The following program is a production of
Pioneer Public Television.
This program on Pioneer Public Television
is funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund,
with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota
on November 4, 2008.
Living in Detroit Lakes, I really had to know who I am
to be an individual, and that was something that,
in my household, was celebrated by my mom.
She was just like, you know, I think people need to celebrate
artists more, like push them more.
I am 21.
I am golden.
My hands are married, yeah.
My mom has always been a single mother,
and she was always just like, whatever,
as long as I'm feeling good, you know, like,
she's super sassy, no filter.
And that's who I am, so it gets me in trouble all the time.
This is, uh, the Detroit Lakes airport.
It's really cool head in here.
And as I side them, the runway is completely covered
in a sick layer of light.
I lived here from fourth grade to senior year of high school,
and a lot of memories happened here.
I spent a lot of time in that basement, right,
and a lot of tunes, but I would never show anyone ever again.
One summer, my brother and I painted that pergola white,
and we were sitting up there.
I remember listening to Dr. Dre 2001 on repeat,
and that's how I learned every word to that record,
including each individual slap on that.
My other's word is more than this.
My other's word is more.
It is more.
I am really close with my family.
We are not your typical family.
I always joke, I say we're like a family of the millennium.
We came from different dads, and my mom worked,
so I helped out a lot with raising them.
We might be like abnormally close.
My mom would, during Father's Day,
she would get me a Father's Day card,
and they'd celebrate me on Father's Day.
We'd go out to dinner and stuff,
and that was always our little joke.
It really does help build your confidence as an individual,
being an individual, having an individual voice,
but it really wears on you.
Everybody knows what you're doing all the time.
Everybody knows that you're from Columbus, Ohio.
Everybody knows that your mom got divorced.
Everybody knows everything.
My mom was kind of a public figure,
because she started the first coffee shop here.
Naturally, in the time when coffee shops started
popping up everywhere, they really become the staple
of a community, because it's where you go sit,
it's where you meet up, and she'd go through employees,
because somebody would do something wrong,
and so she'd have to fire them,
and then that little segment of the town would hate her,
and that was kind of rough.
I hate you.
You really know how to hurt me or something.
I don't even remember the words.
It's so funny.
It's exactly how the song goes, actually.
I looked at her, and she was so young,
and I'm like, what are you doing down there in your room?
She was like 13, maybe, 14.
You know, after every week,
she'd make me come in a couple times a week.
She'd be like, today's your day.
You play in the coffee shop, and see how many people are here
just trying to mind their own business.
I'd have to sit over in that corner
and awkwardly play all of my songs,
and I would just hate her for it.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
I grew up with a lot of, like, strong, fun,
boisterous women around.
My mom had a really special knack for picking out,
like, fun babysitters that always just became my friend
more than my babysitter.
That was always special.
That happened through a lot, through the coffee shop.
They all started working at the coffee shop,
and they would just become part of our family.
That was just where I came from.
That was where I, that's all I knew about being a woman,
was that, was stepping up to the plate,
was being there for your family.
I mean, sometimes it was hard,
sometimes I just wanted to, like, go and hang out
and not have to have responsibility or worry about it,
but it's kind of what made us all so much stronger in the end.
When the rock drops out, that's when I'm beginning to lose it.
We're not the noise, but the water on the floor,
so I can use it so I can use it.
You know, I always wanted to leave the trait lakes,
but I think I'm realizing how much the role it played
in becoming who I am, how much it helped me find my voice.
I think it was just a difference between me
and a lot of the people, the mentality that was here.
And I don't think I'm right or they're right or anything.
I think it's just different, and I always just felt different.
And I left here, and no, there was no, like, option.
There wasn't any, like, possibility of me ever coming back here.
When the water drops out, that's when I'm beginning to lose it.
When the rock drops out, that's when I'm beginning to lose it.
When the rock drops out, that's when I'm beginning to lose it.
Respecting where I came from, the type of woman that I was taught how to be,
has really had a huge hand in this new direction that I've been going into,
celebrating, you know, being strong, celebrating, being confident,
celebrating, being, you know, boisterous.
I was a woman, I was a woman from a magazine, and when you saw me,
all about me on the stage, you said you weren't going back home till you had me.
And the next day came, I was everything you ever wanted,
every piece of me with having you were on it.
I know I gave it all away, but a lady's got to know when we're playing that game.
Baby, how could you go?
Believe in me.
Baby, how could you go?
I always think about, like, how lucky it is that Minneapolis is the closest city to me,
because I would have moved any closest city to me to be close to my family.
And Minneapolis just happens to be this incredible community for artists and musicians.
I came before the digital ocean where folks only move in digital ocean.
I'm totally a knee freak. Where it really is bad, though, is my shirt drawer, my pants drawer.
Everything's, like, folded up perfectly in little rows.
I wanted to live by myself. I do a lot of writing in my apartment.
I pretty much have, like, a nine to five job. I just, like, wake up and go in my living room, though, and write all day.
I make way too much coffee, and then I just sit at my desk and play guitar or play keyboards and record demos.
I love my vinyl collection, because you can just, you know, consume music so fast now.
It's just having a record or having vinyl, you have to, like, listen to the whole package the way that the artist intended you to hear it.
I think it's really special.
I didn't grow up with some, like, crazy dad who listened to, like, really cool music and then, like, explained all, like, the intricacy things to it.
I grew up listening to, like, Carol King, Paul Simon, Janet Jackson, TLC, Mary J. Blige, Alicia Keys.
They had just had it, like, airtight. They just knew how to write a really good song, and that's timeless.
I would like to make music that I would actually listen to.
I think that's maybe why my music changes so much, because, you know, I'm always evolving and changing.
Everybody is evolving and changing.
But I just got tired of having to keep up with what was new, what was being consumed at that time, what was cool.
