From: owner-jewel-digest@smoe.org (jewel-digest) To: jewel-digest@smoe.org Subject: jewel-digest V7 #479 Reply-To: jewel@smoe.org Sender: owner-jewel-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-jewel-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk jewel-digest Sunday, November 3 2002 Volume 07 : Number 479 * If you ever wish to unsubscribe from this digest, send an email to * jewel-digest-request@smoe.org with ONLY the word * unsubscribe in the BODY of the email * . * For the latest news on what Jewel is up to, go to * the OFFICIAL Jewel web site at http://www.jeweljk.com * and click on "calendar" * . * PLEASE :) when you reply to this digest to send a post TO the list, * change the subject to reflect what your post is about. A subject * of Re: jewel-digest V7 #___ gives fellow list readers * no clue as to what your message is about. Today's Subjects: ----------------- [EDA] hands at #1 [Fredsteve@aol.com] [EDA] Atlantic Confidential Transcipt [Fredsteve@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2002 02:11:03 EST From: Fredsteve@aol.com Subject: [EDA] hands at #1 I can't be absolutely positive, but I'm pretty sure Hands reached #1 on the Hot AC charts back when Spirit came out. I know it got to #6 on the Billboard charts... so to do that it would've gotten pretty high on the Pop and AC charts... and I'm thinking #1 on the AC charts.. but I can't be positive. She got to #3 with Standing Still.. but that's the highest she's gotten with any this way single. You know Pieces of You never actually got to #1 on Billboard's albums chart. Jewel has never had a #1 album on the albums chart. Hopefully she can still pull that off - here's hoping for next July. Steve ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2002 04:36:22 EST From: Fredsteve@aol.com Subject: [EDA] Atlantic Confidential Transcipt I was really bored today.. and so I decided to transcribe that video that is online now that a few people have had problems watching. Here it is. Warning - it's LONG: Atlantic Confidential Interview with Jewel J= Jewel LR = Lisa Robinson LR: I'm Lisa Robinson for Atlantic Confidential and today we are off the record with Jewel. Hi. J: Hello. LR: So at the beginning of this record and this whole new phase of your musical life, you said that you didn't want to have to run for homecoming queen each year. Has it been different this time? J: It has been. Yeah. I love growing up. I love having four records under my belt. And I like knowing that my best work is ahead of me and I haven't done my best work yet and the burden of that is on the artist and the artists job is to keep creating innovativeb& and being authentic and it's a puzzle you have to keep figuring out for the rest of your life and you have luminaries that have come before you to keep you working hard. LR: You got very very famous very very fast with the first record. But you've also always known that you wanted to have a very long career and that you are somebody that makes music and is creative in many different ways. Was it hard to pull the reins on this? Cause a lot of people don't do that and then they really get burnt out and flip out and have breakdowns and whatnot. J: I happen to be one of those people thatb& I have a very short leash in terms of whether I'm happy or not it's hard for me to ignore it. I never got enough out of fame and popularity that if I wasn't having fun doing it at the same time it wasn't enough to keep me going. It was painfully obvious when I wasn't enjoying what I was doing anymore andb& unavoidable. It was impossible to ignore. Everybody around me knew it. I'm not a politician. I'm not good at faking it. So it wasn't really hard for me because I had enough money to do it. I wasn't in a position where I had to compromise and I wasn't in a position where I had to keep doing something when I didn't feel connected to it and didn't know why I was doing it. LR: Have you managed to maintain a tie on - when you say you had enough money to do - you also started out having no money. I wonder how fast do people forget those times. And how much can you hold onto that memory - compared to what it used to be, compared to what your life is now and how comfortable it might be, or obviously is. J: Everybody handles those times different. I've talked to a lot of people that have been in similar situations - everybody handles it different. I'm never that far away from it. And I never felt like it was because of something I did that made me suddenly a sought after famous person. It's sort of random and it's good not to take that too serious. It can be gone just as quick as it came and nobody will care. I don't know how to describe it. It's sort of an impartial thing and one of the things that drove me to do the charity work that I do. Because there's just nothing about me that makes me deserve to be rich more than anybody else. There's nothing about me that makes me deserve to be poorer than anybody else. So I think when you don't take it too seriously and you see what you can do with the money. And I'm an artist that happens to write better when I'm comfortable. Not every artist is like that. A lot of people