INTERVIEW: Lady Lamb the Beekeeper

After gaining renown for several years in the Boston and greater New England music scenes, local staple Aly Spaltro, who goes by the moniker Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, has finally released a debut LP and is now embarking upon her first big tour. MUSE staffer Sydney Moyer got the chance to catch up with her at her Brooklyn apartment– here’s what she had to say.

Sydney Moyer: So you’ve been playing the local scene in Boston as well as Portland and Brooklyn for a while now- was that a conscious decision to build up a local base before going after a record deal?

Aly Spaltro: It wasn’t a conscious decision…I obviously feel really at home playing in New England, and it was important to me to nurture my relationship with each city by playing a lot, but I also haven’t had a car for a couple of years so it’s convenient because I can get to a lot of places that I play conveniently from New York. I was actually on a bus when you called me to New York from playing Boston last night…so I’ve found over the years that it’s been a really wonderful thing that I’ve been playing so consistently in certain cities, and I have truly wonderful fanbases there now.

SM: I heard you used to play at the old hootenannies in Allston- is that true?

AS: No, actually, I’ve never done that…some of my Boston friends who went to college there did them or ran them or something, but I’ve never been to one.

SM: Oh, gotcha. So, you moved to New York, and I feel like I have to ask the Boston vs. New York question…what went into your decision to set up shop down there?

AS: I got really comfortable playing in the Boston scene, but I knew in my gut that I needed a little more of a challenge in New York…which is what I wanted. Also, I had some really dear friends in Boston, but just coincidentally, some of my best friends from growing up all over the place ended up in New York, so I had a really solid support system already, and it just made sense. I felt that Boston was too close to home, and like I said, my car broke down, which went into the decision. I was kind of about to move to Boston, and then my car broke, and I thought then I might be better-equipped for New York, because then I could play a different venue every night if I want to, without a vehicle, and not overplay.

SM: Yeah, the T in Boston is a little more difficult than the subway, I guess.

AS: Yeah, well it’s just not as conducive to playing to new crowds every week, if you wanted to. New York has so so many venues and opportunities, and that’s why I felt it was more conducive to where I was at.

SM: Makes sense. So, whenever I plug your record to my friends, they always ask about the name- I heard it came to you in a dream?

AS: Yeah, that’s true. I was 18, and I had just started writing songs, and I had enough to put on a little compilation CD, and I was really inspired at that time, so I was having trouble sleeping because I was constantly sort of writing lyrics in my head. So I would sort of train myself to write the lyrics down in my sleep, sort of roll over and do it in the middle of the night in a notebook. And Lady Lamb the Beekeeper was written in the notebook when I woke up, and I really had no recollection of where that came from or writing it or what the dream I was having was or anything like that. But to me, she’s like this fictional woman character. And it happened right at the time that I had these recordings that I wanted to share with my small town, without them being able to trace the music back to me by my name, so it just felt like, in the moment, the right thing to  put on as an anonymous, sort of mysterious moniker, and it stuck.

SM: The record’s lyrical content is so visceral and so full of these elaborate metaphors- from where did you draw your songwriting inspiration?

AS: I mostly just get it from personal experience. One of my hobbies in high school and as a kid was writing, and writing poetry, so it was just a very natural format for me to start to express myself, and the music came later. I really just started teaching myself how to play instruments as a vehicle for the lyrics. They’re most just rooted in really visual metaphor that I get inspired by in the moment…I really don’t know how to describe where it comes from, but definitely a lot of personal experience, and then some little twists I put on it, you know, to make it more poetic, of course [laughs].

SM: What does the creative process look like for you? How did you sit down and write these songs and how did you flesh them out in the studio?

AS: Yeah, I mean, for nearly five years, I recorded everything myself at home, and you know I’ve really only written songs when the feeling struck me in that moment, which is why they’re all pretty intense and emotional, because I only write them when I feel really really compelled to, they just come instantly in that moment, and then it’s out…it’s a song. And so, because of that, almost all the recordings I’ve made, in fact, all of the recordings I’ve ever made myself, were written and recorded and finished in under a day. I never went back to something and like worked on it the next day, I always just started it and finished it in one sitting. And so, the recording in the studio was entirely different because I spent nearly an entire year with 12 songs, so it was really challenging to open my mind up in a different way, to hear them differently and arrange them for the first time, just to make them bigger. And you know, it was a lot of slaving and a lot of challenge and frustration and breakthroughs and excitement…it was a really amazing experience but entirely different from anything I had experienced before musically.

