Stephanie Seymour spent sixteen years inside the music industry at Island Records and Virgin Records, watched it eat itself alive, and built her own career entirely outside it anyway. She started as a drummer in The Aquanettas in 1989, became a lead singer a decade later, then walked away from music altogether in 2011 because birds won. Not metaphorically. She became a serious birder, got up at dawn, stopped playing late shows, and stayed gone for six years until a former bandmate died and a memorial concert at Webster Hall pulled her back.

Since then she has released an album about birds, a single that played on over a hundred radio stations and became a favourite on Sirius XM’s Underground Garage, and now Grand Isle, an EP out July 17th produced by her husband Bob Perry. Six songs: three originals, three covers of Ron Sexsmith, Daniel Lanois, and Chris Harford. The lead track “Harvest Time” inspired a painter to create the cover art from scratch, a boreal forest in northern Maine where her mother is from. She still watches birds. She still doesn’t play live. She makes exactly the music she wants to make, on her own terms, which is the only thing that hasn’t changed since 1989.

photo by Sandra Nissen

Stephanie, thanks for sitting down with us. “Harvest Time” opens the EP and sets the tone for everything that follows, and then a painter looked at that song and created an entire image of the boreal forests of northern Maine. When you heard the song had inspired that kind of visual response, what did it tell you about what you’d actually written?

My friend Brian Rusnica is so talented, and I love his artwork. I gave him a basic idea of what I was thinking for the album cover and sent him a rough demo of the song. What he created from the first pass is not that much different from the final cover you see now. He got the concept immediately, and although I had a couple minor suggestions and ideas, it was as if he took my vision out of my head and made it a reality. There is a great synergy between that art and my song. I almost can’t see or hear one without the other.

“Grand Isle” mixes three originals with three covers of Ron Sexsmith, Daniel Lanois, and Chris Harford songs. Picking someone else’s song to put on your own record is a very specific act. You’re essentially saying this song belongs in the same room as mine. What does a song have to do to earn that spot?

And conversely, what do I have to do to make my music deserving of being heard with that caliber of songs? But I guess, maybe naively, I just picked songs that I have loved for many years and tried to interpret them in my own way, so I knew they’d at least be in the ballpark style-wise and sound-wise as my music. I don’t especially love cover songs that deviate too much from the originals. I still want to hear the basic melody and be able to recognize it right away. So I feel like I did faithful renditions, but with my own twists – like adding more harmonies, or phrasing some words differently. Yet trying to let the songs retain their true natures.

You spent sixteen years working at Island Records and Virgin Records, deep inside the machine, watching how the industry actually operated from the inside. Then you spent the rest of your career entirely outside it on independent and cooperative labels. What did those sixteen years teach you that you carry into every record you make now?

Actually, I was working at those labels while I was in The Aquanettas from 1989 on. Same when I was in Psychic Penguin. So I was inside the death star and outside the death star simultaneously. There were pros and cons. One pro was the fact that I understood how the industry worked, so I knew what hurdles and pitfalls to try to avoid. But one con was the fact that I understood how the industry worked, and it was so disheartening to go into it without blinders on, but still get stuck in those traps that lots of young indie bands fall into, whether it be the band making stupid decisions, having your record company make stupid decisions, or trying to hold out for more money or whatever. I always tell bands now, TAKE THE MONEY IF IT IS OFFERED TO YOU. Do you know how many times I wish I could turn back time and take our $30,000 publishing deal that we declined? If your song DOES become a smash, there is always a little tactic called renegotiation.

The industry has changed 180 degrees since I was in the thick of it. You don’t need to be signed. Computers have literally changed everything, and that’s good for smaller artists. I had to relearn how to promote myself in the digital age from the way-back time when I was sending out LPs and CDs to radio. The music industry ate itself up and was out of step with the looming technology, and a lot of them paid the price for it, while a few savvy conglomerates gobbled up everything in sight. I will say though, there were so many great times with people who are still my “family” to this day. Those were some of the greatest times of my life, working with some of my favorite bands and just being around music 24/7. Nothing’s better than that. I’m very fortunate to have been there in the heyday of the music biz.

In 2004, bird watching took over your life to the point where, by 2011, you stepped away from music entirely. Most people compartmentalize their obsessions. What was it about birds specifically that couldn’t coexist with the music? What did they demand from you that the music also needed?