need pain and struggle to write. I find enough pain and struggle built into myself [laughs]. So when I'm not worrying about bills I write better. LR: Right. Speaking of pain what happened with this accident. J: You mean how did I get hurt? LS: Well you fell off a horse. J: I got bucked off, yeah. I was riding a colt and I knew that he bucked and my boyfriend got on him first and he bucked with him, and then usually he'd go good after that. But he didn't. He bucked with me for a long time and I ended up landing on the dirt on my neck and I broke a collarbone and three ribs so it was pretty painful. LS: Had you ever been thrown from a horse before? J: Oh yeah. When you ride colts it's part of the gig. Most horses aren't great at bucking with you. Not every horse has talent for it. LS: What does that mean - bucking? J: You've seen a horse buck in a rodeo [makes bucking motion with her hands]. LS: Yeah. But you're supposed to stay on it when they do that? J: Usually you can. Usually a horse isn't too great at it. I'm a pretty good rider and you can ride through it. It's better to stay on so the horse doesn't think, "oh, if I do that they'll get off". It's better to stay on so the horse doesn't learn that habit. This horse was really really good at bucking. I've never been on a horse that bucked that hard. He just really had a talent for it and enjoyed it and bucked for an unusually long time. And finally got me off. LS: Were you unconscious? J: Oh, no, not at all. It was in front of a bunch of cowboys. It was at a branding; a lot of very famous cowboys there. Ty said, "are you ok" and I said, "yeah". I didn't really realise how hurt I was till I got up and started walking and talking to some friends, and he went and got the horse. Once I got up and started talking to somebody I got my wind back and realised I was pretty hurt. LS: So you had to cancel that tour? The first one? J: No. I cancelled one shows that was a couple of days after the accident, and then I went on the road about a week later. LS: How long did it take to heal? How do you feel now? J: My collarbone broke clean through. So it was two separate bones trying to mend and there's no way to stabilize it. There's no way to put a cast on a collarbone. And everytime you move or sing you can feel your bonesb& Just until it sets and mends enough where it's gonna stick in one spot it was pretty hard. Singing with three broken ribs was really, really hard. I think it was good for me. I was glad to keep working and travelling because it's better than sitting at home and feeling sorry for yourself. LR: How long were you at home to heal? J: I was at home for about seven days, ten days. LR: That's all? J: Yeah. LR: Forced vacation. J: Kinda yeah. It was just how much time I had till this tour started. LR: Right J: Then I went out on tour. And you can get pneumonia from having broken ribs cause you don't breathe deep cause it hurts. Singing wasb& it hurtb& but I was forced to breath deep but it kept my lungs in good shape. LR: One of the things that - did it make it more interesting for you to be on tour this year doing these Soul City CafC) things? How did that come about? Tell me about that. J: Soul City CafC) is just something I've thought of cause I've watched the industry get more corporate. And I've watched all of America get more corporate. It's harder and harder for a singer-songwriter to develop naturally. Artists have a natural period of development and it's a very organic process, and it's individual to every artist. You know it took Billy Joel however long in his career to write the Piano Man. And they go through different phases. Like if you watch a Neil Young and he'll go through different phases and the whole world goes "what the hell is he doing?".. but he knows what he's doing and it's developing and turning into something. And that's something you have to let an artist do. It's an organic thing and it isn't a corporate thing. It isn't something where you can say keep pumping them out. The industry right now isn't geared towards that - it isn't geared towards letting artists develop. You're under a tremendous amount of pressure to keep a certain consistent level and nothing in nature is like that, everything has a fall or a winter, or a dormant period. So I created soul city cafC) to give an environment where artists could develop without those kinds of pressures. Because there's a fanbase out there that is really hungry for music that isn't generic. And they like watching an artist develop. They like being part of watching an artist develop. There's a website, soulcitycafe.com, where you can check out artists that have their own records or their own little record labels or are just getting signed. People that are completely unknown but have a local following. So you can go on there and check them out and support themb& and see them live. And help these artists make a living and develop at their own pace. LR: Did you put this together or did this exist already and you sort of started to sponsor it? J: No, we put it together. LR: How? J: I have a company with about 20 employees. My mum and I started it and we've been running