Posted: 1 year ago
Date: 23 April 2012
Notes: 2 notes
Tagged as: 12in12. interview. lindsay george. nashville. sarah williams. music.
Interview: Sarah Williams and Lindsay George of 12in12
Date: 23 April 2012
Notes: 2 notes
Tagged as: 12in12. interview. lindsay george. nashville. sarah williams. music.
Sarah Williams and Lindsay George are best friends and Nashville songwriters who are attempting an impressive feat - write and record a song together every month of 2012. I asked them where they got this crazy notion, and what they’ll be up to until the apocalypse hits.
[Disclaimer: I grew up with Sarah, just to explain how we know about each other’s houses.]
Hello! You want to introduce yourselves, and say how you met and where this collaboration idea came from?
LG: I am Lindsay George, and I grew up here in Nashville.
SW: And I’m Sarah and I grew up in Virginia but I’ve been in Nashville for 10 years.
LG: And I guess we met…a little while ago.
SW: Through mutual friends
LG: We have a lot of mutual, musician-y friends.
SW: We both went to the same voice teacher, through the jazz workshop, because we both love jazz music. So we have a lot of the same mentors, a lot of the same background as far as music goes.
LG: And then, I guess the first time we ever wrote together…probably a year ago this coming summer, we wrote a couple tunes and it went really well. And I guess this actual collaboration idea was birthed in December 2011. We did a show together. I had booked a little coffee shop show at a place here in Nashville, and I thought, you know what would be really fun, to get Sarah to come out and do a set, and I’ll do a set, and our music kind of works well together, so maybe we can sing a couple songs together, we did a little Christmas review thing. And Sarah brough this one arrangement of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer…
SW: I had this one mixtape Christmas cd my best friend from summer camp gave me….
Awesome.
SW: So like..we did this Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer thing and everybody freaked out, they loved it. And we have really different voices, we were just having fun and enjoying it, and people loved it. And then we went to a couple other Christmas parties and people wanted us to sing this song. They would request it, and we were just like ok, it’s a capella…
LG: It’s an a capella vocal arrangement with really tight harmonies and we’re at a Christmas party.
SW: So that got lindsay thinking about the 12 in 12 project
LG: Yeah it was 2012, and the idea popped into my head, how cool would it be - because I was loving writing with sarah and singing with sarah - we really need to explore this collaboration a little further. And it was early January 2012, and I was like ah! what if we did one song every month this year, as a goal to keep us on target. And I was like, well we could write a song every month, and then I upped the ante, or sarah upped the ante, and was like why don’t we record it every month too!
(together): THEN
SW: We decided to make a video too every month.
Very ambitious.
LG: Super ambitious.
SW: More ambitious every month.
LG: The videos keep getting more and more involved. but its been really fun. So 12 in 12. 12 songs, 12 months, 2012.
SW: Two girls.
LG: Two girls.
The most recent one is “Chicago,” is that the April one? Are you writing these as you’re traveling, or all from Nashville, or - where did that come from?
LG: That one in particular I had that idea a long time ago, I go to Chicago kind of frequently with my mom, it’s just our favorite city to visit, so I got that idea on one of those trips, and then went again in February and came back and dug out that old song idea and brought it to Sarah and she and I actually finished it because I didn’t have much of it written, just a very loose idea.
SW: Yeah we get together and write, probably once every other week. We get together once a week but then, um - we walk together…we’re power walking buddies. So we get together sometimes at like 6am and walk, or on Sundays. But then also once a week we also get together and play or write. It’s been a really good venue for things like “Chicago,” and I’ve had several songs that I haven’t been able to finish, for whatever reason they’re just unfinished songs, so its been great to bring those in to this situation and finish them, that’s always like, as a creative person, it feels like an open room, you need to go in and clean it out and figure out how its working, and so that’s been really nice for both of us.
LG: It’s nice to bring a song where I get to a certain point and get totally stuck, and not know where it’s supposed to go or what it’s supposed to do, and bring it to Sarah, and she has a fresh set of ears and a new perspective, and sometimes the whole concept totally flips on its head, but in a really cool way, and it’s really exciting when that happens.
LG: I am Lindsay George, and I grew up here in Nashville.
SW: And I’m Sarah and I grew up in Virginia but I’ve been in Nashville for 10 years.
LG: And I guess we met…a little while ago.
SW: Through mutual friends
LG: We have a lot of mutual, musician-y friends.
SW: We both went to the same voice teacher, through the jazz workshop, because we both love jazz music. So we have a lot of the same mentors, a lot of the same background as far as music goes.
LG: And then, I guess the first time we ever wrote together…probably a year ago this coming summer, we wrote a couple tunes and it went really well. And I guess this actual collaboration idea was birthed in December 2011. We did a show together. I had booked a little coffee shop show at a place here in Nashville, and I thought, you know what would be really fun, to get Sarah to come out and do a set, and I’ll do a set, and our music kind of works well together, so maybe we can sing a couple songs together, we did a little Christmas review thing. And Sarah brough this one arrangement of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer…
SW: I had this one mixtape Christmas cd my best friend from summer camp gave me….
