Interview:
Rebecca Basye of The Emerald Down
Conducted by Elizabeth Klisiewicz
I’ve
had the privilege of getting to know the lovely Rebecca Basye over the past
year after hearing her band’s song on a Saint Marie Records Static Waves
compilation. Rebecca is guitarist/vocalist for The Emerald Down, a band that
started out in the mid-90s and has only recently come back to us. Their classic
album Scream the Sound has recently been reissued on Saint Marie and a new,
supercharged version of the band is working on a new release in 2017 called
Songs from Saturn, to be released by Wrong Way Records. For a deep dive into
Rebecca’s musical history and for an accounting of her health woes, read on.
Thanks so much to Rebecca for agreeing to this interview, and to When The Sun
Hits for posting it.
EK: Going back to your early years, did you
play any instruments as a young child? Were your parents supportive of your
musical interests?
RB:
My mother, who spent the better part of her life singing in musicals, was certainly
an influence, and encouraged me to learn piano, violin and vocals when I was
younger. I carried those experiences with me into my guitar sound, which
incorporates some of those elements. We sang harmonies and songs together as
far back as I can remember. I loved harmonizing when I was young and did that
along with almost everything I heard. We were often around or playing music,
and some close family friends worked in the music industry and taught music:
rock and roll and classical. I remember going into a recording studio for the
first time at the age of five to watch a band record in the Bay Area where I
spent the first part of my life. The session was run by one of Neil Young’s
engineers, another family friend. That was the 1970s such as they were, and
there was much going on in San Francisco and surrounds as most know. I got to
sit on adult shoulders at concerts in Golden Gate Park and the like. Growing up
in such an environment definitely played a role in my becoming a musician.
EK: What were and continue to be the
biggest influences on your music?
RB: From
a song writing standpoint, I will always—albeit subconsciously—reference the
music of my childhood as a measuring stick. Songwriters like Carol King, Jim Croce,
David Gates/Bread, John Denver (don’t laugh) and rock and roll like Led Zeppelin,
ELO and Fleetwood Mac. Later, as we turned to the next decade, I found myself digging
the sounds of New Order, Split Enz, etc. Admittedly, however, I had to ‘discover’
punk and some of the more then-obscure 60/70s music (e.g. Nick Drake, Velvet
Underground, etc.) much later, as I was too young in the 70s to get beyond
mainstream radio, but by 1985 I had developed much of the musical background
that made me who I was going into the emergence period of our dreamy, effects-driven
genre. Thus, as far as music in the genre of The Emerald Down, I would say that
the Cocteau Twins album Treasure kick-started things for me in 1985 and will
always be the thing that made me a ‘shoegazer’ (for lack of a better term), and
later Heaven or Las Vegas.