it. And eventually we'll start to get help with certain things. LR: This is in addition to the Higher Ground for Humanity thing. J: Yep. LR: This is a separate thing? J: Uh, the 20 employees multitask. They do soul city cafC) as well as higher ground as well as my career. LR: Do you want to run a record label? J: Uh, I haven't really an interest in running a record label yet. We want to start a management company. I'm interested in helping manage artists and giving them a career like I've had where you're protected creatively. Where you have management that's looking out for you as a creative person as well as marketing and all those types of things. LR: How do you have the time? J: I don't have to do very much. I just create a platform for it. LR: How do you find the artists or do they find you? J: There's so many artists it's not funny. I get given demos constantly. The Soul City website constantly gets artists. We always have people saying "hey there's this local artist, you should check them out." Radio stations are usually pretty aware of a local scene. It happens in a lot of ways. LR: So did you give people slots on the tour? J: Yeah. I had like a whole thing where the doors would open at five and I would go on at nine and between five and nine there'd be soul city cafC) artists... all of whom get to open for me. I'm doing a solo tour right now and the soul city cafC) artist opens for me. I've just had unknown people opening for me across the states. LR: It's interesting cause you're doing the solo acoustic tour and beck was doing the same thing the past few months. I wonder if that's just another thing you feel is important in terms of your own growth and evolving, and trying out songs. Doing things more intimate. J: I've always been solo. I started out my career solo. I love being in a rock and roll bandb& I love having a band. But I really think I'm probably better alone on stage. It's a different show. It's not a rock show. But playing solo is very difficult. You will find very few artists that can do it. It's a hard thing to pull off cause you don't have all the tricks. You don't have rhythm and tempo, you don't have groove, you don't have volume. You don't get to go from a rock song to a ballad. All those kinds of things to keep an audience interested over a two hour period. You have to do it all with you and a guitar, and it's a challenge and it's really hard to keep people engaged. Not many people can pull it off. But I like that it's a challenge and I like that it's hard and I like that when you fail it's really obvious. You're walking a more dangerous line. LR: When was the last time you failed at it? J: I dunno, you kinda fail all the time. It depends on what you callb& Like I forget words constantly, or I'll get into a song and I'll get bored by it and just stop in the middle of it and move on. I talk a lot during solo shows. My audiences really talk a lot to me, you know, some of them get cheeky and I'll get cheeky back. Sometimes I have to put people in their place. I get really sarcastic. Other times it's just talking or storytelling or people will ask me questions. It's a very strange kind of informal environment. Sort of a throwback kinda thing. LR: To when you were a kid, doing this. J: Mm-hm. LR: It also seems like it's operating without a net which could be fun. J: I love that yeah. LR: But if you get a rhythm goingb& yeah. Does it feel like it's an out of body experience, like you're just kind of going off on tangents and you have to pull yourself back in. Like I've seen you sometimes talk to an audience and it's just seems like you have all these different roles. You're like standup comedian, storyteller, singer, but there's a real intimate connection I think that is not replicated when there's a band there. J: Yeah I can't really do it with a band. It's a different rhythm. When you're alone you can pace a show differently. You can push it more in different areas. You're in control but you're really really out of control. It'sb& your out of your body.. and your also hyper aware.. but it's from up above. I love it. I loveb& if the whole world is wrong and I get to go onstage and connect with an audience for two house, at least I find God for two hours a day. LR: Acting? You commissioned b& you have a production company also now and you're doing another movie. Can you just tell me something about that. J: Yeah. I got to do Ride with the Devil with Ang Lee and following that up has been impossible pretty much. You know finding a great script that's well written that I respect and isn't "so you're gonna be a singer". Finding it with a great director that happens to be fitting into my schedule .. it's been really really hard. So I finally decided to buy a property and develop a production company and develop the film myself. The film is called Wave and we're just now looking at getting it made. LR: What's it about? J: God, I'm so bad at giving a pitch. LR: Not a pitch, just the story. J: It's an ensemble piece, and an independent film. It's about .. it starts with a young man getting his mother out of prison. She went to jail for protecting her son - his father was molesting