LiveDaily contributor Tara Hall sat down with singer/songwriter Carrie Rodriguez [ tickets ] on the eve of 2007's South by Southwest Music Festival.

Rodriguez, an Austin native, has recently relocated to Brooklyn, NY while releasing her debut solo effort, “Seven Angels on a Bicycle.”

LiveDaily: Congratulations on your new album, which came out in August, I think it was--“Seven Angels on a Bicycle.” That has to be really exciting. This is your first solo album, right?

Carrie Rodriguez: It is, yeah. I’ve made three duet records with Chip Taylor so this is my first record on my own.

I read that about five years ago, your goal was to get a gig playing fiddle with someone who was really cool on tour and that was kind of what you were aiming for. Did you ever expect to have a solo album?

No, I never really wanted to do anything like that. I never even envisioned myself singing, you know? I grew up playing the violin and the fiddle and that was just my goal, to be a decent fiddle player. So I couldn’t have imagined that any of this other stuff would happen.

How did you and Chip get in contact? How did you two meet?

We actually met at South by Southwest about five years ago, I guess to the week, right?

It’s an anniversary for you!

I know! It’s great because I’m from Austin and a lot of people around here kind of complain about it because it’s such a crazy thing. They invade our town. Whatever. But it sure has been wonderful for me. Chip Taylor saw me playing in a record store, at Cheapo Records, during that week and started hiring me to play fiddle in his band for Texas shows. Then pretty soon he started hiring me for European tours. He’d asked me, “Do you sing a little background harmony vocals?” I’d never done that before but I was like, “Oh yeah, sure. I can do that!” because I wanted the gig! So that’s how it started and I started singing a little bit with him. He’d say, “Wow – that sounds good! Sing some more!” And pretty soon, he had me sing a full-fledged duet on stage with him. Then we were making a record a couple months later.

So you actually started singing just randomly at a show or did you practice? Did you really just start one night when you guys were onstage? Wasn’t that so scary?

Yeah, it was really scary! He would put a microphone up for me and say, “Just try stuff out. It’s okay if you’re shy. Don’t worry, just sing whatever you can,” and so I probably would just, you know, sing a couple notes in the beginning. But then at one point, he wanted me to learn a duet where I had to get up and sing a verse by myself. That just scared me to death. I remember being up there and actually experiencing knees knocking, like I knew what that meant! At that moment, I was like, “Ok, my knees are knocking right now!”

I can’t imagine because you’re used to, and correct me if I’m wrong, being behind an instrument which I’m sure is kind of a security blanket and if you’ve been playing forever like you have, I can’t imagine getting up there and just trying it.

It was scary. As a kid, I did a lot of orchestra competitions and things like that so I was used to having some pressure with the violin, but as long as it was up under my neck, I felt fine. But the second I had to actually talk, and still talking is a lot harder for me than singing…

So now does it come naturally?

The singing thing has gotten a lot easier. I would still never consider myself just a singer because I just don’t think that way.

You should!

But I do have a lot of fun with it. And the talking onstage, it’s coming too.

I heard your album before I’d heard that you hadn’t really started singing until you sang backup and he’d coaxed you to. I was amazed because your voice is perfect for a solo album. It was perplexing to me and kind of cool that you didn’t go out there looking to make it as a singer. You’ve been doing something else all your life and you found another portion of music that you can do too. Your dad, David Rodriguez, is a very well known singer/songwriter. You didn’t ever think, “My dad’s really good at this…”

I think it was more like, “My dad’s really good at this so I would never want to try it too.” He’s too good at it!

That’s true. I’ve never really thought about it like that.

Especially with songwriting. He is an amazing songwriter. I always just thought he’s good at that and that’s his thing, and here’s my thing, I play the violin. Songwriting is very new to me. Chip has helped me a lot, to get started with that. We’ve co-written quite a few tunes now together. But I’m just now starting to write songs on my own, so it’s still really new.

I know the title track of your new album is currently playing a lot – I hear it on KGSR here in Austin all the time. I heard, and correct me if this is wrong too, that Chip started writing this song based on a situation that you had, or a friend that you’d lost, in New York and you asked to finish it or you continued on with it.

Well, that’s sort of right. Chip had started writing the song, “Seven Angels on a Bicycle,” for someone else. It was a song for a girl that he was writing for, and he showed it to me. I had just lost one of my best friends, Andy Morgan, a childhood friend from Austin, who was also living up in New York with me. He had died on his bicycle in Manhattan in a really tragic accident so when he played that song for me, it resonated with me and I thought of Andy and told him that. We then took the song and turned it into a song for Andy.

