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Artist Bio
"So many stories of where I've been and how I got to where I am"
On her new album, The Story, Brandi Carlile opens up her heart, soul, and psyche in a series of memorable songs that invite you into her world. To her growing community of fans, it's Carlile's revelatory imagery, stark emotive vocals and finely-detailed songs which provide the keys to who she is, where she's been, and where's she's going.
Brandi's burgeoning fan base has been quick to pick up The Story. As the album jumped from its #76 debut to #41 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart in the two weeks of its April 3, 2007 release, the majority of Brandi's concerts along her North American spring tour route began selling out. And, with the album's title track getting national airplay on both AAA and Hot AC radio stations, The Story peaked at #2 on the iTunes album sales chart. By late April, Brandi's songs had received more than 1 million plays on her MySpace page.
VH1 added Brandi's "The Story" video into large rotation and named her a "You Oughta Know Artist," including her in a prestigious developing artist roster that's included The Fray and Mat Kearney, among others. On April 12, the hit ABC television series "Grey's Anatomy" premiered a special version of "The Story" video combining highlights from the current season's episodes with Brandi's performance of the song.
With appearances on national television -- including "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," and "CBS Saturday's Second Cup Café" -- to her credit, Brandi Carlile and The Story have been drawing kudos from both national and regional music press. USA Today (April 17, 2007), called her voice "…undeniably impressive and distinctive, mixing a catch-in-the-throat rootsiness with a full, slightly brassy vibrato…" while Entertainment Weekly praised her "…old soul's gift for songwriting that addresses how time subtly changes love and friendship."
The Story's back story began shortly after the release of Brandi's critically-acclaimed self-titled Red Ink debut and Rolling Stone named her one of the magazine's "10 Artists To Watch in 2005." Carlile left her home in Seattle and set out with twin brothers Tim (guitar) and Phil (bass) Hanseroth, with whom she'd worked on her earliest recordings and independent regional tours, to bring her songs to America's clublands. The tightly knit trio, which forms the core of her band today, spent the better part of two years on the road. By the end of 2006, Brandi Carlile had embarked on several headlining tours and supported a variety of artists including Ray LaMontagne, The Fray, Chris Isaak, Tori Amos, and Shawn Colvin.
The sound and songs of The Story first formed during the rigors of touring as Brandi began working the new songs into the band's repertoire, road-testing and refining the material under the spotlights, giving each performance its own character. "As good as 'The Story' sounds on CD," wrote the Seattle Times, "to hear Carlile nail it live…is to experience a little slice of pop heaven."
The intensity and authenticity of her music brought her to the attention of the Grammy Award-winning producer T Bone Burnett (Counting Crows, Roy Orbison) who came on-board to produce The Story.
By the time she went into a Vancouver studio with T Bone, Brandi's new songs had become second nature. "We've been playing some of these songs for years – I wrote 'Turpentine' when I was a teenager," Carlile says. "T Bone helped us hear these songs through fresh ears and gave the whole album a great energy."
The Story builds on the plaintive aching melodies, moody atmosphere and heartfelt lyrics characterizing Brandi's first album with nuanced arrangements including electric guitar ("My Song," "Losing Heart"), piano ("Wasted") and cello ("Turpentine," "Late Morning Lullaby").
Driven by Carlile's dynamic vocals, the album's 13 tracks pulse with a raw and road-worthy intensity that is much closer to her live concert sound than her self-titled debut album. "The new songs may surprise people who only know us through the first album," Brandi says. "If you've seen us play, you'll realize this is the direction we've been heading in the whole time."
After recording her first album under sporadic conditions over the course of a year, Brandi decided to cut out all distractions and record The Story in a focused extended session. "This is the album I've always wanted to make," she explains. "I love Elton John because his albums captured moments in time. My favorite records have the timeless feeling you get when a band locks itself in the studio for two weeks and comes out with a record."
So Brandi, Tim, and Phil hooked up with renowned drummer Matt Chamberlain (Tori Amos, Morrissey) and set out to capture that "timeless feeling" in a real-time 11-day session. Brandi recorded The Story live with Tim, Phil and Matt in the same room while she looked on from the vocal booth. "Being able to see each other was important because it allowed us to lock in and let things flow like we do on stage," Carlile explains.
Carlile's decision to record live mainly to tape gives The Story a stark and soulful authenticity accentuating the humanity of each performance. "When you record to tape, it forces you not to dwell on small imperfections and keep a lot of the things you would usually edit out…like a weird breath or a strangely sharp note," Carlile explains. "When I listen back and hear those things now, I'm glad we didn't take them out because they give this album a real human character."
The intensity of the title track comes from one of those "beautiful mistakes" that sometimes underlie hidden, subconscious intentions. "The song peaks in a way that takes everything in my voice to hit it," Carlile admits. "When I went for that note, my voice cracked and I almost stopped, but I'm glad I kept going because it turned out to be such a pure moment – technically wrong, but emotionally right."
The intricate harmonies defining "Josephine" become all the more stunning when you realize that the song was recorded in one take with the trio gathered around a single microphone. "What you actually hear on the album is us running through the song not realizing T Bone was rolling tape," explains Tim, who penned the track. "The performance is so relaxed; we're just flowing, which suits the song's mood perfectly."
One of the album's highlights, according to Carlile, is "Cannonball," a song she recorded with in Atlanta with Amy Ray and Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls. "I don't think I would play guitar if it weren't for the Indigo Girls," says Brandi (who made a guest appearance on the Indigo Girl's recent release Despite Our Differences). It means the world to me to have them on my record."
The album's closing track, "Again Today," brings The Story to its transcendent emotional crescendo using a wall of ambient sound as a backdrop to her voice swinging confidently from bulletproof power to a vulnerable falsetto asking, "Who's gonna break my fall, when the spinning starts?" "It's a different kind of song for me, but it's still very organic" Carlile says. "We've been closing our sets with this song for such a long time now, that it just felt right ending the record this way too."
Brandi's first steps toward creating The Story began years ago outside of Seattle, where, while growing up, Carlile taught herself to sing and play guitar at a young age with her family. Dedicating her life to music, Carlile became a disciplined musician playing constantly and performing whenever possible as way to learn her craft and develop her art. She expanded her sound with the addition of twin brothers, Tim and Phil Hanseroth.
Columbia Records signed Carlile in late 2004 on the strength of songs she'd been recording periodically at her home. Released in 2005, Brandi Carlile, her debut album, showcased those early songs along with several newly recorded tracks. Reviews of the album universally heralded Carlile as an important new singer-songwriter. She hit the road opening for other artists while going on to headline her own shows.
Brandi found a new wider audience when the ABC hit medical drama "Grey's Anatomy" showcased three of Brandi's songs -- "Tragedy," "What Can I Say" and "Throw It All Away" -- an unprecedented honor for a new artist. In April 2007, a one-hour special, "Grey's Anatomy: Every Moment Counts," premiered a new edit of Brandi's "The Story" video combining season highlights from the hit series with Brandi's impassioned performance of the song. The song “Turpentine” was most recently used in the “Grey’s Anatomy” two-hour special introducing the spin-off series “Private Practice.”
With The Story, Brandi Carlile takes you into the deepest most poetic moments of her own experiences, creating the kind of artist-audience bond that makes you feel you're living inside those moments yourself.