I was changing a lot. I was becoming more comfortable with my roots, who I am as a person.
I was kind of getting a little anxious about the consumption of indie music all the time, just so fast.
Everything's changing, trying to keep up with what this person's doing, what the next person's doing.
The band and I came to Detroit Lakes.
My mom was selling her house, and it was completely vacant, and we needed a place to get away.
We set up in the empty living room, and we worked on a bunch of these new songs that I had started writing.
We just were kind of miserable about them.
They just weren't feeling honest. I wasn't excited about the direction.
At some point, you have to just reassess, and I trashed all those songs. I just threw them away.
I flew out to New York, and I sublet an apartment in East Harlem.
Then I went out to a lot of soul clubs and really started to explore that, started talking with people.
As soon as I tapped into that, and I realized what kind of music I wanted to be writing, it just came out so fast.
Song after song after song. I didn't keep all the songs, but I kept a good half of them.
Those are the songs that, when I got back from New York, I went in the studio with Brett Boolean and Jay Canson.
That's good.
You don't need to super enunciate it.
She hears the bigger picture. She hears where a particular part will fit into the larger scope of the song.
She has all those parts going at once in her head. Sometimes that's hard for singers to keep that perspective.
Song after song.
Song after song.
Song after song.
Song after song.
Song after song.
Song after song.
Song after song.
They're very in touch with their emotional sides.
Those two have stuck with me because I'm so girly that they could appreciate that energy and it didn't bug them because they talk about their feelings.
You know, Ireland's like, Caroline, I have to talk to you.
Yesterday when you yelled at me for taking a left when I should have taken a right, it was an honest mistake and I don't think that you need to raise your voice like that.
And then I'm like, you're right, Ireland. I'm really sorry and I'm glad we talked about this.
He's like, thanks for listening. You're such a good girlfriend. I'm like, you're such a good girlfriend too, Ireland.
I get shy around cameras. I've more recently realized that where I'm always like, well, yeah, it's always, yeah, it's always like, yeah, exactly. There's a camera there.
No, no, stay, stay. It's not you. It's me.
If I could just have more lady power for this next song, like it's perfect.
We don't have a lot of friends outside of each other. We hang out all the time.
I have my girlfriends that I really need. I would go crazy without, but we don't hang out like every single night like I do with the boys.
Hey kid, look at what you did.
I was writing these new songs that have a lot to do with being a woman, being comfortable in your skin.
So I was really excited to represent that with having these two powerhouse women on stage with me that were proud of who they were,
proud of their bodies. You could tell they just emanated this confidence.
It was a nice way to introduce it to our fans to be like, this is what's coming next. This is what's coming out of me next.
Hey pal, watch all this about it.
Cause little sweet boys, they are not to use their women like toys. I've been a fan of them.
Though I know I should, I keep trying till you hold me right.
I hope that someday you'll love me. They don't damn involve me.
I'm serious. I'm not to give up on you. I'm going to give up on you this time, this time.
I had the high school boyfriend, the very passionate, oh we were going to get married.
I was going to live on the Indian reservation with him. We were going to have a ranch.
We were together for five very long, passionate months and then we broke up.
I just remember him chasing my car, shirtless, with no shoes on in the middle of the street, running after my car.
And I wasn't like, I can't, I can't. I was just like.
That really happens. Wow, I'm in a movie right now and I kind of got a little cynical about relationship after that.
So I was like, that's just unrealistic. That's just, put some shoes on, man. Put a shirt on, you're in public.
Thank you. Thank you, Angela Desiree.
I maybe put it out there like I didn't have a lot of friends or I kind of kept myself, which I don't think is true.
I think I had some friends, some pretty close friends, but I was just kind of a weird one.
People always thought I was pretty peculiar and funny.
I never get made fun of except one time in seventh grade, Sean Menard dated me as a joke.
I think that was very funny. What a joke that is.
I was a little fat. It was just baby chubb.
And honey, I swore and no more prayers, no more tears or more songs. I had to give it all because you had the style.
You had the eyes, you had it all, but now it's gone, now it's gone, now it's gone.
And I went all right with it, baby.
And every day you call, and every day you pick up your phone, it is killing me, and I am a child.
I'm moving on, I'm moving on, and I am a child of a child that is giving you the benefit of a child.
A child of a child that is roughing and sitting on down here and working it all out of the car.
It's a year that there's something here and I am a child. I'm moving on, I'm moving on, I'm moving on.
Honey, I swore I would never write another song, I would never say another prayer, I would never give another name.
I had to give it all, and give it all because you had the style. You had the eyes, you had it all, but you went and you were giving on up, you're giving on up.
And now I am a child of a child that is giving you the benefit of a child. A child of a child that is roughing and sitting on down here and working it all out of the car.
It's a year that there's something here and I am a child. I'm moving on, I'm moving on, I'm moving on.
And I am a child. I am a child. I am a child.
Over and over.
Incredible, I tell you.
We're alive!
We did it!
This is where I want to be, this just feels so good.
I want my music to make people say, hey, it's OK.
This feels great.
Don't they sound awesome?
Isn't this fun?
And I just wanted to go back to the music that made me feel
happy, that made me want to dance, that makes people feel
really good.
So I'll just play music.
Is that OK?
I've been waiting for you, my dear.
I've been waiting for you, over valleys and mountains and
houses to keep counting the days, and the last night felt kind
of strange, and my dear, last night felt kind of strange.
All those blankets and sheets and the lies through your teeth
that I found full.
And closing our doors so never helped me close up through.
Now I'm hosting our gallery with all the men,
we'll be boys and the girls, sing the chorus again.
I've been writing your name, sweetie, I've been writing your name.
This program on Pioneer Public Television is funded by the
Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, with money from
the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008.
