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Getting Up For Down Here
05/02/2000 2:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Jon Young
Things were going swell. Tracy Bonham's 1996 album,
The Burdens Of Being Upright, had made her a star, achieving gold sales and generating the high-intensity hit "Mother Mother." The endless touring that followed extended the buzz. In early '98, she cut her next album, Down Here, with ultra-cool producers Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake, and prepared for career-building, part two. "I really thought I was on a roll," laughs the petite Bonham. And then...
Record-label turmoil slipped her into limbo. Burdens had been released on Island, which was gobbled up by PolyGram, which in turn was absorbed by Universal. "A lot of artists were dropped--at one point I wished they had dropped me," she recalls. No such luck. "They kept pushing the release date back, telling me it'd be out in two months. Then it'd get pushed back another two months!"
Happily, Down Here has finally seen the light of day, and it was worth the wait. Ferociously passionate, the album crackles with crisp tunes, big beats, and Bonham's commanding vocals, not to mention more of her classical violin than ever before. Boasting a dense, layered sound that recalls early Bowie and
Roxy Music, it unleashes pent-up frustration and anger of volcanic intensity. From the pounding "Thumbelina" to the swaggering "Jumping Bean" to the gentle "Second Wind," Down Here is the testimony of someone who refuses to be taken lightly.
If the album seems to be the product of torment, it was. "After the big tour for 'Mother Mother,' I started to write again, and questioned every single thing I did," Bonham explains. "Anything that sounded too poppy, or came too easy, I tossed. That was a hard time for me.
"One thing that brought me out of it was a book called The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path To Higher Creativity, by Julia Cameron. I had to stop second-guessing myself, and realize you don't have to labor over everything. Being from a classical background, I thought it all had to be hard work."
Bonham hit another bump when she went to the label. "After Burdens, I decided I wanted to do more of an art record," she remembers. "The response from the record company was, 'Whaddya mean? You gotta sell records!'"
Undeterred, she recruited Mitchell Froom to produce. "I learned he was a classical pianist who'd discarded his classical background, so I could relate to that," she notes. "And I loved his work with the Latin Playboys and Ron Sexsmith, interesting records that weren't necessarily commercial. The company had a problem with that, but that's why I chose him."
Froom and his partner, Tchad Blake, ended up producing eight of the 12 tracks with Bonham. Though she didn't forget her knack for catchy tunes, the album is weightier than Burdens. "There's more stuff on there this time, more production," she notes. "I wanted to play more violin. On the last album, there was violin on only one song--I was rebelling against my training, and I had to play guitar or nothing. But it was fun to play violin on tour, so I decided to open my mind and incorporate all the beautiful classical melodies that influenced me. I'm not insecure anymore."
That new attitude coincides with a big change in her life: Bonham married Belgian drummer Steve Slingeneyer in 1998. "I met him at a festival in Belgium, when his band went on before us. Steve said at first he was nervous 'cause I was a rock star. If you have an image as a ball-busting chick, that reaction's par for the course. But he soon gave me the impression that it didn't matter to him who I was, and that was a real comfort."
Bonham's uneasiness with the trappings of fame prompted her to move from Boston to Brooklyn around the time she began working on Down Here. "I moved because I was starting to feel like Boston was crowding in on me. I'm not comfortable with fame yet. I like being totally anonymous, so New York is a nice place to be. I love hearing that people like my music; it's just the part about being recognized and having people treat me differently that makes me uncomfortable."
Speaking of discomfort, the album's first single, "Behind Every Good Woman," may annoy old-fashioned listeners. One of two tracks produced by Mark Endert, this foot-stomping rocker takes a spirited jab at sex roles, with Bonham shouting, "Imagine one day the tables would turn...Shame shame for the rooster, high five for the hen." Admitting some won't get the humor, she says, "A lot of people don't read lyrics the way I wish they would. The irony's right there in plain view, but you have to hit them over the head with it."
"Behind Every Good Woman" may offer a humorous take on gender clichés, but Bonham says the big picture isn't so amusing. Looking back to the days of '96, when "Women In Rock" was the topic du jour, she sighs, "People would ask if I thought the pendulum would swing back to all-male, and I thought, 'No, the door is open forever.' I was so wrong. Now rock radio just plays boys again. I don't know what happened."
As for the latest version of pop women--cutie-pies like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera--Bonham says, "I'd like to provide the antithesis of that, and show women they can be strong and happy with themselves as they are. If I could get a message across to young girls now, that would be it." (She makes her point loud and clear in "Fake It," sneering, "I happen to like all my defects/ But my TV don't agree, and I don't give a sh-t.")
"I always thought I was just a musician," Bonham continues, gathering momentum. "I never wanted to be a spokesperson for anything, but I'm starting to feel strongly about this. I feel I have a purpose."
She grins. "I'm fighting for a cause!"
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