CURRENTLY SPLITTING HER TIME BETWEEN RURAL VERMONT AND NEW YORK CITY, RACHEL RIES NAVIGATES A LINE THROUGH CITY GRIT AND COUNTRY DIRT. HER LATEST ALBUM – GHOST OF A GARDENER – PRESENTS A SERIES OF COMPASSIONATE AND SOMETIMES BITTER-SWEET INDIE-FOLK SONGS FOR THE SLIGHTLY CROOKED-HEARTED…

Returning after a several-years hiatus, Rachel’s third album was released in February, and brims with thoughtful and inventive arrangements surrounding a voice somewhere between early Maria Muldaur, Aimee Mann and Regina Spektor – all in support of some truly delicate and impassioned writing.
From the defences-down honesty at the heart of single TIME to the shifting gears of MERCY, the new record was summed up perfectly by friend Rachel Sermanni earlier this week, who noted that GHOST OF A GARDENER “does wonders for your inner most yearnings”.
Currently on tour across the UK (see below for the remaining dates), Rachel Ries took some time out to offer us a really interesting – and particularly generous – interview…

YOU’RE ABOUT TO BEGIN THE LAST WEEK OR SO OF UK DATES ON YOUR CURRENT TOUR… HOW’S THAT BEEN GOING?
It has really been great. I was in Ireland for a couple of weeks – that was, of course, lush, green and rolling… and now I’m in the middle of three weeks out here in the UK, and each night has, I think, been more fun than the last. I’m really getting into it. I’m playing solo, which I’m not terribly accustomed to – but it’s been a lot of fun…

THE DATES ARE FOR YOUR ALBUM GHOST OF A GARDENER. IT OPENS WITH TIME; A RATHER POIGNANT SONG WHICH SEEMS TO CARRY A PARTICULAR FEELING THAT CAN CROP UP OVER THE YEARS FOR THOSE WHO’VE LOST A PARENT…
Mmm. Well, thankfully, my mother is well and healthy – I haven’t actually lost a parent… but, despite that, we live at a great distance. So it’s that feeling of, even though you’re out doing what it is you must do in this world, you still want to be with your mom…

… IT’S ABOUT SEPARATION…
Yeah. That’s definitely a big element in that song. I’m very close to my family. Even though I love my life playing music, travelling around in service of song sure does make you homesick. In a deep way.

THAT SONG, LIKE THE REST OF THE ALBUM, HAS A PECULIAR FEEL – NOT MAUDLIN, AS SUCH, BUT….. BITTER-SWEET?
Yeah, yeah. Definitely. I’m not a sacharine-sweet person and I don’t write ‘pop’ music. I’m a lover of the depth – and the darkness – of life. I like to put that into words. So, like, songs about missing my mom, or songs of nostalgia for a time I never knew, my grandparents’ time, to songs about what it’s like to give up on a dream (‘cos I did step away from music for a while). All of that is rich with… the light and the dark and the… Oh, I don’t know… Life is just so rich, right ..?

IT IS – AND GHOST OF A GARDENER REFLECTS ALL PEAKS AND TROUGHS… IT SEEMS THERE’S AN OVERARCHING THEME,  BUT I WONDERED WHETHER IT’S QUITE LIKE THAT, FOR YOU. ARE YOU ABLE TO STEP OUTSIDE IT AND SEE THAT? OR IS THIS ‘A BUNCH OF SONGS I WROTE IN THE LAST FEW YEARS’..?
When I think about the album it is, of course, hard for me to step out of it as far as you can. It’s difficult to remove myself like that. The themes are, I think, certainly to do with the passage of time. Forgiving myself. Wilfully taking life as it is now… A reclaiming, of sorts…

… AND FAMILY…
Yeah. My relationship with my family, definitely. That crops up a lot. So, I suppose, walking this kind of tightrope between music and my life living in the city, and my upbringing and my leanings for the quiet country. There’s a weird kind of tension in that, and I have to keep balanced… but I’m always wavering from one side to the other… For me, that’s such a great source of song.

