US roots singer Sara Watkins for Galway show

If you’re an Americana fan, then pencil Sara Watkins’ February 1 show at Róisín Dubh into your diary. A former member of the Grammy winning Nickel Creek, Watkins has just released her second solo album, Sun Midnight Sun. The record has a traditional, rootsy feel but was recorded in the urban sprawl of Los Angeles.

“There’s a really wonderful music scene in LA right now,” Sara explains. “I think one of the effects in the downturn in profits in the music industry is that lot of musicians are huddling together in cities again. I think for a while there people were spreading out across the country and isolating themselves.”

Sun Midnight Sun was produced by Blake Mills, a talented multi-instrumentalist who Sara had worked with previously. They were joined by Sara’s brother Sean, a guitarist who was also a member of Nickel Creek.

“Each of these songs I had played live many, many times but I wanted to have someone help me produce the record because I felt like there was more to get out of the songs,” says Sara. “I felt like they weren’t as good as they could and should be, so I wanted to collaborate with Blake.

“Together with my brother Sean, we played together as a trio to figure out what was the basis of each song. From there, we built up and messed around with different sounds and instruments that I don’t always have access to. It was really fun.”

When It Pleases You is the first single to be taken from the album. It’s penned by Dan Wilson, who co-wrote and produced three songs on Adele’s 21. The song has a raw, emotional edge to it and deserves to bring Watkins to a bigger audience.

“Sean was playing on a demo of it with Dan, and he said ‘Sara, you would love this song, you should sing it’. I didn’t have any songs like it, and I really enjoyed singing that chorus,” Sara says.

“It’s funny, in Dan’s version, the way he sings it, it’s not nearly as angry. The lyrics to him didn’t sound that way. And I don’t mean to be angry when I sing it, but there’s an intense frustration that I interpret, which Dan didn’t hear. He came by the studio and said ‘that’s so different.’ He was really happy with it.”

The video sees Sara singing alone in the ring of a classic circus tent. Her manager stumbled across the location, and Sara hopped on a plane for the shoot.

“He found this travelling circus in Connecticut,” she says. “There were just five of us on set – the director, his assistant and his son, my manager and me. Typically, on a video shoot there would be a lot more than that – this was a tight-budgeted thing that we put our energy into.

“In the circus, they had a day off. There were animals around, a clown, a contortionist’s daughter and her twin brother. It was a family circus. They were kind enough to let us use their big top tent and perform the song.”

For her fiery re-imagining of the Everly Brothers song You’re The One I Love, Sara was joined by the mercurial, talented Fiona Apple. The impassioned, swirling duet is one of the album’s high points.

“I was going through an Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly phase,” says Sara. “And I heard this song that I thought could sound a little bit more obsessive and intense. I thought this’d be a great song to sing with a girl.

“It was one of my favourite parts of making the record,” she adds. “We had all the band pre-recorded and she and I just sang to each other. Facing each other, singing this song over and over, about seven or eight times. We got into this trance, and it just got tighter and tighter. After the eight time through we just erupted into laughter.”

Last year, Fiona Apple released her fourth album, The Idler Wheel – after a seven-year gap. Apple has also made a welcome return to the road, and Sara is a fan as well as a friend.

“I’m such a fan of her singing, especially live,” Sara says. “Every night, she jumps into the character of what she was feeling when she was writing these songs. It’s something to see; she lets herself go, completely, and leaves everything behind for those three to four minutes. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.