him. And uh.. it's sort of a heavy film. But it's a great film. It's a good story and uh.. I'm proud of it. It's well written. LR: When are you doing this? J: I dunno. We're getting people attached to it and looking for a director and those types of things. LR: You were really good in Ride with the Devil, I thought. It's really hard .. I dunno for you, but any other musician I've ever spoken to when theyb& even the ones that are good at it like Sting and David Bowie are basically the only ones I can think of that.. J: I liked Cher. LR: Cher, yeah. J: And Streisand was prettyb&.. LR: Yeah Cher was good. Um, Moonstruck. Silkwood. She was good in some movies. But there was this thing of "oh the popstar's on the set" Was it like that with you? Like you had to prove yourself harder? J: Not with my director. My director didn't need me on that film for any reason. He had me there because he thought I was the right person for the job, even if I was scared to death. Um, it was probably that way for the other actors. I don't know if I was very aware of it because.. you know, you don't have an awareness of yourself that way. I did notice the gaffers wouldn't look at me. And I was like "why isn't anybody looking at me?" And I guess it's cause they had just worked on another movie with another singer, I won't mention names, and they weren't allowed to look at her. It took me a long time to get usedb& you know I'd go into the craft service once I'd found out about that andb& I'm very facetious. And you know and I thought just to break things up I'd be funny and I walked into craft service and was like "everybody out!" And everybody left. So they didn't get the joke. LR: They left or they laughed? J: They left!!! LR: I thought you said they laughed. J: No, they left! You know, like, they're like "she is a bitch." So I don't know how well I went over. I don't think my sense of humour was terribly appreciated. I was just trying to take the piss. But I don't know how well it went over. LR: But you seemed really very calm and confident in that movie. Sometimes when people are used to playing to the balcony in a live concert situation - there are some musicians in particular who really are dreadful in movies because they overdo it. J: I was directed really well. It comes down to Ang Lee. I was absolutely inexperienced, as inexperienced as you can be for film. He saw something in me and he knew how to get it out of me, and was very specific with me. Like, he did two weeks of training with me and he didn't teach meb& we didn't go over a single scene. He taught me Tai Chi. And I was like "when is this gonna help me with my acting?' But he didn't think I was very grounded. I didn't walk grounded, I walked up here [points to her upper body], and he thought that on camera he saw me up here [referes to upper body again] and he never saw me in my legs. And I didn't look still enough. I didn't look grounded enough. I had to do breathing exercises, and Tai Chi, and I had no idea why until I saw on film what it did. He also made meb& I was never allowed to lift my chin more than this (puts her chin way down quite closer to her chest).. and if you watch that movie my chin does not moveb& and he was on my ass about it. And I couldn't bring.. I always had to do everythingb& he's like "you know you're 20 feet big on a screen and he says you can't move your head, you can't move your eyes, don't move your hands, be very still." He trained me. He trained me to have that stillness. That was Ang. LR: That's smart though cause that's what works. That really does work. J: Ang is VERY VERY smart. I was so lucky to have a director like that because my performance was directly related to how well he directed me and how well I was able to follow it, you know.. but without the directionb& LR: Who's gonna direct Wave, do you know? J: I don't know yet. We haven't attached a director. I've been looking at all sorts of films, uh.. besides that. I hope to do another movie besides Wave. But getting it all together is hard. LR: And books? There's gonna be another poetry book? J: You know I've been writing my little tail off! I've really been writing a lot of poetry lately. I quit writing poetry for years, and suddenly on the solo tour where I don't have a band to hang out with and I'm just alone all day I've been writing. My voice has really really changed. It's sort of been shocking to me. Um, the voice in my poetry is very very different. It's very very direct and sort ofb& I wanted this book of poetry to be.. you can't read it and feel comfortable. I want it to make people uncomfortable. It's a book of love poems, and I know that sounds strange, but it's gonna be just love poems.. but they're all b& violent isn't the right word.. but they're active, there's action in every single poem. You can't .. it's not a reflective sort ofb& sit on a hilltop kind of poetry. It's a much more gritty, dirty kind of poetry. Um, it's sexual or it's possessive, or it's a very action oriented sort ofb& it's very very different from my other stuff. It's surprising. LR: Are you possessive? J: Um, what I'm doing with this book is I'm taking... Love is a rainbow, say. It's