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Meiko: Small Town Girl Goes Big Time

Written by Holliston on

From: zerogossip.com

Photo by Tyler Shields who Meiko says, "Is the shit."
The countdown to the Hotel Cafe Tour coming to Brooklyn, NY is on with just 4 days to go to the November 1 show (do I need to remind you I'm going to that one? No? Cool.)! Now as many of you know, I've been trying to track down Meiko who is the only one on every tour date. She's been elusive but today, just borderline in the stalking world, I caught up to her before she performs tonight in Washington, D.C. She just bought a big red peacoat to fight the fierce cold and rain the Northeast has been enjoying lately. But still, she graciously made time to talk. First, I have to say I've been a Meiko fan now for several months. Her music is incredible and touches you to the core. But on top of that, she's a world class blogger...funny, informative, sometimes controversial and most of all, wildly entertaining. Taking a stroll through her blogs is well worth the trip. And it's part of what makes her so endearing to her fans. She's honest to a fault and unlike other celebrity bloggers, and yes, she is a celebrity, she connects with her fans. It's through her blog I fell in love with her writing and then I ventured to actually *gasp* listen to her music. It's not the old classic rock I usually listen to (not that there's anything wrong with that) but a folk rock sound my culture less ears had never heard before. Songs like "Reasons to Love You," "How Lucky We Are," and her latest "Boys with Girlfriends," have already made their way into popular television shows. And through her I learned of other great musicians...Rachael Yamagata, Ingrid Michaelson, Emily Wells, Samantha Crain...the list goes on. All of them are part of the Hotel Cafe Tour which has been electrifying the country since their home away from home, a bus, hit the road earlier this month.
How is the tour going for you?
"It's cool! I'm on week 4 and it's a lot of fun. I'm the only one on the whole tour, so I've seen musicians coming and going. Ingrid Michaelson, Priscilla Ahn and Erin McCarley left last night and now Rachael Yamagata and Jennifer Owen Youngs join tonight. It kind of switches off like that. I'm really happy I'm on the whole tour. The downside is you build these relationships with people and get real comfortable with them and then their time is up."
Have you performed with these artists before?
"Pretty much all of them. I know a lot of these girls from working at the Hotel Cafe (in Los Angeles) and seeing them play."
This time around, it's an all female line-up for the tour traveling on a bus. What do you think of that?
"I think it's cool. It's not all the way girlie because the house band that travels with us, they're dudes so it takes the edge off being around so many girls for so long. We have two different lounges on the bus. A lot of people hang out after shows and every now and then I'll hang out and drink beers with everybody. Last night I didn't. I stayed in my bunk and watched the Brady Bunch Movie. I'm trying to focus on not partying too much but it's a lot of fun. It is like a big party."
So far, what has been your most memorable, amusing experience?
"A few days ago we were hanging out in the back room and Ingrid (Michaelson) was telling us that she did this experiment where if you put on headphones and turned the music up loud and tried singing without hearing yourself you'd be completely off key. Each of us passed around the headphones, turned it up really loud. Everyone was so off key! It was really funny because they're all such good singers and it was funny to hear everyone suck so bad!"
Ahh, musician humor! Oops, she's not done.
"We had a day off in Charleston, S.C., and all went to the beach and had pina coladas, laid out in the sun. It was really nice."
So with new singers joining at different points, what's that introductory moment like?
"With Rachael (Yamagata) and Jenny (Owen Youngs), who I know, it was like a reunion. Thao Nguyen, I had never met before and she joined yesterday. I'll be her pal for the rest of the tour. We had wine last night and chatted. She's so good! She's really fun to watch. She has a lot of personality on stage. It's really cool."
Meiko comes from the tiny town of Roberta in central Georgia. A town that had the population of 808 in 2000 (but may now be down to 806 since Meiko and her sister, fashion designer Kelly Nishimoto moved to Los Angeles). Seven years ago, the sisters moved to Los Angeles, population 3.9 million.
How scared were you to make that kind of a drastic move?
"I was very scared. I was super freaked out. I only knew my sister and she worked a lot. I was pretty scared to leave my house. Growing up in a small town, you have these ideas of what the world is and that's a big reason why a lot of people who live in small towns never leave. I was afraid of being mugged and all kinds of things. It took a good year or two to get used to my surroundings and feel comfortable enough to go places by myself."