YOU JUST MENTIONED THE BREAK YOU TOOK FROM MUSIC… I WOULD GUESS THAT BECAUSE THE WAY YOU WRITE IS SO OPEN-HEARTED, THERE WILL INEVITABLY BE THESE PERIODS WHERE YOU MUST MAKE RECKONINGS… AND TAKE STOCK?
Yeah, I’m kind of trying to find new ways to explain it… Trying to find concise ways…

… OH, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO NOT BE CONCISE ABOUT IT…
Ha ha, okay! Well… You know… My identity was just music. That’s all I’ve ever known, wanted to do, care about… Yes, my music is very open-hearted and can be very… umm… vulnerable? But I’m a firm believer in the idea that in vulnerability is our greatest strength…

… TRUST.
Yeah! Absolutely. There’s a common humanity – I’m all about, like, all of our stories, all of our common humanity, being relatable. We all go through so much in life, and I feel like we don’t often reveal it for lack of trust. But my identity was all music, songwriting, which took me to some pretty tender places, you know? If all that you are is what you do, then… it was, kind of, tricky territory for me. I’m a pretty sensitive person so I feel like I set myself up for a rather hard way to be…

… THERE WILL BE TIMES WHEN YOU HAVE TO, SORT OF, GO AWAY AND LICK YOUR WOUNDS?
Ha ha, yeah, that is the way to put it. I decided that I needed to just… remove what it is that I did. And figure out who I was without it, you know? Figure out who I was without music. That was actually a very painful exercise – to put it mildly. I spent about three years without music and, ultimately, it was very informative. There were lessons about myself, about what was left under there without music; what’s there that’s unshakeable… I think I became a better person… But at the end of those years nothing had filled up that hole where playing music and sharing music with people had been. On my own terms, I came back to it… and the constantly shifting ground, determining priorities. I believe it has to be true that you can be a thriving artist and performer and yet still actually be sane, find a sustainable life, companionship, have a family… Still have all of your priorities and not sacrifice them, your basic human elements. It’s not an easy thing, but I’m pretty determined to find a way to carry both my music and my humanity. So… we’ll see… Wish me luck…

GOOD LUCK! 
Thanks, ha ha…

WHAT YOU DO IS ALMOST THE ANTITHESIS OF… WELL, IT’S INTERESTING, I THINK, THAT MANY ARTISTS USE THEIR MUSIC ALMOST LIKE A SHIELD – PROJECTING A HYPER-REAL VERSION OF THEMSELVES SO THAT THEY’RE IMPENETRABLE… I DON’T KNOW WHETHER THAT’S A PARTICULARLY MALE THING..?
Mmm, yeah. That’s really interesting, actually. I think I maybe have different terminology for it, but yeah… Interesting. I feel like in a lot of music out there, there’s this kind of big ‘performance’ that goes on. There is a ‘something’ that gets ‘put on’, definitely… Like, “here’s a persona – and this is what I’m going to give you, and it’s all that you’re really gonna get” ..?

… AND THAT’S SO THAT FEELINGS AREN’T EXPOSED …
Absolutely… and, truly, I just get up on the stage and I’m my own sort of awkward, story-telling, vulnerable, laughing at myself… umm… It’s strange fun. I think that really disarms people ..?

