor & Tie and I have grown up a lot, I think that the chances are greater now for a song such as "What Do You Love More Than Love" to hit that kind of market. Although "As Cool As I Am" was still within that loosened radio format time so that it had its own little life. It could happen a little more easily now, in a kind of unconventional way. That said, it's been a really great career so far and I've done better than I ever expected. In Boston, there's a club called Passim.
GS: Yes, in Harvard Square.
DW: Right. My goal in life was to sell out Passim. This was when I couldn't get a gig there. I thought, "If I could sell out Passim, that's the size career that I want." Since that time I've done a high ticket price, two-show fundraiser, at Passim to help them ( laughs ) . Which is not to say, "Whoa, look at me." I wrote a song called "When I Was A Boy" and I had a career. It was just overnight. Sometimes when I'm traveling with friends who I think are so talented, and they're opening for me, and the audience says really adoring things about me and disparaging things about them, I always say, this is the deal - "I wrote a song called "When I Was A Boy," and then I had a career and I was indulged at every step after that ( laughs ) . I like song-writing a lot and I like to work on it and do the best I can. That song opened a door and made people pay attention to every subsequent song. I feel extremely grateful that when the door finally opened that it was easy after that. I went from struggling to full-time ( performance ) immediately after two or three years of open mikes and cafe gigs and really thankless stuff and, at some points, just feeling like a prostitute ( laughs ) . Once it happened, I felt like a Cinderella. It felt like a fairy tale. It hasn't stopped feeling like a fairy tale ever since. I love being in New York City and I loved being in places where I'm surrounded by people who understand that you can put out a good song and people can like it. And then how it's worked, by whom, whose open to it, what formats have loosened, which ones have tightened up, are going to determine the "success" of the album.
GS: I'm glad that you brought up New York City, because the song "Spring Street" hints at your recent relocation. You now live in Upstate New York, right?
DW: Yes. Two hours north of New York.
GS: What do you miss the most about Northampton, Massachusetts?
DW: I've gone from one place that has a lot of rolling hills and natural splendor and farm-stands to another town with rolling hills and farm-stands, so I still have beauty. I think I outgrew Northampton. I went to college, then I went to Cambridge, and then I went to Northampton, and they're all three college towns. There's something about a town with four futon stores and five coffee shops and four ice cream parlors and three chocolate shops and no hardware stores. I call it the P.M.S. capitol of the Northeast, because it's got everything that you'd want when you've got P.M.S. or you're cramming for your finals or doing that stuff. And it's a women's mecca.
GS: Sure. Which makes it even stranger that if the lesbian are building a community there, they are going to need the tools with which to build it. How can they be self-sufficient with coffee houses and ice cream parlors?
DW: I totally agree. And it's a real success story. If I were a lesbian, this would be my community and I'd be really happy to be a part of it. I just looked at all the women friends that I have and I said, "Did you ever think to set me up with a man here?" And they said, "No." I think they were waiting for me to come around. It's a wonderful bedroom community for all backgrounds of women who range from radical-pierced to frumpy professors and therapists who are very settled, have two or three kids. It's a very comfortable community for me, but the male community in Northampton ( laughs ) ...the passive/aggressive healing phenomenon ( laughs ) . You don't want to go out with a lot of these healers who care about your health, but they don't care about you.
