Stephanie Seymour’s musical biography has unfolded through a wide range of chapters: from drummer in a New York all-female rock band to creator of the solo project Birdy and a person who worked for many years at Island and Virgin Records. In 2018, she brought together her two main passions – music and ornithology – in the project There Are Birds, which immediately drew attention for its melody, sincerity, and finely crafted harmonies. Today, drawing inspiration from the classics of pop music, Stephanie presents the new EP “Grand Isle”. We spoke with the artist about her new work, her sources of inspiration, and the music that stays with a person for a long time.
Photos by Sandra Nissen
Stephanie, hi! Thank you for taking the time to talk. I can only imagine how your head is spinning right now: the EP just came out, your phone won’t stop ringing, and somewhere in the background, birds are probably singing (in your case, that’s not a metaphor). Let’s start from the beginning, so the reader understands who they’re dealing with. Ringwood, New Jersey: How did the town you grew up in shape the person who, years later, would write an album about the forests of Maine?
Actually, I grew up in Westchester County in New York, then moved to New York City for years, and only after getting married did I become a Jersey girl. But moving to New Jersey (Englewood first, now Ringwood) and being back in the suburbs and out of the city truly got me addicted to bird watching. For the first time in my life, I started really paying attention to nature – birds, animals, flowers, you name it. The pull was so strong that, as we discuss a little later, I even wrote a whole album about birds. So while all that was happening, I had started regularly visiting my grandma, who had returned to northern Maine in her later years to be with her sister, nieces, and nephews. She and my grandpa were born there; my mother was born there and lived there until she was 12. And I basically became obsessed with family history and the story of that side of the family coming down from Canada and landing in Grand Isle, Maine, in the mid-1800s. That’s what the first song “Harvest Time” is all about. I love it up there – there’s so much open space, great wildlife, and of course, the gorgeous boreal forest that my friend (artist Brian Rusnica) so beautifully depicted in the cover art.
You started out as the drummer for The Aquanettas, a strictly all-female rock band from New York. What’s it like pounding away on the drums when everyone around you expects a girl to do backing vocals at best?
It’s interesting, because the band started out with two guys and two girls, and then Claudine replaced the bass player, and I replaced the drummer. It was not intentional to become an all-female band, but that’s what we ended up being when we got signed to Nettwerk/IRS. There was a lot of what you’d expect – “you’re a good drummer for a girl” – that kind of thing. I think in terms of the press (especially back then), it gave them something to focus on and write about. But for all that, there was a lot of nonchalance too. Since we played well and wrote good songs, we were accepted for who we were as musicians just rockin’ out.
There are a few more very interesting chapters in your biography. After The Aquanettas, you were a member of Psychic Penguin and Birdy, and then you began your solo career. If someone offered to gather everything into one musical family album, what genre would it be: a documentary, a melodrama, or maybe a road movie?
I love this question! I think it would be a dramatic road movie with comedic moments thrown in here and there. There have been a lot of ups and downs, but overall, I can’t think of any other thing I’d rather do more than play music (well, maybe birding, but that would tie with making music). Being so young and touring around the US and Europe was fantastic. It was a great opportunity to see parts of this country and the world that I would probably never go to on my own, like the Shetland Islands. We played three nights in Lerwick in 1992. Just amazing! But the pitfalls of the music industry usually can’t be avoided, and I’ve had my share of a bumpy ride. It’s nice to be able to just leisurely make music from the comfort of my home now, with no outside BS to worry about.
Photos by Sandra Nissen
There’s a moment in your biography that’s hard to skip over. In 2017, the passing of a fellow musician brought you back to the stage at Webster Hall. Can we say that concert marked your return to performing?
It did. I hadn’t played out in about seven years because I was so immersed in the birding world. When my Psychic Penguin band member and good friend Adam Roth passed away, his brother planned a massive tribute to him at Webster Hall. We reformed Psychic Penguin for the night, with guests coming up and singing the songs. I was singing backup or duet as I had always done in the band, but there was one song we couldn’t find anyone for, and two days before the show, we decided I’d sing lead. I was SO nervous, but it ended up being a highlight of the night and a super sweet tribute to Adam. I realized how much I missed making music, and I joined Sherryl Marshall’s band The Girleens shortly afterward and began doing gigs again.
In 2018, you had an idea that at first glance might seem unexpected – to combine music and your love of birds into one project. That’s how “There Are Birds” came about, and the songs, as you yourself put it, “just poured out of my head onto paper.” When an idea and inspiration come this easily and quickly, is it a gift from fate, or still the result of years of inner work that just happened to spill out at that particular moment?
I think both. There are some moments when I feel like an antenna receiving information with those songs that just come from nowhere that are partially or mostly formed. I don’t know how to explain it other than it’s some kind of inspiration that you have to harness. I’ve had a few songs come to me in dreams too. With the first Birdy album, I woke up with an entire chorus in my head, harmonies and all, and it was before iPhones and stuff. I used to sing my songs into my answering machine to remember them. Then there are the times when you have an idea and you just need to really sit there and flesh it out, which could take a day or a month. You just never know.
The 2022 single “There Was a Time” showed you as a very mature storyteller. Your songs are compared to short films. When you write, do you see pictures in front of you first, or does the melodic line come first?