… YEAH, THE HONESTY OF THAT, AND ALSO THE SONGS…
Yeah… I did this show a couple of nights back, and the promoter and I were talking afterwards. She was saying she felt like everyone in the room fell in love with me – including the women. She said there was something about the way I perform that isn’t threatening to women – it’s just familiar. Maybe empowering? But it’s the same for the men – the music’s not exclusively, you know, spoken with an “I am a woman! Hear me roar!” sort of aggressive voice… Umm… I dunno. The shows have been going well and I’m enjoying what I’m doing more and more. That’s good. But I don’t know what it is that I do. Ha ha ha ha…

GHOST OF A GARDENER… MAY I ASK WHETHER YOU ARE THE GHOST? I SENSE THAT’S SOMETHING TO DO WITH NOT JUST THE SPLIT BETWEEN YOUR CITY TIME AND YOUR COUNTRY TIME, BUT BETWEEN PAST AND PRESENT, AND MAYBE EVEN THE FUTURE… 
Yep…

… INEVITABLY A PERSON WILL BEHAVE IN DIFFERENT WAYS IN EACH OF THOSE PLACES…
Yeah. That’s a good point, also… Well, the song GHOST, from which the album gets its title, is a song about a long relationship I was in, and how lost I was within it. And how that loss also led to me feeling trapped in the city. I was in New York City, but not really because I wanted to be. So there was this, sort of, gardener part of me that was lost and trapped in this studio apartment in New York City… For me that song is very important, really cathartic. The outro comes in, in a very unexpected way. It suddenly rises up and it becomes major and very wilful… There was loss and confusion and the plants I’d planted had withered… but one day (maybe not ’til I’m dead in the ground), you know, I’ll have my garden: “and the lilies, they’ll be blooming / and the garden, a belly-full / and the willow, bent for weeping / I will see this done”… Well, it’s maybe a bit dark – but, to me, it’s rather joyful…

THE SONG MERCY HAS A SWAGGER WHICH SWITCHES THE ALBUM ABOUT A LITTLE BIT…
Ha ha, it does, yeah…

THERE’S A GREAT LINE WHICH, AGAIN, SEEMS TO NAIL ONE OF THOSE UNFATHOMABLE FEELINGS – “THERE ARE PRAYERS I UTTER IN WAKING, AND DON’T EVEN KNOW THE WORDS”… WHEN YOU WERE YOUNG YOUR PARENTS WERE MEDICAL MISSIONARIES IN ZAIRE – I WONDERED WHETHER THERE WAS A RELIGIOUS ELEMENT TO THAT, AND TO WHAT EXTENT IT MIGHT HAVE PLAYED A PART IN YOUR LIFE…
Mmm. Most people aren’t terribly familiar with the Mennonites. It’s a protestant denomination – and one with a big cultural emphasis on service. And simple living. Acting out your faith in daily good works. There’s a lot of humanitarian emphasis. Dad was a General Practice doc, a GP, and went to Zaire for ten years. So, that’s where we were kids. And, you know, faith underpinned it – that’s why my father felt a calling to do this, to give those ten years of his life in service. I really respect the way I was raised, though I have a different faith now than my parents do, ha. But I have total respect for the integrity of theirs, and for the integrity I was raised with. Church was not something that just existed on a Sunday. It was, you know, faith – it was the way you lived. I think I play that out in other ways. Life is a very intentional thing, you know – what you decide to do with it… It’s not an accident. Not to say that working for a bank is a terrible thing but, umm…

… BUT IT’S A TERRIBLE THING…
Ha ha, I would probably never do that. You know, what I mean is, you have to live as honourably as you possibly can… Live life with good intention and integrity… That’s something I carry from childhood. I sound terribly serious here, but I don’t feel terribly serious…

… RACHEL, WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU AFTER THESE UK DATES, AND AFTER GHOST OF A GARDENER?
Hmmmm. Honestly, I’m writing a lot. This past year has been very intense – both, you know, in the spotlight but also on a very personal level. It’s been… a wild year, shall we say? There’s a lot to process; a lot to write about. The next record’s gonna be awesome, ha ha! And, you know, I’ve been on tour since the second week in February, I think. So it’ll be about four months I’ve been out before I get home on June 1st, and crawl into my little bed in Vermont… And that will be just… great... And for most of this summer I’ll be laying low; probably helping one of my housemates out in the garden, and I’ll definitely be holding my best friend’s baby… You know, feeding that part of me…

Buy GHOST OF A GARDENER here.