SM: You built up a local following around your reputation as a distinctive solo performer- have you been playing with a full band after the record’s release? How does it differ? Which do you like more?

AS: Not completely. I had a full band for my release shows, which was mostly comprised of my openers, and then a couple friends, but they’re not my band, they’re just friends. I actually don’t have my own band, so I’ve just been playing solo past the release shows. Fortunately, my openers who play keys and drums, are my openers for my May tour that I’ll have, and I’m bringing my friend to play bass, so it’s gonna be half full band, like it was for the release shows, luckily for me. I’m going to Europe twices soon, and those will both be solo tours. So I don’t have my own band yet because it’s not the right time, but I have enjoyed playing with a full band, it’s more true to what the record sounds like, although I do still enjoy playing by myself.

SM: I’ve read several articles comparing you to St. Vincent, the sort of eclectic guitar arrangements and electric vibe- how do you feel about that comparison?

AS: I think it’s a fine comparison, I like her, I’m flattered by it. I think it’s a very easy comparison to make because, you know, we’re two girls that play electric guitar maybe a little rougher or more distorted than some girls do. But I feel like musically, lyrically, we’re complete opposites. I mean I do understand the comparison, and this is not me in any way bashing that, I’m flattered by it. But I think that if you just take the songs structurally, we are exact opposites. Whereas I’m very open and emotional and vulnerable lyrically, I feel that she’s the polar opposite of that. She’s very closed and mysterious, and you actually end up walking away from that record knowing less about her than you did before…it’s a very different approach. But she’s a fantastic guitarist, so for anyone to mention her by my name is really, really flattering.

SM: Yeah I get what you mean, your arrangements definitely feel more intuitive, which isn’t better or worse, it’s just what it is. Anyway, you’ve been touring a little bit since the release of the new record- what are some of your favorite records to listen to on the road?

AS: On the road, I’m really into different stuff than I’m into otherwise. On the road, I really like to listen to old early 90s stuff. I’m actually really into just doing like a Pandora radio for something awesome like early No Doubt or like Third Eye Blind or something and just singing along really loudly to all those radio hits that I remember from being a kid. And also like early Madonna and David Bowie, Cyndi Lauper, The Cranberries…just like really fun singalongs that everyone in the car recognizes but hasn’t heard for years, it’s really fun.

SM: So what about when you’re home, what are you into right now?

AS: Lately, let me think…what was I listening to on the bus? Today I was listening to this band I really love called Active Child. I listened to this new guy from Canada named Mac DeMarco, he has an awesome record, I listened to Sam Amidon, I listened to PJ Harvey…what else? New Pornographers, a little bit of Neko Case…it was a long bus ride, so that’s just an example of today.

SM: Yeah, that’s a long bus ride, you get a lot of time to listen to a good chunk of music there.

AS: Absolutely!

SM: So I have one last question for you- what was your favorite show you’ve ever played and why?

AS: Uh, probably…there have been several, but the one that comes to mind is, not this past summer but the one before, I opened for Beirut at the State Theatre in Portland, Maine. The theatre had been previously closed for a few years, but I saw my first concert there when I was 14 and I had moved to Maine, I saw Wilco there, and so it was a really important venue to me in high school because I saw a lot of shows there. And then I went on this mini-tour with Beirut, who I had been a fan of since I was like 15, and so I just had this really remarkable scene of being on this stage and thinking about my 15 year-old self and thinking how I would have never in a million years expected that that’s what I’d be doing. I just looked out and saw all these people I knew and my family and friends, and a ton of people I’d never seen, and a ton of fans of Beirut that maybe didn’t know me from my town, and it was just a really surreal and humbling experience.

Lady Lamb the Beekeeper will be playing Brighton Music Hall on Thursday, May 9.