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Interview with Shilpa Ray & Her Happy Hookers
Interviewed By: Kevchino
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I sat down with Shilpa Ray in her dressing room backstage at The Bell House, where before the interview she chugged honey straight from a Honey Bear bottle to soothe her strained voice. She spoke about the fall of her prior band, Beat The Devil, and the rise of her new band, The Happy Hookers. |
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Did you do anything special for Earth Day?
I got laid . . . It was very human and earthly. I went into the garden of earthly delights. It was fun.
Tonight's show is a benefit. Who's it for?
It’s for the hearing impaired. It’s for people who are losing their hearing, rather than the deaf. I guess hearing impaired is, like, it could be you’re losing your hearing or different grades of hearing, like blindness. You have different degrees of blindness.
Probably the money will end up going to lots of rock bands.
Oh man, yeah, probably. I think I’m losing my hearing. The older I get, I feel like I’m losing it.
Tell us about your instrument, harmonium. I’ve never heard it before. Is it associated with certain types of music?
I played it since I was a kid. It was something to accompany my voice. I’m classically trained in Indian music. You sing and play an instrument, and that was the instrument I learned to play.
Is it a traditional instrument?
Yeah, it got adapted into our culture. A harmonium is actually European. Originally Ireland, but you see an Amsterdam model of harmoniums too where the pumps are on the bottom. I play a Calcutta-style harmonium, which is a suitcase style with the bellows on the back and drawers and stuff in the front.
You recently released your debut, A Fish Hook An Open Eye?
It’s a pre-release. We’re making the last tweaks on it, and we’re gonna reorder some of the songs, and we’re gonna make a better layout and vinyl and the CD artwork. Right now it’s a promo copy so people can have something to listen to for now. There’s a more solid version coming out soon.
Is the LP self released or is there a label putting it out? I saw rcrdlbl.com had an MP3 of “Coward Cracked The Dawn” up?
That’s an online thing . . . and they did a download for us. It’s a site that my friend Elliot runs. He’s awesome. He just started it, like, a year and a half ago, and it’s just taken off like nobody’s business. Everybody has a song distributed on there. It’s a really cool site. I really dig that site a lot. It’s good for passing around the word about new music.
[Visit here to download the track.]
So you guys don’t have a record label yet?
We’ve been in negotiations with a few, but nothing’s been decided.
You recorded the LP at Melody Lanes. Is it a bowling alley?
No, it’s not a bowling alley. It’s a real studio. Our practice space is in there too. A lot of bands that we know play in that space. In the front end of that building is a studio space. There’s basically two or three engineers that work out of there. Jay Braun, who plays guitar with us, is one of them.
How long were you in the studio tracking and mixing?
The Beat The Devil Record was taking such a long time. That record was such a mess. It was like putting a boob job over something that didn’t want take it. It just wasn’t working. I want to do something that takes a week to do. Old-fashioned boom, boom, boom we’re done. I don’t want to belabor getting tin noises or anything avant. I just want to cut to the chase. He said, “Yeah, let’s do it,” and we spent a week recording and doing what became the initial mixing, and then we went over it again, and it was the best recording experiences I have ever had. It was just like lightning; it was so quick. Jay is really good at, like, capturing drum sounds and getting your best takes. He’s fun to work with, and he understands my bullshit jargon. “I want this to sound like teddy bears running through a field of lilies,” and he knows exactly what I’m talking about. We have a good dialogue.
On the new LP, you guys cover the tune “I Only Have Eyes For You.” Sounds a lot more energetic than the Billie Holiday version I’ve heard. Why did you choose this song to cover?
The Flamingos is the one where I got into it.
Is that more energetic, like yours?
Ah, it’s doo-wop It’s straight doo-wop, with beautiful backing vocals and very pristine sounds. Ella Fitzgerald does it, a more campy version of it, and Sinatra does a version of it. One day my friend Mitchell King, who used to be the old drummer from Beat The Devil, came up to me ’cause he had made these videos and wanted to put some music to it, and I was like, “Well, I’ll play a cover and see how it goes,” and the idea started from there and took off into “I want to cover this song and rearrange it.”
Why did you name your album A Fish Hook An Open Eye?
