Singer songwriter Tristen is one of the hardest working gals in the music business. In addition to writing and recording an album due early next year, she’s been steadily in demand in her adopted home town of Nashville. She was also one of the much-buzzed-about acts playing shows at Pianos, Le Poisson Rouge, and The Living Room at the CMJ festival this week in New York. I got a chance to speak to her on the phone as she walked to Central Park this afternoon, anxious to enjoy a day off after such a hectic week.

BnB: Did you grow up in Nashville? When did you know you wanted to play music for a living?

Tristen: No, I’m actually from Chicago. Afer I graduated college, I decided I’d give it a full time effort. So I moved to Nashville and started wating tables and that was the first time in my life my music was really my focus.

Is it harder to make a name for yourself in a musician-heavy town like Nashville? Or is it easier because there’s a built-in audience of appreciative ears?

I think it’s a little of both. On the one hand, it’s a town of musicians, so it’s a good place to meet people to work with. At the same time, you’re playing for musicians so it makes it more difficult to think you’re awesome if your music sucks. It’s a mix of good and bad. All there is in Nashville is music: you learn a lot from being in that environment. It’s not just about playing live, but also a good place to grow if you want to do something creative. There are a lot of human resources.

 

 

Your style has been described as “country tainted pop”. Are there any other genres or styles that you plan on incorporating into your sound? Or any in particular that you’d like to steer clear of?

Nothing I’d want to steer clear of, I think of it as very open ended. I don’t really know what’s ahead, I’m just kind of trying to keep it intereting for myself and the people who are listening. All music has the same elements, and everyone’s done a little bit from all genres.

You just released a seven inch called Eager For Your Love, featuring introspective lyrics and titles like ‘Baby Drugs’, and ‘Cheatin’, and of course the title track. Are all of your songs autobiographical?

All of them are very personal, and they’re about things I’m interested in or are experienceing. Or I know someone who’s experiencing something, or I saw a movie that made me think about that kind of person. But yes, they’re all very personal.

Is your full length album Charlatans at the Garden Gate still scheduled to be released in January? What’s the recording process been like?

It’s actually coming out February 1^st. I recorded it at Battle Tapes, a home studio in Nashville with Jeremy Ferguson. We spent a good part of a year and half recording: recording a lot of songs, tearing them down, fixing them up. And then we had it mixed, and now it’s done.

How do you feel about its release? Excited? Relieved?

I’m never relieved, because by the time you’re halfway done you’re already onto the next record. But I totally like it, so it’s okay. I feel good, like it’s perfect. Exactly what it was supposed to be.

You’re playing at The End in Nashville on November 11^th, do you have anything planned after that?

That show’s going to be really awesome, I’m actually playing with Land of Talk. They’re from Canada. Then we’re going to go out, we’ve a run of shows after Thanksgiving. We’ve got some things we’re working on, and I’ll definitely be on the road after it comes out.

I really enjoyed your music video for ‘Matchstick Murder’ (see video below), it looked like it was a lot of fun to make. Who came up with the concept?

That was me, I did all of the art direction. Jeff Wilson directed the video, and it was just a project we did in a few days for American Songwriter Magazine. They gave me Jeff for a day, and I just came up with the concept and we put it together. A lot of those people in the video are my friends. I didn’t even know if they could act, they’re just musicians. But it was a lot of fun, and I think it turned out really well.

Who are you listening to right now?

The new Arcade Fire record, I love it. KORT‘s new album which is Cortney Tidwell and Kurt Wagner of Lambchop, I got an advance copy of that. That’s about it for modern bands. But I feel as if they’ve made it to their third record, I’ll know about them. Then again, there are a lot of bands that put out one record and they were amazing- I guess it’s really just a test of time.