Randi Russo

interviewed by Dina Di Maio

         It's been said your show is like "Patti Smith and Lou Reed's lovechild at a Sonic Youth concert."  Do you think that's an accurate analogy for your music?

I do feel that that's a pretty accurate analogy in the sense that I'm usually told that my vocals sound like Patti Smith, but my phrasing and my music is more like Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground.  ...And then I throw in a touch of noise and loud guitars (when with a full band or on some of my recordings) and dissonant guitar, which I think is where the Sonic Youth analogy comes in.  I know that the Velvet Underground and Sonic Youth were (and are) huge influences on my music. 

Patti Smith was introduced to me much later on.  I was playing for a couple of years before I heard her music.  I only knew of her as Robert Mapplethorpe's muse for many of his photographs.  When I was 16 years old and living in Boston for a summer, I had to get a fake ID just to get into the Mapplethorpe exhibit (you had to be 18); that was when I first heard of Patti Smith, but no one told me she was a musician.  When I asked who she was, a stranger told me that she's a poet.  Years later, I'd play for a small group of friends, or would give out some home recordings to friends, and people kept telling me I sounded like her, so much so that I went out and bought "Horses."  I didn't see it at first, but now I do see it.  She has influenced my singing style since then, and I do respect where she's coming from as an artist and as a socially-conscious person.

In addition to Lou Reed/ VU, Patti Smith, and Sonic Youth, there are a whole lot of other influences. Some are: Cat Power, Neil Young, PJ Harvey, Smog, Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jr., Pavement, Nick Drake, Diane Cluck, Paleface, Cockroach, Red House Painters, Knot Pinebox, Lenny Molotov, Prewar Yardsale, Syd Barrett, Schwervon, Patsy Grace, the antifolk scene in general.  My early influences (before I started to really write songs): Joy Division, Bauhaus, Christian Death (I was a goth kid in my mid-teens), Ministry, Mudhoney, Jimmy Page's knack for great guitar riffs, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, Nina Simone.

Well, when I first started playing guitar, I bought an electric guitar.  Everywhere I went, salesmen told me that many lefties play right-handed.  I'm a lefty, and I bought a righty guitar (because left-handed guitars are more rare and more expensive).  I went home, and tried to play it righty, but it just didn't feel right.  So after a few days, I switched it around to play lefty.  At first, I did switch my strings around, so that I would be playing "the correct way" (low E string on top). 

A few months later, I bought this classical guitar in St. Louis from a street vendor selling old stuff for $22 (it's still my favorite guitar).  Since I was a novice guitar player at the time, I was too afraid to mess with changing the tie-on classical strings.  So, I had my electric guitar, which was strung up correctly, and a nylon string guitar, which was strung "upside down."  I was playing both ways for a while, but since the classical guitar was out by my bed side (whereas my electric was stored in a hardcase), I was playing the inverted classical guitar much more.  I started writing many more songs that way, and using weird chords, that I just decided at some point early on to switch to playing the inverted style.  So, now all guitars that I play are strung up for a righty, which means that the strings are inverted for me because I play lefty (low E string on bottom).  I also have started to use different tunings, some of which I stumble on by accident.  I always love the self-taught, happy accident style of playing music.  It's a playing style that comes about through curiosity and discovery, and it's always filled with surprises.

I moved back from St. Louis to New York (where my family is) after a long situation of taking care of my live-in boyfriend, David, who had leukemia.  I needed to start taking care of myself, and I wanted to strip myself of the life I had in St. Louis, which was filled with a lot of stress, depression and anxiety (not only because of David's cancer, but also because of my own battles with depression).   But after dealing with cancer so closely for a year at the age of 21-22, I decided I needed to make some time for myself, and start living for myself again.  David played with me when Raizel had shows in St. Louis.  So, when I moved back to NY without him, I didn't want to use that name anymore.  I decided to start going by my real name (although, sometimes I miss the name Raizel) as a significant marker that I was starting over again. Thank God, David's alive today, and is still a close friend of mine. 

What is your music about?  What are your messages?  I read a review that said just when the listener thinks they get it, you turn the tables on them.  Is that true?

My music is about being honest with oneself.  It's about facing the darkness and fears that we all have inside ourselves.  It's about expressing sentiments that people are uncomfortable expressing because they're too worried about being nice and considerate all of the time to everyone and everything. 

I suppose the review that mentioned how I "turn the tables" on them was referring to the range in mood that my music spans.  I love to rock out and play some hard-edged, heavy-riff oriented rock music. I also love to be gentle and fragile.  I think complexity and androgyny are a very important part of being an artist.  And you don't need to wear androgyny on your sleeve (in other words, you don't need to *look* androgynous like Bowie or Patti Smith did in the 70s); the androgyny is there in the spirit of your art and music.  You take on aspects of what is stereotypically female and male, and let them merge into one (and by doing so, the stereotypes fall by the wayside).  Much of the music today is homogenized; an artist is expected to be all hard-rocking or all soft and mellow, all aggressive or all depressive.  It seems like many albums today have such little diversity of sound on them.  I try to bring together all of the complex feelings and emotions that I experience into my music because none of us feels strictly one way or the other.  Even the most gentle souls can get fiercely angry, and the most angry souls can break down and cry and feel empathy and compassion for others.

When was your first album, Solar Bipolar, released by Olive Juice Music?

Solar Bipolar was my first official full-length album. It was released in December 2001.  I also released a live EP on Olive Juice Music in 2000.  I'm hoping to record a new album this year.  I'm planning on making it a more stripped-down album, mostly acoustic guitar.  I want to make a very simple record this time around that reflects more of the shows I've been doing in the last 6 months or so.

You can check out Randi Russo's show calendar, reviews, and more at www.randirusso.com.  Her CD, Solar Bipolar, is for sale in select stores and on her website, as well as at www.olivejuicemusic.com.