I see. So he had no idea about it until you heard it and, like you said, it resonated with you and you went from there?

Yeah. He had started writing it before this happened with Andy. But Chip also knew Andy very well, so it was definitely, once we decided that’s what it would be, it was a joint effort. He had a lot of input because he knew Andy too.

It’s a fantastic song, and it’s so ethereal. Your vocals in that song are amazing. The song is just so poignant without being too vivid, if that makes sense. It’s a great song. Is it hard, because of the attachment to it and the history it has for you and what it brings up, to hear it on the radio?

Actually, it makes me so happy, and I love singing it too. The song really is an uplifting song. It’s supposed to be, and Andy, my friend, was such an adventurous spirit. He rode his bike once from Seattle to Austin. I mean he was wild! He had been kayaking in Patagonia, Chile. He’d been to Nepal by himself and I remember he told me he ran out of money in Nepal so he gave some Sherpas guitar lessons for some food! And that’s what I wanted to capture with the song. So no, it makes me happy actually.

Did Chip help out with this album a lot? What else did he contribute?

He did. He was a big driving force to get me to this point. I don’t know if I would have gotten here on my own. I don’t know if I even knew I wanted to do it! But yeah, Chip wrote a bunch of really great songs with me in mind to sing on the record and then we co-wrote four or five tunes also. We produced it together. He was in the studio the whole time. It was really a joint effort.

He seems to be a fantastic force for you. He’s opened you up to all these things that maybe you didn’t see for yourself. He’s fantastic in his own right, but he’s really pulling it out of you too. You’re obviously a really good instrumental player prior to this.
So what was it like growing up with your dad who he is…you were around some really influential Texas musicians. How cool was that? I heard you got to play onstage with Lyle Lovett way before you were even doing this. What was that like? Was it cool because you were around him all the time so it wasn’t a big deal or was that still butterflies in the stomach?

That was a big deal. I didn’t know Lyle really previously. I had met him a couple times. My dad’s contemporaries were people like Townes Van Zandt, and I think he used to play in Houston with Nancy Griffith. He was friends with Lucinda (Williams.) They actually have a recording together. But I didn’t necessarily see those people that often. The thing with Lyle was so sweet. He knew I had just started college. I was going to a classical music conservatory called Oberlin in Ohio and he told my mother, “Well, I’m going to be playing in Cleveland. Carrie should come and bring her violin. She can come sit in.” So I came and just sat in during sound check that first time. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was a classical violinist. I didn’t know how to make it work with that setting, but I had so much fun trying. After that concert, I was like, you know what, this is what I want to do. I want to play onstage with these kinds of musicians, writing these kinds of songs. I don’t want to play in an orchestra anymore! So that’s when I decided to really go for playing the fiddle. And later, I did play onstage with Lyle in Boston at the Orpheum Theatre.

How cool! I can’t imagine the butterflies from the phone call you get…”Lyle’s in town and he wants you to play.” Just even sound check…that would be very cool.

It was really sweet. When I played with him in Boston, he was touring with his “Step Inside This House” album on which he’d recorded one of my dad’s songs, so we played the song that my dad wrote together onstage.

How sweet! So what does your dad think of all this stuff with your new album? I’m sure he’s totally supporting you, but does he see any of himself in it?

You know, that’s a good question. I’ve never really asked him, but I know that he’s ultra proud. He lives in Holland, you know. He left the country about ten years ago. He kind of hides out over there and lives a super bohemian, songwriter life. I think it’s nice for him to see that I’m here, active and doing things.

Was he surprised when you started singing?

Everybody was surprised! My mother would probably be the most surprised. No one saw that coming.

So on a more fun note, I know you’re totally swamped for South by Southwest but if you have any down time, or do you have any down time, and are you going to see anybody? Like you said earlier, it overtakes the city but it’s also so fun.

It is fun. I have a lot of friends here. Some of my really good girlfriends are in a band called Uncle Earl. It’s this old-time, all-female bluegrass band – it’s really cool. They’re playing at the Continental Club, which is one of my favorite clubs, on Saturday night at 8pm, so I have a goal. If I can just make it to there, at least that’s one thing!

That seems so far away from right now!

Doesn’t it! But there’s a lot – Sparklehorse is playing, I really want to see that. Jessie Sykes…so we’ll see what I can make it to.

Yeah, there are a lot of people, but you have tons of commitments too…

I do, yes.

Well thank you so much for sitting down with us, and congratulations on your album! Have fun during SXSW

Thank you!