Well . . . it all extends from the fact that nobody likes the band name, which I think is hilarious ’cause it’s a joke. When I was leaving Beat The Devil, I was depressed about the band not working out, and I was hanging out with some of my girlfriends, and we were talking about bunny ranches in Vegas, and one of my girlfriends was like, “Yeah, man, that’s the life. Those girl look like some happy hookers.” And I was like, “Shilpa Ray and the Happy Hookers, that’ll be really funny.” It kinda stemmed from that, and I wanted to play off the word “hooker.” I’m really into Margaret Atwood. I really like her writing a lot—Handmaid’s Tale, True Stories—and I remembered this really powerful poem she wrote called “A Fish Hook An Open Eye.” And it’s “You fit into me
like a hook into an eye. A fish hook. An open eye.” The image of having that hook in someone’s eye is so terrifying and gritty that I just liked it and also the play off of the word “hookers.”
Do each of your band mates have another music project in addition to being a Happy Hooker?
Yeah, totally. Andrew’s (Andrew Hoepfner: Casio, bells) in a band called the Creaky Boards. They’re amazing if you ever want to hear really cool harmonies.
Yeah, I like them. Didn’t they have the Coldplay thing going on?
Yeah, the Coldplay thing.
I downloaded a couple songs. I really liked them, very poppy and fun.
Their version of the song that was alike [“The Songs I Didn’t Write” Creaky Boards vs. “Viva La Vida” Coldplay. See video here], their version is way better than the stupid “If I Ruled the World” [“Viva La Vida”]. Who gives a crap if Chris Martin rules the world? That song’s the best.
Vin (Vincent Cacchione: guitar), who played guitar on the record, occasionally plays guitar with us when he wants to have fun. He plays in a band, Soft Black. They’re fucking amazing. They have really strong songwriting, beautiful guitar work, very good drumming . . . kind of country, rock and roll, and psychedelic. I love their band a lot.
Jay (Jay Braun: guitar ) was in a band called The Negatones that is still alive. They record occasionally, and it has, like, sort of this Brainiac-meets-Nirvana-meets-Curtis Mayfield thing going on. A lot of, like, cut-and-paste sort of recording style. He’s an engineer, so he thinks more in that direction.
Josh (Josh Fleischmann: drums ) was in bunch of bands he plays with, Siwat and Kapow. He’s an amazing drummer.
Nick (Nick Hundley: bass) is in a band called Linfinity, dark, brooding cabaret-type music. It’s very cool, very moody music. Did I leave anyone out?
No, I think you mentioned everyone. On your MySpace it lists Big Bird as a member?
I was just tired of listing band members and what they played and put “Big Bird plays Snuffleupagus.”
Big Bird’s not the big tall guy who plays the keyboards with the fancy sweaters?
No, that’s Andrew of Creaky Boards. The crazy sweater guy. Doesn’t he have a fabulous wardrobe?
Yeah . . . I like his sweaters.
I want Vin’s clothes too. I look at those boys, and I want to steal their clothing. I wish I had an Afro too.
Are you in charge of the Happy Hookers, or do they have a band leader of their own?
It’s me. I’m the boss. It’s a democracy under a dictatorship. We’re all sweet to each other.
I had a similar situation with my new band Cloud Seeding. We almost broke up on our first practice. I wrote the music and ended up getting all weird about how stuff was sounding.
Aw, man. It’s tough, isn’t it? And you had said you were shy.
I wanted to have it be a democracy, and then I started changing my mind and everyone was like, “Wait a second, Hitler.”
You write the songs and want to hear them a certain way. My band respects me a lot on that level—I don’t want to hear this because this and this and this reason. We’ll try three different ways . . . and if I’m adamant about something, they’ll listen to me. It’s weird. I think the best musicians are the best listeners. You know what I mean? ’Cause they have nothing to prove. They know that they’re great. And If I want them to play something a different way, they can play it a different way, and they can own that different way. That’s what I really dig about my band. They’re amazing musicians, and I, like, constantly keep feeling like I am learning so much from them.
How many shows did you perform at SXSW this year? Did you have a favorite show you performed?
Yes, aw man, Mohawk at noon. It was the second-to-last show we did. My hair was out to here [stretches her arms really wide]. I was like Amy Winehouse on a really shitty day ’cause I had been partying so hard and not caring about my voice. I was barely awake. I’m not functional at noon at all even though I have to work a regular job. I went up to the bartender and ordered three shots of whiskey. He said, “Okay, little lady, whatever you want.” We just rocked it. There was just seamless energy, and I could really tell after playing that many shows at South by Southwest we were just getting tighter and tighter. That was a cool moment. It felt like lightning!
Did you get to see any good shows out there while you weren’t performing?