a spectrum of colour. What I'm doing with each poem is I'm just showing you one. And I'm excluding everything else. So, some poems are terribly passionate, some are very sexual, some are very possessive, some are very non-commital. You'll get the full spectrum in the whole book, reading everything together. But each poem is a very - it's like an arrow hitting you, it's a very specific thing. But who doesn't feel possessive at some point. If it's all you felt then we'd worry at some pointb& but in the poem that's all I'm gonna show you, just that possessiveness. LR: Do you think that in a way you did that with the music too on this last record? Because there are some songs that have a much more growly rougher voice than other songs. You know they're all those different sides to you. J: I think it's that way for everybody. I guess I amb&. Every person feels gritty and dirty some days. You know, whatever brings that out in you. And other days you just feel like curling up on a person's lap and laying yourself bare. There's just so many moods to a person and I'm definitely no differentb& and I've always been fascinated with writing fully each of those so that when you're hearing that song all you're feeling is that grittyness or that lust or whatever it happens to be. LR: Did you also find somebody to do the video of This Way? J: As part of Soul City CafC). LR: That's part of Soul City CafC) too? J: Yeah part of Soul City CafC) was finding an unknown director who'd never really done anything before and he did a great job. LR: Great job! J: Yeah! LR: I mean reallyb&! J: It's my favourite videob& it's one of my favourites. LR: Just $50 000 dollars or somethingb&. What a scam that whole thing is. I mean seriously when you think about it. J: Oh, it's a huge scam. LR: Because this was beautiful. And also a lot of theb& the three videos I've seen for this record there seems to me to be a lot of illusion stuff going on throughout it .. it's like.. things appear that weren't there before, or people turn into other people, or you're standing back and watching yourself. Is that something that you were conscious of, the three of them together.. or is it just coincidental. J: I wrote the treatments I thinkb& maybe I didn't write it for the first one, but I collaborated on it. I've really been into Physics .. I've been into unified theory. Reading about quarks and neurons and neutrinos and um.. space time continuums, and it's been showing up a lot in my work. It's showing up a lot in my poetry and visual mediums.. um.. because reality is being re-defined. And so I find that I'm playing with that a lot.. especially in visual mediums. LR: Well the one that this.. what's his name? Marcos? J: Marcos .. LR: Efron? J: Efron. LR: I thought it was beautiful. J: Yeah I like that video. I thought it was good. LR: Had he done anything before? J: He shot his own music videos. Nothingb& you know what I mean. But I could tell that he had an eye for it and a respect for it and a love for it. LR: So to bring this thing full circle, do you know what you're doing for the next year? J: I'm about to write in October .. I'm gonna start writing a new record. LR: A new record? J: Mm-Hm. I want to have two records out in the next two years. That's my goal. Then I'll be done with my record deal.. um. [laughs]. I'm branching outb& LR: Is there a rush? [laughs] J: [Makes weird noise I can't replicate in type] I'd like to be done by thirty.. you know. LR: DONE? J: With this deal. I'd like to be able to re-negotiate. And start over at thirty. I'm writingb& I'm just getting very experimental. I wanna be very innovative and push it with this record. I'm writing with a hip-hop crew, I'm writing with dance crews, I'm writing with tranceb& I'm writing punk rock.. I've been writing on my own a lot of punk rock music. I'm gonna see how I can combine them and make them myself and see what interests me. It's usually not until I get both feet in the middle of it that I see what things I'm gonna piece together and how I'm gonna do it. So October will just be a lot of experimenting. I'm gonna do another acoustic tour in November, and get a record out by July. LR: And then the movie, the book of poetry. J: Hopefully the movie. The book of poetry I don't think will come out till February after nextb& Valentine's Day. LR: So you don't feel like it's too muchb& you're ok now .. you feel in control of it.. it's not pulling at you. J: Yeah I feel really good. The pacing's been better this year. I've been able to stick to about 3 weeks of touring with ten days offb& The last couple of months have been non-stop. I think I've just done 15 shows in 15 nights.. a show every night. LR: How's that on your voice? J: I have a really tough voice. I don't sing easy - I do .. I have a really demanding show vocally but.. I have a really strong voice.. umb& so it's been fine. It's just hard on your body. You just get really tired. LR: Well thankyou very much. It's good to see you and catch up with you. I look forward to the punk rock stuff. J: [laughs] It's been fun. Thankyou. ------------------------------ End of jewel-digest V7 #479 ***************************