It was time and energy. Getting up at the crack of dawn to bird watch did not exactly make staying out late playing gigs very easy. And for some reason, the pull of the birds was just overwhelming. It’s hard to put my finger on where this obsession came from, but it evolved very quickly and just became the be-all, end-all for me. It still is, but now I’m able to have the two obsessions coexist better because I don’t play live gigs anymore. I may sing backup for other people occasionally, but leading my own band creates too much anxiety for me, so I told myself I don’t have to put myself through the stress.

A memorial concert for a former bandmate at Webster Hall in 2017 pulled you back to performing after years away. Did you walk out of that show knowing something had shifted, or did it take time before you understood what that night actually was?

I think I knew that night that I was probably going to start singing and creating again. It was such a bittersweet event. The heartbreak of losing one of the best people in the world coupled with a renewed energy around making music was intense. I met Sherryl Marshall that night, and she really wanted to work with me. I became part of her band, and that was my re-entry into the music world.

photo by Sandra Nissen

“There Are Birds” came about from the decision to combine your love of birds with your love of music, and the songs arrived in months. You’ve said they simply flowed out. But you’d been away from writing for years at that point. Where do you think they were during that silence?

Just dormant, I suppose. Because when I got the idea of making an entire album about birds, those songs really did come to me as if they were already written…well, at least a lot of them did. I think you can keep creative forces at bay, but when you give in to them, they haven’t really gone away. They wait for you to pick the right time.

You started as a drummer in The Aquanettas, switched instruments in Psychic Penguin, and eventually became a lead singer in Birdy. Each of those roles puts you in a completely different relationship with the rest of the band and with the audience. Which version of yourself on stage do you still feel most naturally?

At this point, I’d have to say as a singer, for sure. I don’t really play drums much anymore, though I did play on two of the songs on this new EP. But singing always has been where I feel absolutely most comfortable. Maybe if I had continued to play drums after the demise of Psychic Penguin I would feel differently, but singing is the most natural expression of music for me.

“There Was a Time” played on over a hundred radio stations and became a favourite on Sirius XM’s Underground Garage, serious traction for an independent release. Did that kind of response change anything about how you approached “Grand Isle,” or did you deliberately tune it out?

I don’t think I thought about it much at all, because it took me quite a long time – almost three years – to finish “Grand Isle” from start to finish. I had many months of a lull, and then I’d get back to it, then another lull. So it was this never-ending process, and after a while, thinking about measuring up to the single wasn’t something to worry about. I’m just happy I finally finished this set of songs, haha!

Your husband Bob Perry produced this EP and plays on it. Making a record is already an intimate process. Doing it with a partner adds another layer entirely. Where does the marriage end and the working relationship begin, or have those two things merged completely by now?

I’m laughing so hard because it is SUCH a process with us every time we start a new project. Because I don’t play any instrument with actual chords, I essentially have to sing what’s inside my head to Bob and then get him to figure out what my musical thoughts are. We have similar tastes in music, but they definitely diverge at some point – he goes down the rootsy rock avenue, and I’m walking down the alt-pop avenue. So what he hears and what I hear are two different things. There are so many chords to choose from even if I’m signing him a specific melody. So, I get super frustrated that I can’t express what’s in my head, and things will get heated. But when that happens, we start laughing because it’s so typical, and we know that we’ll eventually figure it out. But he actually is very patient when we start recording, and he’s a fantastic producer with excellent ideas. He doesn’t tell you what to do, but when he makes a suggestion, you know you should take it to heart. And of course, he’s an insanely talented guitar player, as you can hear on the EP!

On “Grand Isle,” you cover “The Messenger” by Daniel Lanois, a producer and songwriter whose entire aesthetic is built around atmosphere, texture, and space. Putting one of his songs on an EP you wrote feels like a conversation with a very specific idea about what music can do. What did covering his song teach you about your own?

Well, as I said before, I want to keep a cover song as true as possible to its core while putting my spin on it. I still wanted a lot of ambience for this song, but let’s face it, no one is Daniel Lanois but Daniel Lanois, and I wasn’t trying to pretend that I was going to outdo his aesthetic or anything like that. So we just tried to create our own landscape for our version. I layered a lot of drums and percussion, and built them to a crescendo. Bob and James Mastro (who played the electric guitar solo on this track) put down some excellent guitar parts. Debby Schwartz was just playing this cool looping part on the bass, which really holds the track down. And finally, Andy Burton just killed it with that Rhodes and the Vox Continental organ. It all creates this fantastic swirl of sound. I am just so happy with how that song turned out.

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