Yeah, we saw a lot of good bands while we were out there. We played with Roadside Graves; they were awesome. They’re from Jersey. This other experimental band at the Vanguard, I can’t remember their name, but it was, like, theatrical and the most bizarre thing I had ever seen. I saw Dinosaur Jr. That was awesome. Dinosaur Jr. were great. I saw Monotonix , and that was beautiful. I saw the So So Glos. We played a show with Ninja Sonic. And I still have the phrase “Somebody’s gonna get pregnant! What? . . . Somebody’s gonna get pregnant!” It’s in my head all the time. They were great. There are a lot of amazing bands this day and age. Maybe every day and age it’s been like that, but I didn’t know ’cause I didn’t live through that time period. But right now it’s just insane how many amazing bands there are. We just got off tour with This Moment in Black History. Their rhythm section is so tight it just made me cry. I couldn’t believe it. They’re mixing soul music with hardcore. It was the most rock ’n’ roll thing I’ve ever seen. It was like someone was beating you over the head constantly saying, “Listen to this, listen to this.” A lot of Ohio music is like that. Their rock scene there blows the New York rock scene out of the water. Here, I think the people like to be a little more experimental, or a little more polished, or singer-songwriter-based, or noise rock, which doesn’t necessarily have a 1+1 =2 factor to it. But in Ohio, man, it’s like thunder rock. Loud, loud thunder rock with great guitar tones and, like, sexy, dirty rock and roll. It is so great.
Beat The Devil was taking flight. Then it . . .
A: Safely landed in the East River.
B: Crashed on the runway during takeoff. Or,
C: You can make one up . . .
Oh wow, that’s rough. Beat The Devil took one of those crazy U-turns where you can never get on the same side of the road again where you want to go. Just driving around in circles. We were stuck in the middle of an ocean fighting over the last piece of wood that we could grab on to. Somebody had to take it, and some of us had to drown.
You still perform some of the BTD tunes live?
Yeah, and you know what? I want to rerecord some of them too. They’re my songs, and I didn’t like some of the arrangements that we did for Beat The Devil. Although they were good, that wasn’t how I wanted them recorded. I didn’t realize till later that it wasn’t working for me. The energy of the band wasn’t working for me, and I felt very out of place in my own band. They didn’t like a lot of the songs I was writing anyway, and so there was, like, this moment we thought we could have a really shitty time doing this and go back to our day jobs that we worked really hard at and not have a good time, or we could do something that is fun and have a great time doing this, and maybe we don’t belong together.
Were there sad days with you staring out the window on rainy days, feeling glum?
Aw man, I think they felt it after the band split, and I felt it before. There were days when I was bedridden. We went on the road together a lot. They were my bros. We had each other’s backs for most of the time, but we also fought like hell with each other and weren’t getting along. I didn’t want to leave because it was my first band, and it was my baby, and I had the band before I had met either of them. I loved the name. I loved the movie that it came from. A lot of that stuff meant a lot to me, and it was so much of not being allowed to be in bands, and not being able to join bands at a younger age because nobody wanted me in their band, and fighting my way through it, and learning to write songs, and learning how to do something to contribute to music, and finally I have a band, and watching it fall apart was one of the most painful things I went through. Not in my entire life, but at that time. But at the same time, I’m glad I got through it. It doesn’t feel like such a big deal anymore. I like playing music, and that’s it. I don’t have to be famous. I don’t have to sell a million records. No one has to respect me or like me. I don’t give a shit. I love how I feel when I play, and that’s it.
How long did it take to assemble the Happy Hookers after Beat The Devil ended?
It started from playing solo shows. I just went back to what I used to do when I played at Sidewalk alone. I just played basements and stuff, and my friends from the Sidewalk and, like, the local bands were so supportive. Frank Hoier And Daniel Costello were so supportive and gave me a place to play. Then Andrew of Creaky Boards was like, “I’ll play with you,” Nick’s like, “I’ll play with you,” and then I told them if you ever don’t want to play with me, it’s cool and now they all want to play with me. And when they need to concentrate on their stuff, I’ll just play by myself again. I really like this structure a lot.
You have some upcoming shows at Pianos.
Yeah, we do. We have some really cool bands playing with us. Soft Black will be playing, and Wild Yaks will be playing. Drink Up Buttercup from Philadelphia, The Octagon, Secret Toy Surprise, Black Natives will be playing. There’s a secret band playing the last show. Yeah, it’s going to be amazing. I can’t wait.
Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers will perform at Pianos on May 13th, 20th, and 27th. Be sure to catch a show. |
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