Awesome.
SW: So like..we did this Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer thing and everybody freaked out, they loved it. And we have really different voices, we were just having fun and enjoying it, and people loved it. And then we went to a couple other Christmas parties and people wanted us to sing this song. They would request it, and we were just like ok, it’s a capella…
LG: It’s an a capella vocal arrangement with really tight harmonies and we’re at a Christmas party.
SW: So that got lindsay thinking about the 12 in 12 project
LG: Yeah it was 2012, and the idea popped into my head, how cool would it be - because I was loving writing with sarah and singing with sarah - we really need to explore this collaboration a little further. And it was early January 2012, and I was like ah! what if we did one song every month this year, as a goal to keep us on target. And I was like, well we could write a song every month, and then I upped the ante, or sarah upped the ante, and was like why don’t we record it every month too!
(together): THEN
SW: We decided to make a video too every month.
Very ambitious.
LG: Super ambitious.
SW: More ambitious every month.
LG: The videos keep getting more and more involved. but its been really fun. So 12 in 12. 12 songs, 12 months, 2012.
SW: Two girls.
LG: Two girls.
The most recent one is “Chicago,” is that the April one? Are you writing these as you’re traveling, or all from Nashville, or - where did that come from?
LG: That one in particular I had that idea a long time ago, I go to Chicago kind of frequently with my mom, it’s just our favorite city to visit, so I got that idea on one of those trips, and then went again in February and came back and dug out that old song idea and brought it to Sarah and she and I actually finished it because I didn’t have much of it written, just a very loose idea.
SW: Yeah we get together and write, probably once every other week. We get together once a week but then, um - we walk together…we’re power walking buddies. So we get together sometimes at like 6am and walk, or on Sundays. But then also once a week we also get together and play or write. It’s been a really good venue for things like “Chicago,” and I’ve had several songs that I haven’t been able to finish, for whatever reason they’re just unfinished songs, so its been great to bring those in to this situation and finish them, that’s always like, as a creative person, it feels like an open room, you need to go in and clean it out and figure out how its working, and so that’s been really nice for both of us.
LG: It’s nice to bring a song where I get to a certain point and get totally stuck, and not know where it’s supposed to go or what it’s supposed to do, and bring it to Sarah, and she has a fresh set of ears and a new perspective, and sometimes the whole concept totally flips on its head, but in a really cool way, and it’s really exciting when that happens.
[and then a pug named Nora wandered into the screen and we (well, I) screamed about puppies for 5 minutes]
Are you thinking of putting all the months together and doing any kind of album at the end of the year?
SW: Yeah, we’re definitely gonna do that, I mean, um…Nora. Hello.
LG: She’s too distracting for you.
SW: We’re sort of like nemesis..es. She jumps on me and I go….no.
LG: Sarah treats Nora the way that Jerry treats Newman.
SW: Yeah we’re definitely gonna do a record, and we’re hoping to do a cd release on 12/12/12.
LG: December 12, 2012.
SW: And we’ll probably even do a couple extra, we’ll probably do 12 or 13 and we’ll probably re-record a couple of them with a more full band. Because some of these recordings have just been done in Lindsay’s living room with just acoustic stuff. So we’ll brush up a couple things.
LG: Fix and tweak.
Are you playing more shows together too?
LG: We are playing more shows together, we’ve got one on the 28th here in Nashville and then hopefully, our goal…
SW: The other pug is now here
LG: Our goal is kind of to get one show every month.
SW: We have a lot going on, but we keep it real.
Do you start with, I want to write a song about this! and work thematically, or is it more like, I’ve been working on this tune can you help me flesh it out?
LG: Sometimes it’s like that, where we have like an ad hoc idea, and other times it’s been -
SW: Sometimes if we write too many love songs, we’ll go, ok, we need to write a non love song. Or adversely, our last two tunes “I’m Not Going Anywhere” and “Chicago” have been not-love songs, so we wanted to go back to love, so we decided that for May.
LG: Also one time Sarah came over and said, “Hey, I want to write a song about ghosts.”
Nice.
LG: She’s like, is your house haunted? And I’m like I don’t…think…so?
SW: Shannon understands, we live in such a creepy-ass area, everything’s haunted.
I used to think my house was haunted, like under our screened porch you could go under there.
SW: Your house, totally. What else…Lindsay does all of our promotion stuff. I pretty much do nothing except be me.
You just keep being you, Sarah.
LG: We’re on facebook! Sarah and Lindsay: 12 in 12. And we’re on tumblr….
So many platforms!
LG: I know! and then Sarah tweets…sometimes.
SW: Hardly ever. She gives me a cookie every time I tweet.
LG: I should.
SW: You really should.
Lindsay and Sarah release a new video on the 12th of every month. Find them on facebook, tumblr, and twitter, and watch their latest on youtube.
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