Your blogs are so real and so personal. I'm sure your fans get a lot from them but what do you get from writing them?
"I feel I'm so lucky to have that connection with people. It's good to be a part of this whole internet thing where you can go to sites like MySpace and interact with people who are so far away...so different and young, kids and older people...people from other countries. And I feel that's at my fingertips. I've always kept a journal and I've always written my thoughts out and it's kind of cool that you can do that on the internet and reach out to those people. It's not so much that I do it for them but I love that connection with people."
While she blogs from the heart and sometimes with tongue in cheek, there are times when people either don't get her or misunderstand. Sometimes they just plain disagree which is fine with her.
"Some people are so sensitive. There is a nice balance though. I try not to post and worry but I fear I'm a little more careful. The other night I posted a blog about a guy I met who was going back to Iraq. It's such a touchy subject but I felt I had to get something out because I was so frustrated."
Her blog showed her frustrations but mostly her concern for this person, a stranger until they met at her concert.
"The next morning, I got a couple of emails from people supporting the war and explaining why we are there and I guess I can see both sides but I was just really sad that people have to die. I felt I had to make that known. But I've learned there a few subjects that are risky to be touched on."
Back to the music...her first album called oddly enough "Meiko" was self-released and charted as high as #35 on iTunes Top 100 Albums and ranked #1 for a month in the folk genre. She even charted #28 in Billboard Magazine's Top Heatseekers category. Then she signed with MySpace Records/DGC releasing her second album containing some songs from the original along with new ones. Already that album has soared to #14 on iTunes Top 100. As of tonight, her single "Boys with Girlfriends" is #13 on iTunes Folk while her standard "Reasons to Love You" is still hanging in there at #85.
"The new album is doing very well. It's getting a lot of radio play now, which is very exciting. It's kind of been a whirlwind since it came out. I did Late Night with Conan O'Brien, I went on tour, I did a radio promotion tour and now the Hotel Cafe Tour. I haven't really had a chance to soak it all in. It's been a long time coming but I've had all that time to prepare mentally how exactly I wanted the record to be, how to promote it, the kind of people I wanted to work with...and now that that's all happening, I feel really comfortable mature on how to handle it."
To get to that point requires dedication and passion. Meiko has an abundance of both.
"My passion lies with communication. I really like the fact that I can communicate through my words and connect with people the way music and songs connected with me when I was in a small town without a lot of musical options to listen to. I remember when I first heard Mazzy Star's "Fade Into You" and how deep it hit me. It knocked me out. I'm addicted to that idea of being able to connect with people through song. I can't wait to record my next album. I'm so excited. I've been writing all this new stuff but it's hard to write new stuff and sing old stuff (on the tour)."
Now she doesn't believe me, and why should she, but the other day I saw the entry list for the Grammy nominations, and her name is on it. Mysteriously, the Grammy people have taken down the list, but trust me, her name is there. Granted this is the very early stages with hundreds of other artists there hoping to be nominated in December. But, if her name is called as a nominee, it would be an awesome honor, especially this early in her career. She's pretty humble so I did have to shake this answer from her.
"I'd be very surprised but the coolest thing about it would be the phone call I'd make to my dad. He's my biggest supporter. He's the one who's responsible for all this. He's the one who played guitar for me when I was little and showed me my first chord. He never taught me how to write songs, but I'd listen to him and the songs that he wrote. He's a huge influence on me."
It's been a long but pretty damned good year for Meiko. And in a few weeks, she'll travel home to her roots in that small Georgian town.
"After this tour, I'm taking a big, fat break and I'm going to go to Georgia for Thanksgiving and Christmas and then I'm heading to Spain for New Year's so I can start 2009 fresh."
Catch Meiko on The Hotel Cafe Tour while you can!

10/29 in Philadelphia

10/30 in New York

10/31 in Boston

11/1 in Brooklyn

11/11 in Denver

11/12 in Salt Lake City

11/13 in Boise

11/14 in Portland

11/15 in Seattle

11/17 in San Francisco

11/18 at the finale in Los Angeles

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