I never thought about it that way, but if I were to describe my process, it’s much more word-based rather than visual. Though once I have an idea, there are definitely flashes of images or moments that come to mind, and they’ll expand from there. But generally, it begins with the lyrics and the core idea. The whole basis for “There Was a Time” was brought about by Eddie Van Halen’s passing. I admired his playing so much, and when he died, I kept thinking about how adorable he and Valerie Bertinelli were as a couple in the ’80s and ’90s. So I based that whole tune on them, but of course, the lyrics also have a broader meaning as well. But that song in particular was created based on images I had in my head from magazines from decades ago.
Now, about this summer’s big event. On July 17th, your new EP “Grand Isle” came out. Is the title connected to a real place, or is it more of an image, a metaphor for solitude?
It’s an actual town in northern Maine where my ancestors moved to from Canada. I have never been there, but I’ve been close. I think for the next trip up, we’ll have to swing by. So as I described above, the first track and the general impetus for this whole EP is the song “Harvest Time,” which describes the journey my family took to get from Canada to the States. A lot of it is based on a report that my cousin Tom did with my great-grandmother, who was 102 when she died. Tom interviewed her for a school project all about her life, her father and mother, and their parents too. He compiled the report, printed copies, and when we went up to Maine to celebrate great-grammy’s 100th birthday in 1979, Tom gave us the pamphlet as a souvenir. It’s a great oral history. Here’s one of the best quotes ever, and it’s from my great-grammy Sophia LeVasseur: “To live to be 100, a person should live to be 99 and then be careful.” How hilarious is that?
Photos by Sandra Nissen
“Grand Isle” contains both new songs and covers. What matters more to you in this kind of work: the chance to tell your own story, or the chance to hear someone else’s in a new way?
I felt an equal pull for both. I wanted to compose a few original tunes, but I also felt strongly compelled to cover a few of my favorite songs. I wasn’t sure how to narrow down those covers at first, but I had a list of about eight or nine. Two were pretty much no-brainers, and those were “The Messenger” by Daniel Lanois and “Words We Never Use” by Ron Sexsmith. The third choice was not an obvious one and wasn’t even on my list at first. But I ended up going with Chris Harford’s song called “You Brains,” which is an under-two-minute pop/rock gem with attitude. The lyrics feel like a protest song to me, and I thought it would be quite fitting to sing that song right now in these times.
As far as my own three originals, “Harvest Time” was done, I had completely rewritten the lyrics for “Scour Your Heart,” which became a tribute to Lisa Marie Presley, and I thought that would be it. But like we were discussing before about a song coming through so forcefully that it just has to come into existence, “One Trick Away” basically wrote itself and was done in a day or two. I was kind of bummed, because we had already recorded basic tracks for all the songs, and I didn’t want to start again with one more song, but I could not ignore it. It had to be.
The title track “Harvest Time” sets the tone for the whole album, and it inspired artist Brian Rusnica to create a cover featuring the boreal forests of northern Maine – your mother’s home. Tell us how a single song grew into a whole visual world?
Brian is amazing. I had seen his bird artwork on his website, and I also have two t-shirts with his bird designs on them. I was keen on having him create the cover for me. I gave him a rough demo of “Harvest Time” and we had a few conversations about what my general idea was for the cover. Brian just went with it, and even on his first pass, I’d say we had about 90% of what would become the final art. He just really honed in on my ideas like I knew he would. We tweaked a few things here and there, but it was quite amazing to see what I had in my mind come to life.
On “Grand Isle,” you’re once again joined by Bob Perry, Ira Elliot, James Mastro, and Debby Schwartz – people connected to you not just through professional experience, but through a long-shared musical history. Is this already a well-oiled creative partnership where experience and intuition handle everything, or does the studio still sometimes call for a bit of musical diplomacy, coffee, and patience?
It’s a well-oiled machine that still demands some diplomacy, haha! Although that diplomacy needs to be between my husband Bob and me, not between any of the other awesome players on this album – the above-mentioned, as well as all the others. The problem comes from the fact that I don’t play anything but the drums, so when I’m trying to sing a song to Bob and he’s trying to pick out guitar chords from what I’m singing to him, it can be frustrating for both of us.There are so many possibilities of what chords could accompany what I’m singing to him, but of course there’s only one progression that I’m hearing in my head! So I start getting pissed off because I cannot communicate what I’m hearing, and then he gets frustrated, and it becomes this whole thing. But at the same time, we also end up laughing because that really has become the way we write together, and we do know that everything will eventually come together. The end result will be exactly what we want. He’s so musical and has a real knack for pulling the whole production together.
Your greatest source of inspiration remains melodic pop with rich harmonies in the spirit of The Beach Boys, The Mamas & The Papas, Crowded House, and The Beatles. You’re also a fan of Elton John, The Police, The Clash, Tom Petty, and others. Who on that list best embodies, say, the freedom of a falcon, or the melodiousness of a thrush? Whose “bird” part in music would you recognize out of a thousand?
I think it would be Elton John with the classic record “Captain Fantastic.” That reminds me of my childhood and my adulthood all at once. I can still listen to that album and find something new every time. Same for side two of the Beatles “Abbey Road.” As far as what really got me into music though and what transports me right back to being 15 years old sitting at my drums, it would have to be The Police “Ghost in the Machine” and The Go-Go’s “Beauty and the Beat” albums. That was the first concert I ever went to at Madison Square Garden too. I have the BEST memories from those early ’80s days.
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